After one night anchored in Abreojos, we continued south towards Bahia Santa Maria on the morning of December 17th. We considered staying to take a tour of Laguna San Ignacio, a protected whale refuge that’s off limits to non officials vessels. During the whale season in winter, you can take a guided panga trip into the lagoon to observe the whales. But Christmas was soon approaching and we wanted to get somewhere to stay and relax for a while.

We dropped anchor in Bahia Santa Maria on December 18th at 4pm. We had a rough ride overnight in very bumpy seas. In the morning, I started to feel a little queasy. My scopalamine patch had been on for three nights, so it’s seasick fighting effectiveness was starting to wear off. I was in the bathroom digging around in the closet looking for dramamine when a big roller hit. Because I wasn’t holding on I flew backwards over six feet and slammed into the oven in the galley. I didn’t notice the damage until later (since I got so frustrated with the motion of the boat and jumped right into bed), but my collision with the stove cracked the wooden handle! I never checked, but I’m sure I had a nasty bruise on my back.

While digging around in the head closet looking for my dramamine after my injury and outburst, Nate noticed a slimy, sticky mess. A bottle of shampoo had tipped over and the lid loosened due to the motion of the boat and rattle of the engine. The liquid leaked through three levels of shelving. Once we were anchored, we spent our afternoon cleaning up that mess. Seems like there’s always something stupid that happens on passage.

The clean-up wasn’t what kept us from heading to shore though. It was another high surf beach, so we were stuck onboard for the evening. We thought Sully would get antsy being stuck on the boat, but he is such a little home body. He’s perfectly content watching movies and playing with his toys. And eating cereal 🙂

Next stop, Cabo San Lucas!