Yesterday we had a short bash up to Evaristo, which was slightly less crowded than during the peak of the Norther. Still, Julia and I realized we just don't like crowded anchorages. The problem now is that we are completely in sync with seemingly every other cruising boat making the trip into the Sea of Cortez. So, the well known all-weather anchorages are also the crowded anchorages. We need to get back out to some of the more remote island anchorages, but it's always a bit of a leap of faith to go off the beaten path.

Early morning today, and we were underway before the sun rose. We wanted to make a big push ~45 miles North to Agua Verde, which is well protected for the next day or so of Southerly winds. As the day broke the breeze filled in from the SE, and we flew down wind with the full main and jib poled out wing-on-wing. It was great sailing all day, we had light winds and got to fly the spinnaker, and heavier winds where we hit 6.7kts with a reef in the main (pretty good for a house!). And just to add a little more excitement to the day we caught two bonito, one large and one small (we ended up throwing them both back, as we are not huge bonito fans).

We're now tucked up at Agua Verde, seemingly along with every other boat that was at Evaristo last night (some of you guys motored all the way here! You know who you are, shame on you!). Depending on tomorrow's weather and forecast we will probably leave tomorrow mid-day, make a slightly shorter push up to Isla Carmen, where we plan on waiting out the next Norther which should arrive Thursday. In case you're wondering, apparently it's not normal for so many Northers to come in a row, but currently the Pacific high is sitting much further South than normal, allowing low pressure systems to drop down over the Southwestern US, which in turns causes us to get a bunch of wind. Or something like that, don't quote me on it.

Lat 25 31' N, Long 111 04' W