Bahia Tortuga to Bahia Magdelenia

Well...another passage of two days and two nights. And it rained (well, showers). Shocking, but true. I know that everyone at home has absolutely no sympathy for us. But we've come to enjoy this dry climate. In fact, it was our fifth day of rain since leaving home in August. Rain has become a major inconvenience although at some point the rain will become critical for replenishing our limited fresh water capacity.

John reminds me that Tillman (some ancient mariner and mountaineer) would travel 6000 miles with 5 crew and 200 gallons of water. Obviously, Tillman would have me walking the plank. I appreciate washing dishes after each meal, and the occasional shower. Just call me wasteful.

Our passage from Turtle Bay to Mag Bay (gringo-speak) was good, we had some of the most fabulous sailing of our entire trip so far. We had to motor for about 11 hours (we have learned that we have little tolerance for flogging sails and low boat speed), when the wind disappeared, but arrived in Mag Bay during daylight, which is a huge bonus. We are now anchored in Man of War Cove, in the community of Puerto Magdelena. It is a very small communtiy of less than 200 people, and has been hit hard by the recent hurricane in August. We found ourselves woefully ill-equiped to provide any treats for the communty. We ransacked the boat, and came up with some supplies to donate to the school and the children. And we're determined to purchase more supplies for schools once we arrive in Cabo San Lucas, in the event that we come across communitites in similar situations.

Bahia Magdelana is huge. One book suggests it is the same size as San Francisco Bay, although to me, it seems even larger. We had a nice walk across the peninsula, to the Pacific and Bahia Santa Maria beaches today:
There were a couple of women here today from an NGO in Mexico City doing interviews with the locals to document their history and relationship with the Bay. We had a fabulous conversation with them and it seems that the community here is quite poor and the fishermen all belong to a cooperative that is attempting to encourage them to convert to 4 stroke outboards, and to help them to sell their product at market, but they make very little for their efforts. Very hard to encourage conservation of fishery resources for future generations when they are struggling to provide for the needs of their families today.

We have a friend, Eduardo, whose family is from this community, we think. But we haven't found them yet. We'll keep looking!

There are three other cruising boats here. One is Mojombo, from Comox...small world. We met them in San Diego, and had a nice evening with them tonight. Doin' It from Hawaii left today for Cabo, and Gert on Tate arrived today.