Ophelia Offshore

Once the Northerly passed, and now that I was over my cold, we were finally free to start exploring and enjoying the Sea of Cortez. The Sea knew we needed a strong start to this next chapter, and delivered. We threw a line in the water with a medium black and white spoon on it and caught a 10lb tuna on our first sail South. Jesse reeled the fish in, I gaffed it, and it was brained and bled in under 60 seconds. We felt pretty sufficient in our skillset for our first fish of the sea. After the bloodbath of the Pacific ocean tuna (where we got blood on every line, every strip of teak, every piece of stainless hardware) we made an attempt to keep things more contained, and it worked. The key was getting the fish into a big wash bucket and keeping it at the back of the cockpit. We filled the fridge and freezer with tuna, and ate a dinner of ginger-garlic breaded Skipjack over teriyaki rice. One of the best meals we’ve had on the boat so far.

We were riding high on our fishing and fish mongering success of the afternoon when we pulled into our next anchorage – a fair-weather anchorage off the side off of tiny Isla San Cosme. We dropped the anchor with me at the bow and as we backed up on it to set it I heard an “Oh SHIT” from the cockpit. We’d made such a kook mistake – Catching your dingy tow line in the prop. Jesse threw on his dive mask and had us unwound in three dives. Since he knew exactly what had happened when it happened and had turned the throttle off immediately, no damage was done. Except to our pride and our dingy tow line, which was chopped into three smaller dingy tow lines. The tow line had been too long, and we had been talking about shortening it for ages, so in the end we actually came out ahead after this error. Very lucky indeed.

The motor to Isla Cosme was glassy and relaxing – the scenery continued to impress with it’s jagged mountains and rocky cliffs. A sense of wanderlust still impacts me when we see far off shores, even though we’re already out on the exploration of a lifetime. There is always more to see, more to explore, distant places you’ll never set foot.

The next day treated us to a hot spring surrounded by red rock cliffs and a gorgeous reef surrounding the spit the hot spring was in. We snorkeled in our swim suites, and then warmed up in the hot spring, on repeat for a few hours with a few Modelos thrown in. A perfect day on the water.