Sunrise on Saturday, January 28. The island in the middle of the photo is Isla San Francisco.

This morning, the wind was light and the anchorage was totally calm. Ahhhhh. We were so happy to have a break from the constant motion. The temperature was a bit warmer, too, so we didn’t need the heavy jackets when we went outside (the wind was still bitter cold, but there wasn’t much wind). The water was also amazingly clear. We could easily make out fine details in the sand below the boat. The downside to the wind dying down was that there were quite a few bees flying around the boat.

In the relatively early morning, Keith went to shore with the kids. He said they mostly played on the salt flats. Christi and Eric stayed aboard to get Kosmos ready for sea. As the forecast had predicted, in the late morning, the wind picked up from the south, a direction from which this anchorage was not protected. The anchorage immediately started to get rolly.

Sunrise on Wednesday, January 25

The wind was pretty much the same as it had been yesterday. One World called us on the radio and told us that he’d heard that if we went around to the reception desk and asked to eat, they’d open the restaurant for us. He offered to pick us up in his fast dinghy at 1100.

Sunrise on Tuesday, January 24

The wind had picked up during the night, and by morning the wind was back to screaming with sustained winds in the low-20-knot range and gusts to 30 knots. We even had one gust of 39 knots! There were whitecaps in the channel.

We all slept poorly from the wind causing so much noise and motion. The motion was different here than it was in most anchorages — there wasn’t much fetch, so we weren’t really pitching or rolling; instead, the erratic gusts were causing us to glide side to side. It wasn’t an uncomfortable motion by any means, but it was still motion none-the-less. We were well aware of how uncomfortable it would be in other anchorages and were grateful for the motion was mild.  

At 1300 (1:00 pm), we met some of the crew from One world, The Mob, and Moin. One of the boats with a fast dinghy kindly gave us a ride, since our dinghy was a little tenuous in the heavy winds. We went on a walk to the salt flats, which were on the north end of town, on the other side of the ridge that made up the north side of the San Evaristo Bay. As we were putting on our shoes, a dog came up to us and jumped into one of the kid’s laps.

We walked over to the road that paralleled the beach (the road that the market was on). The dog happily followed us. At the north end of the beach, the road veered inland.

Sunday (January 22) was another rolly morning. First thing in the morning, we coordinated with the other families to go for the big hike. We encouraged everyone to meet onshore ASAP so we could all get a reprieve from the rocking.

We met on the main beach at 1030. It felt good to be on dry land! The older kids took off hiking right away. The adults and younger kids didn’t get moving until after 1100. We’d mentioned that on the day we’d arrived, there was a fourth boat in the anchorage that we didn’t know. It turned out the fourth boat was also a family, and that family joined us on the hike, too. 

Probably around 1120, the kids and adults passed one another as the kids were on their way down. Keith reported that they hadn’t gotten as far as we’d gotten last time before they decided they were hot and turned around.

It wasn’t nearly as green now as it had been last time we’d hiked the trail, but there was still plenty of plant life. The first photo was looking back at the beach, and the second photo was taken at the same spot, but looking up the trail.