After an overnight in Bahia Aqua Verdi, we motored the twenty remaining miles into Puerto Esocndito the next morning, taking a less than wonderful anchorage in about 70 feet of water in "The Waiting Room", a smaller bay just outside the main harbor. There were 167 boats in inner harbor for the LoretoFest. This was our first time, we had no idea what to expect, except that our friends, Chris and Brad Garner aboard Debonair had told us that it was a good musical gathering. We were invited to a rehearsal before we even got anchored. This was with the Baja Bilge Band with whom we had played in La Paz last Fall. We were happy to find Don and Theresa aboard Tortuga, Susan and Jo aboard Wooden Shoe and several other La Paz and Mazatlan friends, most of them musicians.

We will always remember the warmth, camaraderie, enthusiasm, and love that surrounded these two weeks. There was music, friends, music, food, music, swimming and snorkeling, visiting, and last and most of all, wonderful musical times with friends. We had long rehearsals with the Baja Bilge Band in the afternoons in the dust under the palm trees. There was a concert or a jam session almost every night. There were potluck dinners and breakfasts, as well as three free meals put on by the Hidden Port Yacht Club, . . . yes, which we joined! There was a wonderful performance by the Loreto Folklorico Dancers. (We cruisers donated over $3,200 pesos to that group.) It was as if we had been to a summer music camp, we all hated for it to be over and say goodbye. We stayed around an extra week because we liked Puerto Escondito. The water was wonderful, both for swimming and drinking. Biagio on L'il Gem, a Hans Christian 43', tested the water from the hose bib on the stone wharf at Puerto Escondito, which comes from an artesian well, against that which his watermaker puts out. His watermaker produced water with about 500 ppm (parts per million) while the dock water had only 290 ppm! The only water Neil likes better than that from Puerto Escondito is from Nancy's mother's kitchen tap in Carson, Washington. Enough said, we really liked LoretoFest and Puerto Escondito. For the first time in the year since we have been retired and cruising, we feel like we have finally learned to relax and enjoy our new life. Neil has discovered the new joy of snorkeling and hunting for fish with his Hawaiaan sling speargun he purchased in Loreto. Brad from Debonair was his able, if casual, instructor.

As first time cruisers in the Baja Gulf, we find our boat is configured differently from the "norm". We do not carry a rubber boat with an outboard motor. We row everywhere in our hard dinghy. Less than 5% of cruisers have a hard dinghy, and fewer than that row them. More than 95% of Baja cruisers have a watermaker aboard, (percentage estimates are our own and are approximate.) If there is one thing we feel one does NOT need in Baja Mexico, it is a watermaker. There is potable water everywhere. There is no need to support some maritime bandit in the Pacific Northwest by giving him money for his mutual fund portfolio because he has convinced you that you are going to suffer if you do not have a watermaker! We get along fine without it. Probably about 95% of the cruisers down here have refrigeration. We would love to have refrigeration, but you need to remember that after spending the $2,000 or $3,000 for the unit, you must also spend at least $5,000 more to upgrade your battery banks, solar panels and/or wind generators, or rely on a larger engine charging unit to annoy you neighbors and recharge your batteries. We use ice. It lasts for about a week, often longer, then we run out and buy more. We buy it from little stores all over the Baja and mainland. Often it is delivered in large blocks to dockside for about one US$1.50. It would be nice to have refrigeration, but we get along nicely without it. Neither do we have electronic steering, so when we motor, we hand steer. We know only one other cruiser in the Baja Gulf without an electronic autopilot. This is yet another $2,000 expense you can get by without. If you are single-handing, think about an electronic autopilot. Otherwise, put the money into the biggest primary anchor you can buy. Steve Dashew writes that your anchor is the right size when everyone in the marina laughs at you because it is so large. The three items we hear most people asking about repair on the marine radio nets are watermakers, refrigeration, and outboard engine parts. But, really, who cares about all this rationalization and what's the point anyway?

After LoretoFest, we took a taxi ride into the tranquil little town of Loreto.

The overnight passage to San Carlos/Guaymas was exhilarating. It was a joyful, sometimes nervous, galloping leap across the Gulf of California. Active Light just soared! We left Punto Domingo around 6 PM on a Friday (!) afternoon. The weather had begun to get really hot for the past two weeks, the temperature cooled down to about 88 degrees Fahrenheit overnight and the seawater temperature had risen to a steady 85 degrees. The 76 nm trip began as a close reach in 12 knots of wind. As we got farther offshore, the wind picked up to 20 then 25 knots and wore round to the south for a great beam reach. We went into the evening hours with the full mainsail up and only the smaller staysail flying. Around midnight, the wind picked up to 30 knots, Active Light broad-reaching began to push 7.5 knots. We worried about reefing the main, but we were perplexed by a new problem in that it was so hot Neil did not want to don foulweather gear to go forward to reef. Neither did he want to get saltwater wet! So we left it up and happily the wind dropped back into the mid 20's around 2 AM. We perspired all night long, a pattern which was to become all too familiar during the month of June. We spent many long hours tearing along in excess of seven knots. It was a glorious, galloping, memorable sail. Dawn found us just outside San Carlos entrance with the wind failing and the seas calming. We motored in the last half mile.

After a week in San Carlos, Nancy's daughter, Shawna, and her friend, Joe, visited us for a eight days.

We sailed to San Pedro Bay, about 15 nm north of San Carlos, where we anchored for three days. We snorkeled, fished, hiked, talked, ate and had a great time. We hiked about two kilometers up and into a small valley to find a surprising little oasis at a deserted homestead, . . . complete with a potable spring. We experienced our first chubasco (Mexican summertime thermal squall) with winds to 40 knots one night around midnight. That added a little spice of experience to our guests' visit. Back in San Carlos we had more snorkeling day trips and sadly said goodbye to our guests. Then we began the week-long process of preparing Active Light for three months storage in the water at Marina San Carlos. For the curious, this costs about US$300. per month, plus we are paying a fellow, Hector Morales, US$50. per month to wash our boat a couple of times per week. Lordy, was it hot, often to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, never cooler than 88 degrees at night, . . . and so humid!

The flight home was terrible. Delays with the aircraft during the Mexico portion of the trip put us into Portland after midnight. We are now safely ensconced in the arms of Nancy's mother, Betty. Our strongest impressions of returning to the US are, in order; first, how cool and beautifully green everything is and secondly, how expensive everything is. We made it home in time for the annual Brader/Acker Fourth of July picnic.

We will be here until mid-September, thus there will be a pause in these website letters until around October. Our plans then are to finish up the boat preparations in La Paz and Mazatlan this Fall and leave from Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta for the Marquesas Islands in the deep South Pacific around the first of March. All this so far has been but a warm-up.

Nancy and Neil
S/V Active Light
On the beach in Carson, Washington