10/4/2010 - Moored in San Carlos

Well, we finally see something green!  It looks like Georgette did this town some good.  We pulled into San Carlos this morning and were very pleased with the harbor.  This place is nicer than any we’ve seen in quite a while.

After Jake finished his Star Wars movie (yes, our lives are dictated by Star Wars) we loaded up in the dinghy and went ashore.  While in town we were able to visit a bank (the first one in 3 months), buy a small pie for Jake from some lady on the side of the road, and buy 3 kilos of shrimp all in the same parking lot.  The shrimp were a great buy.  We haven’t seen fresh shrimp of any size since San Diego.  Alejandro threw in some potatoes, tomatoes, avacados, garlic and jalapenos for free!  He made sure we knew that he would be selling tamales on Friday as well.  According to him, not as many people visit San Carlos as in the past and business is down.  We were thrilled with our shrimp and happy to help out his business in the meantime.

We chose hamburgers for lunch.  That might sound weird considering we’re in Mexico but they have the best ground beef we’ve ever eaten.  They grind up the good stuff and boy can you tell a difference.  After lunch we stopped by the grocery store for some sodas and small stuff.  Andy found Diet Dr. Pepper.  Shrimp. Diet Dr. Pepper.  Green Trees.  There is really no reason to leave here anytime soon.  If we find a Target tomorrow, we’re buying land.

We end our night with a nice Chibasco.  I haven’t written about these yet, but they’re storms we occasionally encounter up here in the northern sea.  They usually occur at night when a thunderstorm develops on the mainland and crosses the Sea of Cortez bringing brief but strong winds (up to 35-60 knots) and sometimes rain.  We’ve heard of this thing they call rain, but on the Baja side, we never saw it.  We smelled it once, but never saw it.  Imagine our delight this evening when Andy yelled for me to shut the hatches, “we’re getting rain!”  So here we sit, waiting out the winds in our happy boat (after it’s bath, however brief it was) pirating the closest internet signal in order to keep in touch the best we can.

Tomorrow we’ll figure out the local bus system and the laundry mat and try to clean up the inside of the boat.