Woke at 0700 to another beautiful morning at Isabel. The sea state had become a little too rolly for comfort so Brady took the decision to move to a calmer spot.
Anchored: 21°50.864’N • 105°52.736’W
A pod of 5-6 whales play off starboard while we have coffee, and we seem to be in a prime spot for pelican traffic skimming across the sea.
Rather less pleasant, the macerator is struggling and Brady showed us the joys of changing it. A simple process it turns out. A piece of toilet paper that wasn’t making it through the macerator for some reason. Easy to clear along with a small accumulation of hair and it was done. Good as new.
More coffee, and we have dolphins off the stern, visible but too far to photograph. Closely followed by few more whales. You couldn’t make this up!
After breakfast we took Tika across to the island again for another short walk up through the trees and birds and over into the caldera. The sulphurous stench was quiet something and perhaps was responsible for more of the smell we discovered on arrival than the birds.
As we continued we saw a couple of frigate chicks that had fallen from their nest. One had clearly got stuck on the way through the dense branches, and the second looked forlorn sat on the ground with no way to return. A sad reminder of the brutality of life at times.
Happier sights awaited us at the cliff tops of the northern side of the island. Blue-footed boobies were in full swing of breeding season. With parents on eggs and even very newborn chicks, whilst still lone males tried their hardest to make themselves look attractive.
We sat on the cliff tops for several minutes in silence, absorbed by sense of peace and the sights of the frigates soaring less than a meter past us at times, using the lift from the cliffs to glide ever higher with no effort. At times not moving, just floating above us in the brilliant blue sky.
We then decided it was time to go snorkelling and we headed back to the boat were Brady descended in to the depths of the lazarette to pull up and assortment of fins and masks.
Suitably adorned we took Tika over to the space between the two rock stacks near where we are moored.
As soon as I got in I was confronted by a large grey fish, then a whole school of them. The snorkelling was great, a smattering of different corals, and a wide variety of fish, small and large, colourful and silver shining. I wish I knew all the names.
Then we headed back for a deck shower and lunch. Dewey is on food duty today and made some delicious tacos, Fish for me - the red snapper acquired yesterday.
After a quick chill on deck we went on a spinnaker mission. Motoring upwind for 30min or so before turning downwind and successfully unfurling the glorious new top-down furling spinnaker.
After cruising along at a glorious 2.5-3knots, Brady called some other cruisers to see if they could come and film from the outside of the boat. So we refurled, a little chaotically as it was the first time, and headed in a direction that would give us the best run back into the anchorage. Turning back downwind we unfurled. Except we didn’t. There was a wrap in the upper two-thirds of the sail that couldn’t be unwound no matter what we tried. On reflection it looks like the luff collapsed as we furled and somehow has become trapped as we furled. We refurled and motored back to anchor where dropped the sail and repacked it. We’ll unwrap and re-wrap in the morning when there’s no wind.
Dewey is making dinner when I hear the call ‘dolphins!’. They’d returned to bookend the day. Lovely to see even for a brief while.
A great day filled with walks, snorkelling, boat work, spinnaker sailing, eating and drinking.