Up early Jack and I dropped the dinghy and headed off fishing. Just as it is supposed to be, it wasn’t long before Jack had his first fish. It was a small cabrilla that we slipped back into the water, a good start. We worked around a point and caught a bigger, but still small, triggerfish. We kept it just in case we had bad luck. Continuing along the shore line we hooked up a nice size trigger, followed by another, followed by another. Well you get the point. In the end we had plenty of trigger fish and returned a few others back to the sea.
Three other boats moved to Refugio yesterday too. They were anxious to get hauled out and after a night here planned a 3:00pm departure for Puerto Penasco. Our friend Scott, who is single-handing, asked for a ride over to SV Salish Dragon. Since it is a pain to drop his dinghy I gave him a lift so he could work out a plan to buddy boat with them and SV Sedna. As a bonus Tracy gave us some unneeded food, so we will continue to be eating well.
Back aboard I grabbed everyone and we loaded the dinghy with our snorkeling gear. Off we went to snorkel the shore of a small island. Visibility was okay, not great. Water temperature, even with a wetsuit, was too cold for me. But there were good fish to see including some large cabrillas, hogfish, and triggerfish. The temperature kicked our ass and 25 minutes later we were all ready for hot tea and warm clothes.
In the late afternoon we dinghied over to yet another island (see a trend here?) where I was startled by two dogs (which at first glance I thought were coyotes). I made a fool of myself yelling at them just before their owners came around the hill. Oops. We had a nice visit with Ted and CJ from Phoenix/Cholla bay. They make multiple trips to Refugio in their 27 foot fishing boat from Punta Lobos to camp on the beach. Normally there is a group but this year schedules didn’t align so it is just the two of them.
Our legs were itching for exercise so we said goodbye offering to give them a tour of Strikhedonia. First stop was to the top of a hill to check out a fisherman’s shrine. Quite elaborate compared to others I have seen. Then we began scaling a taller hill with a knife edge ridgeline. Part way up we stopped to watch a panga with fisherman who were attempting to chase yellowtail into the nets, which they would wrap around the school of fish. Watching them was interesting and good entertainment for a bit before we continued up to the peak. Once there we could still see the fisherman who didn’t seem to have much luck – but maybe we were too high to see the fish. We had a great view of our path through the islands to the anchorage and of the Baja. Jack started a game to see if a rock could be thrown off the hill and into the ocean a few hundred feet out. I failed, where he could consistently make a splash in the water – impressive.
Back on the dinghy we checked out some caves before drifting over a narrow pass between a small island and Isla Guarde. It was actually very cool, as the current was running fast between the pass and we had to weave our way around rocks (earlier during our snorkel these rocks had been exposed) while not damaging the propeller. Thankfully with Shalise and Jack pointing the way we succeeded and had some fun.
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