Tuesday, June 25

North 24° 09.183’
West 109° 52.373’
Distance: 13.2 miles

We paddled 13.2 miles today. We are now 28.6 miles from La Paz and 571 miles from Pete’s Camp. We are again as far south as we were when we left La Paz, but are much further east. Today we crossed the 110° line of longitude which is the last one we will cross on this trip. Today we are east of Cabo San Lucas. We will go a little further east but will start back west in a couple days. Again today we woke up late and relaxed in the morning. The palapa we found last night is a nice place to just hang out. We had shade, protection from the wind, and nice soft sand to stand on. We had comfortable chairs. The seal on my hatch started to leak so Mike and I glued it back on with Marine Goop. Both of Mike’s had come off early on the trip but mine had been fine until now. They just seem to randomly come off. We started out at 2:00pm and went five miles to Punta la Gorda. The wind and waves were against us so we put in and did some shore fishing and snorkeling. We got three puffer fish – one on a krokadile and two on the spear. At 6:00pm the wind died down and we started to cross Canal de Cerralvo to Cerralvo Island. This is about an 8 mile crossing and we got to the island just a few minutes before full dark. We hung out for about an hour until the moon was up over the horizon but hidden from our view by the island mountains. This gave us a little light and we knew we would have full moonlight soon. We paddled to the south end of the island to a sand beach just before the lighthouse. There was a fish camp with a fire so we stopped to ask directions. Mike thought it might be American boaters and hoped that they would have beer, but it was just fishermen. The beach we found is nice with a cooling breeze, nice sand, and a view of the coastline of the mainland. We can see the glow of La Paz and lights from El Sargento andLa Ventana. This is more humanity than we are used to, but it is interesting and fun to run into people. The last paddle we did in the dark was really fun. We had phosphorescent plankton lighting up our strokes, a full moon to light our way, and stories of orcas eating fishermen bouncing around our heads. Mike was attacked by a baitfish which jumped into his boat and hit him on the chest. Kinda spooky and lots of fun. We had expected to see sailboats out here but so far have seen none. This island has few of the bugs we have come to expect on islands. Maybe it is the time of the year, or maybe there is just enough breeze to drive them away. Either way, I am happy with this island landing. Tomorrow we cross back with a short five mile crossing. We will make a course for Punta Arena de la Ventana, then around the corner to spend the night at Ensenada de los Muertos.