May 27, 2002

Greeting from the Odyssey Crew,

in San Carlos, Mexico

We are sitting high and dry in the desert in a place called Marina Seca waiting for the boat to begin its land journey home at 3am on Wednesday. Our visit to the Sea of Cortez and Baja has taken us here over the last seven weeks. We left Mazatlan for a two day two night sail to La Paz. A lot of boats and boaters never leave La Paz because it is such a pleasant place. Great ice cream and fish tacos, and lots of exercise walking. From here we anchored in over a dozen places as we traveled north. Some of the highlights included meeting friends from other boats, night snorkeling, hiking, clam digging, collecting shells and agates, and finally catching fish that were good to eat.. Some of the sails between anchorages were calm and a few were rough. We found the water swimming pool blue and much saltier than the Pacific Ocean. Salt crystals formed everywhere after a rough passage. There are few towns in this barren desert landscape. We visited Loreto and Mulege. Near Mulege someone actually found a part of the Russian Space Lab that broke up a couple of years ago. It was displayed next to an 18th century canoe. Some contrast!