Third week

I had a nice skiff tour with a lot of common dolphins...

And another look at this elephant tree, I like it.  

A grey Thrasher.  

A better look

I like the succulents here.  

An isla san francisco Whiptail

Yellow legged gull

Dawn at isla cerralvo

A baby goat on isla cerralvo

More common dolphins

And I also took a few videos.

Photos of Desserts from our pastry Chef

One of our pastry chefs, Mira, asked me to take some photos of her desserts, so here they are!  Hopefully she can find these and download them too.  Click on them for higher resolution.

 

A very nice week

 

Sometimes it loads the pictures backwards...  So in reverse!

We went to Cerralvo island, which is a cool spot that I've been a few times, but also I hear about really cool things there.  I've not before noticed the big barrel cactus there, so that is a neat thing.  They are similar to the barrel cactus on isla Santa Catalina, but not the same.

There are goats there, and some have left their feet behind...

Another shot of the barrel cactus.  The biggest I saw was about 2 ft wide and 8 ft tall

At Los islotes, the sea lions were nice

And we did an exploration of the lagoon at Amortajada.  It is very tidal dependent and only on nice high tides can you get in and out, but with the full moon we were able to do it.

I found this Brant's cormorant in breeding plumage and its fabulous

And a murrelet, which I think is a Craveli's murrelet

We also had some skiff tours with hundreds of common dolphin

This frigate was really bent weirdly.  The wings are upside down.

Dawn at the east end of isla Carmen

A pelican with bent wings

A nice oystercatcher

A bud from a cardon

A cool elephant tree trunk

Gnarled ironwood

Bottlenose dolphins

And some blue whale photos

And a minke whale!  First one I've seen in Baja

Sunrise over isla san diego

A few videos...

 This is from Loreto, and there are a bunch of great birds there in the estuary.  

A night Heron

A wilson's Plover

And a double crested Cormorant that is trying to cool off a bit by panting.

In defense of Pelicans

Pelicans are, of course, wonderful and beautiful birds.  They are big, heavy, and love to eat fish. 

 "An amazing thing is the pelican, his bill can hold more than his belly-can!"

They do cool plunge dives and reach out with their necks to scoop up fish and its very cool...

But when you are anchored in a harbor somewhere, and if you aren't careful, they will land on the bow of your boat and poop all over the deck.  

Once you have a splattering of white paint on the deck, and the smell to go with it, the next one comes along and sees a bright billboard welcoming them.  And so soon you have what is known as a "pelican boat".  This is not a desirable thing.  Everything corrodes from their poop, so the boat becomes broken much quicker, and it becomes very obvious that nobody is home.  

If nobody is home, then people cruising by on small boats might decide to come aboard and see if there is anything to take.  It looks like an abandoned boat, ripe for the plunder.  

So, in order to leave my boat for a few weeks while working, I have decided to put up my pelican defenses.  I use fishing line, strung along above the places they would like to land, about 6 inches up, and very tight.  

Here is a picture of the solar panels with the lines strung along the outside edges.  I'll take this down when I get back and I'm moving around.  It blocks some of the light from the panels, so its less efficient, but since I'm not running a lot of electrical loads it isn't a problem.  

I'm a little concerned that the pelicans will just land inside the fishing line area, since its a big flat space, but I think they won't like having the line there to hit their wings when they come in.  

Also, they need a place to start, as in on the edge, and then get more comfortable.  So hopefully this will prevent them.  In the middle of the panels I have a flag flapping around, so I hope that persuades them to keep off the panels altogether.

The most tricky part of the boat is usually the bow.  Many boats I see have pelicans that come in, coast along and perch on the bow railing (or pulpit) and look happily down into the water from the front of the boat.  They have great visibility, and easy take-off spot, and usually they are standing on a round steel tube about 1" wide, so its good footing.  I have seen them land on the cables that make up the life-lines too.  In order to stop that, I've rigged up my fishing line about 6 inches up from the lifelines and the bow pulpit, and it is strung really tight (its braided fishing line-dyneema).  

This extends back around the boat as well.

Then I have some swinging lines hanging down to keep them nervous if they try to land on deck.  

At the masthead I have a spike that extends above my wind instruments, and it has been there for several years to good effect.  (for frigatebirds)

So, why don't I use CDs or zip ties?  Or a mop or rake?  I've seen people use flashing tape or CDs as deterrents, and I think they only work for a little bit until the scare wears off.  The birds may be initially afraid of the flashing, but after they fly by enough and discover that it doesn't do anything, they will land anyways, and once they poop, the invitation is more powerful than the scare.  I've seen many boats with flashing things, and the birds ignore them easily.  

Zip ties I think are an excellent idea, but done poorly, since they are not strong enough to be landed on and not bend out of the way.  If they were spikes, the birds would not be able to land, but they can push the zip ties down and then its a solve-able problem for them.  I've seen lots of boats with zip ties that didn't work.

So my philosophy is to start on all the areas that the birds would first land on, and make those impossible to land.  And hopefully impossible despite a bird trying to land or pushing on the thing, or wind and boat rocking moving the deterrent.  It has to be robust.  

The second defense is to have somewhat scary things (like swinging ropes) that are nearby the areas they want to land, just to keep them nervous about trying.  I could use shiny ribbons, but I also like to make it look like I am still at home, and a few swinging ropes seems to be about right.

So hopefully the pelicans will keep off my boat, and also hopefully the thieves will be unattracted as well.

 

First foray into the Sea in 2025

So, after a pleasant stay at Los Frailes, I departed for La Paz.  This was a few photos from a short jaunt around a wetland (dampland) area at frailes.  

Here's a killdeer!

And a Vermillion Flycatcher


So, it was still windy from the north as I left, and it was rough.  Real tough fighting against the wind.  The seas were not huge, but big enough that it hurt, and I had the dinghy on the back, and it was moving more than I would like.  The solar panels also moved a bit.  I managed to figure out a way to secure them better, and to stiffen up the rack in general, so hopefully that will stay that way from now on.

From Frailes, I went to Bahia de los Muertos, and came sailing in real fast and dropped anchor like a madman.  I love sailing to anchor, but when its blowing 25 kts or more its hard to slow the boat down.  Anyway, coming in at 8+ kts is great.  Then it gets real calm when I furl the jib (or staysail) and point head to wind with the main up.  Then I drift gently back and drop the hook.  Lovely.  From muertos I went along the outside of Isla Cerralvo, and I had always wanted to see that area.  It was pretty calm, so a motoring along.  I went to Esperitu Santo island, and anchored in the south side, at Playa Bonanza.  In the morning there were some rays jumping!

After watching the rays for a bit I headed north up to Isla San Jose.  It was south winds, so I could use the spinnaker and it was nice.  I ended up at Punta Colorado, which I had never been to before, and I love it.

There was a night heron, and some sheep?

And the rocks are layered and full of shells.

Aquila was happy and calm

There were goats too.  Maybe the others were goats.  I can't tell the difference

The rocks are full of shells, and very nice colors

Here's the point

And nearby a bay full of great layers

In the morning it was really pretty.

From there I headed around the north end of Isla San Jose and found some dolphins and then sailed downwind (since the wind sprang up from the north) and made it to Isla San Francisco.  I stayed two nights, and got a bunch of salt and did some spearfishing

And did the hike up to the top, of course

From there Aquila was looking pretty

And there was a rock wren!

The bay is very picturesque, and the water is a nice color.  

In the morning I drove over to the south side of isla san jose and did a skiff tour into the lagoon Amortajada.  Its amazing in there, full of mangroves.

And Ibis(s)

From there it was a quick jaunt to Isla esperitu Santo again, and found this snail 

And a nice night heron

The tide was really low since it was near the new moon

And a yellowlegs

Here's some mangrove toes!

And an antelope squirrel

And a moth chrysalis, I think.  I'll go back and see if it changes when I'm working with uncruise.