Change of scenery and natural breaks

Photo caption: a view of the anchorage at Isla San Francisco, taken while hiking up on the surrounding hills. Bliss is the boat farthest away. Our dinghy is sitting on the sandy beach at lower left (close to another dinghy that's in the water near beach). Those black streaks in the water going away from the beach toward the left of the picture are actually schools of small fish!
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The official start of hurricane season in Mexico is around mid May. It provides a natural break for most cruisers, as they put their boats on the hard on stands and go home for 5-6 months. The far majority of people we have met are retired and have a home to go back to, and cruise the waters of Mexico for years on this schedule. Others cruisers we have met planned to go to the South Pacific and spent their first 6 months in Mexico, before they made the big jump across the Pacific in March. Several of our cruising friends are there now, and are enjoying French Polynesia. We have also made friends with families who cruised the Mexican waters for 6 months and then started to make the bash back home to California last month. There so many ways to go cruising, and live this lifestyle.

After 7 months of cruising, the adults on Bliss are ready for a change of scenery and don't mind that the upcoming hurricane season forces us to take a natural break. Tessa could play on the beach every day, but we know she will be very happy to see our family and friends back home too. Like all ways of life, variety is the spice of life. We are looking forward to see our family and friends back home; to live in a place/house where the floor isn't always covered in sand; to go for hikes in the hills and woods; to eat differently; and to enjoy a different climate (both Tod and I love the San Francisco bay area climate, and knew we would miss it).

The Bliss crew will first visit our family in Ohio, and stay with oma and opa. After that, our friends Doug and Cathy graciously let us use their home in Berkeley for three months. Tod will do some part time consulting/contracting work, and Tessa is enrolled in the same art/play group as last year. And I, ever restless, will spend some time looking into our next travel adventure. Buying a small RV and touring the US and Canada is an idea we are toying with. Our home Bliss will be waiting here for us here until we come back after hurricane season and enjoy another cruising season in Mexico.

We have a few more weeks here to go look for that whale shark, which is high on our list! We hear they are around here somewhere close by!

This blog post is being done by radio email, so sorry for including only one picture... even that one low resolution picture is a stretch for our 10K baud radio modem.

-Jolanda
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At 5/3/2015 04:35 (utc) s/v Bliss was located at 26°43.15'N 111°54.35'W