Puerto Ballandra, Caleta San Juanico, Bahia Concepcion

5/11/12 Puerto Escondido to Puerto Ballandra: We left Escondido at 9am and motored the 18 nm to Isla Carmen, where we we anchored in Puerto Ballandra. It’s 89 degrees in the cabin, probably over 90 outside. We took a dinghy ride outside of the anchorage and turned left to slowly putt along the rocks looking at the fish – so many of them! We also saw red and black crabs, lots of caves and rays. Stopped to chat with Don and Linda on Iron Rose, also had Rick and Gina over for gin/tonics.

We spent a couple of days here doing a lot of swimming, some stealth water gun attacks to pay back the evil pirates who kept trying to dump us off our floaties (James & Sydney). We saw 100 degrees here in the afternoon, water temp (ïn the pool”, as they say on the radio nets) is around 80. In an effort to keep the heat out of the boat I made spaghetti from scratch on the bbq. It took forever, but was worth it to keep a little cooler down below.

5/12/12 Puerto Ballandra: Terry and I took a short hike up one of the arroyos along a marked trail. We saw a lot of caves, but we ended up making a quick retreat back to the boat because we were bedeviled by horse flies. Nasty bitey things.

5/13/12 Puerto Ballandra to Caleta San Juanico: It’s 28 nm to San Juanico, we had very flat seas, and no wind. It was a good opportunity for showers on the poop deck, so we were sparkly clean and smelled nice when we got to San Juanico.

We anchored around 1pm and were soon beset by pirates yet again. I offered a peace treaty of chocolate, which seemed to pacify them. Harmony now owes a return stealth attack.

5/14/12 Coleta San Juanico: Took a morning dinghy tour around San Juanico. this morning and got lots of rock pics.

5/16/12 San Juanico to Playa Santispac, part of Bahia Concepcion: Left San Juanico after a very rolly early morning. Traveled 54 miles up into Playa Santispac. Russ at Lupe’s Restaurant (formerly Aná’s, who is now deceased) offered to take us to Mulege tomorrow for provisions.

5/17/12 Playa Santispac: Russ took the 4 of us to Mulege—nice little town where we stocked up at the orange store (nice store). Russ took all our goodies back  and stored it in his fridge and freezer while we stayed in town. He wouldn’t take anything for gas money. We ate at El Candil, food was decent. Later that day we ate at Lupe’s restaurant (co-owned by husband Russ) and had very good chiles relleno. Russ used to own a ranch in Idaho, he’s an expat who’s been here for 8 years. Extremely nice and generous person.

5/19/12: Santispac to Playa Coyote: moved the 2.49 miles to here to get away from the man eating catfish. Swam all afternoon in the 80 degree water—perfect!

5/20/19 Playa Coyote: We love this little spot. Terry and I hitched a ride into Mulege (13 Miles) so I could go to Mass. Had to wait quite awhile for a ride, but we were finally picked up by an older Mexican man and his younger male passenger in his extended cab pickup. With my fractured Spanish we chatted a bit and the older man (driving) was very glad to hear I was Catholic and going to Mass. He took us right to the front door of the church, where he respectfully removed his hat because we were in front of the church. As I shook his hand and told him thanks for the ride he grabbed me and pecked me on the cheek—what a sweetie. When Mass began and the priest was entering and walking up the center aisle, I was surprised to see a white casket being wheeled in behind him. It was an interesting Mass. They sang Battle hymn of the republic only with church lyrics and also Sons of God, an old one Theresa and use to do in the choir in Juntura. When Mass was over they wheeled the deceased (a woman) out of the church dripping water all the way. Apparently they had her packed with ice. Then they loaded her into the bed of a pickup truck. It was around 95 degrees, hence the ice!

Later we had dinner at the restaurant here – Estrella del Mar with Endeavor. We’ve also heard that the whale sharks are in the bay—really hope we get to see them!

5/21/12 Playa Coyote: Terry hooked up the air conditioner today – Yay!! It’s a good thing too, because it’s been over 100 today. The water temp is upper 80’s  - amazing!

Leaving Puerto Escondito

5/10/12 – We will be leaving here today and continuing our way further north along the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. Most of the places we’ll be won’t have internet service, and cell service will be sporadic as well. We purposely got Mexican cell phone numbers and service, so this is a bummer, but we’ll just have to deal with it. We will be able to send and receive emails through our Single Side Band (SSB) radio, notwithstanding sporadic radio propagation problems. We’ve entered in all your email addresses into the SSB email software.
This radio email system has data limits on what you can send out. This means that when you get an email from us (from KE7FZH@winlink.org) you should not hit your ‘reply’ button and respond, because doing so needlessly appends your response to our original email to you. This might make the email exceed the data limits, and the email won’t reach us. Instead, please respond to emails from us by starting a fresh email. We also cannot accept cartoon graphics, clipart, photos or anything like that – send only text in your emails to us. But please (!), do email us!
Terry is going to (or maybe already has) send each of you a test email to make sure we have things set up right. It would be helpful if you’d respond to that in a separate email so we know things are working.
And just so you know, KE7FZH is Terry’s ham radio call sign There are ham radio people all over the world willing to relay messages back and forth for cruisers and family in the event of emergencies and for status/location updates. Click on Winlink and learn more about how it all works.
There are several ham radio and SSB “cruiser nets” that monitor cruisers whereabouts and status. We like to monitor and check-in with one of these that’s called the Ämigo Net. Every morning on this net, cruisers check in using their SSB radios, and provide the net controllers and other cruisers with location and cruise plans so that cruisers have a way to keep track of and help each other if emergencies arise. We are safe and happy here, so I’m not trying to scare you. However, we are very close to hurricane season, and even though we know of several ‘hurricane holes’ to go to ride something like that out, no place here in most of Mexico is completely hurricane-free. We really don’t expect to encounter one, but I’m giving you this information just in case.
You can still use our gmail for emails to us, but we won’t be able to check and respond to them with any kind of regularity.
That about wraps things up for now. I will be trying to post blog updates on the Harmony blog and this one too by SSB radio, but won’t be able to post a link on Facebook, so you’ll need to actually go to In Harmony’s Wake and First  Mate’s Musings to check for new blog posts. Please feel free to post on Facebook any Harmony’s Wake blog updates. Let me know if you have any questions!

UPDATE: If you want to see where we are on Google maps, click Harmony's Current Position and a page will open up with a map showing you precisely where we when we last reported. We'll be trying to report regularly. I feel like I'm loading  with info you probably couldn't care less about, but that how I roll I guess. Love and really miss you all!