Gentle trip to San Evaristo

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Mon 8 Feb 2010 02:45
We weighed anchor early this morning after another nice night and left this
lovely bay of Isla San Francisco, we then proceeded to work our way north
exploring a number of islands before arriving at Punta Evaristo (24:54.608N
110:42.114W), across from Isla San Jose. As we left Islas San Francisco we
decided to go and look at a small fishing village at Isla Coyote which is a
rock island of not more than 1/4 mile in length and less in width, but a
number of family's live there year round in permanent houses, it is amazing
to see these little white houses against the rock. (they must have taken a
beating in the hurricane last year). We then went on to the south end of
Isla San Jose (the major island) to look at mangroves lagoon that add a new
contract to the desert landscape of the rest of the island.
We then proceeded over the channel to Evaristo which has nice 2 coves, we
anchored in sand at 16 feet, in front of the town, next to a boat from
Washington that had been in the marina with us at La Paz. We proceeded to go
ashore and explore this settlement (it is a bit much to call it a town), it
has a distillation plant for fresh water, and a small store, and tiny
school, the town is made up of 20 families, with houses in the hills above
or lining the beach. This is a fishing settlement that has 20 + pangas that
fish the islands and channel, and bring the fish back here and drive the
catch to La Paz. We were able to negotiate to get them to take our rubbish
(which was our major issue for coming to a township) and then collected some
oranges the rest of store was not well stocked but it is Sunday, and fresh
supplies due tomorrow.
The outer cover is a nice rock cove 1/ 4 mile wide, with a sandy bottom, and
nice snorkeling all around, and the water is like glass, we were able to
take the boys and just look from the surface and see so many fish. It is
like an aquarium which I had to dive into and explore so just with goggles
and snorkel I pulled Sean along in his little dinghy with a clear floor so
he just took in all the fish. I was able to point out to him different fish,
small and bigger ones, and they then come back and identify them and paint
them, we were able to just sit in a spot and see many different types and
schools of fish just swimming about us. It is amazing with such a desert /
stark landscape, yet when we hist the water it comes alive with fish,
shellfish, just so many types and colours are deep.
As the sun came down, you have these towering mountains surrounding this
bay, and the lights of the little houses come up, with the wind dropping it
became a picture anchorage, with the local fishmen coming and going in there
pangas even on a Sunday.