Hola Amigos! We ventured to Santa Rosalia with hesitant hopes of it being a cool town. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it is a wonderful stop. The town holds an enormous amount of mining and hurricane history, therefore making it an interesting place. There is only one place to anchor in Santa Rosalia and that is inside the marina area. Luckily there was plenty of room to choose a comfortable spot along with Magic Dragon.
This is no place to jump off the dinghy and swim, but we quickly dropped the dinghy with plans to explore shore. Brad, Sydney and I met Dave and Jamyne outside the marina office and began wandering the streets. This is the best way to learn a new place, just get out and start walking. Along the way we saw old mining remnants, the beautiful Santa Rosalia sign and colorful buildings all around.
Santa Rosalia was once a busy mining town controlled by the French. The French sourced workers from the local Indian population until the Indian workers abandoned them. This pattern continued with mainland Mexicans and eventually to the Chinese. The working conditions were terrible and the mortality rate was high. If you’re interested in learning more about the mining and the evolution of Santa Rosalia, then check out this link: http://sandiegohistory.org/journal/1989/january/history/.
In addition to terrible mining conditions, hurricanes have not been kind to this area. One marina has been wiped out and their broken dock still stands. 
While in Santa Rosalia we dropped off laundry, provisioned at the local grocery store, had a couple of meals, searched for a water spicket for our filtered water, and climbed the switchbacks to the cemetery. We had a great time checking out this unique town. One of my favorite stops was the local bakery. We all chose our “poison” to snack on and I indulged in not just one, but TWO donuts!!! They were that good! We all suffered from a sugar crash afterwards, but it was worth it.
Views from our time touring the old mine and some hurricane damage…
Views from the cemetery. The cemetery was on top of the mountain overlooking the sea. It was a beautiful location but we were shocked to see so much trash amongst the graves…
Below is the beautiful church that was imported from Paris along with a stunning mural across the street…
The sunsets were to die for! Thanks to Jamyne, we have some beautiful photos of Perspective basking in the sunset glow.
After a couple of days we decided to leave Santa Rosalia and head some place that we could snorkel. This place happened to be called Isla San Marcos, specifically Sweet Pea Cove. It was a quick 11 mile motor to our new and improved back yard.
We were immediately met by another couple in the anchorage, they kindly dinghied over to say hello. They were wrapping up their 17 year circumnavigation and preparing to leave their boat in San Carlos for the summer season. It was great chatting with them and they gave us some intel on the island.
On the southern end of San Marcos is a gypsum mine. There is a conveyor that loads gypsum onto ships that creates an immense amount of dust. From what we saw, this went on 24/7. Luckily our anchorage was miles away and we were not affected. We spent several days anchored in Sweet Pea Cove and spent many hours snorkeling and spear fishing. Being in the water was our only escape from the intense heat, and bees! The bees were looking for water, and would do anything to get inside for it. We put screens on all our port lights and shut the hatches to keep them out. This also kept all the heat inside!
Enough sweating, let’s check out the snorkeling! Here we have a school of angel fish…
We saw a few creepy moray eels. Boy do they get your heart racing as they swim under you…
Brad grabbed a beautiful starfish for me to check out up close. Also pictured are angel fish, Sergent Majors, and burrito grunts. Could you believe the grunts sound like snorting pigs under the water?!?
More shots from under the sea, the yummy fish LOVE to take cover under rocks…
Dave and Brad were unstoppable with their spears and we had to remind them only to kill what we could eat that day. Sometimes we ate fish twice a day! Here are some of the fish we ate…Pargo, Cabrilla, Snapper, Hogfish, and a tasty Green Jack. 
Jamyne cooked up a wonderful chowder for all of us and oh boy, it was to die for!
We heard there were a couple of caves to explore on the island. So we ventured out and found a cave large enough to dinghy through but decided to swim through it. It was my first cave experience and it was erie, but amazing! Here’s a shot as we approached the end, if you look closely you’ll see tiny fish in the water…
Our time in Sweet Pea Cove was bittersweet. It was the best snorkeling we’ve seen so far, but so hot and the bees were chasing us out. We looked for a good weather window to cross the sea and head to San Carlos. And the time to leave could not come soon enough! I’ll tell you all about the crossing and San Carlos in our next blog. Until then, I hope this blog finds you happy and healthy! If you’ve got any questions, shoot them our way! Cheers from SV Perspective!
One more sunset before we go…