Isla Isabel

The sail to Isla Isabel was Dalia's first experience sailing at night and Justin's first experience being in charge on a night sail. We left Stone Island at noon for the 80-mile sail, expecting to arrive sometime in the morning if we averaged 5 knots and sometime in the afternoon if we averaged 3 knots. In the end, after sailing until midnight and then motoring the rest of the way (the wind normally dies here at night) we arrived at ten in the morning. Whales were everywhere jumping, diving and slamming their fins into the water.

We anchored the first night at the Monas, two rocky islets on the East coast of the island where there was great snorkeling with lots of fish, manta rays, sting rays, whales and interesting rock and coral formations. However, the anchorage is fairly open to the prevailing NW weather, and after a very rolly night we decided to head for the supposedly anchor-hungry South Anchorage.

In the South Anchorage we found a good sandy spot and we stayed there for five days. Isla Isabel is a bird sanctionary and is home to thousands of boobies and frigates. We walked around the island and we had to watch out because it was literally possible to step on a boobie nesting on the ground or get hit by frigate droppings from the shrubs overhead. There were so many baby birds everywhere, we felt we could eat some of them.


Also in the South Anchorage is a small seasonal fishing village. The fisherman were very friendly and we traded some of Justin's precious sauvicremas (a brand of chocolate wafer cookies) for four Red Snappers that were caught that morning. After hastily figuring out how to filet a fish, we ate grilled snapper for two days.

We met a good number of other cruisers here. Some we knew from Mazatlan (Lilly, Escapade, Dreamcatcher) and some new (Aboa, Eupsychia). It was nice that there was a steady stream of people through the anchorages, but it never seemed crowded.

We also experienced our first couple of breakdowns. One of our stanchions broke (we jury-rigged a splint to allow us to continue), the flopper stopper dropped into 25 feet of water after it chafed through 1/8" wire (it was recovered), and we had to reset our anchor to ensure it did not get fouled in the South Anchorage which is notorious for snagging anchors amongst its rock pinacles. We found this reputation mostly unfounded.

Dalia was seasick on the passage over which seemed to allow some other bug to infect her which is primarily why we stayed so long. The island was very secluded and peaceful, but as soon as Dalia was feeling better we were ready to move on and so set out for a long day-sail to god-forsaken San Blas.