Here we are in Puerto Balandra after 8 hours of motoring and 1 hour of sailing. A pretty spot and there are at least 6 other sail boats here including “Om Shanti” which belongs to the people that wrote the “Sea of Cortez” guidebook that we are using. Heather Bansmer was clearing sitting in the cockpit.

We plan to spend tomorrow at anchor as it will only be a short run (12nm) to La Paz, which we will make on Wednesday so that Peter can catch his flight home on Thursday. While we could have made this trip from Cabo san Lucas in a couple of days by sailing around the clock, the harbour hopping route has had its advantages. We were able to stop in some very pretty places and as importantly, we were not exhausted from long watches and short sleeps.

The Sea of Cortez has its own stark, arid beauty with a jagged mountainous skyline, the red and orange hues of serious desert and deep green water chock full of interesting creatures. Today we watched a very large swordfish leap from the water, 3 to 4 feet into the air, over and over again. A whale surfaced several times near the boat and at one point we were surrounded by dolphins. We expect to see more of this in the near future.