Adagio’s Voyage

We left Puerto Ballanda at Isla Carmen on Tuesday headed for El Refugio. Unfortunately, our stay at El Refugio was unexpectedly short.

Isla Carmen is a long narrow island about 20 miles long, which is wider at the top of the island and narrows as you go south. Puerto Ballandra is on the west side of the island, and El Refugio is on the north side of the island right before you would round the northeast tip of the island. It is about 10 miles between the two anchorages.

Isla Carmen is part of the park system here in the Sea of Cortez, but a lot of the island is privately owned. There is a hunting lodge on the island that owns a big chunk of the land where they hunt big horn sheep. So, you can anchor, explore the waters and hang on the beaches, but you cannot go into the interior of the island. I really wouldn’t want a hunter mistaking me for a sheep!

El Refugio is also known as V-Cove, because of its V shape. Each side of the V is lined with rocky cliffs. Over time, the water has eroded the cliffs leaving unusual rock formations and sea caves. At the point of the V is a really lovely sand beach. So, as soon as we dropped anchor, we got in the dinghy to go exploring.

First on our agenda was to go find the sea caves. They were amazing. The caves are big enough for you to take the dinghy in, and the rocky interior was lined with all different colors of striations in the rock and unusual texture where the water had eroded it away. Because this side of the V is protected from the winds this time of year, the water was absolutely still, making the visibility in the water crystal clear. And, with where the sun was at this time of day, the blue turquoise waters in the cave almost glowed. Really cool!

After checking out the sea caves we were ready to jump in the water. There are so many spots where the large boulders from the cliffs have fallen into the water creating some great snorkel spots. So, we spent a couple of hours chasing fish around. And, at one point fish were chasing Mike! I was snorkeling on the surface and Mike swam down to check out something below. A large school of fish (not sure what kind, probably some kind of jack) swam up right behind him. When he stopped, they stopped. When he swam, they followed him. He didn’t notice what was going on behind him, and I was trying not to laugh through my snorkel. Finally, he turned around surprised by the fish, and they all just kind of stopped and stared at him. Apparently these guys were not afraid of people. Just curious, I guess.

Once our fingers started to prune a little too much, we got back in the dinghy to check out the beach. What a lovely beach! The water was so blue and clear and the sand was incredibly soft. It was at this point that I think I decided that V-Cove must be on my top five places in the Sea. Just as I was thinking how awesome this place was, Mike yelled at me to look over at the hills just off the beach. There were big horn sheep!

I’ve never seen big horn sheep before. They reminded me more of a goat than a sheep. We saw several females (no horns) scrambling up the rocky hillside. They weren’t very far away and were definitely keeping an eye on us. Then just to the sand dune to our right, several males with their distinctive big round horns appeared. They must come down to the beaches frequently, because we saw a lot of tracks in the sand. We watched them for a while until they decided to head over the hill.

We got to experience another beautiful sunset and then settled in for the night. There wasn’t much wind and it was pretty still out. But, that all changed a few hours later. What little wind we had was coming from the south, as is typical this time of year. When you are anchored with just a bow anchor, your bow is going to face the direction of the wind. (The boat swings if the wind changes.) So, the wind was not an issue. Around 3 am, the boat started to roll a bit. What I mean by roll is that it rocks side to side, not front to back, like a teeter totter. A little rocking isn’t a problem, a lot of rocking can be uncomfortable. We’ve been in a lot of rolly anchorages. If it gets really rolly, I have a hard time sleeping. Mike can sleep through almost anything.

So, I was trying to relax and ignore the rolling, but it steadily got worse, to the point where it woke Mike up. By 4 am we were rolling so bad that things were flying around in the boat! When we are sailing, we secure everything down so nothing can fly off a counter top, for example. But, at anchorage, we have cups, sunglasses, books, ipads, etc. lying around. Now we had a bunch of stuff lying on the floor!

Our real concern was our dinghy. We had pulled the dinghy out of the water, but just tied it against the toe rail rather than haul it on deck. We were rolling to such a degree that the dinghy was almost hitting the water when we rolled that direction! Mike and I were both out on deck by this point holding on trying to keep our balance as the boat shifted probably a good 15-20 degrees in each direction. Not a slight roll. What we could see was a really large swell wrapping around the eastern point of the anchorage and hitting us direction on the beam! Swell isn’t as much of a big deal when it is from the same direction as the wind and you take it on the bow, but hitting us on the beam was creating the severe roll.

Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to pull up the anchor at 4 am and get the heck out of there. There was a nice full moon out which helped us a bit in getting out of the anchorage. We got away from the anchorage and started looking for the closest anchorage that would be protected from this large easterly swell. The closest place was Isla Coronados, about 2.5 hrs away. So, that’s where we were headed. It was certainly the largest swell we’ve seen since we left the Pacific side, and we have no idea where it came from. Our best guess is that there must have been a large storm on the mainland Mexican coast that created the swell that traveled across the Sea.

Before the roll…

We anchored at Isla Coronados after sunrise and tried to get a little sleep. After having a late breakfast, we decided to go ahead and make our way to our next destination – La Ramada, just north of Caleta San Juanico. There was still some swell, but we were able to sail the entire way from Isla Coronados to La Ramada and anchored in another beautiful spot. But, more on that next time!

~katie

It’s interesting how much salt plays a role in your life when you live on the ocean. As we were running the watermaker today, I was once again amazed by the fact that we have our own little desalination plant aboard our 41 foot boat! It does such a good job that you would never have imagined it was salty seawater just a few minutes earlier.

I was also reminded of salt today as I was doing laundry. How do you do laundry on a boat? Well, before we left I bought an inexpensive hand washing machine. It isn’t really a machine. It is a plastic container with a lid and handle that sits on a plastic frame. You add the laundry, water and detergent, close the lid and start cranking on the handle. It spins the plastic container around so hopefully the water and detergent get thoroughly through the clothes. It definitely does not clean them as well as a commercial washer, but it is a bit like hand washing clothes. After spinning for a couple of minutes, you insert the drain and release the soapy water. Then you add fresh water and crank again to rinse. I rigged up some clothes lines on the boat, ringed out each piece of clothing over the side and hung to dry with clothes pins.

Why did the laundry remind me of salt? It was so hot that I had salty sweat literally running into my eyes as I was doing the laundry. I’m not sure if it was the sweat or the sunscreen, but it stung! Because we are living in hot conditions and sweating all the time, it’s necessary to stay hydrated. Water just doesn’t cut it. We left California with some large containers of powdered electrolyte drink, but we went through those pretty quickly. We searched for something similar in San Jose and La Paz, but the only thing they had were premade electrolyte drinks that were sickly sweet. We decided to order some more powdered electrolyte drink while we were in La Paz, but they never made it. It looks like they got held up in customs. We were told that you never know what Mexican customs will deem as prohibited and simply confiscate. Oh well.

So, in place of our electrolyte drink, we have salt caps. I discovered these a few years ago when I was doing long bike trips on my road bike, and my fellow triathletes turned me on to them. They are essentially electrolytes in a capsule. We brought some with us and picked up some more bottles when we briefly stopped over in San Diego to renew our visas. So, we lose a lot of salt and then have to replenish it.

But, salt really plays a role in our lives because it gets on everything! We spend a good deal of time in the water, so we are often covered with salt. And then there is the boat, and everything on it. Covered in salt. All the time. Because we are always trying to use our fresh water sparingly (the watermaker takes fuel and we don’t always have a gas station nearby) we don’t get to wash the boat down every day. We just have to learn to live with salt. Yesterday was a prime example of salt getting everywhere on everything

But, before I tell you about the events of yesterday, let me back up a few days. We left Puerto Escondido and headed to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen. This is a popular anchorages with cruising boats, according to our guide book, but we have had this anchorage to ourselves for the past few days. We’ve noticed as the summer has gone on that we have seen fewer cruising boats. A lot of people cruising the Sea of Cortez put their boats up for the summer (or at least August and September – the hottest months) to fly back to the States or Canada. We are some of the few brave souls cruising in the heat of the summer.

Our first day here we dropped the dinghy in the water and grabbed our snorkel gear to check out the point at the entrance of the anchorage. There were fish everywhere! And, in just a few short weeks the water has gotten a lot warmer. We saw schools of Golden Jacks, Triggerfish, Leopard Groupers, Parrotfish, Angelfish, and lots of other fish that I couldn’t easily identify. We also saw a couple of Moray Eels! Mike decided to work on his free diving and got us a delicious appetizer of some rock scallops.

Mike cleaning the scallops…

We decided to get back in the dinghy and see if we could find another good snorkel spot and hit the jackpot. Just a few coves down the island we noticed some rocks coming out of the water a little way out from the shore. As we got closer, we could see rocks everywhere below us and noticed that there was a huge crevasse that ran between the rocks. We anchored the dinghy and jumped in with our gear. Absolutely fish city! We were able to swim through the crevasse and around the large rock formation in the middle to make a loop around back to the dinghy, which probably took us an hour or so. The best thing about it was that the visibility was incredible. It was the best we have seen yet this summer.

The next day we decided to break out the dive gear and go dive the second spot we had snorkeled the day before. Although we had a great time and saw tons of fish, unfortunately the visibility was nothing like it had been the day before. I guess you just never know But, getting the dive gear out forced us to finally figure out how to work the dive compressor that we purchased before we left. The directions left something to be desired, but we were able to fill up our four tanks and are ready to go for the next dive.

Our next day in Puerto Ballandra we decided to try our hand at fishing (again!). If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that we have not had a ton of luck in the fishing department this summer. Other than one large snapper, all we seem to catch are those darn triggerfish! We know that the locals eat the triggerfish, but the fillets you get off them just aren’t all that big. They are a roundish fish with a large head, so there isn’t a lot of meat on the body. They are likely only 2-3 lbs.

We had caught so many triggerfish in the past (and thrown them back) that Mike changed the lures to make it more difficult to catch a fish the size of the triggerfish and would hopefully lead to some bigger fish. We were out fishing around a small island called Isla Cholla and saw a lot of other local pangas out of Loreto fishing. One boat came near us and we asked where all the fish were. The guys made a piggy noise and pointed saying over there (in Spanish). The Spanish word for triggerfish is Cochito, which means little pig. Funny. I guess they are piggish, because they seem to go for anything. Even with our bigger hooks, we starting reeling in triggerfish. This time we decided to try and cook them. We kept three of them which fed us for two dinners.

If you are interested in how I cooked the triggerfish, here is my recipe Put the fish fillet (skin side down) on foil in a baking dish. Sprinkle salt, pepper, lemon juice, cumin and fresh cilantro on top. Seal up the foil and bake at 350 (about 10 minutes). I think this would be good on any white, flaky fish. It reminded me a bit of tilapia.

So, on to yesterday We are nine miles from Loreto across the channel. It had been about 2 weeks or so since we had been to a grocery store, and we were pretty much out of fresh fruits and vegetables. We could live for quite a while on frozen and canned foods, but the fresh stuff is always desirable. If you’ve spent any time with Mike, you’d know that he would eat five pieces of fruit a day if he could (especially mangos)! So, we wanted to head over to Loreto to pick up some groceries.

Our 15 hp outboard on our dinghy can actually take us a lot faster than taking the big boat. However, it is only a 10 foot dinghy! We thought that there was a pretty predictable wind forecast of calm in the morning before any afternoon winds pick up (which has been the case every day). In our little dinghy, you want calm water, not rough waves to plow through.

At 6:00 a.m. yesterday the sun was not yet up, but the wind was blowing. We had breakfast and waited for the wind to die down. The wind did calm down, but there was still some wave action going on. We though that as the wind continued to still, the water would calm down as well. Ha! Best laid plans and all. We got in the dinghy and headed out of the anchorage. We hadn’t gotten very far when I realized (and I’m sure Mike did too) that this was the wrong day to be doing this. Mike was doing his best to get us through the waves, but over every wave we came crashing down jolting me off my seat. And, through every wave came the salt water crashing over the dinghy. I was sitting in front of Mike and was completely soaked an hour later when we arrived in Loreto (covered in salt, again.)

When we arrived in Loreto, the same kids were at the dock as last time waiting to help us with our boat and bags (for tips of course). Mike remembered the biggest kid (who was maybe 14 or 15) whose name was Miguel, and he was surprised Mike remembered his name! We trudged out of the dinghy with all of our bags and headed to the grocery store. But first, we had to make a trip to the tortilleria for fresh tortillas! We got 2 kilos of tortillas (corn and flour) for 26 pesos (about $1.50). Amazing. We then stocked all of our bags at the grocery store and found a taxi to take us back to our dinghy.

I was really hoping that the wind and waves would have calmed down while we were shopping. Ha! The ocean had other plans as we looked out and saw whitecaps everywhere. The sea was a complete mess of sloppy waves and wind in every which direction. What were we thinking?!? Oh well, nothing to do but brave the nine miles in the 10 ft dinghy through the waves. I’m so grateful Mike was at the tiller and not me. But, by the time we got back to Adagio, I was soaked through every layer of clothes, as were all of our grocery bags. Salt, again

So, as fun a time as we are having, there are definitely challenges. Learning to live with salt is just one of them.

Sunset looking out over the channel toward Loreto on a calm evening…

We’re plotting out our next few stops. Unless plans change (which they might) we are headed to El Refugio (known as V-Cove) on the northern tip of Isla Carmen tomorrow.

~katie

Sometimes you make decisions you didn’t expect to make that day. That’s what happened a few days ago when we were at Isla Coronados. We had been enjoying the beautiful little anchorage but started discussing where we were going to head next. We had skipped over some anchorages on Isla Carmen and Isla Danzante on our way north from Puerto Escondido, because we had stopped in Loreto for some provisions.
So, we had to decide whether we were going to go back south to check out the islands or continue north for now and hit Isla Carmen and Isla Danzante when we headed back south at the end of the summer. Well, that discussion led to how we were going to renew our Mexican visas, which were going to expire in a few weeks.

I am a rule follower and Mike basically thinks rules are made to be broken, but we both agreed that as guests in this country we wanted to follow the rules and not overstay our visas. If you enter Mexico as a tourist, they will give you a 180 day visa when you enter the country. We discussed getting a longer term visa before we left, but that was going to require applying at the consulate in LA and we were so busy preparing to leave that we just ran out of time. There isn’t a way to renew your 180 day visa in Mexico. But, you can step across the border in the US and back across into Mexico and get another 180 days. I have no idea why, but these are the rules.

The closest border crossing is Tijuana, which is not remotely close to here. Baja is pretty sparse. And, not only do we have to find a way to the border (plane, train, bus) but we have to leave the boat somewhere safe. There are not many marinas on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez once you get north of La Paz. We did not want to leave the boat at anchor. We had spoken to some other cruisers who had suggested going up to Santa Rosalia where there is a very small marina. From there, it is an eight hour bus ride to the border.
Santa Rosalia is 95 miles from Isla Coronados. But, there was another option nearby. We had just come from Puerto Escondido, which was only 20 miles south. Puerto Escondido is 14 miles south of Loreto, where there is an airport!

Puerto Escondido is one of the most protected harbors in Baja. It is nearly landlocked and known as a “hurricane hole.” There isn’t much of a marina here yet, except for small boats. (Most boats are at anchor or on moorings.) But, there is a dock we had tied up to the week before, just for the day, which was nearly empty given the time of year. We called them on the sat phone and found out that the dock was available and quickly made the decision to pick up the anchor and head south.

We were able to get a flight from Loreto to Tijuana the next day. The Tijuana airport sits just on the Mexican side of the border, and there is a bridge directly from the airport to the US side. It is really convenient to go through immigration and exit the airport back in the US. We decided to make the most of this last minute trip and do some shopping for things to take back with us that are difficult to find in Mexico. So, we rented a car and found a cheap hotel on the border for the night and then took the next available flight back to Loreto. Although we would have liked to have made it a longer trip to see friends and family, our summer in the Sea of Cortez was going to go by quickly and we wanted to make the most of it. We’ll be back for an extended trip in December.

When we got back to Puerto Escondido yesterday I went up to the marina office to settle up with them and get some laundry tokens. I mentioned that we were going to head out that afternoon with plans to go anchor at one of the islands (Isla Danzante is the closest). The office manager looked at me closely and said, “Have you checked the weather?” Well, of course not. That would have been entirely too sensible! Apparently there was a tropical storm hitting Baja. Uh, where did that come from? It wasn’t there a couple of days ago

We have the ability to download weather forecasts from our sat phone as well as get weather information from the SSB and VHF nets. For at least the last month, the weather forecasts have been exactly the same every daysunny, hot, light winds from the southeast So, we had gotten a bit complacent about checking the weather EVERY day. It is hurricane season, so of course we look for tropical activity in the weather forecasts. But, so far every tropical storm/hurricane has headed west away from land.

After talking to the marina, I came back the boat and let Mike know we needed to fire up the computer and the sat phone to look at this tropical storm I just heard about. Sure enough, Javier was looking like it was going to head up the west coast of Baja and bring strong wind and rain on our side of the peninsula as well.

So, we made the decision to wait out the storm in Puerto Escondido. But, we did not want to pay to stay at the dock for a couple more days. (It was very pricey for a marina.) We were going to anchor out in the bay, but the marina manager convinced us to take a mooring instead. They charge the same price ($11/night) if you are anchored or on a mooring.

We were a little skeptical only because some friends we had met a few months ago told us a story of their experience in Puerto Escondido last year when their boat broke free of the mooring. But, the marina assured us that all of the moorings had been replaced in the last year. A new company has recently taken over management of the marina and moorings from the government, and we were satisfied with his explanation.
If you don’t know what a mooring is, it is essentially a concrete block on the bottom of the ocean with a chain or rope up to a buoy. From the buoy there is another rope which you attach to the boat. So, it is like a permanent anchor on the ocean floor. Although we were confident we would be secure on the mooring, we decided to set the anchor alarm anyway. We have an app on our iPad that uses GPS (not internet) that we can set at night to tell us if our anchor drags. So far, our anchor has been holding us without any issue, but we always set the alarm to be safe.

We finished the laundry and had some lunch and prepared to get off the dock and pick up a mooring. By then the wind had picked up to about 20 kts. We were side-tied to the dock with a bow and stern line and two spring lines. The wind was on our nose and blowing us off the dock and backwards. There was a boat tied up behind us, so the trick was now how to get off the dock without blowing into something!
I was at the helm and Mike was on the dock getting ready to release the dock lines and jump on. Without any wind, this would have been no big deal. But, the wind made it a whole new ball game. Mike released the stern and aft spring line first. As he grabbed the bow line, the stern swung way out from the dock. Mike was putting his entire body weight into pulling the bow line back toward the dock. I put the boat in gear and throttled up to try and keep us from blowing backwards. This pushed the boat forward, but there is no way to swing the stern back in. I was a bit nervous at this point that Mike was not going to be able to get on the boat, and I was going to have to find a way to maneuver back around to try to pick him up. Somehow the boat swung back just close enough for Mike to jump on, and I hit the throttle to get us away from the dock quickly. Whew! In hindsight, we should have done this differently, but everything is a learning experience!

With one obstacle out of the way, the next one was picking up the mooring. We motored out to the mooring field. I was at the bow and Mike was at the helm. As I described the mooring above, you need to pick up the second line from the buoy and attach it to the cleat on the bow of the boat. I had a long boat hook that I was going to need to reach over the bow and hook the line, pull it up and attach it to the cleat. The trick is getting right on top of it (without hitting the buoy, of course). That sounds easier than it is, especially when the wind is blowing like crazy and you are headed into the waves. From Mike’s vantage point behind the helm, he was going to be coming up to it basically blind once we got close and was relying on me to give him signals. Miraculously, he put me right up to mooring line as I hollered “reverse” to stop our forward momentum giving me time to hook the line with the boat hook and pull it up. At least we got this second obstacle done the easy way!

We settled in for the evening and took a look at the growing black clouds over the mountains in the distance, but it was still clear above us with the stars and crescent moon out. Despite the sun having departed for the day, it was pretty warm. Closing up all the hatches and portlights was going to make for an uncomfortably warm night sleeping. We figured that if we started to hear some raindrops, we’d get up and close everything.

Waiting for the storm…

Although we’re adapting to the heat, sleeping when you sweat just lying there isn’t really that fun. In order to be comfortable, we have the hatches open, a fan on, and usually no sheets, blankets, clothes or anything that would make you warm. So, that’s how we were when I was suddenly jolted awake at 3:30 this morning with a torrential downpour!

I think I scared the crap out of Mike waking him up as we both bolted outside (no clothes, remember) into the pouring rain. Believe me, cold rain at 3:30 in the morning will definitely wake you up! As we were getting drenched, we quickly closed all of the top opening hatches. Since we had installed screens on the hatches, it was really difficult to close them from inside the boat, so we had to run up on deck. We then raced back inside dripping on everything to close all of the portlights. We dried ourselves off as we grabbed towels to try and dry everything else that got wet. So much for a few raindrops giving us a little warning!

It’s been raining on and off today, and so we are doing our best to keep busy (like writing long blog posts). Mike decided to take advantage of a downpour this morning to get a shower in on the deck. I hope he didn’t scare any fish, or our neighbors!

The forecasts show Javier being downgraded over the next 24 hours. Looks like we should be clear of rain tomorrow and will hopefully be able to leave Puerto Escondido.

~katie

Well, we didn’t end up staying at Puerto Los Gatos for very long. Although it is a spectacularly beautiful bay with unusual red rock formations, the rest of our stay was a bit of a bust. There are some extensive reef systems around the bay and we were excited to do some snorkeling. However, we didn’t end up staying in the water but a few minutes because the visibility was so poor. So, we decided to try fishing instead. We went up and down the coast in the dinghy trying to catch a meal. Mike says that fishing takes patience and determination, two things that I seem to lack in the fishing department. I gave up after a couple of hours, but Mike was determined to catch something worthwhile. Unfortunately, all he caught was triggerfish after triggerfish after triggerfish. I think he pulled in over 20 of those little guys. We know the locals eat them, but there really isn’t much meat on them. We just don’t want to kill something that isn’t going to give us a few meals off of it.

And, the last straw with Puerto Los Gatos was the BEES. We had heard that there were bees in the Sea of Cortez, but this was our first encounter with them. They are looking for fresh water. They send out scouts, and if they find water they will bring back all of their friends. So, at first we just saw one or two bees, but pretty soon there were 20 or 30 of them buzzing around the boat trying to get in. We have screens up on all of the opening ports and hatches, but that didn’t stop them from making an effort. If we ran the water in the sink in the head, they all showed up at the port window in the head. I think they must be able to smell it or something. Anyway, we couldn’t exactly sit outside in the cockpit with the bees. They stayed around all day and then disappeared after dark. But, first thing in the morning they were back. We had to shoo them away as we were pulling up the anchor to get out of there. One even flew up my shorts! I’m glad it didn’t sting me, because bee stings make me swell up like a balloon.

We decided to head north up to Bahia Agua Verde. It was a beautiful, calm morning. There was no wind and the water was as smooth as glass. Beautiful, but not ideal for sailing. So, we motored our way up toward the San Marcial Reef, which is a large reef sitting off the coast of Punta San Marcial. To get to Bahia Agua Verde, we had to round the tip of Punta San Marcial without hitting the reef. Because the water is fairly shallow in this area, we used the GPS waypoints in our cruising guide to get us safely between the point and the reef.

When we entered Bahia Agua Verde, there was only one other boat anchored in the bay. There are several anchorages, and we choose the southern most anchorage, which looked beautiful and very protected. It is a small cove, only big enough for a couple of boats. It has a white sandy beach in front and an unusual rock formation called pyramid rock off to one side. Pyramid rock is a large, triangular rock that sits out in the water, surrounded by smaller rocks and a few cactus growing out of it. It looks like something a landscape architect would design rather than something naturally forming.

Bahia Agua Verde is home to a small fishing village. We read that there were a couple of stores on shore, so we dropped the dinghy in the water to go check them out. We didn’t really know where we were going once on shore. We started down a dirt road and were suddenly surrounded by goats. Apparently there is a goat dairy here! Like everywhere else we’ve been in Mexico, the livestock are “free range.” We saw some women sitting on a porch of a small house and asked them where the tienda was. They pointed across the street to another house. It didn’t look like a store, but we headed over there anyway.

As we approached the house, a woman came out and greeted us. She walked to a small building next to her home, about the size of a one car garage, and opened it for us. We had found the tienda! We were able to get some fresh eggs, onions, bananas and milk. (The great thing about buying milk in Mexico is that it comes in boxes that don’t have to be refrigerated.) It only cost us about $10. But, she did not have cerveza, which Mike was looking to replenish. The women told us to go to the “otro tienda.” There was another store in town.

So, we wandered further down a dirt road and had to stop to ask for directions again. We eventually found the otro tienda, which was very similar to the first one, except she had beer! We also picked up some tomatoes, jalapenos, oatmeal and granola. Overall, a pretty good score for a tiny village!

On our way back to the boat we stopped and made friends with the only other sailboat anchored here. Bob invited us aboard his catamaran for a few beers. He has been solo sailing for the last 16 years and had quite a few stories to tell. This was his second boat, as he lost the first one in a hurricane in the Caribbean some years back. We got to visit with Bob some more a couple of days later when he invited us and another boat that showed up over for happy hour.

Yesterday morning we decided to try our hand at snorkeling again, hoping that the water was a bit clearer here. From what we understand, this is an unusual summer for both the visibility and the fishing. The water is still in the high 70’s, which is a lot colder that it should be for this time of year. For whatever reason, that makes the water less clear and the usual great fishing is basically nonexistent. Our fingers are crossed that it improves! Anyway, we had about 15 feet of visibility, so we got in the water anyway. We swam over to the pyramid rock, a couple hundred yards away. Despite the somewhat murky water, there were fish everywhere! We had to free dive down in some places to get a good look between some of the large boulders, but we saw all kinds of fish lurking down there. We were having quite a fun time and doing out best to ignore the jellyfish that were stinging us relentlessly. We couldn’t even see them, but you’d be swimming along and suddenly feel the sharp sting on your arm or leg. Eventually, we had enough of the stinging and swam back to the boat. It took a couple of hours for the stinging to subside and the welts to go down. Next time, I’m wearing my wetsuit!

Some clouds rolled in that afternoon which gave us a bit of a respite from the heat. We decided to check out one of the hikes we had read about in the book. We took the dinghy over to the north side beach and started on the trail up the hill. We scrambled up and over the hill into the valley below and past a small, old cemetery, which was quite in disrepair. The gravestones showed they were from the 1940’s and 50’s, and we wondered how hard it would have been to live here then. We tried following the trail around, but it seems to have washed out in the arroyos, and we couldn’t quite find the right path. We started down one of the arroyos, which kind of dead ended into a forest of palm trees, many of which had been felled, and we had to pick our way through them. We had seen cow droppings along the path, and I suddenly heard a noise behind us. Sure enough, through the palm fronds, we saw a large white cow staring at us. We headed further into the palms trying to find the path, but every once and awhile I would turn around and see the cow, who had now started following us, just stop and stare at us. I was beginning to get a little nervous about the cow. Mike thought I was being ridiculous, but if you read my bicycling post in San Jose, you’ll remember that we were chased by a cow a few months ago. Those suckers are big and I did not want to piss it off! But, eventually, the cow meandered by us and left us alone.

We were told that the trail led to a beach were there were caves you could see ancient petroglyphs (cave paintings). Well, despite our efforts, we could not find the trail that led to the beach. Maybe we’ll try to get more information about it before our next stop here in the future. (Bahia Agua Verde will be on our path back down south after hurricane season.)

Our next stop is going to be Yellowstone Beach on Isla Monserrat. At least we hope that will be our next stop. Bob told us he got swarmed with bees there. So, if the bees are too bad, we’ll be moving on pretty quickly.

~katie

As you last heard from Mike, we left La Paz and anchored in Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida a week ago. When you leave La Paz and cross the San Lorenzo Channel, the first island you come to is Isla Espiritu Santo, which is part of the National Park System in Mexico. (We got annual park passes while we were in La Paz.) Espiritu Santo has beautiful red rock faces that show the striations that formed due to the movement of the tectonic plates. It is quite beautiful. We decided not to stop at Espiritu Santo because most of the anchorages do not afford protection from the strong summer southerly winds. We intend to go back to the island when we head back south later in the year when the winds shift to the north.

Isla Partida is the next island north of Espiritu Santo and much smaller. We pulled into Ensenada Grande, one of the larger anchorages. Just as the sun was setting, we were treated to a show of mobula rays jumping in the air. They are so fun to watch, and I got some great pictures. After relaxing the next day, we were treated to another show the second night. The water was full of bio luminescence. It looked like fireflies darting around in the water. Mike dropped a line over the rail to trail through the water, which made it look like fireworks were going off. So cool! And, the night was so clear with just a sliver of a moon that we could even see the Milky Way. It was pretty special to sit out on the deck at night and experience all the beauty in the dark.

The next day we dropped the paddle boards in the water to go exploring. Ensenada Grande has three lobes or fingers of the entrance to the anchorage, and we paddled around them all to check out the beaches and see what other sea life we could find. Because it is so close to La Paz, and because it was the weekend, the anchorage and beaches were pretty crowded with local people renting boats to come enjoy the water. We were also a bit disappointed in the visibility, as the water is pretty green. Apparently there is an algae bloom happening that generally occurs when the water starts to get warmer. We were told that it is really late in the season for this to happen, but that the visibility should start to get better later in the summer and as we head north into the sea. So, we didn’t really do any snorkeling or diving here.

On our way paddling back to the boat, we saw some other folks returning to their sailboat in their dinghy. We paddled over to say hello and introduce ourselves. Cruisers are pretty friendly people and always interested to hear the stories of other cruisers! We met a really nice couple who have been cruising around the world for the last 13 years! Impressive. They had two friends on board who were guests for a couple of weeks. They were curious about our paddle boards, and we let them try them out and they then invited us aboard to hang out.

We decided the next day to head further north to another island called Isla San Francisco. But, first we stopped at some rock out croppings called Los Islotes off the northern tip of Isla Partida. Los Islotes is home to a sea lion rookery. You could see and hear the sea lions barking up a storm, and I got lots of pictures of the babies on the island. Meanwhile, Mike wanted to see if there was any good fishing off the islands. He caught a skipjack and a bonito, which lived to swim another day because those fish are not on our dinner menu.

After Los Islotes, we headed for Isla San Francisco, about 20 miles away. The water was unfortunately dead calm, and we had to motor. We did see a couple of large sea turtles and a pod of pilot whales! When we got to Isla San Francisco, we decided to anchor in the smaller anchorage on the east side, as it looked more protected from the southerly winds that usually come up at night. However, we did not anticipate a large easterly swell that came through in the middle of the night, making it a very rolly and uncomfortable night. After anchoring, we put on some fins and swam to shore. The shore was pretty rocky, with a lot of small red rocks rather than powdery sand. Supposedly, there are a lot of agates on the beach that you can collect. We looked around for a while, but we didn’t really know what we were looking for.

We decided to hike over the dunes and the salt flats to the other side of the island that has a southwesterly facing anchorage. We spotted our neighbors from Ensenada Grande as well as another boat we met back in May when we were in Bahia Los Frailes. Despite the anchorage being open to the south, it looked calmer than our anchorage, so the next morning, we picked up the anchor and moved to the other side of the island. We spent the day pretty much relaxing inside the boat as we were both on sun overload! Even with lots of sunscreen, hats, long sleeve shirts, etc., it is easy to over do it and need a day out of the strong sun here.

One of the boats invited us to a bonfire on shore that evening. Their three kids had worked hard collecting what little wood there is on this desert island and got a pretty decent fire going on the beach. They invited all the boats anchored in the bay, and about 20 people showed up. Several of the boats had kids & teenagers aboard, and they all seemed to get along. One of them even played the ukulele for us. It was really fun talking to everyone of various nationalities. We always seem to find a lot in common with other boaters! The wind kicked up pretty good while we were all hanging at the bonfire, and all of the dinghies had a bit of a challenge getting off the steep beach and through the surf. Even though it was probably 1 am by the time we got back to the boat, we all agreed it was a great time.

We decided to try and do some fishing the next day, but we got a bit of a late start since we were up so late the night before. We put the dinghy in the water and headed out around the island. We caught several triggerfish, which are really beautiful fish. They are a roundish fish with beaks like a parrotfish. They have a lot of blue shimmery color on them. We heard that the locals eat them, but they really aren’t that big. We just weren’t sure if we wanted to go to the trouble of filleting these little fish, so they got to swim on. But, the highlight of the fishing trip was a show that a marlin put on right in front of our dinghy launching himself up in the air about 10 times. I had never seen anything like it! Awesome!

After we got back from fishing, we got an invite to a pot luck on another boat. A fishing boat had given them a bunch of marlin, and they offered to share it with us and another boat. We had a delicious meal, drank some wine, told some stories, and had another late night. But, it is all good!

We weren’t quite satisfied with our fishing expedition yesterday, so this morning we got up early (well, earlier) and decided to go a bit further out to and island called Isla Coyote on the northern end of Isla San Francisco, which has some rocks surrounding it that we thought looked good for fishing. Mike reeled in a huge snapper! We deduced from our fish cheat sheet that it was a greenbar snapper. We’re estimating it was about 20 lbs. That was enough for our freezer, so we headed back to the boat. After Mike finished cleaning the fish we shared some with our neighbor. I am really looking forward to some snapper fish tacos for dinner tonight!

We’re in the process of making a plan for our next destination, so we will keep you all posted.

~Katie