Sleepless with Skinny Flies, March 25 2011

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March, 25th, 2010
Location: 28 54.30N
114 27.44W
Surfing El Cordon
At anchor
Crew: Cyrus, Brett & Colby surfing, Jonny fishing, Brooke writing

Comments: After a fabulous downwind sail we find ourselves at El Cordon. This sand-dune and cliff sculpted bay is a stomping ground to 2 pods of spinner & bottle nose dolphins, fishing sea lions and a wrapping point break that on good days makes grown surfers weep. Yesterday, however, was not one of those days. Worth surfing, true, but not the glassy large peeling waves that we had last time. Long story short, after a sunset surf and three different anchorages, we could not find a location that was not uncomfortable and extremely rolly... so we woke this morning to move once again near the surf spot, red-eyed and a bit off kilter. I don't think anyone got much sleep. Of course the original anchorage was much nicer today with lighter winds and smaller seas. The tide is right, so the boys surf. (right when I typed the word "surf" I could hear them whooping and hollering ... must be a good set 😊 ) Due to the wind and surf reports, we have yet modified our plan again and will be sailing over night this evening to another surf spot and magical home to San Ignacio Bay where man and whale live together. We hope to catch the end of Gray Whale season and we hope to see good surf. What could be better?

On another note, the weird skinny Mexican flies are back. We actually spotted our first one about 15 seconds after crossing the border into Mexico. I just wonder, how they know. We did not see them in San Diego.. who patrols the border? Because we literally found them right when we were in Mexico, and for some reason (possibly due to the large numbers of nesting birds we smell.. and yes, that smell still makes me giddy) the skinny flies are here in force. Jonny has discovered them for the first time. First glaring at them then swatting at them. At once Cyrus and I yelled "NO!" as he squashed it on his arm. Then we told him the tale of the fly and warned him to be sure he was ok with getting fly guts on whatever he was swatting, so please do not swat flies on anything that creates work.. like canvas or clothing because they are so slow. It is difficult not to kill them. The slow freakishly skinny flies just want to eat.. they want to crawl on you and eat anything you bring out, so you must have patience to herd them away gently, like little dainty skinny cows.. unless you are ready for a carcass in your hands and are ready to clean whatever you battered the fly against... and then there are the looks the other flies give you when you remove a family member. They seem to stare right down their weird long nose at you like a scornful librarian. Or maybe that is my imagination, but I swear that is how they look at us. As if they know more than we do. Maybe they do. We are so tired at this point, I wouldn't be surprised. I am sure there is more brain activity going on there than with any of us.

After lunch we sail!

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