We were told that Pristine’s original owner named her after the quest for pristine waters. If so, consider her aims achieved. Colin, Pristine, and I had this bay—and many others like her—all to ourselves recently.
The weather in the Sea of Cortez has been beautiful of late, with warm water and cloudless skies — if a bit on the warm side. We spent time in Puerto Escondido, Isla Carmen and Loreto, had some idyllic days in deserted anchorages along the coast, and more recently visited Bahía Concepción and Mulegé.
Of course it’s not all mangoes and margaritas down here, we’ve been on the move a lot to get out of the hurricane zone as the season approaches, had an iPad tech meltdown that was extra frustrating to solve over glacial Wi-Fi, lugged a half-dozen water cooler jugs from beach to dinghy and dinghy to deck to keep our fresh water tanks full, got invaded by hundreds of honey bees, spent countless hours cleaning the hull and polishing the stainless, and passed three exhausting days stocking up on provisions for a summer with increasingly limited grocery access.
But that’s all part of how we earn the glory moments.
Meanwhile, so much about this lifestyle is feeling happily routine. While we’ll always have tons to learn, it’s also fun to look back on our progress — especially the things that used to cause us anxiety and no longer do.
We’re three times faster at getting the boat prepared for departure, better at patiently choosing weather windows so we do far more sailing than motoring, practiced at figuring out how to get supplies every time in a different place, and choosing cozy anchor spots. As the weather’s warmed, we’ve learned to unzip our dodger’s windshield for air flow, cover the eisenglass side panels for shade, and to hang the hose from the lifelines so the melting rubber won’t leave marks on the deck (yep, it gets that hot down here).
So we’ll keep watching the weather, and doing our best to stay cool, but for now, all is well. :)
Fair winds and following seas, dear friends.
We’re not the first people to explore these shores, but man, it'd be easy to sustain that fantasy.
We pulled the dinghy up over the beach to play Lewis & Clark in the mangroves
Boat chores never end but they do get much more Zen in warm, clear water
Dolphins off the bow
Needlefish off the stern
