We are in our happy place or Ensenada Grande

We hustled out of La Paz after realizing that the internet was down and had no eta for being brought back to life. We set out to the islands not sure exactly where we would call it in. It was an overcast day, which was nice for a while, but the sun craving in me wasn't satisfied. The wind was pretty much non-existant so we motored on. David made some phone calls as La Paz faded into the distance and managed to smack his foot wound on the auto pilot. Ouch. We thought we saw Sea Siren just outside Caleta Partida, but after a closer inspection we found it to be a New Zealand boat instead. We motored on and decided to set the hook in Ensenada Grande. There was already a crowd of sailboats most of which were Ha-Ha boats. The sunset painted the clouds reds, oranges and pinks making it one of the best yet. We played the night away drawing, watching Planet Earth and some No Reservations during a fettucinni alfredo dinner. We talked about going ashore before sun up for a jog (haha) and maybe a look around the beach.

We did wake up before the sun was on the bay and got to the beach before coffee and breakfast. There was a little lagoon that had a couple egrets dancing around trying to catch the quick little fish. The lagoon is surrounded by mangroves and I have learned where there are mangroves there are birds! We hiked on a trail for a ways back before coming across a cactus that I thought was the coolest thing. It was about four feet high and the spikes on the top were red with white tips. Lower on the cactus the spikes were yellow and black. I thought it was pretty cool, but I am a nerd. We turned back since the terrain started to get a little too much for David in flip flops with a bum foot. Back on the beach with enough poking and proding mixed with taunting, David got me to do my jog by running with me. After a morning workout we went back to the boat to wake up proper with coffee and food.

Around noon I blew up the kayaks and we took a paddle to the same beach we had been to earlier. I wanted, no...I NEEDED a picture of the cool cactus and whatever else decided to show up. As we walked along we were startled to see a furry little thing dart away from us and it was a chimpunk! Too damn cute. We didn't know they inhabited the islands out here. We found three different types of lizards, bright blue and yellow morning glories, more chipmunks, a couple little chirpy warbler sized birds and tons of dragonflies. I stood still hoping the birds would get closer and it worked. I took a few pictures and we were able to identify them. The one with a gray body, yellow hood and red spot on it's shoulder is a Verdin. The other little gray one is a Blue-gray gnatcatcher. I like to know that kinda poop and maybe you do too.

After the hike we paddled back to the boat to escape the sun. Unfortunately our shade has the magical ability to do very little shading. Once again David's genius was showing...he found a small and old spinnaker and rigged it so it shaded us. Imagine a boat with a spinnaker up...now, Imagine that boat flying its spinnaker from the stern and thats what it looked like. We found our anchor was set firm and it worked for shade and bringing lots of wind to the cockpit. Of course the wind did pick up and it got a bit gusty so David dropped the chute and "suffered" through the heat of the persistant sun.

The rest of today has been pretty lazy really. We are preparing for dinner and on tonights menu: cheeseburgers with salad. The cat cries for food, my love tends to his nasty, scaly, no-longer-covered-by-a-blister scabby foot and I do the pre-blogging fun. We both have picked up books, but havent gotten too far yet as the scenery is distractingly beautiful. Ah, the pains of island life.