We motor slowly from the bay, sorry that the wind has not come up yet this morning. We have 30 miles to go to the next anchorage from Bahia Falsa, our hiding place from big city sensory assault. Wade spent yesterday taking a bus to La Paz in order to mail our tax return via DHL; I spent the day admiring the skills of local birds as they plummeted into the water again and again, some of them even seeking out the stealthier fish hidden in the shade of Pelican Moon. The aerodynamic brown boobies dive with a purpose from great heights, sleek death-darts entering the water with muted splashes, the envy of Olympian divers. Heavier pelicans fall from the sky, wings and legs akimbo, altering their course at the last moment and meeting the water in a great bellyflop. Sometimes they surface with a shake of the wings and an odd stretching of the neck as if they might have thrown something out of whack, yet they rise to repeat their lunging hunt, eventually surfacing with a gular pouch full of salt water and their beak snapped firmly on a wriggling fish. An ungainly body and beak appended to an eight-foot wingspan make pelicans at once the most unlikely of fliers, and the most accomplished.

We, too, are unlikely aviators on our small vessel with its stainless steel beak, cloth wings and a barn door rudder for a tail. Over the years while learning to sail our Tayana 37 we’ve had our ungainly moments: stalled while coming about, mixed halyards and sheets, run lines the wrong way, failed to tie stopper knots and watched a sheet snatched away in a great burst of wind, let out a reef without supporting the boom… But our sailboat is a dandy flier despite the occasional mishap and today, when the sweet promise of wind fulfills, we raise the main, the genoa, the stays’l like old hands and once again are skimming quietly over the bluest sea. Sailing is indeed the closest a human being can come to flying without leaving the earth’s surface, and we look forward to these times when Pelican Moon is just another whitecap on the water, thrust forward on the breath of ages that has been traveling around the globe since the atmosphere formed.

We glide along at five knots, the boat barely heeled over and a gentle but insistent murmur at the hull the only sound of propulsion. Sometimes, after a day and a night of moderate winds of say, seventeen to twenty knots, the Gulf of California can take on the aspect of a wash-boarded dirt road, with hard, steep waves on four-second intervals that can shake the dead to life and make them wish to be dead again. But today, as the winds rise up to a pleasant twelve to fifteen knots the sea is flat and welcoming. Once we have set the sails I leave Wade to tend the telltales awhile and I go forward to enjoy the breeze and the image of Isla San Francisco slowly revealing its shape, color and mood the closer we approach.

Coasting into the bay we strike sails and circle our landing area, considering where best to drop the hook. A more of white in a sapphire gemrimmed in tourmaline embraced by a bezel of white sand, we join a few other well-traveled specks on this shining jewel. The main halyard taps against the mast and a melancholy hum sounds from the rigging: 20 knot winds predicted tonight from the north. Tucking in as close as we can to the rock cliffs on the northern side of the bay for protection, we dance through our well-rehearsed anchoring routine. Soon we have roosted our own lovely pelican for the night.

Approaching Isla San Francisco