August gone

Ensenada la Gringa, BLA, BC, Mexico

It seems as though August has come and gone. Nothing particularly exciting to report, which is a generally a good thing.

After spending 5 nights at La Mona, about 5 miles south of the village of BLA, we have moved to Ensenada la Gringa, a long crescent-shaped beach lining the north side of the bay, about 5 miles north of the village of BLA. While it was windy for much of the time in La Mona, here it has been very calm; just a light breeze occasionally to help keep the heat down. This has meant that we have been able to take a swim any time we want and that really helps keep us cooler as well. Overall the weather has been great. The highs during the day peaking around 37 to 38 degrees, cooling off to as little as 28 the last couple of nights. For some reason 28 degrees now feels a quite cool to us.

We will probably make our way back to the village of Bahia de los Angeles tomorrow as we need to replenish our bread supply, among other things (we have heard that there is a laundry service there somewhere). We have been keeping clear of the village the last few days while it is crowded with a lot of the "social" cruisers having a party for the SSB and Ham radio controllers - there are currently 16 to 20 boats anchored by the town (the majority of the boats in the entire area). Here in la Gringa we have had the place to ourselves except for one other boat that arrived yesterday.

With September now here it means we are entering into the peak hurricane season for the Sea of Cortez. As yet, there have been no threats at all and at the moment it does not sound like too much is brewing down in the hurricane breeding grounds off of Central America. As we understand it, that could change rapidly, although to date this has been an overall mild year for east Pacific hurricanes.

We are just hoping that with the coming of fall the temperatures might moderate a bit. Our fridge and freezer are running very high duty cycles just now and we are struggling to keep our batteries full. On a positive note, the last few days, with no clouds in the sky and slightly lower temperatures at night, have meant that we have not had to run the engine at all - the solar panels are just barely able to keep up with the demand - we are even able to run the watermaker enough to keep up with our current requirements. Ideally we do not want to have to refill our diesel tank until we are further south again - lugging jerry cans from the gas station in the village to the dinghy and back to the boat doesn't look like that much fun. So far, so good.

{GMST}29|02.33|N|113|32.8|W|Ensenada la Gringa, BC, Mexico|Ensenada la Gringa, BC, Mexico{GEND}