Well, the last I heard ________ Samuel Martin and his mom are at home doing just fine. I spoke to Trish again on Thursday and she sounded like things were going well. The Samuel would be after his Great Grandpa Sam, so Trish said it was fitting that she had been re-potting her tomatoes when he decided to come into the world. Our niece, Laura Shanks was in Calgary for spring break from her teaching job and had offered to give Trish and Graeme a hand, so she was in Invermere and Trish sounded very pleased to have her help. What a kind, considerate thing for Laura to do. Hopefully things are still going along fine. Apparently my brother has some baby pics and offered to post some so you will all get to see this little gaffer before I do.
We are at Isla San Francisco, about 15 miles north of Partida Island. The island is about 7 miles east of the east coast of the Baja Pennisula. There is a beautiful long sandy beach, backed by mountainous red shale hills. We walked across the sand spit, where we saw salt ponds, then scrambled up a hill and got a great view of the anchorage. I swam back to the boat from shore, about 300 meters, the water is definitely getting colder as we head further north.
We had a great sail up here today, the winds were out of the north about 15-20 knots so we just flew along, upwind, the waves were not large so did not slow us down. The wind vane behaved and left us little to do except admire the scenery. Barry says the mountains around here remind him of Drumheller, the coloured striations are quite striking. Mungo is traveling with us once again and it is great to have their company. We spent 3 days in Partida Cove, then moved north a couple of coves yesterday.
It was Steven's 55 birthday and we took Freedom 55 pictures and went on a great hike once we had got to our new anchorage. We sailed between the 2 anchorages and Mungo motored, so Mungo was the chase boat and were going from one side of us to the other taking pictures. Steve got some great shots of us under sail, I can't wait to share them with you. The hike we took involved climbing up a dry gulch that was infested with all sorts of boulders. It was a good scramble but we called it quits before we saw the other side of the island. We retired to Mungo and indulged in red wine, steaks, potatoes, salad and chocolate birthday cake with candles. I figure that should be a very memorable birthday.
Right now Barry's head is stuck in the water maker, it decided to give us grief and started making very weird noises, I don't want to ask to many questions at this point so please keep your fingers crossed that Barry can get it working again. We are pretty short on water and didn't think anything of it because we have a water maker!! We may get a lot dirtier and a lot thirstier in the next month if he can't fix the problem. Fortunately just talked to one our buddies on another boat on the ham radio and the spot he is in, just 10 miles up the coast has a water purification plant right on the beach. NEWS FLASH, all of you crossing your fingers must have worked because the water maker is humming away producing water again, WHEW!!