Southward to Isla Isabel

December 17, 2024 

From Mazatlan we did another overnight passage, this time to Isla Isabel.  We had two whales surface close behind our boat in the evening and then we had dolphins come around our boat overnight. 

At around 16:00 on our departure day we caught a fish, then just at sunset both of our lines went off together, a double header. 

Since we were sailing we were not able to slow the boat down much, which made the fight to reel a fish in a lot harder and longer.  By the time we got them both on board, cleaned, bagged, and into the freezer it was well after dark and straight to bed for tired Falcon.   

While underway we have limited resources for fish identification and from the chart that we have we thought that the three fish were Big Eye Tuna.  We were very excited, as they would have been our first Tuna.  We enjoyed some of the fish fresh for sashimi, and froze the rest, but unfortunately it wasn’t until we went to eat some of the frozen fish that we discovered that they were not Tuna at all.  They were Pacific Crevalle Jack, which are known for not being a good eating fish.  Not only were we disappointed, but it was also too bad that we kept all three fish instead of releasing them.   

We ended up having decent wind for sailing and made better time than we had expected, so we had to slow down in the early hours of the morning of our second day so that we did not arrive before daylight.  Isla Isabel is well known for being hard to find sand to anchor in so we wanted to be sure to have the sunlight for spotting the sand in the clear water.  As the sun came up and we neared the anchorage we had whales all around us. 

Some surfaced close off of our starboard side, we saw others coming up all together a little further off, we saw whales breaching, and more whale blows in the distance.  As we came around the eastern side of the island, and rounded the two large rock pinnacles, referred to as Las Monas in Spanish, which means mannequins, we found only one boat in the eastern anchorage where we wanted to anchor.   

As we motored in we talked to the people onboard about the placement of their anchor and they directed us to the patch of sand.  We found sand and dropped our hook, but by time it set we were closer to the line of breakers off shore than we wanted to be so we pulled up our anchor and motored further ahead.  Then we found a really good patch of sand, and I could see it clearly through the crystal-clear, 20 feet of water.  As we lowered our anchor I saw four large spotted rays swimming below.  This time we hooked up fast to the sand, and were well positioned. Once the engine was off we looked around to take in our surroundings. 

The island was green with trees, grass, and shrubs, swells crashed on shore, whales surfaced, blew, tail slapped, and breached around the shoreline, and above the island was a soaring swarm of magnificent frigate birds that made the sky look dotted with flying black shapes.  There were an incredible number of birds in the sky, and when we looked closely at the trees we saw that they also appeared to be full of birds.  What an incredible place, it looked very prehistoric and almost made us feel like we had sailed into Jurassic Park.