Getting Creative

As mentioned in my last post, after we unexpectedly left El Refugio we sailed to La Ramada.  La Ramada is a small cove back on the Baja peninsula just north of Caleta San Juanico.  Caleta San Juanico is a large and beautiful bay with many different smaller anchorages, reefs and rock formations throughout.  It is a pretty popular cruising destination. But, this time of year Caleta San Juanico is open to the wind and waves when the wind is blowing, which it was.  Around the point at the northern end of Caleta San Juanico is the protected cove of La Ramada.  This anchorage is just about as perfect as it gets!

Anchored in La Ramada:

The clear blue water and sandy bottom made the whole anchorage look like a giant swimming pool.  We swam around checking out fish, rays and the other sea life around.  There were these really strange piles of sand on the ocean bottom that we have never seen before.  We’re not sure if some sort of crab, fish or other creature created them, but it was as if they squirted the sand out of a frosting piping bag and made little pyramids out of it.  For now, it will have to stay a mystery!

We really enjoyed hanging out on the beaches, relaxing and exploring the coastline.  We’re always doing some sort of “activity” that we don’t do a lot of just sitting on the beach.  But, this was the perfect day to do it and in the perfect spot!

We went around the point to check out Caleta San Juanico and found the Cruiser’s Shrine.  The Cruiser’s Shrine is basically a couple of trees where boats from all over the world have left some little token of their stay.  Some people left things off their boat, like hats or shoes.  Others took items from the beach and painted or engraved them with their boat names and dates.  Some people were really creative with what they left.  So, we decided to make something to contribute to the shrine!

We liked the idea of just using what we were able to find on the beach to make it as natural as we could.  So, back at La Ramada we searched the beach for something we could use.  We found some pretty cool looking driftwood and coral pieces and decided we could make that work.  Mike got out his power tools to try and etch in the wood, which we marked over with a sharpie.   We drilled some holes and hung the purple and white coral pieces with fishing line like a wind chime. Then we went back to shore on La Ramada and hiked back over to Caleta San Juanico in order to leave our contribution to the Cruiser’s Shrine.

Mike adding our piece to the tree…

The finished product!

We really enjoyed our time at La Ramada, but we decided we needed to keep heading north.  So, we left in the late afternoon for an overnight sail to Santa Rosalia.  Amazingly, we were able to sail most of the night in steady winds.  It was beautiful.  The night started off very dark with a sky full of stars until the moon decided to make a grand entrance.  It was almost a full moon, huge, orange and bright that rose right out of the ocean.

We have a really cool app on our iPad called Starwalk that lets you hold it up to the sky and identifies all of the visible stars, planets and constellations for you.  I had a fun time playing with that overnight during my watch.  If you are away from the city and want to learn a bit about the stars you can see in the sky, I really recommend trying it!

So, now we are in Santa Rosalia for a few days.  Santa Rosalia is an old mining town that grew around a copper mine in the 1800’s.  There is still some mining that goes on, but it is really just a small, sleepy little Mexican town.  There is a small harbor that fishing boats and a ferry to the mainland go out of.  We’re in a small marina with about 5 other sailboats and a few search and rescue boats for the Mexican Navy.

We’re basically in town to replenish our provisions and get ready for about a month away from any major city.  We’re headed further north into the Sea to check out more of the islands and bays.  As we head into September and October, it becomes the height of the hurricane season.  The farther north we are, the better chance we have of avoiding any major storms!

~katie