Now this is more like it.

After actually sailing away from the hellaciousness of Puerto Balandra on a blissful, glassy-watered, seven-hour passage, we arrived in San Juanico. It was the isolated, white sand-beached, turquoise-watered stuff that sailing stories are made of. It was also pleasantly breezy and devoid of stinging flying insects. Score!

We experienced a couple of firsts in San Juanico. Number one: launching our new paddleboard. I had only been paddleboarding once before, in Cabo, like a decade ago. T took it out the first day when I (correctly) thought the waves looked a little choppier than a sistah needed them to be. The following morning I got the board in the water, got on the board, got on my knees on the board, got upright on the board, paddled away on the board — five distinctly easier said than done moves — and didn’t fall once! Took it out again a few days later, paddled upright both to and from the beach, and again stayed dry. So it apparently wasn’t a fluke … yaaaasss queen! I guess all those yoga balancing moves paid off. Whatever the case, it was super fun and felt like a pretty good (increasingly necessary) workout. I do need to improve my paddle steering, though; can’t make a 180 degree turn without getting on. my knees. Stay tuned …

In the meantime, the coves in San Juanico are enchanting. We dinghied to shore, took a beautiful hike along the beach and experienced more of the Goldilocksesque not-too-hot-and-not-too-cold-but-just-right, refreshing, and crazy clear water of the summertime sea. We ushered in first number two as we (and by “we” I mean T) popped our spearfishing cherry and caught two big mamma jammas on our first hunt. Surprised us all! We overcooked them (mistook tough skin for tough flesh), but they were nonetheless impressive on our plates and inspired us to continue our fishing forays.. On our last night, we put the wood we’d picked on our hike to good use and had a perfect little bonfire on the beach, accompanied by our last bottle of Pouilly-Fumé and potatoes roasted on the coals.

As RuPaul would say, we had several many delicious meals in San Juanico: tofu with garlic noodles, spicy chorizo with bell peppers, rib eye steak with my famous mashed potatoes, lentil soup with smoked turkey leg, and probably (OK, definitely) too many cocktails. In our defense though, we have to consume all of our perishables (including two remaining bottles of champagne!) before we leave Mexico end of June. So really — despite what you may read, see, or suspect — we’re not being gluttonous. We’re just being good global citizens, conscientious and unwasteful. 

Muchos gracias, San Juanico, for being a sublimely textbook destination. This little oasis is a sound reminder that life does not suck. We’d planned to stay a few days, which turned into a week, essentially until our food supplies got thin and our garbage full. ‘Cuz … why not?