Monthly Archives: November 2022

Ensenada del Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo to San Evaristo to Isla San Francisco

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On Friday, November 18, the crescent moon was still shining brightly even as the day dawned.

Oceananigans in the glow of sunrise

Eric was eager to refill the tanks and dive again, so he spent some time in the early morning working on the dive compressor. He took apart the part he believed to be broken to the best of his ability to see if it could be easily fixed, lubricated it and put it back together. Still not working. He gave it Mike on Oceananigans, who also took it apart to look at it. It sounds like Mike didn’t do anything much different than Eric did, but after he returned the part, the compressor was kind of working. However, there seems to be an issue with another part. 

The wind died in the morning, and the tiny flies came out to the boat. The tiny flies didn’t bite, but they were super annoying as they tended to gravitate towards the eyes, ears and nose. We got Kosmos ready to go to sea and pulled up anchor at 10:45.

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Ensenada del Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo, Day 4

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Fish activity around Kosmos the morning of Thursday, November 17

Eric had made plans to go diving along the big rock island with some of the Oceananigans crew. Diving the rock was even better than snorkeling it was. They saw an eel that was so big that it could be mistaken for a sea monster. The head was as big as a man’s torso.

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Ensenada del Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo, Day 2

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Sunrise on Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Eric did not sleep well from all the rolling in the anchorage. First thing in the morning, he deployed a flopper stopper. It helped some, but it was still uncomfortable. The water was too shallow to put out the paravane, so later in the day, he fixed the broken flopper stopper. The flopper stopper had metal clips and it was the clips that had broken. He just tied knots in the line and deployed it. Much to his pleasure, it worked! Having the second flopper stopper helped even more, but there was still a lot of movement.

Our friends on Oceananigans arrived in late morning. With all the rocking, we were desperate to get to day land. Shortly after they arrived, we went to shore with them to do the hike up the ravine.

This was the view from the top of the peak seen in the above photo.

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San Evaristo to Ensenada del Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo

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Sunrise on Monday, November 14

We left at 0800 for Ensenada Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo. We were frustrated to find that the exhaust leak is back. 🙁 The sea conditions were smooth overall, though there were enough small waves that we ran stabilizers. It was a 5.25 hour trip. To give you a sense of distance between the islands, here are two photos that we took shortly after leaving San Evaristo. They could almost be knit together into a panorama. The first photo is of the southern tip of Isla San Jose on the left and Isla San Francisco to the right (the rocks in the middle are the hazard we mentioned that Eric had manually entered into the chart). The second photo is Isla San Francisco on the left and Isla Partida in the back, middle. Isla Partida is so close to Isla Espiritu Santo that they almost touch.

The anchorage was stunning, with beautiful aquamarine water contrasting dramatically with the rugged hills and rocks.

We were the second boat in anchorage, but a steady stream of boats came in behind us. By sunset there were at least eight more boats in the anchorage with us. Shortly after we anchored, the wind did dramatic change and we instantly turned 180 degrees. It may be the most dramatic wind change we’ve ever seen.

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