Happy Birthday Jerry!!!

Well, we once again went back up to Los Cocinas for a week, but this time we went up with a couple of other boats. Jerry and I left on Tuesday August 10th along with GiGi (Paul and Karen, who live next to us in the marina). Jerry and I motored all the way up the sea on the inside of the island; there was absolutely no breeze so we were unable to put up the sails. About an hour and half outside San Carlos bay I had a large male Dorado hookup. I played with it for about 20 minutes to I finally get it to the boat, Jerry and I brought it to the side where Jerry got a hold of the leader about 2 feet from the fish, trying to pull it up onto the boat, unfortunately we did not have the gaff ready so we lost of fish, but still it was the largest dorado to be caught on SOMF. Well after that excitement we motored up the rest of the way, pulled into the anchorage and set the hook. GiGi was about an hour or so behind us, after setting the hook, Jerry and I jumped in to cool off, oh I forgot to say that it was hot, hot, hot, since there was no breeze out. That evening we had Paul and Karen over for a couple of cocktails and to visit. That night Jerry and I slept out on the cabin top waiting for shooting stars, it was supposed to be the largest meteor shower, Jerry saw a couple, but I fell asleep before I saw any. The next morning after swimming and snorkeling, Synchrony (Herb), KMT (Doug and Trish, with Maria on board) and Magus (John) came into the anchorage. Jerry and I swam over to KMT to visit and talk about their trip.

There was a couple of Mexican families camping on the beach from Hermesillo and Kino Bay, the kids came over to the boat to jump off and for thanking us they gave us some scallops that they got in the anchorage. That evening Jerry and I had ice cream for dinner and watched some TV and again slept on the cabin top for two reasons to try to stay cool and to also see more showers, unfortunately there was large cloud cover so we could not see any stars or shooting stars. The next couple of days were about the same, lots of swimming, snorkeling and playing on the beach. We had a couple of pot lucks, one on our boat with KMT, Magus, Synchrony and GiGi and another on the beach with KMT, Magus, Synchrony, and two new boats that came into the anchorage Aquadisiac (Doug, Lynda and their dog Tucker), and Peregrine (Larry and Mugs).

 That night there was a chubasco (a weather event that has lots of wind associated with it) and lots of rain that picked up around 10pm, we had Maria staying on board, so we all picked up, and tied down things so they would not blow away. Earlier that afternoon, Jerry let out about 20 feet more of chain when he was putting the snubber line back on, so with the change in wind direction the boat came really close to the rocks, and it even touched bottom, well really bouncing off the bottom. Never the less this was not a good position to be in, so when the wind would calm down a little, Jerry would manually bring in the chain a couple of feet at a time until we were off bottom. Luckily we did not drag the anchor, nor did any of the other boats in the anchorage. The next day GiGi left to go back to San Carlo, we pulled up anchor and moved to their spot to be farther away from shallow water and the rocks incase another storm came through, Magus and KMT also moved inward.  Mystic with Jenny and Randy on board came into the anchorage a little later that afternoon, I swam over to talk to them as there were heading off to do some spear fishing.

On Monday we went on a hike up to the hill, overlooking the anchorage with all the beautiful boats anchored out. It was a wonderful hike with all of our new friends, John, Jenny, Randy, Linda, and Doug, and of course Skeeter, it was a great day.

That afternoon the rain and wind picked up a little, not as bad as the first storm but enough that we postponed our potluck to the next night on our boat for Jerry’s birthday. On a not so happy note, Jerry found that the oil leak in the engine is getting worse, and also found out that the generator problem of not starting is not because of the starter battery, but the generators starter itself is not working. After a few slight taps with a wrench on it, the generator started right up. But while working on that, found that there is a leak in the water pump, letting salt water spray all over the generator. So needless to say that did not make Jerry in the happiest of moods. But we tried to make the best of it, it was not life threatening so we said that we would deal with it all when we get back to San Carlos.

The next morning I was getting ready for Jerry’s birthday party on the deck, Jerry and I were still really concerned about the problems in the engine room but knew there was not much we could do now and we were leaving in the morning anyways. Everyone came over Doug and Trish on KMT brought a veggie enchilada casserole, I made jambalaya, John on Magus made a bean dip, Randy and Jenny on Mystic made ceviche, which they just caught in the anchorage that day, and also made flan, and Lynda and Doug on Aquadisiac made Jerry a chocolate birthday cake. After a night of singing, laughing, and having great conversations with some new friends, Jerry ended up forgetting about all the problems for a few minutes and had a great time.

That evening, I cleaned up, and I slept on the cabin top to try to look for some more shooting starts, Yeah I finally saw 7. The next morning after cleaning the dishes and tying chairs down from the night before, we pulled up the anchor and took off back to San Carlos. The trip back was really uneventful; we just wanted to get SOMF back to the marina before anything else would possible go wrong in the engine room. We got back to the dock, tied up and thanked the Sea Gods for another fun and safe trip up the sea!!!