Anchorages Uno y Dos!

The push to compete our projects was to get Jade, and ourselves, ready to set out from the marina and experience our first overnight at anchor. We set our sights on San Pedro, 15 miles north of San Carlos. We chose this anchorage as we had heard it to be lovely from plenty of experienced sailors. As we exited the marina the winds were coming from the north which means we were beating into the wind and we knew the 15 miles would become a lot more due to the need to tack to our destination. We were so excited to be on our way to the infamous Bahia San Pedro! After several hours of tacking we realized we would not make our destination before dusk and did not want to anchor at the end of daylight therefore we decided to anchor at Bahia Algodones, a mere five miles from San Carlos. That five miles took us three hours!

There is a very fun beachside bar called Soggy Peso located at this bay, however we were too nervous to leave Jade to go ashore. Instead we enjoyed a lovely sunset aboard Jade.

Since this was our first overnight anchorage we were hypervigiant about making sure our anchor was set and that we were not dragging about. What does this mean? It means we got very little sleep as we were up all hours checking our position. Plus all the noises when you are 'on the hook' are very different from being securely tied to the dock. 

We are happy to announce we stayed securely anchored throughout the night. With our first successful overnight anchoring we set sail for Bahia San Pedro once again. The wind was just about nonexistent so we turned on our motor and used our tiller autopilot for the first time. This is an incredible invention! It's a mechanical device that attaches to the tiller and once you set the course and it steers the boat for you! 

We saw a few huge fishing vessels.

You can tell which are the active fishing vessels as there are always a trail of birds following looking for a snack as seen in the pic below.

After motoring for three hours we arrived at Bahia San Pedro and celebrated with a cocktail! The orange vodka was a gift from our buddies on S/V Sababa (we miss you much) and thought it best to christen our second overnight anchoring with their gift. We also toasted our dear friend, Jena, as San Pedro is one of her favorite spots in this area and we had finally made it! 

I took advantage of a cockpit solar shower. 

Bahia San Pedro is incredibly beautiful. The surrounding mountain ranges took our breath away with the ever changing hues that appeared as the sun began to set.

The night's sky exploded with stars above Bahia San Pedro. As we sat enjoying a glass of wine under the stars we looked into the water to be astonished by the bioluminescents. All around Jade were bright neon green orbs. The brilliance above us was equally matched by the stunning beauty of what the water held as we gently rocked back and forth.

We managed to sleep a bit better this time and woke to a still morning. We also woke to an abundance of gnats inside our cabin. Being the novice sailors that we are we did not tie up our garbage bag inside which proved to be the party pad for gnats. We will never do that again as we spent the better part of the day killing forty to fifty gnats! We had hoped to catch a good wind to bring us back to the marina. Unfortanelty there was absolutely no wind. The motor sail back was very warm which made for a bit of a queasy ride and of course the gnats stayed with us to raise our irritability factor! 

Poncha found some relief on the bowsprit while I was at the tiller.

  

Poncha brought Jade into her slip with skill and grace. This is no easy task and Poncha has made tremendous progress getting our ten ton girl back in after our sails. We were happy to make it back to our slip and were greeted by several boat neighbors who all congratulated us on our first ever overnights away. I must say we were feeling pretty damn good about our success!