Isla Isabella

Craig and Dover on the surfboard at our anchorage at Isla Isabella (no, that is not the island in the background...  it is one of two pinnacles which make a nice wind break in the right conditions).  This little island about 80 miles from Mazatlan in the Pacific Ocean has been featured on National Geographic with Jacques Cousteau.  It is a Mexican National Park and is home to literally 1,000's of nesting sea birds and iguanas.  It is also a fabulous place to snorkel as it has a reef system which is rare for this area of the Pacific.   Jack and Elvia came with us on this part of our trip.  After all the great places they showed us in Mazatlan, it was nice to be able to offer them a ride to some pretty cool places on South Trail.  This was Elvia's first multi-night, high seas adventure on a small boat and she impressed us all with her easy transition to boat life as soon as she stepped aboard!  Capt. Jack was a superior hand, fabulous company as always, and happy to be out on the water again after a hurricane took his beloved Catalina sailboat, Dream Catcher.  We came down the Baja and up into the Sea of Cortez with Jack back in '04-'05 and it was a real treat to be out on the water with him again! 

This was also Jack and Elvia's 2nd anniversary and if pictures speak, I'd say they had a good one! 

We all had a great day on the island!  If you take a close look at the "sand" you will see that it is all bits of dead coral, and shells.  If you sit on the beach here quietly, after just a couple of minutes, the whole beach starts moving with about a billion (educated guess) hermit crabs...  You would have to be a hermit crab with all these hungry birds around!

If you have time, click on this picture and check out the color of these peds!  These are the Blue Footed Boobies and they are working with a color that I believe VW stole for the 60's Bug...  Hey there fancy feet!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

These are Frigates, or as we lovingly call them, Devil Birds.  This pic does not really do justice to the size of these beauties.  They are about the same size as Dover, or a Turkey.  They are sea birds that cannot land on the water...  God does have a sense of humor.  They have to pluck fish from the surface of the ocean without getting wet or stopping flight.  They launch themselves into flight from a perch... ergo the tall bushes here.  They are Devil Birds to us because they like to plant their large, destructive bodies on our mast heads and do all sorts of havoc wreaking on our instruments and antenaes up there!  They also have a split tail (forked?) for gliding all stealthily onto said masts...

 
Two Old Salts coming into anchorage at Isla Isabella. 
 
It was a great day with perfect conditions for us on the island and then, at about midnight, everything changed and we had to high tail it outta there, or else risk being in a world of hurt.  Why does this always happen at midnight?!
 
Oh well, we got into San Blas the next morning which was another fantastic adventure for another day...