Day 22 - Caleta Partida

Fishing panga entering east channel

This morning we took the Zodiac to the other side of the sand bars to look at the east entrance. We went ashore on the Espiritu Santo side for a walk.
After lunch we rode over to the Isla Partida side of the anchorage with the intention of going on a nature walk that we knew was described on a board. However, the walk turned out to be a 2.5 hour one classified as "difficult" and at 4 PM we were not prepared to take the walk. However, we enjoyed looking around the more accessible areas.
Back on the boat Brenda and I had the last two beers on Pachuca in the cockpit enjoying a show put on by the local pelicans who somehow managed to see well enough in the fading light to repeatedly dive into the water catching fish.

Cactus

For the last evening we both had baths and spruced up a bit. Brenda had a bucket bath inside the boat. I lowered myself down the boarding ladder and had a salt water bath followed by a fresh water one out of a bucket in the cockpit, which included shampooing my hair. Afterwards I shaved off a 5 day growth.

Fishing camp on sand bar

For dinner we had the last of the fish that we had purchased in San Evaristo with white rice and Cajun sauce. As a special celebration to end our successful cruise we opened the 2005 bottle of ice wine that Patrick and Nigel had given to us in Vancouver in 2009. Ice wine has an incomparable taste and we certainly enjoyed it very much. For desert Brenda had baked a cake using a Betty Crocker cake mix that we had purchased in Papeete in October 2008 and had a use-by date of Feb 2009. This cake mix had survived gales, cold, heat, dampness, and weevils to produce an excellent result.

Caught by low tide

Caleta Partida looking south from nature trail

We finished the last of our ice wines in the cockpit enjoying the serenity of the anchorage under a nearly full moon. We have been most fortunate lately in that the wind blows during the day but calms down at night allowing peaceful and secure slumber.
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