Puerto Refugio Days 3 – 5

On Thursday morning (September 22), Eric took a dinghy ride to scope out the general area.

In the afternoon, we went snorkeling with the dad and kids from Auryn at the western edge of the middle anchorage. The tide was low at that point, so many of the rocks were exposed and we couldn’t get all that close to the shoreline. While there were quite a few fish, there weren’t many varieties of fish or many colorful fish. The topography was interesting, though.

The dad caught a couple of grouper and offered us one of them. Christi offered to make dinner for everyone if they’d fillet the fish. They took us up on the offer, ad In the evening, they came over to Kosmos for dinner. The boys even dressed up! The fish was so good; the secret to fish is the freshness. 

Friday sunrise, looking at the sea lion island

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Ensenada el Pescador to La Village de Bahia de Los Angeles

On Saturday (September 17), when we awoke, we were relieved to see that most of the bugs were gone. Instead of a sunrise picture, here is a video of a bird catching a fish.

The rest had vacated by the time we left for the cruiser’s breakfast, which we held onshore in the recently damaged casita.

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La Mona Anchorage to La Gringa Anchorage, Both in Bahia de Los Angeles

When Eric woke up, on Sunday (September 11), a few of his toes were bruised and it was a bit hard for him to walk. Not a fun way to start the day. He is glad he did not fall farther on the stairs.

The almost full moon was visible — and magical looking — long after sunrise.

A few boats had left the Bay of LA on Saturday, but most had stayed for the party. Today, people began to part ways. One by one, people announced on the radio that they were leaving and where they were going. Even though we’d only known most of these people for ten days (some more, some less), after so much fun socializing and going through the hurricane together, we felt bonded with them. It was sad to see them go.

We weren’t going very far, just to the northern tip of Bahia de Los Angeles. Before we left, we had some of the boat kids over to play D&D for a couple of hours. 

We pulled up anchor at 1315 and headed for La Gringa, about a 1.75 hour ride from La Mona. We knew we were in the right place when we saw a giant sign on a hill that said “Welcome to La Gringa.”

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The Aftermath of Hurricane Kay

On Friday morning (September 9), we were surprised to wake up to no wind and no rain. The storm had cleared much earlier than expected. What a relief! It did start to drizzle not long after we woke up, but the drizzle didn’t last long.

The rivers had dried up. We couldn’t believe how clear the water in the bay was! Between all the mud that had come down and the churned up water, we’d expected the water to be too dirty to run the generator or watermaker. Another happy surprise!

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Continuing to Prepare for Hurricane Kay

Here is the sunrise on Tuesday, September 6. Look at how bright the moon is despite the early morning sun.

Not long after that photo was taken, the wind picked up. We had 17-knot sustained winds with gusts to 25-knots for pretty much the entire day. Since the wind was coming from the same direction as the hurricane would be coming from, this was actually a blessing. It meant all the boats were pushed into the place that they will be during the storm, allowing each of us to more accurately judge if we are far enough away from other boats/hazards to be safe on Thursday. One boat left, deciding they’d rather ride the storm out in the Bay of LA than Don Juan. A few boats repositioned themselves into different spots here in Don Juan.

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