First of all, a huge shout
out to the McGuire Family and Casa de Los Suenos for letting us anchor out
and use their facilities for an entire month. Wow! If it weren’t for Joe we
would likely still be there, but read on for more about that.
Second shout out
to our friends Joe and Lisa who not only came to visit us, but brought us some
of our favorite supplies so we could restock our stores. Thanks to them
Cinnabar is now brimming with my favorite, super strong TJ’s Irish Breakfast
Tea, Tom’s favorite Peet’s Coffee, TJ’s granola bars and TJ’s chocolate covered
almonds. Yum!! Lisa even brought me a bonus pack of assorted black and green
teas. Love her.
We Leave Bahia
Concepcion - Joe was quite keen to see more of the Sea of Cortez, so two
days after our infamous “Best Day Ever” in Bahia Concepcion, we weighed anchor
and motored out of our favorite anchorage bound for Puerto Escondido, just south of Loreto,
as our ultimate destination. I wish I could say our departure was uneventful,
but we motored over a shoal and Cinnabar stubbed her toe in the sand, so to
speak. Joe, Lisa and I leaned WAYYYYYY over the side of the boat while Tom
plowed us out.
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| The chart said we could go there! But the sand said "NO". |
The rest of the day was absolutely beautiful with no more
mishaps. As we passed Isla San Idelfonso, where Tom and the others had caught
all those yellowtail, we saw hundreds of pelicans soaring over and diving into
the water. Birds in a feeding frenzy? That’s always a good sign for fish.
Naturally Joe and Tom had the hand lines out, and a short time later we hooked
a small yellowtail. While the guys discussed whether or not it was too small to
keep, I grabbed the bottle of tequila and made a beeline for the fish. A few
sprinkles into the gills and our beautiful catch went calmly to sleep forever.
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| Small but delicious. |
Caleta San Juanico ,
Snorkeling and Fine Dining - By late afternoon we made it into the
beautiful San Juanico anchorage. We decided we had just enough time for an
afternoon snorkel before our happy hour, so we grabbed our gear, slipped into
the water and kicked over to the nearest pinnacle. Yowza! We were amazed at all
the sea life! There were schools of all sorts of reef fish swimming around the
rocks, a turtle, schooling puffer fish, angel fish, schooling brown chromis, mullets
and many, many more. To top it off, high atop the tallest pinnacle was an
osprey nest with the two osprey gazing down at us with jaundiced eyes the whole
time.
Dinner that night would be my favorite, our beautiful just-caught
Hamachi thinly sliced sashimi style, and served as a tiradito a la Muelle Tres,
my favorite restaurant in Ensenada. This had our Bahia Concepcion twist of
serving it hand roll style, with fresh avocado, sushi rice, and nori.
 |
| Tom, Joe and Lisa enjoy a perfectly delicious dinner. |
Add some
cold beer and chilled white wine and it was pretty much a perfect meal, sigh.
(Recipe at end of post.)
Heading to Puerto
Escondido - The next morning we completed our trip down to Puerto
Escondido. The sea was absolutely alive with all sorts of life, in the air and
in the water. It seemed that every few minutes there was something new to see,
whether they were hundreds of sea birds, sea lions basking in the water with
fins up, or leaping mobula rays. One of the most exciting events was when I saw
a weird standing wave off in the distance. What in the heck was that thing?
Turns out it was hundreds of Pacific White-Sided dolphins in what looked like
an absolute feeding frenzy. We headed their direction and tried to stay out of
their way as they leaped in the air and dove toward their prey beneath them. We
saw one or two more of these large dolphin boils and they were so close I even
managed to get some shots with my little camera.
We sailed alongside Isla Carmen toward Puerto Escondido, enjoying
the jaw-dropping view and lunching on freshly made fish tostadas. Thanks to Joe
and Tom we got two great meals from our little yellowtail.
Our final excitement before pulling into Puerto Escondido
was a couple of whale sightings. What a trip! We motored into the bay, carefully
watching the depth of this notoriously shallow entrance, but managed to make it
(barely) without stubbing our toe again. We found a mooring, and thanks to Joe
and Lisa’s experience from their bare-boat charters we easily grabbed a mooring
and secured Cinnabar.
We figured our friend Nick from Iolanthe was still in the
area since last we heard he’d gone on the hard to wait for parts to repair his
boat. We wondered if Telitha was still around, and as I stood on deck with
binoculars, searching the anchorage for our friends, who should come gliding into
the bay being towed by another boat, but Telitha!! Holy cow, what happened??
Turns out they’d had transmission problems and ended up being towed practically
all the way from Agua Verde (about 22 nm) by the good Samaritans aboard Huck
Finn. So, due to bad luck for everyone but us, the unlikely group of Cinnabar,
Iolanthe and Telitha would be together once again.
That evening the Cinnabar crew spiffed up and took a taxi
(driven by taxista Nestor) into Loreto for a last bit of shopping for Lisa and
Joe, and our final dinner together. Loreto was practically deserted, with the
only excitement being a claxon of mission bells followed by a parade of people
entering the mission for 5:00 mass. We were in Loreto to enjoy the beautifully
temperate and perfect evening, and after a starter of Margaritas...
...we managed to
find a restaurant that served Tom’s favorite Baja Brewing Company microbrew!
That, paired with a yummy Chile Relleno and Chocolate Clams Gratinee made for a
delightful last dinner.
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| Almejas Chocolates Gratinee |
Adios Lisa and Joe -
The next morning, after helping us clean Cinnabar’s deck (Lisa and Joe sure
know how to get invited back) our guests packed their bags, we stuffed a cooler
full of frozen fish for them to transport home, and we loaded them into
Nestor’s taxi, bound for Loreto airport.
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| Joe, Lisa, Tom and taxista Nestor |
Pictures of Weeks #3 and #4 in Bahia Concepcion, and our
trip down to Puerto Escondido, can be found HERE.
Since Lisa and Joe departed, we have spent time cleaning the
boat, enjoying the beautiful Puerto Escondido anchorage, and trying to entice
our cruising pals away from spending all their time doing boat repairs. Actually, that’s not too difficult, but more about that in another post…
Dinghy Name Update
– Believe it or not we finally decided on a dinghy name. Yes! After all this
time! Thank you again to everyone who submitted all the absolutely brilliant
names. Here they are and I hope I remembered every one:
Cinnabarbary Coaster
Cinnabun
Dinghy Dong
Galena Ballena
Minibar
Mini-Cinni
Minipad
Quicksilver
To-the-bar
Vermilion
We might not have picked your favorite, but we went with the one that
“felt right” to us. A couple of weeks
before they decided to come out, Joe submitted Quicksilver as his entry. Miraculously,
we both liked Quicksilver, also mercury, associated with Cinnabar, also a common name in the Santa Clara Valley, and with the
likely nickname of “Quickie”. So Quicksilver, aka “Quickie” it is.
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| Joe and Quicksilver, aka "Quickie" |
And the grand prize was…winner got to visit us on
Cinnabar! OK, in the interest of full disclosure, let’s just say that anyone
who submitted an entry was eligible to visit, as well as anyone who thought
about submitting an entry, as well as anyone who thought we were bonkers for
even thinking we should name our dinghy. In other words, EVERYONE is invited to
visit us! Come on guys, last chance is NOW because in a few weeks we will be in
La Paz putting Cinnabar away for the summer.
But if you can’t visit us this time around, you should at
least try making our favorite yellowtail dish. Here is our recipe. If you don't have yellowtail you can
use any type of sushi grade fish...
RECIPE - YELLOWTAIL/HAMACHI
TIRADITO
Ingredients:
Very fresh yellowtail, thinly sliced into bite-size pieces, chill on platter; (or use any kind of sushi-grade fish if yellowtail is not available
Soy sauce or Tamari
Toasted sesame oil
Toasted sesame seeds
Minced fresh ginger
Juice from 1-2 small limes
Chopped fresh cilantro or basil
Avocado, 1-2 sliced
Freshly ground pepper
Optional: diced jalapeno/Serrano peppers or dribbles of Salsa Martajada
Method:
Spread fish slices out onto large plate overlapped or in a
single layer. (I like to chill for 30 minutes if not already refrigerated.) Dribble
lightly with soy sauce and sesame oil. Sprinkle with minced fresh ginger and
sesame seeds. Add fresh, diced peppers or Salsa Martajada, or serve on the
side. Just before serving squeeze some fresh lime over the top and sprinkle
with freshly ground pepper and fresh cilantro or basil. Arrange avocado slices
on top of or around yellowtail, or serve alongside if making hand rolls.
Serve with chips or tostadas, or use for sushi or hand rolls by serving with
white or sushi rice, nori and a ponzu sauce made of soy, lime juice and wasabi.
