Jay left off with our adventures up in Copper Canyon so I will pick up from there. We returned to Mazatlan and were tallying up our budget for our Copper Canyon trip. We decided we needed to get outta Dodge (or Ford, as I like to say) as we were way over budget and cities tend to have a way of sucking the money out of your pocket.

Our first destination was Isla Isabela, a small island about 45 miles offshore and about 85 miles distant from Mazatlan. We sailed off anchor out of Mazatlan Harbor and had a nice sail more than half the way down to Isabela before the wind died about 0130 in the morning. We arrived in the late morning having hooked a dorado aka mahi mahi aka dolphin (yum yum) upon arriving at the island and found our friends Sandy & Melissa of Onrust there. The anchorage is on the East side, is fairly open and there was a bit of a chop in the anchorage so Jay built us a flopper stopper made from a plastic milk crate, an old binder, some rope, and some chain for weight. It works wonders in stopping the boat from rolling, which Kestrel has a tendency to do and we use it all the time now. It makes sleeping much better too as we're not rolling from one side of the v-berth to the other.

Isla Isabela is a bird lover's dream come true. It is an isolated island with only fishermen (pescaderos) and university students who study the birds on the island, plus the periodic cruiser who comes through. It is a breeding ground for Frigates, Boobies, Gulls, Pelicans, and a new bird to us, the Tropicbird, which is white with a very long central tail feather. We both wished we had Ken from Zephyrus with us as he is a marine biologist and would certainly enlighten us with many of the nuances of these birds. We also know Jay's mom would be in heaven watching the birds here -- we took pictures Mom!

It was fascinating to watch the birds in their natural environment. The Frigates and Boobies were not particularly spooky and would not fly off when you approached. The Frigates were nesting in the scrubby trees all over the island. There were baby frigates, fuzzy little white things, of all sizes in the nests throughout the island. Often other Frigates would fly overhead the nesting mothers and the mothers would pop their beaks at the menacing birds above. We speculated later that if the mother left the nest where she was incubating an egg, the other frigates would eat the eggs as we saw this nearly happen. Luckily mama made it back before destruction happened to her egg. There were also many frigates with a vivid red inflated pouch under their beaks which we figured had to do with mating rituals or else a means of making themselves appear threatening to their harassing brethren above.

The Boobies were another treat to observe. The Boobies, both Brown Boobies and the Blue Footed Boobies, nest in the scrubby grass near the shoreside and up on the hilltops. They don't have proper nests like the Frigates and appear to nest right on the ground and in the grass. The Boobies are actually much more fun to watch in their mating rituals than the Frigates. They strut with their heads high, take high methodical steps where they waddle a bit like a penguin, while cocking their tail feathers straight up into the air. Often times if there are two near each other they gracefully dip and raise their heads together. Once in awhile one will bow its head down and stretch its neck out while arching its back spreading its wings out just about vertically, then make a low throaty purring sound. I spent one morning on the beach watching the Blue Footed Boobies performing their mating rituals.

We observed an odd relationship between the Booby and the Frigate. When in flight the Frigate would sometimes chase the Booby, pecking at him and even grasping him in his beak and knocking the Booby out of flight. The Frigates were quite vicious about this chase. The Booby's escape was often to dive into the water, as the Frigates rarely land in the water. Jay had heard that the Boobies will often "throw up" to divert the Frigate and this is what the Frigate is after -- a free meal. We also saw the Frigates chase the Tropicbirds in the same manner.

From Isabela we sailed the whole way to San Blas where we anchored under sail in Matanchen Bay. We stayed for a couple days and we ran into Le Zarder of Scappoose. We tried to talk them into going to Chacala for Christmas but they were headed for Puerto Vallarta. On Christmas Eve we worked our way down to Chacala. We left on a Friday -- a sailing taboo and not a particularly good thing as we lost our bowlight because of a spinnaker collapse, we lost our big stainless steel bowl overboard, the sailing was frustrating because of a beam sea, and I overcooked the Christmas brownies! But on the bright side we caught a Sierra -- (our fishing is improving on the mainland after not catching anything on the line the whole time in the Sea).

Chacala is a really neat and very tropical looking little village. There are lots of palms, coconut trees, and banana trees along a nice crescent shaped beach with low (relatively) surf. There are a string of palapa restaurants at one end of the beach and the governor's mansion at the West end of the beach prominently overlooking the scene. The anchorage required bow and stern anchors as there was surge and you'd roll yourself to death on a single anchor. We watched one boat stay one night on a single anchor -- I'm sure they disliked Chacala for the uncomfortable anchorage. The bow and stern anchor keeps your boat pointed into the swell, so you ride up and over the swell instead of rolling side to side with the swell hitting the beam.

We had 21 boats for Christmas in Chacala and a pig roast at one of the palapas. It was a fine meal and a nice Christmas. We put our Jimmy Buffett Christmas music CD to much use during this holiday season. We ended up staying in Chacala for the week after Christmas and the beach was as packed as Waikiki during this vacation week for the Mexicans. Chacala is a vacation destination for many of the Guadlajarians we learned.

We spent one day sailing down to the next little anchorage, Jaltemba, but we did not like the openness of the anchorage next to the island and the anchorage down by the mainland beach looked surgy and full of skidoos, so we ventured back North to Chacala.

We couldn't decide where to spend New Years and then finally decided it would be nice to spend it in an isolated location. So we went back out 60 miles from Chacala to Isla Isabela (caught a tuna, our New Year's celebratory meal) arriving New Years Eve. We spent New Years Eve in the South Bay (very surgy and not recommended) with two other boats, Grimalkin of Portland and Artic Pearl of Alaska who we knew from last year at Los Frailes. Jay and I made it till about 0900 where we celebrated the new millennium in with the dear folks of Greenland and toasted them with a round of Glenlivet. We gave Suzie, our Isuzu engine, a shot too so she wouldn't feel left out and would continue to serve us well into the new millennium.

We moved to the East anchorage on the 1st, which is definitely the preferred anchorage. Isabela is also a host of many fishes and whales -- we spent the afternoons on the deck watching the whales surface, dive, breach, spyhop, and slap their tails. Jay identified the whales as humpback whales, as they had the white undersides of the flukes. They were often close enough to hear the splashing and the blows. Jay could even hear the whales singing when he was snorkeling once. What a special place this Isla Isabela. I definitely rank it up there with God's Bedroom (Candeleros on Espiritu Santo) and the North end of Isla Carmen.

We then had leave Isla Isabela and return to San Blas to meet up with Jay's sister, Margaret, where we are now. For the second time, we got "blown out" of Isla Isabela, in that the wind came up at night and made the open anchorage very uncomfortable so we left early in the morning. The trip from Isla Isabela to San Blas was a near repeat of our previous trip, except during the light airs we motored this time instead of hoisting the spinnaker as Jay and I are both "crips", me having a bum shoulder and Jay having a bum knee. The trip was a bit glum as we had a panga stop by (caught me shirtless in the cockpit) and relate that another panga had been sunk by a whale several days ago and to keep a lookout for people in the water. We related this via radio to the several other sailboats making the same trip from Isabela to San Blas -- and not long after one of the boats reported a body in the water. This was related to the Port Captain who called the Navy to send out a boat to retrieve the body. That night at Matanchen Bay, Jay and I said a prayer for the fisherman and his family. It was sad news indeed.

From here we spend time with Margaret and then work our way down to Puerto Vallarta. We hope to be around Cabo Corrientes (South of PV) before the end of the month. As always, please keep in touch as we love hearing from all of you. Wishing you much happiness and pleasure in this new millennium.

Happy New Year from your Birds of a Feather,
       Leslie & Jay