Espiritu Santo islands to Ensenada de Los Muertos to Los Frailes to Cabo San Lucas, lots of relaxing sailing, a pack of crazy manta rays, and a ton of whale sightings along the way

We couldn't just lie around in paradise all week - although we really really wanted to! - so we were up early for the day-long passage to Ensenada de Los Muertos on our way to Cabo San Lucas.

Beautiful moon in the early morning

Fearless Captain Will traversing the anchorage

We left early and enjoyed the calm morning with coffee and friends. Sailing is occasionally amazing - there are small perfect moments in time and space and this was definitely one of them.

Sara enjoys her morning coffee

Angela takes over at the helm

We had light winds, but also not much wave action, so we motor-sailed and lazed around the boat. Jeff had a bit of sea-sickness but recovered quickly.

Jeff isn't feeling so good

Perfect reading spot

Mansion at Muertos

More extravagance!

We anchored in Muertos in the late afternoon and had another easy relaxing evening watching the world go by.

Our anchorage at Muertos

Neighbours at sunset

The next morning was more of the same, but even lighter winds and almost mirror-like surface conditions. We saw the strangest thing, a line of orange cloudy material in the water we later found out was an algae bloom. Stinky!

Leaving Ensenada de los Muertos

Smelly red tide (algae bloom)

Low winds can sometimes be oppressively hot, but March in Mexico is almost a perfect temperature. We soaked up the sun and motored on. We weren't in any rush.

Beautiful calm and horizon-less day (wallpaper size)

Angela's sunscreen smells funny

Catching some sun

Jeff trimming the jib

Working on the website

Off in the distance we saw a disturbance in the force. Ripples in the smooth water. It wasn't Alderaan or Order 66, it was a fever of bat rays! Sara was scared out of her skin earlier on our trip when she had one jump out of the water next to her, but this was something else entirely!

Funny looking wind-waves

It's a huge pack of rays!

Wow, a jumping ray!

Jump...

We followed them for half an hour, it was incredible to watch them jumping out of the water flapping their wings, slashing their tails around.

...flap wings...

...bellyflop

Swimming around the bow

Flapping wings

We anchored in Los Frailes for the evening. Going for a swim now involves checking that there are no bat rays lurking nearby! The calm winds gave us another easy night with very little rocking or rolling. This is the life!

Ready... Set...

GO!!!

The next day we slept in and set off later than planned. Cabo wasn't very far and we weren't feeling stressed at all. We heard "whales" on the VHF and kept a careful lookout!

Dynamic trio looking for whales

Angela's excited!

OH MY GOSH!! RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!

It was awesome, huge monster whales breaching right in front of us for about half an hour. Maybe one or two jumps per minute. We weren't sure how many were in the pod, but it was the coolest show we've ever seen.