Leaving Bahia Tortuga

Leaving Bahia Tortuga

Tuesday, November 18^th we pulled up the anchor early in morning using the Windlass with no problems. It was back in working order. Then we headed out onto our next anchorage.

The day was gorgeous! We mostly motor sailed. But the wind was light…barely there and the sun shining. There were just a few feathery clouds here and there. The water was calm. It was a nice switch to what we had the past few days.

Around Bahia San Roque, half way between where we departed and where we were headed, Rick caught a fish! We were all so excited because this was going to be his first!  As he pulled the fish closer and closer we could see that it was a good size! It was a Yellow Tail Tuna!! It was a 30 inch one at that! Enough to feed us all dinner for sure! Rick and Konrad worked together to gaf the fish get him over the rail and remove the hook. Rick got the honors of bashing the fish’s head to kill him. Unfortunately it wasn’t so easy and Rick ended up bashing his eye completely out. YUK! Konrad jumped right in and cut the fish open and removed it’s insides. During this process, Konrad found a little sea horse inside the fish’s stomach. Looked like the fish swallowed him whole. 

After washing the bloody mess off of the deck and as we all sat back down, we noticed a pod/pods of dolphin swimming around the boat almost surrounding us.  There were tons of them. You could see them swimming around as far as you could see in every direction. They were also sort of playing around at the bow of the boat. Four of us were hanging over the bow pulpit to get a closer look. I could never really get a picture of them out of the water. They were too quick. But I managed to capture a few of them near the surface of the water.  As we were enjoying watching the dolphin we heard Konrad’s reel zing! He had a fish on as well! We all ran over to the stern to watch him reel his fish in. Cameras ready. He ended up catching a Black Skip Jack! 

Found this inside the fish

 We had to put the poles away after that because there would be too much fish for us to possibly eat within the next two days!

We sailed on and arrived in Bahia Asunción around 5 p.m. where we were to anchor for the night. As soon as we pulled in the little bay and dropped the anchor, Rick jumped into the water. He had been waiting for this moment for quite some time. Jumping into the Mexican warm water. The temperature was 75 degrees. It could have been a little warmer for my liking, especially so close to dark, but it was still pretty nice! We all ended up putting on swimsuits and jumping in too. So fun! After getting out of the water, we all took turns rinsing off with warm water from the hose at the stern. We even lathered up with Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap (safe to go into the ocean).  It felt good to be all fresh and clean.

After feeling refreshed and putting on clean clothes, we started preparing dinner. Rick filleted the fish; Kim prepared a marinade and sticky rice to make sushi rolls & Peggy heated up the BBQ. The dinner turned out to be perfection! We had sashimi, sushi rolls and barbequed tuna. There was so much food; I did not think we would be able to eat it all. But low and behold, we did! There was a little fish left over that we did not prepare so Kim set it aside for us to have Ceviche in the morning.

We ate out in the cockpit huddled around a little pull down table under a starlit, moonlit sky…hearing the waves crash on shore. Things could not have been better.

Rick filleting the fish

Kim putting sticky rice on seaweed, preparing for sushi rolls

Peggy barbecuing the fish

Soon after dinner and cleaning up, we all sat around and listened to music and talked. It was so fun. It’s feeling more and more like we are really in Mexico, living out a dream that Rick and I have had since we’ve been together. We are just more and more excited to do this on our own more than ever!

 

Enjoying a nice meal out in the cockpit under the stars

This morning, November 19^th, Rick and I were the first to wake up and feeling a little groggy from a big meal the night before, so we thought a refreshing way to wake up would be to take a swim. So we did just that! It was awesome! It was a little cool but felt great!  We were out swimming just after the sun had come up and was dancing on the water.   The rest of the group slowly woke up and also took a dip.

Shortly after drying off, Kim finished preparing the Ceviche. She put the mixture onto crispy tortilla shells and topped it off with a little Sriracha Sauce. So good!

We’re all just hanging out now and planning to go to shore in a bit. They supposedly have an Internet café. So, I hope to be able to add to the blog.

We leave this evening for a place 50 miles from here, which should take about 10 hours. 

You’ll be hearing from us soon.