We hoped for wind. We did. And that’s what we got. 30+ knots of it. Not suspecting the conditions ahead of us we raised full sails while leaving Bahia Herradura. The wind was soon in the the 20s so we reefed both the main and the head sail. As the wind steadily grew we eventually were down to three reefs in the head sail and two in the main. Due to the mountains around us the apparent wind would change from off the beam to close hauled and back again several times necessitating constant watching and trimming of the sails. We had to explain to Ella that sailing was usually a lot more relaxed than this.
We arrived in Bahia Ballena without having had to turn the genset on for the entire trip which is always nice. We anchored up close to a small fishing village where the holding is good. After lunch it was down to doing not a lot for a while as the heat was quite oppressive.
Around 3:30 we went for a walkabout. This involved a beach landing in which noone got seriously wet. As it was close to low tide we had a lot of beach to drag the dinghy up so we could chain it to a tree. Ashore the small town of Tambor was quite pleasant. A few shops and restaurants in a sleepy atmosphere. Walking along the main road we heard howler monkeys and were soon treated to the sight of five in a nearby tree.
I was able to find the times of busses to Montezuma at a nearby hotel. They didn’t know the return times so we’ll have to figure that out when we’re there today.
On the way back we sat down at a beach bar for a few beers. At the end we were joined by a local bloke who probably wanted to scrounge a beer but we didn’t encourage him.
As indicated earlier, today we’re bussing it to Montezuma which should be interesting.
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