Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta via Isla Isabela
November 30th – Left Mazatlan – went to Puerto Vallarta via Isla Isabela
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The last thing we did in Mazatlan was to climb to the top of the hill which houses the second highest lighthouse in the world – that’s what the guide book said, and that’s how I felt when we got to the top. Of course my much younger and fitter husband politely waited for me a few times which gave him a little rest too. It was worth the climb, the view over the whole of Mazatlan was incredible, plus we marveled at the effort that had been put into building the path and stairs back in the early 1900’s aswell as the building at the top which looks like a bomb shelter but is in fact a place to buy much needed water at the summit.
Then on to Isla Isabela, 1 1/2miles long x 1/2mile wide - a bird sanctuary known to be the home of only 5 species of bird, in the thousands and iguanas. The guide books say that anchoring is risky because it’s a very rocky place, but it will be worth the effort once you go ashore.
It was – on both counts - the anchoring was tricky, out first drop put us so close to a submerged rock that we could have used it as a table at low tide. We were trying to make sense of the description of the rock – ‘identify the oily slick covering a submerged rock….’, when all of a sudden this large window appeared in the water just behind our boat. That’s exactly what it looked like – a window to the bottom of the water and the rock. We moved closer to the sharp rocky cave with crashing waves which looked so much more attractive than the table top rock. The wind did what it was supposed to after an hour or so and held us off both hazards all night and while we went ashore to see the Boobies.
Imagine Tony’s disappointment when the thousands of blue and yellow footed boobies turned out to be birds. We took our dinghy ashore and tied up next to a group of pangas belonging to fishermen who probably live in San Blas about 30 miles away, but stay in large corrugated tin sheds while fishing on Isla Isabela.
Even though we knew that the island was home to thousands of birds it was a bit of a surprise to walk around them at such close quarters. All species are large birds - especially the frigate birds and they nest in very small trees. So – as we walked around we were mostly head height to very large birds sitting in the trees on nests or just on the branches. They quite often seem to fall off these branches or the branches just break under the weight of the huge bird. The majority of birds that we saw were the Frigates who look like giant bats in flight. The blue footed booby colony was on the ground and seem to just nest on the edges of rocks. The babies are lovely white fluffy things with – of course – blue feet and funny little black faces. While we were snorkeling later in the day under an outcropping of rocks we saw a mother and baby just standing on the edge of the rock – just standing there all of the time waiting for the baby to grow up – and hoping it doesn’t fall off after all of that standing.
We walked into the island a little ways – actually just where the long grass had been cut into a path – not wanting to get bitten by anything dangerous. We came to a concrete building which had a couple of tents up inside the building. The concrete walls were about 18” thick and it looked like it had been built to withstand hurricanes – which hardly hever happen here. The building was another of those mysteries – nobody in it except a couple of hundred iguanas walking around as casual as you please – some parts of it falling apart – electrical wires pulled out and left bare, the tents which we think housed research students and one whole side of the building had undergone some renovations – offices with new sliding glass doors leading out onto – rough land with blue footed boobies nesting in the long grass. So we joined the iguanas for a casual look around, found nobody to ask questions of, and left.
Back through the birds, down to the fishermen who didn’t seem to be interested in us at all, so Tony gave the things we had brought to trade to the first fisherman we close enough to talk to, and back to the boat.
Pulling up the anchor was not as horrible as we thought it would be, we had to drive around a few rocks that we had surrounded with our chain, but as the anchor was not actually imbedded in anything it followed up the chain without too much trouble.And we were off to Puerto Vallarta to pick up Anne and Dick who had flown down to spend some time sailing with us away from the cold of Vancouver. It took them 5 hours to fly here and 3 months for us to sail here.
.
The last thing we did in Mazatlan was to climb to the top of the hill which houses the second highest lighthouse in the world – that’s what the guide book said, and that’s how I felt when we got to the top. Of course my much younger and fitter husband politely waited for me a few times which gave him a little rest too. It was worth the climb, the view over the whole of Mazatlan was incredible, plus we marveled at the effort that had been put into building the path and stairs back in the early 1900’s aswell as the building at the top which looks like a bomb shelter but is in fact a place to buy much needed water at the summit.
Then on to Isla Isabela, 1 1/2miles long x 1/2mile wide - a bird sanctuary known to be the home of only 5 species of bird, in the thousands and iguanas. The guide books say that anchoring is risky because it’s a very rocky place, but it will be worth the effort once you go ashore.
It was – on both counts - the anchoring was tricky, out first drop put us so close to a submerged rock that we could have used it as a table at low tide. We were trying to make sense of the description of the rock – ‘identify the oily slick covering a submerged rock….’, when all of a sudden this large window appeared in the water just behind our boat. That’s exactly what it looked like – a window to the bottom of the water and the rock. We moved closer to the sharp rocky cave with crashing waves which looked so much more attractive than the table top rock. The wind did what it was supposed to after an hour or so and held us off both hazards all night and while we went ashore to see the Boobies.
Imagine Tony’s disappointment when the thousands of blue and yellow footed boobies turned out to be birds. We took our dinghy ashore and tied up next to a group of pangas belonging to fishermen who probably live in San Blas about 30 miles away, but stay in large corrugated tin sheds while fishing on Isla Isabela.
Even though we knew that the island was home to thousands of birds it was a bit of a surprise to walk around them at such close quarters. All species are large birds - especially the frigate birds and they nest in very small trees. So – as we walked around we were mostly head height to very large birds sitting in the trees on nests or just on the branches. They quite often seem to fall off these branches or the branches just break under the weight of the huge bird. The majority of birds that we saw were the Frigates who look like giant bats in flight. The blue footed booby colony was on the ground and seem to just nest on the edges of rocks. The babies are lovely white fluffy things with – of course – blue feet and funny little black faces. While we were snorkeling later in the day under an outcropping of rocks we saw a mother and baby just standing on the edge of the rock – just standing there all of the time waiting for the baby to grow up – and hoping it doesn’t fall off after all of that standing.
We walked into the island a little ways – actually just where the long grass had been cut into a path – not wanting to get bitten by anything dangerous. We came to a concrete building which had a couple of tents up inside the building. The concrete walls were about 18” thick and it looked like it had been built to withstand hurricanes – which hardly hever happen here. The building was another of those mysteries – nobody in it except a couple of hundred iguanas walking around as casual as you please – some parts of it falling apart – electrical wires pulled out and left bare, the tents which we think housed research students and one whole side of the building had undergone some renovations – offices with new sliding glass doors leading out onto – rough land with blue footed boobies nesting in the long grass. So we joined the iguanas for a casual look around, found nobody to ask questions of, and left.
Back through the birds, down to the fishermen who didn’t seem to be interested in us at all, so Tony gave the things we had brought to trade to the first fisherman we close enough to talk to, and back to the boat.
Pulling up the anchor was not as horrible as we thought it would be, we had to drive around a few rocks that we had surrounded with our chain, but as the anchor was not actually imbedded in anything it followed up the chain without too much trouble.And we were off to Puerto Vallarta to pick up Anne and Dick who had flown down to spend some time sailing with us away from the cold of Vancouver. It took them 5 hours to fly here and 3 months for us to sail here.
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