We departed Isla San Marcos early, ducking the three miles down below the reef that juts out from the south end of the Island and then continuing north, headed for Santa Rosalia.  We understood from the guidebooks that the holding in the port was less than perfect, and also that the marina was tiny (about 20 slips on one main dock!) so Owen called early to ensure that we could come in to the Marina.  Unfortunately, he did not get the slip assignment and as we were approaching the large man-made breakwater to the port, we were trying to hail the marina on the radio with no luck.  Owen got all fenders and lines set up on our port side, hoping that we would be able to dock in that formation (Solstice Tide’s prop walk makes a Port tie much easier) and then phoned for clarification.   We were told to come into A5 and assured that it was in fact a port tie.   A5 was a port tie – A4 was actually the slip that was open!!  We were motoring slowly alongside the dock, preparing to pull into the slip when I realized that we were set up on the wrong side – we had two options – turn around and go back out to switch over all the lines, or back in.   Please understand, Solstice Tide does not like to back in – at all!!!    Owen was far more confident that I would be able to do so and, given the fact that there was no wind, and the current seemed negligible, and there was not another dock full of boats to hit – only the ferry dock! – I decided to give it a go.  Owen said to just get the stern to the corner of the finger and then they would be able to walk us in – the problem was that the finger only came out half way down the length of the slip and the boat in the other side of the slip had a huge bow sprit.  I was terrified!!!   While Owen ran to the back to wrangle the dinghy into submission, I very slowly backed her in and managed to pull her right into the slip with no drama – and then very quickly disappeared down below to allow my knees and hands time to stop shaking!   Once I had the opportunity to settle, I popped up to take a peek around and was delighted to see Sapphire docked two slips over from us – we had met Greg and Sherri on New Years and again at Gentry’s birthday and had run into them briefly in La Cruz.   They were not on board when we first got there but I was just coming back from a walk around the property a bit later when they spotted me coming down the ramp.   I popped on board their boat for a quick visit and Owen finally found me there a not so short time later.   Both Owen and Greg were very intrigued by the mining history in the town and it was decided that we would try to go to the mining museum, before heading out to check out a well-reviewed restaurant.

We walked down to a small museum consisting of 3 “caves” that simulated the conditions of the mine, with the guide offering information about the origin and history of the mine.  He strongly recommended that we should check out the other museum, located in the original mine administration offices.  We set off in the direction that we thought the museum should be and were quickly lost – the funny thing was none of the locals seemed to know what we were looking for.   After a few wrong turns, we finally found the building, only to find it closed.   We were standing outside discussing where to go next when a security guard came around the corner and asked if we needed anything.   We confirmed with him that the museum was closed for the day and would not reopen until Monday – we sadly told him we were going to be gone before Monday and he asked us to wait a minute while he made a phone call.   A couple of minutes later, he opened up the museum and invited us in.   We got a private tour from the guard and were thrilled to discover this space that had been largely unchanged since it acted as the local headquarters for the mine.

After the tour we wound our way through town to Tonka – a wonderful restaurant fairly close to the marina.   We enjoyed delicious Pina Coladas and huge burgers and, more importantly, great company.   We all headed back to our boats, thankful to have made it back before the wedding reception that had been set up right at the top of the ramp started.  It would have felt pretty awkward walking right through the wedding!!!    The wedding proved to be a very loud affair that just got louder as the night wore on, with the music going long past 3am!!

The next day we wandered around the town, checking out some of old mining and railway relics that were set up all over town.   We were able to check out the Eiffel Church – designed by Eiffel (as in the tower) in France. When the French company was moving their families over Mexico to over-see the mine, the wives insisted that there had to be a church. The mine owner approached Eiffel to purchase his church and the entire thing was disassembled, shipped to Santa Rosalita and reassembled on site. We found an amazing bakery and sat on the sidewalk eating ginormous donuts before going to grab a few groceries.   We walked back along the waterfront, taking us past the site of the old smelter.   The ruins of the smelter have been established into a bit of a plaza and museum – it is odd to be walking around a site that in Canada would have been fenced off for safety or, worse, stripped of all of its metal by thieves!!    We ended up heading back to Tonka with Greg and Sherri for another round of drinks, and then a stop for ice cream on the way back to the boats.   This time there was a small pub at the building at the top of the ramp – we had not even noticed it before – it had not been open the night before and at first we thought it was just open to service the bus depot that was also on site.  It was not – instead we listened to rather bad music – that included an accordian! – until the very early hours of the morning.  

Our last morning in Santa Rosalita was spent picking up jugs of water to replenish our tanks.   We then went in search of a restaurant recommended by Greg and Sherri to grab a roasted chicken and sides to have for dinner that night.   We were headed out for another overnight and this would mean I did not have to cook!   We made a fuel stop and then headed out of the harbour around noon.   We motored or motor-sailed much of the evening – we knew that there was expected to be a Coromal coming across the peninsula from Santa Maria on the outside – the forecast had it coming in at about 2am and at the pace we were going, we would have been well north of the area it was expected before that time.  Instead, it very suddenly hit at about 9pm – I went from motoring to 20 knots inside of 5 minutes.  Owen was down sleeping and I suddenly found myself unable to leave the wheel but desperately needing to reef the headsail.  I finally had to call him up and he helped to get the headsail in, leaving us a bit more balanced.  By this time, we were seeing steady 25 knots, gusting to 28 – it was a bit of a wet ride – Owen actually got completely doused coming up the companionway and I was soaked!!!   I told Owen to just stay down trying to sleep as I knew I would never be able to sleep and I drove until about 12:30 am when the wind finally backed and then died completely.   We finally made it into Bahia San Francisquito at about 10am – the water was crystal clear (but oh so cold!) and there was georgous rock formations everywhere.  Unfortunately, we were both too exhausted to even consider putting the dinghy in the water to explore.   We will definitely stop there on our way back down!! 

We left San Francisquito the next morning at about 6am and headed north into some pretty strong current.   We only managed to sail for an hour or so and were moving very slowly!!   We were actually hailed by a boat that had left the anchorage about 2 hours after us – as they were passing us, they wanted to be sure that nothing was wrong aboard  – they just couldn’t understand why we were going so slow!!!  We finally arrived at Bahia Animas about 3pm and anchored beside the boat that hailed us, and one other boat.    The anchorage shallowed quickly and there was not a lot of protection from any wind or swell that might come in from the east so we were happy to have a nice settled evening.

The next day we were up early and headed out of Animas – almost immediately we were faced with 20 knots on the nose and huge seas.  We battled into it for an hour or so, making barely a knot of headway and then decided neither us nor the boat needed to be this beat up – we turned around and headed back to the anchorage.   It was still calm in the anchorage but the swell soon reached us and it was a bit of an unsettled afternoon.   We consoled ourselves with a movie day and tried not to think too much about how far we still had to go and how few days there were left to get there!!!

The next morning we were up at 5:30 for another try – we almost immediately saw a north wind in the low teens and I was concerned that the seas were building again, but we decided to push on.   The wind gradually died as the day went on and we motored into LA Bay by 11am.  LA Bay is definitely another spot we want to explore – there are a bunch of islands in the bay with anchorages protected from various different wind directions.   This visit was to be short and sweet however – we anchored right in front of the town and dinghied into the beach.  There was a bit of swell on the beach but luckily there is an old breakwater from an unused boat ramp so we were able to tuck in and land the dinghy with no drama.   We had brought our trusty cart and jerry cans, intending to make 2 runs for diesel.   We started to head through town to the gas station – only to be told at the first station that there was no diesel available and we would have to go to the next station, which was a bit further out towards the highway.   It was quickly decided that, after the long walk to get the first load, we would just cross our fingers for enough wind to sail and not go for a second diesel run.   We were honestly a little disappointed by the town – the people seemed downright surly – though that may have something to do with the fact that they seem to be overrun with Americans – mostly from California – parking their boat trailers all over town.  We did do a quick stop for some last provisions and then hit a restaurant near where we were anchored to have a very expensive lunch and pina coladas (and get some wifi!).  

We headed back to the boat and motored (with one brief spell of lazy sailing) through the bay to an anchorage between Isla Coronado (a volcano!) and Isla Mitlan.   It was a perfectly protected spot, right at the foot of the extinct volcano.   We jumped into the dinghy eager to explore and headed first to the south end of the anchorage – we just drifting into the shore when we noticed what looked terrifyingly like 100’s of cockroaches crawling all over the shore (probably some sort of water beetle?) – we quickly backed out of there and tried to head over to the base of the volcano – only to find the same horrifying sight!!!  We gave up on the idea of land exploration and headed back to the boat.

We were once again up and about early the next morning, and went to head north between Coronado and the mainland, only to realize that the water depth was only about 4 feet in the pass – we were so disappointed – the cruising guide clearly showed this as an exit out of the Bay, but apparently that is for kayaks!!!   We had to motor about four miles south down around the bottom end of the Island and then back up – it was already going to be a long day so adding 8 miles did not make me a happy girl.   We motored until we were at the top end of Coronado and then finally had about 15 knots of wind on our beam, allowing us to sail for about 5 miles.   We were just firing up the engine again when a pod of Orcas approached the boat, we killed the engine and drifted while they played around and under our boat.   They finally got bored and continued south, while we motored the rest of the way up the side of Isla Angel de la Guardia, headed for Puerto Refugio.  We arrived in the Isla Mejia anchorage about 5pm and got the anchor set.   This was again a beautiful spot that would warrant more exploration – add it to our return list!!! 

We had a bit of lazy morning and then headed out about noon the next day – we knew we were again in for an overnight for this last sail before Puerto Penasco – we had about 107 miles to cover – it was now Saturday and we were being hauled out on Monday so we were confident we should be able to make it!!   We first motored around to take a peek into the primary Refugio anchorage – it is georgous – how will we will fit in all these spots on the way back?  We were just motoring away from the top end of the island when we saw a disturbance on the water.    The water looked like it was boiling and we quickly realized it was hundreds of dolphins feeding – to add to the chaos, there were hundreds of pelicans and other birds diving down amongst the pod!!!   We watched the show for quite a long time before they finally cleared behind us.  The wind conditions were perfect to try the spinnaker, a sail that had seen almost no fly time our entire trip – Owen got everything rigged up and we launched it about noon.   We sailed at between 5 and 7 knots until the wind finally started to die out and we doused the sail around 5:30.   We decided to motor for a couple of hours while I got dinner made and then Owen asked if we could turn it off while he listened to the radio check ins on the SSB.   While he was doing that, the wind gradually started to build – by the time he was done we were comfortably travelling at about 4 knots.   We were now facing the possibility that we were going to get to Puerto Penasco before daybreak so we were happy to sail along through the night.   By early morning the seas were building from the south and the wind was dying – we finally fired up the engine for the final hour or so, mostly to stop the rolling in the waves!!   We had been told by the boatyard that marinas are first come first serve in Penasco and we should take the first dock we saw.   We had also read that the shrimp boats had a bit of a habit of running into the Fonatur dock – the instructions were definitely to take the more westerly dock to keep away from the shrimpers.   When we pulled in, we could see that the entire end dock at the Fonatur marina was thankfully empty – we pulled up to it, actually having to take a second run as the current was completely messing with my docking – Owen jumped off only to realize there were no cleats on the westerly dock – very strange!!!  No worries – we just took our lines across the dock to the other side and got settled in.   A security guard came down to let us know that the office was closed and we would have to check in the next morning.   That unfortunately meant no access to their showers (for some reason our hot water heater was not working again and Owen had not yet had the chance to trouble shoot it).  I ended up having a horribly cold shower and then we headed out to explore Puerto Penasco a bit.

We walked along to the Malecon and were immediately assaulted by the music and hawkers, everyone trying to get us to go to their restaurant – it felt like Cabo!!!   I had not known it until just before we headed there, but Puerto Penasco serves as a beach getaway for people in Arizona and has a big party vibe.   We managed to make our way off the Malecon and found a great little restaurant set over a couple of floors, with a fun “beer garden” on the first floor and a wine bar on the second.   The view of the sunset was fantastic and dinner was wonderful.   We headed back to the boat and used the evening lack of wind to get our headsail down and furled before calling it a night – the next day was going to be a long one as we will still had a few things to do before we could get hauled out!