We are finally on the water, as per schedule – which feels absolutely amazing. I have my fingers crossed that this will be a GREAT day… looking forward to spending a whole day at Muertos tomorrow, hopefully with Kim and Cam on Sea Level II. They are heading north from San Jose del Cabo – figured we can meet in the middle and have a day together!
Yesterday was an absolutely lovely day. We shared an adventure with Ken and Christie off of Varnebank – Ken drove and Christie navigated, and we ended up at this very exclusive off the beaten path resort, where the rich and famous played in the 50s and 60s. Even Desi Arnez had a house there (complete with guitar shaped pool)! Someone had told Christie about it while she was on the plane back to La Paz, and after a bit of investigating our intrepid navigator figured out how to get us there. Unfortunately the Navibitch ( gps) took us on a very rudimentary dirt road for half of the trip… through the local garbage dump. When we bumped our way off the road onto a perfectly good paved road we had to question the reliability of GPS.. or maybe the Navibitch has a wicked sense of humour? anyway, after passing through a couple of security gates … ( “are you Brian???” “ Si, me llamo Brian”…”OK, you can go in”… we came up with a very believable and probably partially true story ( looking for a place to host a big wedding)…
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And wow. It is absolutely stunning. A thousand acres of what used to be a huge ranch, bought up by a family in the 40’s… and turned it into a very exclusive housing resort project. Rancho La Cruce – there are three crosses on the hill that were originally put there by Cortez himself… in the 1500’s… the ones there now are replicas but none the less, pretty impressive!
The resort is beautiful. They let us wander around, offered us a drink and some lunch ( at a cost of course! ) and it was quite possibly the best g and t I have had for a long time, and the very best lunch I have had… the grounds are a very old very beautiful botanical wonder – and all the houses and cabanas are beautifully kept.
And…. Ken ran into a nice man who owns the helicopter that was parked on the pad ( and the fixed wing parked next to the runway) …. who just happened to be…. BRIAN!!! he thought it was hilarious that we got through the gates pretending to be him. While we ate our fabulous lunch we watched him take off in his helicopter… wow…
After that, a short talk to the manager about how do you actually book into this place …. and then we went home. It was a much shorter trip, as this time we didn’t listen to the navibitch and go off roading. We still had our little picnic with us, so we settled ourselves by the pool at Costa Baja for a swim and a snack… which we weren’t allowed to eat as even though they close their food service at 5, you can’t bring your own. Ah well… and as we sat there, enjoying the water and the view… the helicopter carrying Brian flew over us and landed .. guess he had gone for a little tour of the islands on his way home!!!
Last night was an early night for all of us, we had no need of dinner – and I was tired after all that wandering around pretending I belonged in an exclusive resort…
and now we are underway, the sun is shining, and it is glorious out here. We just passed what we believe to be Rancho Cruce, with the three crosses on the hill and the beautiful casas nestled in the trees.. really have to look hard to see it from this far out… rumour has it famous people still go there to get away from everything, so I supposed being hard to find by land or by sea is a bonus~!
it’s sunny, light breeze, low easy swell, all in all very comfortable.
Hard to not put a line in the water but our freezers are full, in preparation for the trip north – so no room for a big tuna or marlin or anything, for that matter. Hopefully at some point it will make sense to try.
We will probably get into Muertos around 1900- I am looking forward to a day there, just hanging out. And then an early morning departure on the 3rd, down to San Jose del Cabo, which will probably be a pretty long day. Hopefully we will have similar conditions: if memory serves, going from SJDC to Muertos when we were doing the Cubar was not a very fun run.
But this is boating. Weather happens!
2000: we have anchored, jumped in the water and watched the sun set… the water is warmer than the pools back at Costa Baja… took some lovely sunset pictures of Northern Ranger… such a pretty, pretty boat!!!! now we are sitting on the back deck, dinner is cooking, fish are jumping around us…. or maybe the rays? it is quiet, only two other boats in the anchorage. I am looking forward to a day here with the Kemps tomorrow!!!! rumour has it they have a pitcher of margaritas waiting for us!!! Mucho Gusto!!!