Isla San Martin

San Martin is a beautiful island in a classic cone shape. It has a nicely protected bay called Caleta Hassler to anchor at that looks like it was man made but is all made from volcanic rock.


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Sea42 anchored in the bay at Isla St Martin

There is no permanent residents on the island, but it has some temporary fish camps for visiting fisherman who often visit to set traps for up to 2 weeks at a time. Some of the shacks had definitely seen better days by western standards, but otherwise the fisherman seemed to be quite happy. They mostly seemed 20-30 year old men working the traps as it was quite hard labor. There were many remnants of older dwellings built from the local lava stone but they were all abandoned.

Fish camp near the beach

At the south of the island is a lagoon that I had been wanting to explore. It turned out to be quite small with a very shallow entrance with rocks awash at low tide. It had a wide beach with many sea lions. With nobody to clean up I found lots of seal remains in various stages of decomposure. Something I hadn't thought about before, but humans do a lot of housekeeping with dead bodies, time that would be much better spent cleaning up the plastic bottles that are on the windward shores of everywhere I have been. Plastic is a major problem as it takes so long to break down. Next birthday you attend, don't buy those Mylar balloons, I have lost count of  how many I see floating in open ocean.

Permanently retired on the beach

I wanted to hike up to the top of the volcano to explore the lava tubes reported on the island, some big enough to walk thro. After a few hours of getting spiked by cactus I gave up trying to find the trail until I return next time. The worst cactus are about 2" across and round like a Christmas decoration. They lie in clusters on the ground and stick into anything that touches them. They have 1" plus needle spikes with barbs and are a nightmare to get out.

After I hauled anchor and was headed out the harbor for Bahia San Quintin, a panga with 4 fisherman pulled by and wanted to sell me Langosta (lobster). I got 2 for 100 pesos ($8). Not having cooked live lobster before I decided to pull the tail off one and BBQ it. I didnt find much meat in the rest of the animal so I chucked the remains overboard. It was good but a little dry so the next one I simply put the whole animal on the BBQ, This time it came out perfect and the tail came off with a lot more meat.

My first BBQ lobster.