April 4-9 Waiting out a Norther, San Juanico Cove

Hanging around San Juanico

We got an early start out of Bahia Salinas hoping to take advantage of calm seas. Unfortunately, there were still fairly rough seas from the wind the previous days. However, it did calm down the next few hours and the motor to San Juanico was fairly uneventful. We did hook a fish, but it cut the leader, taking our lure with it. Upon pulling in the meat hook, the same had happened! We must have hooked something with wicked sharp teeth! 

We arrived in the afternoon an anchored next to our friends on Brizo. Being Patrick’s birthday, he headed into the water to do some spearing. Got a few nice fish for dinner. We had a bonfire on the beach with the Brizo folk and a guitar was brought along for entertainment. We cooked our fish in the fire like hobo stew, with cut up veggies and spices wrapped in a few layers of foil. Yum-my! Played some tunes while watching the fire and Joe from Brizo displayed his music skills as well. Patrick enjoyed his bday gift from David, a bottle of tequila and was surprised that Brizo had baked a little cake for Patrick! How sweet! It was darn tasty too! Chocolate covered with coconut flakes. Despite the early start, it was a good mellow birthday.

"Lebanese" horseshoe at San Juanico

Flying a kite on the beach

The next few days we were holed up in the anchorage while it blew hard from the north outside on the sea. We did our share of snorkeling, games on the beach, reading, and other diversions. It was fun to have Brizo for company. We spent a few afternoons spearfishing together and just straight chillin’. One evening we went night spearfishing. Warmed by some McNaughton whiskey, we suited up and headed for the point. It was a nice warm evening and the snorkeling was cool. We had borrowed a really bright dive light from Brizo, so we could see quite well. We were hoping to find parrotfish in their mucus bubble and play with them in their knocked out phase, but were unable to find any. The highlight of the night was the octopus we saw. It was moving around quite a bit and then once we shone our light on it, it took on a rock like appearance, camouflaging itself. We managed to get a couple clown hawkfish, pretty fish that seemed to be very active at night.

One afternoon Patrick was spearing again( notice a pattern here?) and saw a familiar boat come in, Purusha. We had met Purusha a month previously in Santa Rosalia and were a little puzzled in trying to figure out the structure of their crew. There was an older hippie with 4 young women. Not sure if we were witnessing some sort of harem, but we got the story out. Turns out a few families own the boat and they have a hired captain (the hippie David). They were lots of fun to hang out with in Santa Rosalia and we were happy to meet them again. The next day we planned a beach game olympics with all the young’ns. 

The Brizo crew during one of our joint fish-cooking sessions

Games were quite fun. We had a kite, ‘Rock’ci (our version of bocci), Koob(last played on the very same beach, and Portugese horse shoes. All were a blast and we had a nice afternoon onshore. After the games we had a bonfire on the beach with everyone and cooked dinner over the fire. Dinner for was was once again, grilled fish. This time it included a parrot fish though. Tasty! As the alcohol flowed and the fire burned down we pulled out some instruments: a guitar and a banjo. There were a few people proficient at guitar and it was a blast singing and sharing different genres of music. Having a banjo accompaniment makes it twang in a fun way. We sang sons such as “Ms. Ohio” and “Wagon Wheel” as well as some Mason Jennings songs provided by Patrick. A great evening of friendship and music.

Patrick emerging from night spearfishing

 

We had one more day to wait out a Norther before sneaking north. Patrick took a kid from another boat spearfishing. He had a gun received as a birthday present but was unable to spear anything. His gun was a little too weak to puncture a fish, but Patrick traded guns with him and he speared his first fish! He was ecstatic and it was fun to share the moment with him. 

With a planned departure the next morning, we said goodbye to Brizo and Purusha and prepped for an overnight motor to Santa Rosalia the next day. While we lost some time to explore the Northern Sea, it was an enjoyable time buddy boating with other young cruisers.