Sunday, March 20, 2011

An altogether brilliant day with one exception


     Marina Puerto Los Cabos had everything the wealthy could wish for. The promenade around the marina hosted an art show with sculptures and paintings by Leonora Carrington. The endless showers were hot, the café overlooking the marina a lovely place to spend time, but we sailed away anyway, choosing wilder places. I posted pictures of birds around the marina, feeling a little smug that we had stayed for four nights without being used as an overnight perch. Unfortunately on the fifth night, after we all went to bed, a flock of cormorants took up residence, most likely choosing Si Bon simply because she had not already been fouled (fowled?). They plastered Peter’s laundry hanging on the lifelines as well as the boat in the next slip. The foredeck looked like Jackson Pollack on a bender cut loose with a can of white paint and fish guts. I steeled myself for a morning with the hose and a scrub brush and tried not to inhale through my nose but it didn’t work. Just to say, I lost my appetite, which never happens, and the smell made my eyes tear up. Peter about wretched when he smelled his clothes. Cute little Cormorants do something to fish that is just unholy.
      The birds slowed us down a little, but we left as planned and motored toward Bahia Los Frailes on a calm sea. I was below when Peter hollered “Whale!” For the next four hours Humpback whales took to the air. Whole bodies, giant splashes, tails, babies and so often I couldn’t spin my head fast enough to see them all. I failed with the camera again. Unless whales decide to announce when they are going to jump I will never be able to focus on them. The last few hours as we rounded the tip of Baja and turned into the Sea Cortez we found wind and its attendant waves, bucking into the headwind until we reached the calm wind shadow behind the mountain we are anchored near.  
     Manta rays also leapt out of the water, with the added amusement of a backflip now and then. They belly flop like it should hurt. On the bow, ready to drop the anchor two jumped in front of the boat and several swam by flapping their wing tips above the surface. Their appearance in the anchorage was like receiving a letter of good news from a long lost friend.
     The sun set behind the dark silhouettes of jagged mountains surrounding the bay and the sky showed off with the colors of light, so brightly it was as if the entire spectrum from ultra violet to infrared were not nearly enough. Out to sea the full moon showed vermillion on the horizon, rising just as the sun disappeared. Their long arms of brilliant reflections touching for an instant at the gently rocking boat half way between them. For the second time in a day my eyes misted over, this time from pure gratitude over a rare moment of cosmic splendor, rather than what the Cormorants left behind.  
          
      

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