Emerald Star

Los Frailes (The Friars) is a great spot. Not much there but a small fish camp and some houses. We had a cruisers pot-luck dinner on the beach one afternoon that was attended by people from about ten or twelve boats.  We walked on the beaches quite a bit and just relaxed after the chaos of Cabo.

We hiked up the dirt road towards town one day with Bill, Lisa and Sparky the Salty Dog.  We saw several cattle on the road and a few goats. Had a snack in the shade and headed back to the boats. The terrain and vegetation was very similar to Organ Pipe National Park in southern Arizona. Beautiful!!

The highlight of Los Frailes was snorkling. Bill walked into town and arranged for a dive guide to pick the people up at our boats for a guided snorkeling tour of the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park. The park is the only living hard coral reef on the west coast of North America. Our guide would drop us off and point directly to the spots where we would see the most interesting parts of the reef. When he said we'd see nurse sharks, we saw nurse sharks. When he said we'd see huge groupers, we saw huge groupers. The fish and coral were amazing. We had five stops. The last was at a rock where sea lions lounge around. As we were getting in the water the guide says don't try to touch the sea lions. The rules are a bit more relaxed than in the USA! So we get in the water and there are sea lions all around us. Amazing. They pretty much ignored us.

s/v Beyond Reason at sunrise

You may notice a lot of sunrise and sunset photos on the website. That's because those are the two nicest times of the day. The other thing is that after many years of observing them from a car on a highway during the rush hour commute, the people on the boat have a huge appreciation of the environment and state of mind for absorbing the view. The dogs couldn't care less-except it usually means it is breakfast or dinnertime.