Christmas Visitors

I've been pretty busy this christmas time, with lots of sailing, and lots of guests.  A friend of mine down here has come out a few times, here is his son swinging on a halyard and reaching for the ocean...

My dad came down for a week to visit, and we went for a sail.  We headed out to Roca Corbetena, and it was pretty windy, so we hit 12.5 kts on the way back.  We were intending to fly all the sails, but in the morning just as we were leaving, the mainsail tore.  I am not sure why it tore and it tears my heart up to have it happen, because I spent almost a year and a lot of money working on getting this sail down here and cut to this shape and now it is destroyed.  Can it be fixed?  I do not know.  Its a magic sail, so it has great shape and wonderful lightness, but its made of magic.  I need a wizard to fix it, and wizards aren't cheap.  I tried to fix it myself a bit with some tape, but that didn't work for Ron Weasley's wand now did it?  

The main problem (main... Ha) is that it has directional carbon fibers that are broken.  If they weren't broken then I could just put them back in place, but since they are broken I need to hold them together again somehow.  And not shorten them or change the shape, and if I do a shape change then there will be point loads on the other parts and they will fail.  So it is beyond my skill.

After tearing the main, I went on a great surfing trip (and didn't take any pictures) with my sister, and we didn't use the boat, but traveled by car and surfed for a week further south.  The waves were great!  Then I came back and my friend Mike came down with his family, and we went for a trip out to Isla Isabel.  

It was a tough trip, since we didn't have much time.  They arrived late on the first day, then we tried to get some sleep, and then I got us moving really early the next day and we motored and sailed all day up to the island.  It took 14 hours to get there, so from before dawn to after dark.  We saw a lot of cool dolphins, including these spinners, which bowrode for a long time.  It was kind of windy and a bit rough, as it always is going north in the sea of cortez.  

We caught a Dorado as we were arriving, and we had it for dinner.  

Sunset was really nice, we had great whales breaching all around us and then we arrived at the island and tried to find a place to anchor in the dark.

The next day early we got moving before it got too hot and went looking for wildlife!  Some of the lizards were cold and friendly.

Here's the gang at the east side of the island

We found frigate birds that were nesting with babies!

And a king snake!  I found a coral snake with Monica, but that one was on the mainland.  Red and Black, friend of jack...  This one has red next to black. 

And some tropic birds, hiding in their little caves.

The island was beautiful, but it began to get hot, so we went back to the boat to rest and snorkel.

The snorkeling was really nice, and we also drove around in the skiff to look at whales.  The wind was very light all day and the swell was small.  In the evening we went up the hill to watch the sunset with the blue footed boobies.

And here they were!

Sunset was nice on the cliffs and we had whales just under us. 

On the way back there was no wind, so we motored the whole way, and found lots of turtles to dodge.  mike jumped in with one to look.  Initially it was surprised, but then after a while it just sat there playing with him.  

 So its a new year now, and I've ordered a new mainsail, this one out of dacron (white traditional sail stuff) and as california is getting pummeled there are good waves down here.  I've got plenty to do with trying to fix things, so I'll be keeping busy.