Huddling for warmth

Playa Santispac, Bahia Concepcion, BCS, Mexico

It's almost as if winter has caught up to us.

The last few days have seen a significant drop in temperatures. Our nightly lows are hovering around 15 degrees, while the high yesterday only made it to 22. That may not sound really cold, but with a wind howling at a constant 15 to 20 knots, we are actually suffering from a bit of wind-chill. I have taken to wearing my jeans, and we have most of the ports closed, especially at night.

In spite of the cold weather the skies continue to be cloud-free, so the sun is shining all day. If it wasn't so windy, we would be taking the dinghy to shore and enjoying the great outdoors more. As it is, there was only one half day, last Thursday, when it was calm enough for us to travel any distance from the mothership. We made it all the way over to El Burro cove (about 1/2 hour each way) and we enjoyed a nice lunch at Bertha's restaurant, before high-tailing it back to Santispac, just in time for the afternoon north wind to start up.

On Saturday, we did make the trip to shore here, to partake of the Saturday night dinner and dance at Lupe's restaurant. One of our neighbors (Barry and Laurie on a powerboat anchored a little further out) came over earlier in the day in their huge dinghy. We thought maybe they were going to offer us a ride in to shore since our dinghy is so small and we were bound to get wet in the wind-driven waves. However it turns out that they could not get their engine to run at all and wanted to bum a ride with us instead. So later, the four of us had quite an adventure beating into the waves. Fortunately for me, I had to ride in the back of the dinghy to handle our outboard and was able to avoid the soaking that Barry and Susanne got riding up front. The ride back was quite a bit better, going with the wind in the pitch-dark moonless night. The event itself was a hoot - very well attended (probably around 50 people, all gringos). Barbecued ribs and all the trimmings including ice cream for dessert, for around 10 dollars a head.

Everyone in the anchorages here in Bahia Concepcion are staying put, waiting for a break in the strong winds in order to go somewhere else - most of them appear to be headed across to San Carlos to put their boats up for the season. We are of course waiting too - we want to head south; but not with 25 knots winds and the subsequent seas. We are hoping for a weather window on Wednesday (day after tomorrow). We have been here so long now that we seem to have attracted a flock of small birds who are treating our flaked mainsail as some sort of condominium - they are in for a rude awakening when we hoist that sail. Kind of nice waking up to their merry songs in the morning though.

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