Espiritu Santo

After saying goodbye to our friends at Marina Palmira, we left La Paz on our way to Mazatlan with a stop at Espiritu Santo in between. Espiritu Santo is about seven miles long and features a series of promontories on her western coast that stick out into the sea like fingers. Between each pair there is a narrow crescent bay with a sliver of white sand beach. We found the bay our chart book listed as the best anchorage and dropped anchor among a handful of other boats.

We took the dinghy ashore, crossing 300 yards of crystal clear water and watching puffer fish scurry out away from the boat. After a short walk around the shore we met some wonderful people on the beach from the other boats near us: Camelot, Red Sky, Perfect Wave and Phambili. We would get to know them better during “Progressive Cocktails and Appetizers” when everyone hopped in their dinghies with their beverages of choice and motored to someone’s boat for snacks, then moved onto the next boat for more snacks and more drinks. It was a lot of fun and we met some really interesting people.

The next day Luke and John went for a hike to the top of the island while I explored the shore. The views from the top were amazing, as you can see from these pictures.

A few hours later they came back and told me about the incredible cave formations they found and the sweet strawberry-kiwi taste of cactus fruit.

In the time they were gone the tide had receded dramatically, so that we had to carry the dinghy for a hundred yards through a few inches of water before we could get in it and return to El Tiburon.

Snorkeling later that afternoon revealed the water was full of thousands colorful fish and an abundance of rays. Espiritu Santo was truly a magical place.