Most everything is working on Stray Catz that is necessary to survive. Our roller furler is broken, so we have no working head-sail. The roller furler is what makes it possible to let out and pull in the jib or head sail without raising and lowering it each time. Once the device is installed, it’s not an easy task to raise and lower the sail without the furler, and not one I want to have to do in dangerous situations. So no jib till I get it fixed. I knew it was going out when we parked Stray Catz, but I kind of forgot about it. And after 17 months it didn’t fix itself.
While anchored in San Carlos, we had fun watching the pelicans on a feeding frenzy. The bay was swarming with these little fish so much that you could see dark clouds in the water. The pelicans were obviously taking advantage and started before the sun was up and fed all day long until after sunset.
We’ve been on a couple of short trips in the San Carlos area and were ready to say goodbye to mainland Mexico and cross to the Baja peninsula. It’s about a 75 mile trip across the Sea of Cortez. Not that impressive compared to some of our other jaunts, but still long enough in open seas to respect the journey. We travel just over 5 knots normally while cruising, so the journey should be under 15 hours. Not something we can do in daylight hours.
We will be buddy boating with our friends on Scuba Ninjas, Brent and Dee Dee who are rather new sailors and a little nervous about an open sea crossing coupled with an all night sail. Scuba Ninjas are very into videos and photos, so be sure to check out their YouTube channel.
We took a nap in the evening and set the alarms for midnight. By 1am we were leaving Bahia San Carlos and headed out to sea. The trip through the night was just what we could hope for, boring. Albeit very cold. When daylight finally arrived we were blessed with a few dolphin sightings, but none who came to play in the bow wake.
Now we are anchored in Santa Rosalia. We’ve gotten to go out and explore the town. This town has some very interesting history. Without trying to repeat everything that’s already written in the guide books I’ll give you a little run down. Santa Rosalia was a major player in copper mining back in late 1800s and early 1900s. French owners of the mine had a major influence on the architecture of the homes and buildings throughout the town.
Mine shafts are seen along the highway through town as well as many structures that are about to collapse. Most of the town would have a fence around it for liability reasons if it was located in the USA.
Of course that only slowed us down from exploring the crumbling structures located in the city. No fence means it must be ok, right? Unfortunately the mining museum and Mahatma Gandhi Library(so named because of a personal visit to dedicate it) were closed for rehabilitation. It would have been nice to learn more about the structures we were climbing through.
We will spend another day here knocking stuff from the to-do list for Stray Catz before heading south along the peninsula.
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