Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida

Tags: Baja, El Mezteño, Ensenada Grande, Ensenada del Candelero, Isla Partida, Mexico, sailing

Date: March 20, 2024

On the coast of Isla Partida, we anchored in a bay called Ensenada Grande. One morning a sea lion came by the boat and swam around it:

It turned out it was playing with a shrimp (the white thing hanging from its mouth):

It would let go of the shrimp and it, still being alive, would try to escape...:

...only to get caught again by the sea lion:

The sea lion did this over and over again, much like a cat playing with a mouse.

We went for a hike in an arroyo on Isla Partida. It is not as steep as the previous one we hiked but goes all the way across to the eastern side of the island, where there was an amazing view from up high on the steep cliffs over the Sea of Cortez. Looking towards the north. The hazy island in the background is Isla San Francisco (note Felicie sitting on a rock):

Looking south:

View of Ensenada Grande on the way back:

The arroyo is full of large and small rocks so we had walk carefully:

Wasps swarming around a pool of water:

A little tree sending its roots deep down into the bed of the arroyo:

Our friend Lea came for a visit and here she is with Félicie on the beach of El Mezteño having a sundowner:

From El Mezteño we sailed south to the next bay, called Ensenada del Candelero. Here we anchored next to an islet in the middle of the bay:

There is very little rainfall in Baja, especially during the winter, so many animals (like the floating wasps we saw earlier) are quite focused on finding drinking water. The bees, especially, seek out fresh water even some distance from the shore. If we had been rinsing salt water off after a snorkeling trip using the fresh water shower in the cockpit, bees would show up within minutes to drink from the water puddles or as here, to drink the standing water in the shower head:

We've also had them drinking from wet clothes hanging to dry after having been laundered. Once we had a bee sitting on the spout of the kitchen faucet, drinking directly from a water drop hanging on the faucet.

Fortunately, the bees are not aggressive at all and will disappear once the water is gone or the puddles have dried or as soon at we hoist anchor and get far enough from shore. Also, they don't stay out at night, so tend to fly away around sunset.

Here we are on our way back to La Paz and are looking back towards Isla Espiritu Santo: