A few months ago Josh and I were asked to be a part of Pacifico's new Discover Pacifico campaign. They wanted to capture our adventure out to Santa Cruz island to explore the famous Painted Cave. The plan was to sail Agape out to the Santa Cruz the night before and anchor up at Fry's Harbor. In the morning we'd sail the two hours west to meet up with the rest of the team at the largest cave on the island, Painted Cave.

Unfortunately the conditions were extremely rough and we were unable to get Agape all the way up to Painted Cave. The rest of the team came out on a power boat that morning were able to make it up to the cave, only to find it unapproachable with massive swells. We decided to shoot at two other locations that would be sheltered more from the wind and swell, the first was just east of Painted Cave called Cueva Valdez Anchorage. There we were able to anchor Agape, let the seasick crew recover and actually kayak into some smaller sea caves to do some exploring.

After shooting in the sea caves off of Cueva Valdez we headed even further east along the island, back to Fry's Harbor where we had spent the previous night at anchor. Fry's is a small but protected anchorage, and there we were able to shoot on Agape and get the more detailed shots in the calmer water. As we were wrapping up, a heavy fog began to blow in and the team was able to capture some awesome shots. You can watch the final video in the post below!

When we finished filming, the team headed back to the mainland and we stayed anchored up at Fry's for another night. In the morning Josh and I headed out to explore the beach and hike back into the canyon before sailing home. Once we found the overgrown trail leading off the beach, we stumbled upon a small creek that led back to a dried up waterfall. Of course the only option from there was to scale the steep wall to see what we could find at the top. The higher we got the sketchier the rock quality became but we managed to make it to the top to find stunning view of our anchorage below. The decent was pretty scary as we slid and scrambled back down almost falling off the face when we were surprised to find a snake on the ledge we were on. I moved to catch it, only to discover it was dead… not sure how we missed it on our way up, but it definitely startled us on our way down.

We can't wait to make it back to Fry's and hopefully Painted Cave to spend some more time exploring these stunning places!