April 1, 2015 - Isla Isabel

Isla Isabel is termed in some of the books as “The Galapagos of Mexico.”  What a beautiful island and stop there.  We did have a frustrating end to our long transit there.  The trip would be 15 hours so we left at 3am for the 80nm trip.  For the first 70 miles there was a sailing vessel following us many miles back, but gaining very slowly.  We soon find out they were increasing their speed a knot more, apparently in order to beat us to this very small anchorage.  They were motor sailing and gave the engine more throttle.  They passed us with less than 20 minutes to go, even turned to drop their sail, and then continued at their rapid pace and arrived at the small anchorage about 3 minutes before us.  Of course they took the really prime spot in shallow water over sand.  The spot we had planned to take.  After searching for a little while we did end up finding a decent spot for us, in deeper water with a mix of sand and rock.  This is a bit of sore spot as we feel that it was rude to jump right in front of us as they had done, after trailing us for about 70 miles and 14.5 hours.  It doesn't seem courteous, or fair, to "cut in line" like this with only two miles and 15-20 minutes to go.  Had we been friends, would they have done that?  I think probably not. Had we been acquaintances, would you do that?  Had we been a sailboat not a power boat would they have done that?  I may post something on a more public blog to get opinions and then send them a link.  I know their name and hailing port and already see they have an internet site.   We believe boaters are kind and polite, so found that this experience was not typical.

Isla Isabel is a gem of a location.  40nm from the mainland, it is remote.  There is a small line of fishing shacks on the beach that were very busy.  They were working on their nets and cleaning fish.  Some fish I cannot name but we did also see them cleaning some hammerhead looking sharks.  Birds abound here as well as lizards and iguanas.  The birds all had babies so we were able to observe all these cute little fluffy birds from close proximity.  Boobie’s and the seagulls lay their eggs on the ground while the frigates have nests in these fairly short trees so we were able to see them up close.   Some eggs had not hatched yet so we encountered several birds sitting on eggs that warned us to stay away with loud squawks.  One bird took off and dive-bombed Steve several times until he could put some more distance between him and the nest.  There were thousands of birds on this island as well as iguanas and lizards.

Here are some of the photos.  It was difficult to narrow them down as we have so many beautiful ones from this location.  

The east anchorage - Adagio and the rocks, Las Monas 

Steve with the thumbs up after snorkeling and checking the anchor 

These are called " Las Manos"

A frigate baby and looking northeast on the island

Frigates on the ground with wings open - odd since they have babies and seem to like nests.
 We imagine this is normal behavior.

A frigate flying by - wonderful and graceful to watch.  Females have white underside

Frigates and babies.  Look at how the baby has it's head down. We saw this and I imagine
it is because their beak is so heavy and they need to rest (assumption)

The southern portion of the island.  Old research station in foreground (abandoned)
Fishing panga huts and the Los Manos and our anchorage past the last cliffs.

Man made Iguana homes

Booby and baby

Blue footed Booby guarding her egg

The beach area and panga fishing fleet

local fisherman mending their nets, and gathering their catch

Fishing shacks

Dinghy ride around the islands

Male frigate flying by

our hike up the hill.  It was quite steep.

a male frigate displaying his colors!

Baby frigate

another baby frigate