At about 4pm, we decided that it was time to depart Los Muertos. The winds had settled down to the mid-teens and though we knew the sea state was going to be rough, we also knew this was our window. We got everything tucked away and went to fire up the engine – nothing! Tried again – nothing. Ummmm…. Owen had a think for a moment and then went back to check the glow plug resister – and found it pretty much melted!!! Apparently, at some point, we had over glow-plugged!!! He was able to quickly by-pass the resister and we were underway. Just another job to add to the list!!! Things were very, very rolly as we got underway!!! The waves were hitting the boat from every direction and, at one point, I took a series of waves right in the face!!!! Thankfully, though it was still windy, the wind was pretty warm – it would have been a pretty miserable wet night otherwise!!!!
Owen was just getting settled in for his off-watch while I was tucked in in the cockpit with blankies and my podcasts – I felt around on the bench beside me to find my phone, to confirm that our heading was good – I grabbed what I thought was the end of the traveler line – it was pretty wet and soggy and I kind of rolled it through my fingers thinking “wow – did we ever get doused earlier!” – suddenly, it occurred to me that what was in my hand did not feel like rope – in fact it felt pretty slimy – ummmm – I put my hand up into the light of the chart plotter and realized I had some sort of sea creature in my hand! Screaming ensued – I rushed down the ladder and into the head, yelling “flying fish on my hand, flying fish on my hand!!” Owen, who was just trying to get himself wedged onto the settee grabbed a flashlight and shone it up in the cockpit – of course laughing at me while I scrubbed the skin off my hands – there was actually a squid still sitting where I had dropped it beside my seat, and another on the floor. He dispatched those two into the sea – the next morning we found another one on the deck and the day after that found one we had missed – it had been a bit wedged under the pole – it did not smell good when Owen scraped it off the deck!!! I can’t help but shudder to think that I could very well have taken one of those in the face during that big wave!!! Ewwwww
This is the one I manhandled – bleck!
The rest of the night went along with much less drama – by my second off watch, the sea state had leveled out so much that I went to sleep in the bed (quite uncomfortable in any kind of spicy conditions) and had a great sleep!!! The winds were pretty light all through the next day though we did manage to keep moving at around 3 knots. By the time we were heading into the night, the winds were very light and the seas nearly flat – we both slept all shifts in bed that night. Unfortunately, we were going very slow – Owen had a 3 miles in 3 hours shift!! I have to admit that I am becoming concerned about crossing the Ocean when it seems to take us five days just to cross the Sea of Cortez every time!!!
We sailed along with the wind picking up every afternoon and dying again in the early morning. We were finally in the final approach to Isla Isabella – conditions had been quite crazy the night before with big waves hitting us broadside – I actually slept in the cockpit at one point – just couldn’t bring myself to go below and get tossed out of the settee!!! Sure enough, just as the sun was starting to set on our 4th night at sea, the wind and waves started to build. By 11pm we were flying along with no main up and just a sliver of headsail, and making over six knots. At this rate we were going to miss Isla Isabella entirely – we anticipated flying right by it at 2am!!!! As it was the wind did slowly start to die – at first it looked like we might make it to Isabella just around sunrise and then, as the wind started to die even further, we were realizing we might not make until mid-day!!! What a difference a few knots makes!!! We finally fired up the engine when we were about 8 miles from Isabella and landed in the anchorage about 10am. We had had friends tell us they had to sail on by because the anchorage was full so we were so happy to see only one other boat in the anchorage. We edged our way into the anchorage, avoiding the waves crashing onto rock formations on the one side, and the reef and rocks on the other – it sure didn’t feel like a safe place to be!!! We attached a trip line and float to our anchor as we had heard that the bottom was quite rocky and we didn’t want to lose our anchor!!! Once we were fully set we took an hour or so to get ourselves recovered and to be sure we were not going to go anywhere and then we got the dinghy in the water and went ashore. We were a little uneasy about this as well – there had been reports from people that had arrived by dinghy only to be told they were only permitted to explore the Island with a guide. When we approached the shore there were a few people unloading pangas that had just arrived with tour groups – we asked them if it was okay to walk around and they assured us it was, warmly welcoming us. What a relief! With that sorted, we headed out in search of the holy grail of birds – the blue footed boobies!!!! We have been trying to catch a glimpse of these guys our entire time in Mexico. We have heard of sightings of them in places we have been but had not yet caught a glimpse of them – we knew that our chances here were almost guaranteed and we were not disappointed!!
There are birds everywhere as you approach the Island!!!
Once we managed to find our way over to the East Beach we discovered the little characters. They appear to nest on the ground – we had to walk around one mamma who fluffed herself out and gave us a bit of a talking to. We found little groups of them just wandering around with their gorgeous blue feet – there is something so cute and communal about them. I joked that the group of four of them that were tucked in under a tree were probably the dads, taking a break from getting squawked at by the mammas – they literally looked like a group of guys at the pub!!! We just crouched down and watched them for a half hour or so and then decided we had interrupted their day enough. After some celebratory high fives and a happy dance by me, we made our way back to the south end, and our awaiting dinghy. We headed back out to the boat, got the dinghy up and were back underway by early evening.
It was another lumpy night – I slept one of my off-watch shifts on deck as it is just too uncomfortable to be below. We finally began our approach into Bay of Banderas just as the sun was coming up – we had a beautiful sail in, finally firing up the motor when we were about 2 miles out of the anchorage. We were welcomed to the bay by dolphins and whales and beautiful warm sunshine!!! We got the anchor down amongst 40 or 50 other boats and breathed a sigh of relief. After 4 days and 22 hours but we were back on the mainland.
After a bit of a clean up and a rest, we took ourselves into town and enjoyed dinner out. Our initial plan was to do a quick turn and burn here and to get down to Barra but it is looking like we might be here a couple of weeks before the weather lets us get away – we have a lot to do in any case!!!
We started with one blissfully calm day in Refugio, where we managed to get the tape off the windows and go to a neighboring boat for drinks. That was followed by a day where the boat rolled endlessly from side to side in big rollers. My coffee even ended up flying right off the shelf at the back of the settee and landing square on my laptop! Thankfully we got that cleaned up quickly and no harm was done. The rolly conditions continued into the night but were joined by torrential rain, booming thunder and lightning that seemed too close for comfort!! Understandably, with the boat still rolling the next morning and a northerly on its way, we decided to depart from Refugio and head to the hurricane hole known as Don Juan.
Don Juan is a good-sized cove in Bahia de Los Angeles and is protected from nearly all directions. We set the hook later afternoon, with 3 other boats in the cove and decided we were there to stay through Christmas. That being decided, I restrung the Christmas lights around the lifelines and pulled out our little tree. We enjoyed three peaceful days, watching movies, calling family and friends for Christmas and generally NOT doing anything boat chore related. We watched It’s a Wonderful Life, had blueberry muffins for breakfast and sipped Ronpope (the liqueur version of eggnog). We were blissfully lazy – that is until the head would not flush – ugggh. A blockage in the hose from the pump to the tank meant for a disgusting and stinky job – the hose had to be pulled, cleared and rinsed out and then reinstalled. Bleck!!! The joys of boat ownership I guess.
So Peaceful at Don Juan!
After three days there, and realizing that it had been nearly 10 days since I had done a reasonable grocery shop, we decided to head around to the village for the day in hopes of stocking up on veggies and perhaps some chicken. We loaded up all of the garbage into the dinghy, along with our trusty cart and motored around to set the anchor in front of the village. Thankfully they have a very protected dingy landing spot so we were able to land without drama and loaded all our various bags of garbage into the cart and headed off to town. We sprinkled our garbage bags in the bins that line the main street and finally, with our cart empty, we arrived at the grocery store. Sadly, the vegetables were all in horrid condition and there was not much to be found in the way of meat (previously frozen but now thawing meat always makes me nervous!) or cheese. We finally stocked up on pop, chips and cookies and hoped we wouldn’t starve before we made it back to civilization! Owen decided we should treat ourselves to lunch and we had the longest wait in history for okay burgers, all the while the wind was building in the bay. After finally scarfing down our burgers (which arrived nearly an hour and a half after they were ordered!), we had a very wet dinghy ride back against the wind and waves to the boat. The anchor was up quickly and we beat into ever increasingly bad conditions, wind and seas both building right on our nose, making the six mile run back to Don Juan feel like forever. We finally made it back to the peace of Don Juan and gratefully got the anchor down again.
The next morning we decided that we had better get moving along, before our boat attached itself to the bottom at Don Juan!!! We were up early and had the anchor up before sunrise. We motored out of the bay and around the corner before putting out the headsail only. We sailed all day, averaging 5-6 knots on headsail alone – it was a glorious day and Solstice Tide was so enjoying spreading her wings and not running her motor!! About 4 miles from San Fransiquito, the wind started to die as did our speed. Realizing we needed to charge the batteries anyway, we fired up the engine and motored the last hour into the bay. We had the anchor down about 5pm, after a long glorious day of sailing. It was a bit of a rolly night but nothing like Refugio!!!
We decided that this was as good a spot as any to spend New Years and so, with not another boat in sight, we again settled ourselves in. We had a few blissfully quiet days at San Francisquito – not another boat came in to share the anchorage with us. We finally put the dinghy in the water and motored over to the small Caletta just off the bay where we found that indeed another boat had been there all along (we thought we had spotted one on our way in). The Caletta is the site of an eco-camping set up that was built decades ago and appears to have fallen largely into disrepair. There were a few buildings left, and it did appear that perhaps a caretaker still lives there, but it does not appear to be a thriving enterprise any longer. It is somewhat sad as the beautiful white beach and protected waters would make for amazing kayaking, snorkelling, swimming, etc (in warmer weather!). We hiked around the property and then headed back to our boat.
January 2 found us finally leaving San Francisquito for an overnight sail to Santa Rosalia. We sailed throughout the night, with winds gusting into the 20’s. We were becoming concerned that we were going to arrive before daylight. The wind finally started to lighten in the morning and we fired up the engine about an hour out of Santa Rosalia – only to have it die after a few minutes – the tiny bubbles were back!!! We fired it up again and again and generally only managed about 15 minutes of run time before the engine would die again. The sea conditions were getting very rolly and the wind was dying completely – this was not good!!! Owen again bled the injectors as I continued our approach to Santa Rosalia. Our plan was to take a spot at the dock for a couple of nights but with the engine issues, we decided to get ourselves into the protected harbour, get the hook down and then figure out where the air was coming in. With the sail still up, and the anchor ready to be deployed immediately, we lined ourselves up on the entrance and, where I would normally go quite slowly through a narrow entrance with rocks on both sides, I didn’t back the throttle down a bit – we shot through and into the anchorage and got the anchor down – and of course the engine continued to happily hum away!! We finally decided that we were going to brave taking her to the dock (anchor still ready to deploy) and managed to get her safely on the dock by about 10am. Once we were checked in and had had a few minutes to recover, we went for a short walk around town so that Owen could procure the parts necessary to build a test pump to figure out where the air was getting into the system. We got back to the boat and he hooked up his test system, clamped off the lines and put soapy water on all the lines and filters and pumped air into the system – and immediately a giant bubble appeared on the primer pump for one of the fuel filters!! The culprit had been found. We have isolated that pump out of the system and, knock on wood, have not had further issues.
sneaky air leak!The old jail – right on the waterfront – those bars are the walls of cells and they would have been staring at the port!
We were intending to spend 2 nights on the dock – beside figuring out the air leak, we were having issues with our main bilge pump and the water pump was leaking. After the second day of work, we realized we really needed another day and booked in for one more day at the dock. Owen managed to knock off the items on the list, but we still needed to get water and fuel so we were going to be in for a busy morning the next day. Unfortunately, the next day, we found a red flag flying over the harbour meaning the port was closed – and that remained for 3 more days. We did take advantage of visiting one of our favorite cities – going for dinner with dock neighbors and wandering up and down the streets. We got groceries, hit nearly every ferrateria (hardware store) in town and of course made it the bakery. We indulged in ice cream and pina coladas and still managed to get a few jobs knocked off our list. We made countless trips across the street to get water and fuel and finally, a week after arriving, we again headed out, making our way further south.
Unfortunatley there was nearly no wind so we motored, with the occasional headsail assist, to Punto Chivato, right at the north end of Bahia Conception. We arrived just as the sun was setting, got the anchor down and retired below after a very long day!
The next morning, we had the anchor up about 10am, hoping for some wind to push us down Bahia Conception to Playa Santispac. Just as we were getting ready to lift our anchor, a panga came in right behind us and we watched as they laid a net out from directly behind us to a mile out of the bay. I was sure glad we were already on our way out as, when the wind shifted around and we pulled back on our anchor, we would have landed right on top of that net!!! We were largely denied the wind, only finally able to sail the last couple of miles into the anchorage. We had come into this anchorage on our way up the sea and found quite a few boats, but almost no campers on the beach. This time there was probably twice the number of boats, and the campers were cheek to jowl on the beach – it is a beautiful spot but the close quarters seem to belie the reason for going camping on the Baja!! This was our first time being amongst more than a few boats and it was so strange!!! We just hung out on the boat the next day – occasionally considering putting the dinghy in the water but, as it was pretty blustery, deciding that we would pass.
We were up before the sun on January 13 – motoring out of the anchorage in the dark of night. We motored up Bahia Conception and finally managed to sneak the sail out around the corner. We had a great day of sailing with some fairly gusty conditions. The seas were pretty big, occasionally causing us to roll quite abruptly from side to side but it was not anything we or the boat couldn’t handle. We finally stormed into San Juanico just as the sun was setting and set the anchor behind several other boats.
As much as we would have loved to have stayed at San Juanico for a couple of days, the weather forecast said we had better move on so, the next day, we lifted the anchor around 9:30 and with the headsail only out, we motored and motor sailed in very light conditions. We finally started to see more sealife on this trip – to now we had seen only a few dolphins – this trip we saw whales in the distance, dolphins and rays!!! We arrived at Isla Coronado mid-afternoon. Of course, the winds arrived just as we did, leaving the anchorage a bit windy for the first couple of hours that we were in. The next morning, I awoke to realize that all but one of the 5 or 6 boats that had been in the anchorage the night previous were gone – did they know something we didn’t? We opted to move the boat in closer to shore to get more into the lee of the island and put the dinghy in the water. We took the dinghy for a motor around towards the north end of the Island, hoping to perhaps see the Blue Footed Boobies that we knew nested there. On our first trip to Loreto, so many years prior, we had taken a snorkel trip over to Isla Coronado. The trip included heading around to the north end of the island – we were told to see Sea Lions – unfortunately the conditions were a bit spicy and some of our fellow passengers were not entirely comfortable (actually entirely terrified) – as we had of course seen plenty of sea lions, we advised the guide that if the rest of the group were not comfortable going around the island, we were okay to go back and start snorkeling. It was only after we got back and talked to the people on the other boat in our group that we learned there were blue footed boobies and they had in fact been spotted. Keeping this in mind, we really wanted to head around to the north end – unfortunately, the increasing north winds stopped us shy of our goal – we made it roughly to the top corner and then decided it would be safer to turn around and head into the beach. We went for a short walk in lovely white sand and then headed back to the boat. By the time we returned to the boat, we were the only boat left in the anchorage and so enjoyed a peaceful night at anchor.
It was time to get moving along again and so we had the anchor up by 8am the next morning and motored – motor sailed around to Island Carmen, located directly across from Loreto. We headed to Punta Balandra, joining several other boats in the serene anchorage. The rollers had gotten pretty intense about 2/3 of the way over so I was glad to have our anchor down and to relax for the afternoon. We left the next morning, attempting to head over to Loreto for the day. Instead, we were only about a mile and a half out of the anchorage before we were again hit broad-side by huge rollers. The wind was also stronger than hoped for so we turned around and headed back to Balandra. We wanted to be able to enjoy a day at Loreto without worrying about the boat, and this was not the day!! We put the dinghy in the water and headed into the beach for a walk and a chat with fellow cruisers.
The next day we tried again and this time were rewarded with flat calm conditions. We set the anchor to the north of the panga marina at Loreto and headed in to explore one of our favorite Pueblo Magicos. We of course began with pina coladas in the square and then headed out. We needed to get groceries and were hoping to find a new bilge pump to replace our not-entirely functional one. Owen also wanted a haircut. We found some of the parts Owen required at a ferrateria and found a ridiculously over-priced bilge pump (nearly $300!!! We passed!). Owen managed to get a quick haircut and then we headed over to get groceries. With the cart full we called for a cab to take us back. The conditions were a bit blusterier than when we left the boat and we got a bit wet going against the wind back out to the boat but it was not enough to keep us there for long. We unloaded what had to go into the fridge and freezer and then headed back in where we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and then wandered around town enjoying the quiet atmosphere! We finally headed back to the boat after dark, thankfully in flat calm conditions. We would have loved to have stayed here for days, but the reality is that it is an easy city to visit by air and not such an ideal spot to leave the boat so we knew we had to move along the next day.
See you soon Loreto!
Isla Carmen offers a multitude of wonderful anchorages – we actually had not realized how many – and so, we next headed around the north end of Carmen, and down to Bahia Salinas. Salinas is a huge bay, and the site of a former salt mine. The salt ponds are all still there – though they seemed to perhaps be flooded out during the winter storms – we had seen pictures of pink water at the ponds but sadly did not see that ourselves. We did explore some of the old buildings and equipment and the immaculately maintained church. A couple of the buildings have been restored and there is now a high-end hunting lodge on the site. There has been a program to reintroduce big horn sheep to the island and, though I can’t entirely understand how a preservation project leads to a hunting lodge, that seems to have been the genesis of the lodge!! On the dinghy trip back to the boat, we tried to find the shipwreck in the middle of the bay – we were motoring around in circles when we suddenly realized that it was right under us!!!! It is a fairly large ship and apparently makes a great dive and snorkel site. We did see lots of fish there – were the water much warmer, and time more on our side, we may have stayed another day to be able to snorkel there.
We next made our way further down Carmen, anchoring near the southern tip for the night. This left us ideally situated to make a short run to Puerto Escondido. The laundry was piling up and we were getting short of water and fuel so we went into Escondido to take a mooring ball for one night. We got the laundry done after a bit of a wait (even when they are over-priced, if there are only 3 machines, there is likely to be a wait!). Though we were determined to avoid it, the lure of the restaurant proved too hard to resist so we headed back in for supper.
The next morning, we were at the fuel dock before they opened and had the boat filled with diesel and water by 9:30. We had a fairly long run to do so wanted to get underway early! We sadly ended up motoring most of the way to Agua Verde under grey, somewhat threatening skies and nearly no wind. We arrived at Agua Verde mid-afternoon and anchored in Pyramid Bight with several other boats. Though we loved Agua Verde on our first trip, the dark skies meant we didn’t get to enjoy that green water. We did have the most breathtaking sunset there – I had poked my head up just to take a look-around and literally said wow! at the amazing red sky. We would have loved to have stayed here longer but it was starting to feel like more than time to get across to the mainland and we still have a long way to go!
This sunset literally made me say wow!!!
Keeping that in mind, we headed out the next day for a run down to Los Gatos – it is only when the wind is a bit stronger and the conditions fairly rolly, that you really notice how unprotected Los Gatos is!! We would have loved to have gone on a hike here – the red rocks are so cool – but the wind started howling right off the beach nearly the minute we set our anchor and getting the dinghy down didn’t seem like a good idea. Thankfully the wind that afternoon and evening was primarily from the west, meaning that, though we did get some wrap around swell, the conditions were not too awful. It was a bit rolly in the evening and I was not unhappy about setting out early the next day.
Sorry to not get to explore the red rocks of Los GatosThe sunset was worth it though!
And it was early – like up at 6am, anchor up at 6:30. We had a 40 mile run to do to get to Isla San Francisco. There were some really strong northerlies heading our way, and Isla San Francisco felt like the best place to wait that out. We were barely out of the anchorage when we realized that two of the other boats that had been anchored with us had also set out – it was not a race by any means as SJ quickly motored past us, but it is always fun to be in the company of other boats. We actually saw more activity on the AIS then we had seen the entire way down the sea. The forecast had called for 10-12 knots from the north or north west all day so we had high hopes for sailing. The reality was that we had little to no wind for the first 26 miles and what we did have was right on our nose. The seas were very lumpy from the winds that had blown the previous evening so it was a fairly uncomfortable start!!! We were finally able to sail for about the last 14 miles, once the wind had backed and filled in with a vengeance!! It was sometimes some spicy sailing, taking pretty big waves on our quarter. We arrived at the anchorage at about 3pm, with our main still up and coming in hot to anchor!! The winds had definitely started to pick up!
It was fairly rolly when we woke up the next morning – the wind was more north-west than north so we were getting a bit of wrap around swell (the anchorage is very open to the west). Once a few boats had headed out, we took advantage and moved in closer to the beach, getting us out of the worst of the swell. We weren’t sure if we wanted to launch the dinghy in the crazy gusty conditions (nothing like have the wind grab it while it is suspended in mid-air on a halyard to be lifted over the rail!). However, as I was working on cleaning some of the stainless stanchions, I dropped a plastic scrubby into the water and couldn’t leave it there!!! We quickly got the dinghy in the water (yes a gust came just in time to whip it out of Owen’s hands!) and retrieved the scrubby. As we had the dinghy in the water anyway, we headed to the beach later that afternoon where we met cruisers on another boat that had come down around the same time as us. We joined them in a beach walk, exchanging war stories from our first year in Mexico! We spent the next day on board, with strong gusty winds blowing all day – thankfully the conditions in the bay remained relatively calm – just a very slight bit of hobby horsing occasionally. By day 3 we were again itching to get to shore and, realizing that we would soon have a long stretch of not being able to stretch our legs, we decided to do the ridge hike. The climb up to the hike looked steeper than it was and we managed to scramble our way up fairly easily – the tough part came when we went to head south along the ridge – it is a long drop down on the east side and the path was getting fairly narrow – add to that my insane fear of heights and winds gusting high enough it felt like we could get blown off, and we ended up opting to head back around more to the north and then down through the salt flats. The ridge is an ideal place to get a glimpse of the horseshoe shaped bay with its gorgeous green water.
A very rare selfie!
While checking in on emails and social media, I was surprised to realize that we were approaching the one year anniversary of our heading across to the mainland – it seemed that we might make that jump on the same date. The weather gods, however, had other ideas. The forecast was calling for a strong blow to occur, probably some time in the middle of our 2nd night at sea. We would be facing 30+ knots of wind – keeping in mind that the winds have been blowing for nearly a week and the sea state is a bit untenable already, we decided to take a more cautious path. We pulled the anchor about 10am on day 4, headed south to Isla Partida. We motor sailed for the first hour in order to charge batteries and then, with just the headsail out, we sailed through big, lumpy seas – often sliding down the side of a wave sideways – averaging 4.5 – 5 knots. We sailed almost right into Ensenada de Cordenal. We had been in this bay a couple of times last year – actually making a quick run down here when the conditions in Grande became too wild – so we knew that we would be comfortable here – even as the winds continued to blow.
We were up before the sun the next morning, pulling anchor by 5:50 am and motoring out of Cordenal. We had high hopes for being able to sail the entire 52 miles to Los Muertos based on the forecast. Surprise, surprise, the forecast was again wrong. Instead of a steady 10 -12 from the NE, we motored into light wind from the South East!! We were nearing the bottom end of Jacques Cousteau Island, and the mid-point of our mileage before the wind began to fill – and fill, and fill!!! We were finally seeing 18 gusting to about 25, with the seas building to about 6 – 8 feet in close repetition. We wind was of course now coming from dead behind our course, meaning we were gybing across the waves – never my favorite thing!!! We finally shot into Muertos, taking huge waves over the side (and right into my face more than a couple of times), dropping the anchor in pretty steady 20 – 24 knot winds. We managed to get the mainsail put away and the cover on and had just dragged ourselves below when the rain started!!! It was a howling, rolling night – I was woken 3 different times by rain coming in on my face (every time the rain stopped I decided it was too stuffy to have the hatch closed and surely, it had rained itself out – not so much)!!!
And now here we sit – wind is blowing 18-22 and the sea state in the anchorage is miserable – I am guessing it is more so outside!!! We are trying to decide whether to pull the trigger and head out for the mainland now, or wait until things abate a bit – knowing that if we wait we could see no wind for the crossing. It is a tough call – it will be a “spirited” sail if we go now… but if we don’t and we have little to know wind it will be long and frustrating!!!
We arrived in Puerto Penasco on a Sunday afternoon, just in the nick of time for our haul out the following day. After a brief exploration of town (documented in my last post), we managed to get the head sail down that first night. There was still so much to do before we were to be hauled out of the water so we were up bright and early the next day.
The first order of business was to get the mainsail down and folded away, before the wind picked up for the day. Luckily, this went without a hitch. We also started to remove loose items from our rail – the life ring, life sling and ladder for example. We needed to find 4 lines long enough to run from the boat up to the travel lift – luckily, we had a couple of long lengths of rope in storage and were able to use those, along with our jib sheets, to have sufficiently long lines.
We were originally supposed to be hauled out at about 2pm and were quite surprised when the yard phoned at about 9am to see if we were ready to come over. Owen explained that we were not quite there, but could be available for about 11 and so that was the time-frame we were now working under.
We continued to round up all of the fenders that had been languishing for months and were finally ready to go. We were just untying the boat to head over to the travel lift when we heard another boat call in to say that they were just heading into the harbour and would come over directly to be lifted out. We were expecting the boatyard to explain that there was a boat on the way over to be lifted but instead they told the other boat to come on over. Okay then – we retied the boat and called in to clarify how long we should now be waiting – they suggested that it would now be another hour so we sat down to wait for the call.
Finally, they were ready for us and we made our way across the harbour and over to the terrifying cement holding space for the lift. There was not a lot of leeway from side to side and I was so afraid of running us into one of the walls, or directly into the front!!! Luckily, I was able to land us fairly squarely in the middle and we got all four lines tossed up to the handlers. They pulled the front corner of the boat over to the wall to allow us to scramble up onto shore and got ready to get us lifted. All did not go as planned – they got the straps in place and two of the yard guys were on board ready for the lift. As they were lifting, we could see that the front was not coming up quite as quickly as the back and sure enough, just as the hull was about a foot out of the water, the back straps slipped and the boat plunged back down into the water – it was so sudden and scary!!!! It seems the combination of the slimy coating on the hull and the slightly mismatched lifting of the straps was enough to send everything off track. Luckily it was just a short drop and there was no damage. They decided to opt for the safety of tying the straps together and once everything was secured, they went for round two – we both held our breath while the boat was lifted and then moved forward but everything went much smoother on the second try. Just like that our boat (and home) was sitting on the hard in the middle of the boat yard. Being the last boat to be lifted that day, they set a couple of stands underneath us and left us suspended in the slings for the night!! It was a bit surreal to see the lift hovering over us when I peeked out the hatch over our bed!!
Our dirty boat hanging in the slings
The next day, the boat was power washed and moved to our new summer home, tucked away in the yard across the street. Now the real work could begin.
Putting the boat away for the summer is no joke – it is a lot of work. The boatyard provides us with a manual of suggested steps to take to ensure that the boat will be sound (and hopefully critter free) when we return and this was so helpful to us newbies. We had decided to stay on the boat – initially for the first few days before we headed home, and finally we ended up on the boat the entire time we were prepping to leave.
Living on the hard is a bit of a challenge – it is hot – there is nearly no breeze moving through the boat. There is a very tall set of steps to climb up to get to deck level and then you need to step over a gap (probably less than a foot but felt like 10 feet!) to step onto the boat – being terrified of heights, this was my least favorite part of yard life. We only wanted to have to have our holding tank emptied out once so if we needed to use the washroom it was a climb down the ladder, through our yard, across the street, stop to visit the puppies, and then either up to the cruiser’s lounge or into one of the washrooms in the main yard. At night, this was not even a possibility for me so I continued to use the head on the boat but of course had to use the shower to put water through as we could not pull water into the boat.
Did I mention the puppies? That was the best part of the yard – they had 2 puppies who were being trained to be the new yard dogs – Drake and Riley were the cutest things – attacking your ankles, giving licks and generally making the misery of the boat yard a little bit better. I was sure to stop in for snuggles anytime that I was near the main yard.
Drake Chilling in the BoatyardRiley taking a well-deserved break from puppying!
The next best thing about the yard is the staff – everyone who works at Cabrales boat yard is friendly and helpful. Most speak only Spanish but with google translate and our every improving charades, you could generally get your message across. The night guard in the main yard, Federico, took it upon himself to be sure that we were learning some new Spanish words and phrases every day (the puppies for examples are cabrones (or bastards!)). Most nights we found ourselves standing out in the street at 10pm, on the way to or from the washrooms, having a very long Spanglish conversation with him.
But back to the work involved in getting the boat cleaned out. Owen started with giving our poor rusty boat a bath – the salt was so thick on her – even after having had a quick rinse in Santa Rosalita. While he was doing that, I was taking everything out of the boat, starting at the bow, giving a good wash down and trying to get rid of items we don’t need before loading everything back in. The suggestion was to get rid of all food on board – we had hundreds of dollars of canned food and spices and I just couldn’t bear to give that all away – I am hoping I don’t regret it, but we bought a few big bins and loaded all the non-perishable food into them. Once we had made some progress with the cleaning process, it was time for the tinfoil. Pretty much everything on deck that could not be removed needed to be wrapped in tinfoil and tape – winches, hatches – anything that had any plastic component. All blocks were removed. We went on the hunt for good nylon line to use as messenger lines so that we could take our halyards down but found that was nearly impossible to find – lots of poly line available but we had little doubt that those would just disintegrate in the sun. In the end we managed to find 2 lengths of nylon that we hope will hold up, and two old halyards to swap out with the halyards presently in the mast. We still have a couple of our regular halyards exposed to the sun but did the best we could do – hopefully the messenger lines all hold up and we are able to swap everything back without drama! Owen even took the time to wrap our upper life lines in tinfoil as they were newly installed, very expensive, dyneema. Our sail sheets and lines were crusty with salt so one by one, I took them down and soaked them in a bucket to loosen up the salt and then rinsed them with a bit of fabric softener before hanging them to dry and coiling them up. This process took nearly the entire time we were in the yard – who knew we had so many lines!
Tarps and TinfoilShe is so rusty!
I took all of the clothing that we were not taking home, bedding, linens, etc. out of their cupboards and put them into bags for summer storage.
In between boat jobs, and usually for the purpose of a hardware store or grocery trip, we were able to get out and explore a tiny bit of Puerto Penasco. The area around the boat yard is a bit sketchy – the happy endings massage parlour and brothel being the 2 most notable neighbors. A short walk from there took us out to a main drag where we could find hardware stores and quick-marts but no real grocery store. We were of course trying to not bring more food onto the boat as we would be throwing out everything in our fridge and freezer so we were able to manage with just the items available at the quick-marts (milk, bread, tequila seltzers!) We did come across an adorable café where we were able to sit and enjoy fraps before heading back for more work. There were also some great roast chicken places in town – we tried one that was fantastic and were told we must check out one a bit further from the boatyard as it is even better! – we didn’t make it there this time but after hearing everyone rave about, it is on our list for when we return. By the last few days, we were running out of food and I needed to empty and defrost the fridge and freezer so we needed to head out for all meals. We were lucky to find a great breakfast place only a block away as well as a couple of American style restaurants where we could find decent pizza and good burgers for a reasonable price.
On our last day, we took everything we could off of the deck, tucking it all away below – when we left, we could hardly step away from the ladder and the salon was filled with sails, bins, my stand-up paddle board, deflated and in its bag, and of course, Owen’s kayak!! I had already filled the v-berth with lines, the life ring and sling, life jackets, and any other small items. It will be quite the task to get everything out of there when we come back (I am actually quite concerned about getting the kayak back out – it was a bit of a tight squeeze going in!
Chaos reigns down below!
We arranged to head to Phoenix by shuttle and what a trip that was. On the day we were leaving one of our wonderful boat-yard neighbors loaded us and all of our bags into their vehicle and drove us to the shuttle. There was a 10-person van waiting for us, and there were 13 passengers ready to go!!! They loaded our bags onto a rack at the back of the van and sardined us all into the van – one of the guys was sitting on a stool between the 2 front seats!!! It was a bit of an uncomfortable trip for the 40 minutes to the border, with both Owen and I perched on the edge of our seats with only one butt cheek actually on the seat – luckily, I had someone else’s bag wedged between the seat and the door so I had a bit more support. As we approached the border, we got the first glimpse of the “wall” – what a site – miles and miles of a tall, steel fence – sort of like vertical blinds – slashed through the desert. At the border we needed to get out of the van and carry all of our stuff (think a huge duffel bag, back pack and purse for me and a duffel bag, computer bag, breathing machine bag and back pack for Owen!) over the border. Thankfully the process of crossing was easy. Once we got through, we headed over to another van – this one was smaller than the last with the luggage rack on the roof and we had no idea how everyone was going to fit inside!!! Thankfully another, smaller passenger van also pulled up and Owen and I and 2 other people jumped into that van!! It was about a 3 hour drive up to Phoenix, passing through a beautiful national park full of rolling hills of cacti with a brief stopover at a truck stop for a quick break. Other than the packed start, it was a great (and reasonably priced) way to get up to Phoenix. We called an uber from the shuttle drop off location and we were at our hotel before dinner. Next stop, Canada!!!
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!!
Leaving Santa RosalitaBahia San Fransiquito
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!
We only very grudgingly got the anchor up and headed out of Agua Verde. We once again had a long day of motoring or motor sailing as we headed for Puerto Escondido. We did manage to sail for one short stretch, crossing our fingers that the wind would hold, but of course, as the day went on, the wind lightened and then died altogether. Puerto Escondido is an amazingly protected series of three bays, each more protected than the last, that has been almost entirely swallowed up by the marina – they have put mooring balls throughout the two inner-most bays and you are not permitted to anchor anywhere in those bays – the most outer of the bays does appear to allow anchoring, but if you want to use the dinghy dock at Puerto Escondido, they will charge you the same fee as if you are using a mooring ball so we grudgingly took a mooring ball – hoping that the tackle was sound!! We dinghied over to the marina to pay up and to get laundry done. The facilities at the marina are top notch, and very, very expensive. We had our most expensive pina coladas here, along with a very expensive dinner. Laundry was do-it-yourself, and the most expensive I had seen – 100 pesos per wash and 100 pesos per dry (keeping in mind that I was paying 70 pesos per load, washed, dried, folded and returned to me in La Paz!). There is a little store on site that is very well stocked, and very expensive (there is definitely at theme here!). We ended up staying two nights there, to allow sufficient time to get all of our laundry caught up – I had thought we might hang out by the pool on day 2 but by the time we got the laundry done and back to the boat, neither of us could be bothered to go back to shore!! We had considered taking a taxi from Puerto Escondido to Loreto to do a good grocery shop, knowing that the anchorage off Loreto is at best an open roadstead, but given that the taxi would be about a $70 usd round trip, we decided that we would chance stopping at Loreto and if the conditions were too bad, we had the option to run over to one of the Islands just off the town and anchor there.
After two nights at Puerto Escondido we were ready to head out, stopping first to fuel up at the fuel dock (again – so expensive!) and made the small hop up to Loreto where we anchored just off the breakwater. We dinghied into shore and visited the API to pay our anchoring and landing fees and then wandered off into one of our very favorite little cities. We have previously done two fly-in trips to Loreto and loved our time there – it was one of the places I was so excited to get to on this trip. We walked along the Malecon and then headed to the town square where we stopped for some very deserved Pina Coladas before heading to the grocery store to stock up. Our plan had been to get groceries, run them out to the boat and then come back in for dinner at one of our very favorite restaurants. Unfortunately, by the time we were heading back out to the boat, a wind had picked up, building a pretty good fetch between the breakwater and our boat – we were soaked by the time we reached the boat and not excited about going back to shore and then having to head back to the boat in those conditions, in the dark. We decided to forego dinner in Loreto, sadly, and got the dinghy up in its bridle. I was popping up and down from the cockpit, cleaning the veggies and fruit we had bought, and noticed a tandem kayak heading into the wind and waves, trying to get back to shore. I pointed them out to Owen and commented that they had some work to get back in. A few minutes later, he looked over and realized that they were no longer in the kayak!!! He quickly launched the dinghy and motored over to where he had spotted them. Luckily, another boat had also seen that they were in distress and he had motored over to them as well. Our fellow cruiser was in a rather tippy, small tender – he had managed to get one of them into his tender, but the other person was being dragged behind, holding onto the overturned kayak. Owen got there just as they finally made it back to the other cruiser’s boat and helped to get the kayak up and drained out and then offered to take one of them into shore, while the other cruiser took the other person and towed the kayak. The kayakers were very grateful to accept that offer, being a little shaken from their experience and not wanting to try to paddle into the sea state at that time! Luckily the sea state settled a bit overnight and we had a pleasant night at anchor.
Sadly, not really feeling like we had spent enough time in Loreto, the next morning it was again time to continue north. We mostly motored, with a few minutes of sailing mixed in, to San Juanico – by the time we arrived in the anchorage, the wind that we had waited all day for was finally beginning to build and the conditions in the anchorage were very rolly. We pulled the dinghy up right away and spent a fairly uncomfortable night at anchor. Perhaps we will have the chance to check this spot out on our way back down!
We were up at 5:30 the next day, with the anchor up by 6 am – we had a long way to go!!! The wind was very strong from the Northwest when we first left the anchorage so we sailed into lumpy seas for a while before the wind died completely again. We were motoring along when the wind suddenly built to over 20 knots on the beam – we were thankful to throw the sails out and enjoy some rollicking sailing before the wind again started to die. As we did have a lot of miles to cover on this day, sailing slowly was not an option and we once again had to fire up the engine. We had originally considered taking anchorage right at the mouth of Bahia Conception, in what was really just an open roadstead, but knew that the wind was scheduled to pick up overnight and we wanted a more protected anchorage. Keeping that in mind, we motor sailed the 7 miles down Bahia Conception to Playa Santispac – going through a swarm of no-see-ums just as we were coming into the anchorage – they were everywhere!!! We finally got the anchor set and disappeared below, closing all of the hatches behind us!!! We spent the next day dinghying around and exploring the various anchorages around Playa Santispac (being chased away from one of them by the no-see-ums again) and then beached the dinghy at Playa Coyote to enjoy a quick lunch at the beach bar. There are a couple of islands around the Santispac area that are covered in literal forests of saguaro cacti – it was so cool to see! This beach appears to be a good stop for campers as there were a number of motorhomes of all sizes parked along the beach – the driveway down from the highway must have been challenging for the bigger rigs though – it looked awfully steep and narrow! The anchorage got a bit lumpy in the evening but was not terribly uncomfortable.
We were up early the next day and motoring back out Bahia Conception – almost immediately the wind was building, causing a terrible sea state – by 1pm the wind was at 15 knots on our nose and the waves were huge – we were hardly making any headway and still had another 7 miles or so before we would be able to turn off the wind a bit (which would have put us broadside to the big waves anyway!). We finally opted to bail out to the last anchorage at the northern mouth of Bahia Conception, Punta Chivalo. The anchorage was beautifully protected with flat calm seas and I was so happy to get the hook down in the crystal-clear water. There were a number of very nice private homes on the beach, along with an abandoned hotel and the map showed that there was an airstrip just off the beach. The area felt almost entirely deserted however – likely snowbird homes – perhaps people had already headed home for the season. We hung out there and watched a movie – I had pretty well decided that we were there for the night but as the wind started to die down late afternoon, Owen figured we should make the final jump to Isla San Marcos so that our day would be shorter the next day. We quickly realized once we were out of our protected anchorage that although the wind had died down, unfortunately, the seas had not settled yet so we had a rolly, slow motor the final 10 miles or so – finally putting the hook down in the south end of Isla San Marcos, in a desolate bay, at about 7pm. Isla San Marcos has a large gypsum mine, and the area surrounding the bay looked like the surface of the moon, but it was perfectly protected from any north wind. For no apparent reason, we both found the area a bit creepy and I was on high alert, not even sure what I was worried about – there were no houses around – though we had been spotted as we anchored – there were a few people out on a lookout around the corner when we were coming in and I did notice them notice us. We actually locked the boat right down that night but had a peaceful sleep. We would later discuss how weird the bay had felt with another couple and it turns out they had been in there the night previous to us and had felt the same way!!
It was time to move along further north – next stop the mining town of Santa Rosalia.
We left Bahia Falsa and headed back to the islands of Isla Espiritu Santo and Partida, still deciding where we were going to end up for the night. There was little wind to start, with the wind and waves gradually building from dead ahead. We were able to sneak out a headsail to give us a little more oomph to make it through the waves and continuously congratulated ourselves for getting some of the barnacles off of the prop – we were definitely moving faster!!
We finally settled for going into Caleta Partida, an anchorage that we had not yet been into but which others had raved about. Caleta Partida is the cut between Espiritu Santo and Partida, with a broken sandbar isthmus connecting the two islands – though it is open to the East, the isthmus provides some wave protection, and there is good protection from the North. We found a good spot, tucked in a bit from the exposed eastern side, and set the hook. The anchorage is beautiful and apparently a diver’s dream. I really wanted to explore the shoreline so we put the engine on the dinghy and headed out – only to realize that the water very, very quickly shallows out, making it seem impossible to get to shore. There is very cool coral or sponge just below the surface and we didn’t want to risk any damage to that. We putted around a little more looking for a path to the back of the bay, all the while the wind and waves were beginning to build in the anchorage, and finally opted to just head back to the boat where Owen decided to drop and change the engine oil (still no new filter sadly!). I tried to relax while contemplating how we were going to get so far north in such a short period of time!
We were up and out fairly early the next morning, hoping the forecast southerlies arrived to help push us north to Isla San Francisco. Sadly, the wind never did appear and we motored for five hours. As we approached the bay, I was tempted to detour and head elsewhere – all you could see from outside was giant fiberglass power boats – not my idea of ideal anchorage neighbors!! The bay looked fairly packed and I was loath to hang out with what I presumed were probably party boats toting jet skis and running generators. The water lured me in though – it was so green that the water’s reflection made the big white monstrosities actually looked like they had green paint jobs! We motored in and found a spot to tuck in behind one of the bigger boats, hoping that if nothing else it would provide a bit of wind break if the southerlies did ever appear – the anchorage is completely open to those winds. The water was breathtaking – I watched the anchor drop all the way to the sand and bury in and then watched the chain as it lay out on the ocean floor 25 feet below me – I could have counted the links!!! While we were setting the anchor, a huge school of rays swam right under the boat, startling me as they appeared out the starboard side!!! As I was marveling at the crystal clear water, already with thoughts of jumping in in my head, Owen called out to ask if I had a guess on what the water temperature was. I hoped it was not too cold and was ecstatic when he said it was 27.7 Celsius!!! I quickly put on my swimsuit and started to climb down the ladder – realizing as my toes hit the water that the water was not that warm!!! I told Owen that it felt a lot colder than he said, but quickly let go and fell into the very, very cold water – beautiful, clear, but oh so cold!!! Owen finally had an epiphany as I sputtered around trying to catch my breath – he had pulled the transducer out of the hull and it was sitting inside of the bilge – so the temperature he had given me was actually from the inside of the boat!!! I still enjoyed a short swim, finally chased into the boat by the dreaded jet skis that were weaving in and out of the boats. We actually noticed that the kayak on one of the other boats was tied way, way behind the boat – we thought it was drifting free at first. In fact, they had put it on a 100 foot line in an attempt to keep the jet skis from buzzing their stern! We took the dinghy into shore and walked along the shoreline, stopping to chat with a couple of other boating couples and then called it a night. Despite the jet skis, generators, party music and general jackasses, it was still such a stunning bay that I couldn’t regret stopping there – until about 4 am. That is when I woke up to find that the southerlies must have indeed filled in earlier in the day, working their way up from La Paz and building fetch on the water the whole way – the anchorage was being rocked by huge waves, coming directly in the entrance and taking us right on the bow. The boat was hobby-horsing so violently that I could barely walk around – the dinghy was seesawing back and forth against the hull (we realized in the morning that it managed to unscrew and lose the cap on the oarstand, leaving us unable to use the oars. I spent the rest of the night watching our radar alarm to be sure that we were not moving and keeping an eye on the bigger boat immediately in front of us. I finally got Owen up around 7am and insisted that we head out before it got any worse. Getting the anchor up was a challenge in the conditions and getting out of the bay and clear of the bigger waves right at its entrance was pretty scary!!! We finally managed to round the end of the Island, heading north again, and hoping that at least we would have the wind to push us along, only to have it die almost immediately!
We motored the ten miles to San Evaristo, anchoring in front of the village. We were very close to shore and uncomfortably close to another boat, but the anchorage is quite small, and the area with any protection is even smaller so we hoped that we had set okay. That night, a Coromal kicked up about 10pm – these are very strong winds that funnel over the Baja from the Pacific side and come down the mountain face right into the anchorage. We were seeing winds gusting into the high 20’s. Owen had again set the anchor alarm and the radar alarm and had mirrored the wind instruments to his computer. I tried to go to bed at a normal time, but ended up sitting in the salon, watching the wind instruments, hoping to see the wind finally drop below 20, and keeping an eye on our position, relative to the boat we were anchored beside. It was a long night, with Owen snoring away in our cabin and me slowly descending into panic in the salon! Finally, about 4 am, the wind started to settle and I was able to head to bed. The next morning, Owen had the fun task of once again taking apart the toilet, this time actually taking hoses off and trying to knock out the disgusting calcium build up that kept plugging up the pump and hoses. The crew of Dos Rojos came by just as he was finishing up to see if we would like to go for lunch – the promise of a fruity drink was exactly what he needed at that moment and we happily agreed to meet them on shore in a bit. The lunch was excellent, though there was not a pina colada to be had and Owen had to settle for a coke!! We went back to the boat and I winched Owen up the mast so that he could finally change out the two broken blocks, allowing us to once again raise the dinghy from the spinnaker halyard. It was hot work and as soon as I had him back on deck, I was in the water cooling off. By the time we had gotten back to the boat after lunch, a number of other boats had arrived in the already crowded anchorage, with one of them setting themselves very close to our bow. We had a feeling it was going to be a bit of a problem in the night and sure enough, when the wind switched around, turning us all around, we could see that they had far less scope than us out and we were nearly bumping into their bow. They let out a bit more chain, pulling a bit further from us, but then when the wind died completely in the night, their boat, being much lighter than ours, started to drift forward on their chain, while our heavy beast stayed happily where she was. Sure enough, our radar alarm started to go off, signaling that a boat was much closer to us than we were comfortable with – when we went on deck they were nearly on top of us. We hung out and watched as we just skirted around each other for a while and then went back to bed, hoping that there would not be an actual collision. The other boat was long gone when we got up in the morning and it did not seem that there had been any contact.
Though we really liked San Evaristo, and would have liked to explore the tiny village a bit more, we did not have the luxury of lingering anywhere for very long – it was time to start marching north again. We motored out of San Evaristo and then managed to sail for a few hours until the wind slowly died and we were left to motor again. We finally managed to motor into Bahia El Toro at about 6pm and get the anchor set just as the sun was going down. We didn’t even launch the dinghy here as there was quite a lot of swell wrapping around (from where we were not sure as there didn’t seem to be any wind all day!). It was a bit of an uncomfortable night, with the boat constantly rolling side to side as it got turned into the waves, with no wind to pull it out of them.
We left early the next morning for the jump to Agua Verde, motoring or motor sailing and arriving in Agua Verde about 2pm. We had been anxious to make this bay, having heard how beautiful it was, and it did not disappoint. There are several possible anchorages and we chose to tuck into the south side of the bay, just off one corner of the very small village. We took the dinghy into shore and wandered around, in search of the small store that was promised to be there. We were quite disheartened to see garbage and garbage bags just strewn all over, with piles of previously burnt garbage nearly everywhere – we realize that burning garbage may be the only option in this spot, but would it not make sense to choose one small area to do so, rather than just burning it anywhere and everywhere? We found the very small store and grabbed a few provisions and then headed to the beach bar. We enjoyed tacos, with very, very spicy chili paste to top them off and chatted with some of the other boaters. There was a table beside us with 4 guys who were together for a boys’ week – the first time all four of them had been together since they worked together at Boeing 40 years ago!!! When they went to leave, they mentioned that they were going in search of the famed goat cheese – a must find in Agua Verde – I asked them where you go for that and they told us to settle up our bill and join them so we did just that. We walked around to the village and went to the house that was expected to have cheese – sadly they did not have any ready (though I could see that they had some set up in a press at the time). We wandered back the way we had come and a group of people at another house asked where our cheese was – when we explained that they had not had any available, the group sent us off to yet another house. Sure enough, there was one round left and she split it up to sell each group one half – success!!! We made our way back to the boat and enjoyed a nice evening in the cockpit. Owen had a group of boys approach the boat on a stand up paddle board just after we got back but he couldn’t figure out what they were looking for – the next day, we realized that they were taking garbage from the cruising boats – for a 100 pesos a bag! – that explained all the white Costco garbage bags strewn everywhere! The next morning, we went for a boondoggle in the dinghy, stopping by to see how the boys had fared – speaking quietly was a must as they mysteriously all had headaches! Owen decided that this was the perfect place for me to try out snorkeling, something I had not yet done on this trip. We took the dinghy over to one of the more protected beaches and waded over to a spot that promised good snorkeling – sadly we had left it a little late in the day and the sun was already starting to be shadowed in there, meaning that the visibility was not as good as it could have been. It was a good first run for me though, and we considered it a success. We were just back at the beach and getting ready to dinghy back to the boat when we spotted (and heard the bells from) the goats – they were way up in the hills, presumably heading out for a few days of grazing, their little bells tinkling through the air as they went – truly a memorable experience and one of the things that Agua Verde is famous for. We were so sorry to leave this little piece of paradise the next day but it was time to get going further north – our haul out date was looming!
Once we departed Mazatlan, we decided to motor away from the coast for a couple of hours, in hopes that the wind would fill in a bit, and to get us away from fishing traps and nets before dark. We finally set the sails and, very slowly, began to sail towards La Paz. Sadly, the wind would die in the evening and we would be forced to motor throughout the night (not the most enjoyable sound when you are trying to sleep!). Generally, when we were able to sail, the wind was coming from exactly where we were heading to – that, combined with current, made for terrible tack angles – we were only making about a third of our actual distance sailed towards our destination each day and we were getting frustrated by our slow progress!
We did have some spectacular sunsets and lots of turtle and ray sightings. Each night we would hear whales near us and finally on our last night we spotted them joining us just as the sun was setting.
After 4 nights at sea, we were finally on the home stretch – we had anticipated arriving in La Paz sometime mid-day. When I came on shift at 2:30 a.m. there was again nearly no wind and I was motoring along towards the top end of Jacques Cousteau Island. About an hour in I suddenly had 15-20 knots on the nose and the sea state was getting terrible. The main was still up and I was having to drive off course a little bit to allow the main to drive us through some of the worst waves. By 4:30 in the morning the wind was gusting in the mid 20’s and the sea state was even more untenable. I was now at least a couple of miles east of the light that I needed to turn at to head into La Paz and the wind began to funnel directly from the entrance into Bahia de La Paz. We were making terrible headway – sometimes only managing to go a knot and a half. When Owen came on deck the sun was finally rising which just let us see how terrible the sea state was. We finally had to make the decision to turn around and run back downwind, away from what was now 28 knot gusts. Our plan had been to get into the lee of Jacques Cousteau Island, hopefully find a spot to tuck in for a few hours and wait for the weather to settle down.
As we had been at sea for 4 nights, and our only weather had been large scale grib files downloaded via our SSB radio, we had not had the information that a localized wind was expected to blow right out of Bahia de La Paz – we finally received this information when we hailed another boat that we would see coming up a few miles behind us on the AIS. He was able to let us know that the wind was expected to die down late morning or early afternoon – hopefully allowing us the chance to get into the bay. We decided to try to work our way closer to the Baja Coast and come up on the bay entrance from its immediate south – rather than trying to beat into the wind and waves coming out of it! All morning and afternoon, we slowly tacked our way back and forth through a miserable sea state, all while the wind gradually died to nearly nothing. We finally fired up the engine and managed to drive into the bay, realizing we would never make the nearly 15 miles to go to town before dark. Instead, we opted to anchor at Balandra Bay. After more than 4 full days, we finally got the anchor set just as the sun was going down and called it a day!!!
The wind continued to blow all night and through the following day. The entrance to La Paz Harbour is very shallow and anchoring can be a bit of a bear so we opted to spend yet another day at Balandra Bay. Sadly, Balandra Bay is known to have one of the nicest beaches in the La Paz area and we were not even able to consider putting our dinghy down to enjoy it!!
We finally woke up to flat calm seas and quickly pulled up the anchor to head into La Paz. We got the anchor set and promptly made our way into town for arrachera tacos at Viejo – we had missed those amazing tacos!
We knew we wanted to get in and out of La Paz quickly but could not bring ourselves to get moving the next day!! We spent the entire day on the boat (I may or may not have even gotten out of my pajamas) watching movies and cleaning up from the passage. We paid for that with a couple more days of chaos. Over the course of the next couple of days, we got so much accomplished!! We got to the boat store to buy the new block to replace the spinnaker block that had been jammed lifting the dinghy. Owen went to the barber and I found a great little salon to finally get my hair cut. I walked up to the Soriana to do a provisioning shop (and so wished I had called an Uber to head back to the boat – I nearly pulled my arms out carrying everything back!). Owen went in hunt of oil and oil filters and spent an entire afternoon traipsing from store to store, never managing to come up with the filters! We did three runs with our trusty little cart to fill diesel jugs and 4 runs to get water. We also fit in one last visit to Viejo for more of those tacos! Finally, on our third day in La Paz, we motored out of the harbour, fighting current the whole way, and anchored in Bahia Falsa.
We spent the next day at Falsa – Owen dove the prop to clean off the barnacles that had been building up and we swam and scrubbed the water line. Unfortunately, we ended up covered in little shrimpy like things – they were everywhere when we got out of the water so quick showers were a must before dinghying in to have Pina Coladas and guacamole at the beach bar.
We were now all ready to start our march north. It was April 20 and we had about 450 miles to cover before being hauled out in Puerto Penasco on May 15.
If you follow the news you may know that Mazatlan had a bit of unrest earlier this year – the arrest of El Chapo’s son led to a day of firefights and stand-offs with tourists locked inside their hotel while their bus burned outside and the airport taking fire. It lasted all of one day (though they played it up on the news as if it was and ongoing and continuous situation). We had been a bit concerned that it could flare up again and do have to acknowledge that Mazatlan is in Sinaloa and that state ha Considering those things, has seen an increase of crime in recent years. We had decided to perhaps take a pass. However, after speaking to several people who had gone, including a couple who had spent nearly two months there, we knew it was a city we could not miss.
We departed from La Cruz in the mid-afternoon, headed for an overnight trip to Matanchen. Unfortunately, the wind was not in our favour (or was non-existent) and we had to motor much of the trip. We approached Matanchen at sunrise and were thankful for our radar which brought attention to the dozens of fishing boats anchored or trolling just out of the anchorage (most with no lights!). We wove our way in and set the anchor a fair distance off the beach. Unfortunately, Matanchen has developed a bit of a reputation for being a spot that dinghies have been stolen lately – there was even a situation earlier this year where 3 men boarded a boat in order to cut the dinghy (along with the 15hp Yamaha outboard – which is what they really want) from the dinghy davits. The boatowner confronted them and was injured in the process. In that situation the dinghy was actually recovered eventually and I believe charges were even laid but the frequency with which it happens (even knowing that they really have no interest in our little dinghy or 2.5 hp Suzuki!) meant that we were not excited about launching the dinghy. There is not a lot to see on shore – just a couple of restaurants – and the bugs are apparently terrible – so we opted for staying on board instead. In addition, while we were in La Cruz I had been cleaning the stainless steel stancions on the boat and had somehow completely wrenched my back (I knew cleaning was hazardous to my health!). If I sat for even a few minutes, my back would lock up and getting out of whatever position I was in would be agony – the only way I was comfortable was lying on my side. And so that is what I did – for 3 days – curled up on the settee watching movies. We had not intended to stay there so long but the weather was not great and I had been in so much pain on the first night passage that I just needed a couple of days to get things loosened up.
Beach off Matanchen
Finally, we were able to get moving again, headed to Mazatlan, and we headed out in the mid-afternoon again, knowing that we were in for a couple of nights’ passage this time. We had some nice sailing in the afternoons and then the wind would die out overnight leaving us motoring. During the day we had seen signs of long line fishing – with the set ups marked only by a couple of clear pop bottles tied to a string – not exactly easy to spot in the day and impossible at night!! We were pretty sure that we had dragged something for a bit as we were motoring incredibly slow, but there was no sign of anything on our prop when we arrived (thankfully!). We finally motored into Mazatlan at about 8am and anchored at Stone Island. The Stone Island anchorage fronts one of Mazatlan’s beaches and the anchorage was choked with pangas towing banana boats or taking people out for boat tours, along with the dreaded jet-skis. It was not a quiet afternoon!!!
Stone Island Sunset
The next morning, we decided to move into the old city harbour – the weather had kicked up pretty badly and the short transit around the corner was a hard beat into big waves – we quite happy to clear the breakwater and get our anchor set near the old Club Nautico. Club Nautico has been closed for some time but there is a dinghy dock of sorts (a panga has been anchored and stern tied with boards laid over the top and a terrifyingly rickety ramp to land!!). There is always a guard on site and the gate is locked at all hours so your dinghy is secure here (even if you are not necessarily when getting on and off the dinghy dock! Lol). There were a few other cruisers anchored in the harbour and several boats on moorings. The tour boats, fishing boats and booze cruises all go out from this anchorage so it is a bit active but not too bad.
We headed into shore to go check in at the Port Captain and start exploring. The Club is out on a causeway built up to join the City to an Island just off its shore and all of the ferry boats to the beach we were anchored off the day previously, along with the aforementioned tour boats, etc. all have their departure points along the causeway – there are people everywhere selling tours, getting ready to head out (loaded down with huge coolers of beer!) – it was quite a scene!!! After checking in with the Port Captain we headed to Centro (thinking it was more of a historical area) only to find it was just a very busy downtown area with lots of shopping and people. We instead headed to Centro Historico (yup – where I really wanted to go in the first place) – there we find georgous old buildings, narrow, winding streets, murals, etc. We had dinner at an Italian café with tables set up on a square that had all manner of restaurant options surrounding it. After dinner we walked out to the Malecon and walked it back around to the causeway, making it back to our boat just at dark.
CausewayHistorico BuildingsSunset from the Malecon
That first night, we were trying to get our dinghy raised up in its hip-tie bridle and it was super hard to grind up for some reason. We figured out why the next morning when we went to lower the dinghy – the halyard was completely jammed into the block at the top of the mast. We put another halyard on the bridle and got the dinghy off the jammed halyard and lowered. I found a boat store on google and we decided to head out to buy a new block. We dropped our laundry off on our way out and were thrilled when she said she would run it back to the Club once it was complete (she left it with the security guard, saving us from dragging it back later in the day!). We knew it was going to be an hour or so walk to the boat store but saw it as an opportunity to explore. We wandered out past the main port area, checking out murals that were just being painted along the wall surrounding the port. Unfortunately, at some point I was walking along when suddenly I was on the ground, with a cracked phone to boot!!! I had crossed over a driveway that had a strip of super slippery tile going up the center of it and before I knew what was happening, my feet went out from under me sideways and I landed hard on my wrist and hip (causing the aforementioned cracking to the bottom corner of the phone I had been carrying). Luckily nothing was broken (though I did have a doozy of a bruise on my hip for weeks!). We finally made it through a very commercial area, over the train tracks (with a full-on slum built up on other side), through an industrial park and finally to the boat store – the closed boat store!!!!! It was Semana de Santos that week (the week leading up to Easter Sunday) and even though it was Thursday, they were closed – nothing on their website to indicate it but closed all the same!!! We opted to call an Uber at that point and had them drop us off back in the Centro Historico. We wandered around there a bit more and then headed back out to the Malecon where we headed out the opposite direction to the Club and explored a bit more. We ended up having dinner at a lovely lobby bar restaurant in a hotel on the Malecon (great burgers!) and then grabbed a Pulmonia back to the boat. Pulmonias are really cool, open air taxis – many are made from the frame of a bug. When they were first introduced in Mazatlan in the 1960’s, the taxi drivers tried to fight back against this new form of transport by telling people they were going to get Pneumonia from riding in the cars – the drivers decided if you can’t beat em, join em – and named the cars Pulmonias (Spanish for Pneumonia!).
Photo credit to Travel Off Path blogLobby Bar
While walking back on the first day we had spotted the Observatorio 1873 and decided it was a tourist attraction worth checking out so we headed there the next day. The Observatorio was the site of a Fort meant to protect the city and the site has been turned into a museum/ animal rescue. There is a funicular on site and we were excited to go for a ride in it – only to find out it was out of service when we got there!! Instead, we had a long climb up a staircase that meandered through terraced gardens (they did have the option to been driven to the top but the gardens were so beautiful it was worth the trek). We first visited the Iguana refuge where we saw green Iguanas as well as Tortoises and various birds in a large cage (Parrots, Toucans, etc.). The next area we explored was the El Nido bird sanctuary, a netted enclosed space that allowed the rescue birds kept there to fly more freely (and to eat out of my hand!!!) There was a tour describing the process of making tequila but we just walked through that section without a guide and then went to explore the museum set up on the old fort building. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon and we were so happy that we had gone!!! They even had a little stand selling AMAZING ice cream! We walked along the Malecon again – now completely packed, as it was Good Friday and many locals travel for Easter week and weekend. We enjoyed the spectacle down there and then called an Uber to take us to the grocery stores on the other end of town – after a terrifying ride there (the driver was not paying attention, driving like a maniac, and only avoided rear-ending a car by swerving in between it and a parked car!) we got our shopping done and had a, thankfully, more tame driver to take us back.
The next day we decided to tackle El Faro – the lighthouse on the Island at the end of the causeway – we headed there at about 9:30 thinking we could get it done before it got too hot – we did not count on the huge line-up to get in (an hour wait while the day just got hotter and hotter!). We did finally manage to tackle the climb (750 metres of steady incline, followed by 334 steps). Owen went out on the skybridge – a glass floored platform out over the water (I was too terrified) and then we trekked back down.
As our intention was to leave the next day to head over to La Paz and the fuel docks are at the Marina District, about 8 miles north of the old harbour, we decided to move the boat up to the Islands near the Marina entrance. We arrived there mid-afternoon and anchored amongst all of the party boats. Owen scraped tons of barnacles off of the hydro-vane rudder and gave the water line a quick scrub – all the while being tossed around in the dinghy in the wake of all the danged jet skis flying around. Luckily, as the sun was setting, all of the party boats hauled up anchor and headed out and, in the end, we were the only boat left. The view of the City skyline was beautiful from the now peaceful anchorage.
The next morning, we motored over to the Marina district, following the very narrow dredged channel in, headed for the fuel docks. I was just approaching the dock, intending to loop around to it to dock port to, when a catamaran backed out right in front of me – I now had no space in the very narrow channel to make my turn, and no choice but to continue on past the first fuel dock. We decided instead to head to the dock that we knew was further in the marina district, only to find that they were having computer issues and couldn’t dispense any fuel!! We headed back to the first fuel dock and found the boat that had backed out in front of me was now parked on the fuel dock waiting to pick up his passengers. After a half our wait to get onto the dock, and then having the fuel attendant fill a boat that came in after us first, we were finally fueled up and headed out (oddly the attendant did not get a tip!!).
We made our way back out the channel and pointed the boat in the direction of La Paz, some 250 miles away.
Once the family had cleared out we were left to figure out where to go next. We had already decided that Barra would be our furthest point south and so it was time to make plans to return north to La Cruz. The weather, however, had other ideas. For several days in a row the winds blew hard from the north, leaving us all but stranded aboard – the wind would tear through the lagoon every afternoon kicking up a pretty good chop and making the rather long dinghy trip to town quite undesirable.
Our second afternoon of hanging out at the boat we were down below when we were hailed on the radio – a boat was letting us know that we should really head up on deck because another boat was dragging past us. I popped up on deck to see our neighbors flying past us – going impressively fast, I might add. She was frantically trying to get all of the screening off the dodger and he was trying to get the wheel back on (having taken it off to store on the side deck to allow for greater room in the cockpit). They had, by now, missed all of the boats in their path but were quickly heading for very shallow water!!! Finally they were able to get the boat put back together and fired up and got their anchor reset – crises averted!!!
The next day someone felt the need to post an article about different anchors (of course arguing that only a rocna anchor would have held up in those conditions) along with commentary to remind people that boats dragging in the lagoon is a regular event. Owen was actually reading the article when I suddenly felt an odd blurp in the motion of the boat – I popped up on deck to realize we were now moving behind the boat that had dragged the day prior – even though we had been quite ahead of them only a short while before… we were dragging!!!! I quickly fired up the engine and started moving her forward while Owen grabbed the anchoring fob and got up on deck – the event was thankfully very un-dramatic and we were very shortly reset – it seems no one had even noticed we were going for a walk-about!! Because the lagoon does not really flush out very well, the bottom is very soft silt and in the big winds and chop the anchor just pulled out – as mentioned by another boater this is a common theme in the anchor – that and going aground on the sand bar. Someone described it as her two favorite things – mud-wrestling and drag racing! We later had a conversation with the other boat that had dragged – they had been there for 2 weeks without moving – it was just dumb luck. It was a bit of a confidence shaker though – in the 12 years Owen and I have boated together, we have only dragged once and that was while we were stern tied at Jedediah, on a rocky bottom, after a wicked storm. It was also a bit unnerving to realize how many days we had been away from the boat during those big winds – what if she had dragged then!!
We had decided to hang out in Barra until after my Mom’s service – I wasn’t able to go home but my sister was going to live feed it for me and for all of our family back east. The internet was reliable in Barra and we didn’t want to end up somewhere that it was not reliable.
We spent an afternoon exploring at Colimilla – a fishing village inside the lagoon (which, like home, is built on a hill – it is uphill to go everywhere!!) and enjoyed a wonderful meal (and very inexpensive Pina Coladas) at a restaurant aptly named The View.
We were finally beginning to make plans to head out and realized that we were quickly running out of cash. There is not a bank or bank machine in Barra so we needed to make a trip into Melaque to hit the bank. We opted to take the bus and were pleasantly surprised to run into Tommy Transit – fellow BC boaters will recognize Tommy as the driver of the Hummingbird Pub Bus on Galiano Island – taking that bus is always a musical and entertaining experience. He was tickled to have been recognized out of context! We took advantage of being in town to do a final grocery shop and then took a cab back to Barra – we were now ready to head out.
Our first stop on heading north was Tenacatita – I had been itching to get back to that paradise!!! Lucky for us, Tera and Gentry (Freia) had been planning to head south from there to Barra but opted to hang around with us for a couple of days. We enjoyed dinner (and several bottles of wine!) aboard Solstice Tide the first evening and then took our dinghies to do the Lagoon trip up to a Raicilla tour. The lagoon trip was so cool – trying to meander our dinghy through ever narrowing mangrove trails – fully tunnels at the middle – trying not to impale us on the stumps that stuck out everywhere!!! We finally ended up in an opening in the lagoon and were picked up from there by Pancho and ferried in the back of a truck outfitted with seats on each side and a canopy top. The tour consisted mainly of videos explaining the process of mezcal production (and how it differs from tequila) and explaining that the various names for Mezcal were regional – we were in an area where it was called Raicilla but if you get it in Chihauha it will be called Sotil. We were dropped back at the beach where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch and great pina coladas with our toes in the sand before making the return trip through the mangroves – for some reason we seemed to do even worse at controlling the boat on the way back, crashing into the mangroves at least 3 times!!! Luckily there was no damage to the dinghy!
The second morning we were in Tenacatita we were just waking up when I heard a “whoosh” and then another. I popped up on deck and found two humpback whales just off our bow – they were so close. Of course, I didn’t have my camera and missed taking a picture. A few minutes later I was sitting out enjoying the peaceful morning when I heard the whoosh again and watched the whales surface right beside our neighbors’ boat – this time I got a picture! Unfortunately, our neighbor left before I had the chance to head over to get their email address but managed to track them down though social media and were able to send the pic their way.
We spent a couple more days in Tenacatita enjoying the 28 degree water, and then decided to do a run directly to La Cruz – it seemed like a good idea at the time. It ended up being alternately windless and then too much wind. At one point we were seeing 20+ knots and really big seas – we had already passed Chamela so, barring going backwards (which I HATE to do), we had no choice but to tough it out for a few hours. Everything finally calmed down (and then of course died out completely) in the middle of the night – we fired up the engine and motored to the corner of Banderas Bay where we were finally able to sail (though slowly!) across the bay, dropping the hook in La Cruz about 7:30 pm.
La Cruz represented a good spot to get everything stocked up and ready to go further North. We did a grocery run into the La Comer and spent days ferrying jerry cans of water back and forth from the marina store to the boat (we need a watermaker!). The wind would kick up every afternoon making the transit across the bay to our boat long and wet – even after we moved in a bit it was still a long slog. We did manage a beach party the first Saturday that we were there (a send off for the boats heading off to cross the Pacific) complete with a bring your own meat barbq, pot-luck sides, big bonfire and good visits with other boaters. We also made a trip to the weekly market (we really need to stay away from the bakery booths!) and enjoyed the outdoor movie night (Belfast – such a good movie!).
Finally, after a little over a week there, we checked out with the port captain, spent a final day ferrying water and then finally headed out again – next major stop: Mazatlan.
We flew back into La Cruz on the evening of Wednesday, the 15th of February and Owen’s brother, Harvey, and his girlfriend, Linda, were due to arrive the evening of Saturday, February 18th. To say that we had a lot to do to get ready for their arrival would be an understatement!!!
We had tried to get things started before we left to go home but between planning our trip back and tempting Sunday markets, we had not gotten far!!
We had decided that our first task should be a good restock of the boat stores – the last time we had access to a Costco was in Ensenada and I was desperate to stock up some coffee, soda water, canned chicken and other items that could not be obtained elsewhere. I knew it would also be a good opportunity to grab some good, thick bacon (bacon here is paper thin!) and to stock up the freezer. My Aunt had flown into Puerta Vallarta the same day we returned and she was eager for us to come for a visit. We arranged to meet up for a quick lunch and then to do Costco after. We were lucky to be able to order an Uber from La Cruz (not always available – it just depends on whether a driver is in the area or not) and had them deliver us to the building that my Aunt was staying at. After having gone over ten years not seeing each other, it was pretty cool to be able to meet up again so soon after seeing her in Chemainus! After a quick trip to see their unit, we wandered to go for lunch at a nearby “food court” – unfortunately that was not yet open so we settled on a sport bar across the street and enjoyed a long, leisurely lunch. My Aunt and her partner had had a sailboat on Lake Ontario, and Francesca has long had a love affair with Mexico so there was no shortage of things to talk about!! We finally pulled ourselves away and walked over to Costco to begin the restock. After a frightfully expensive trip, we ordered another Uber and had possibly the most terrifying drive of our life back to La Cruz – I was sure happy to get out of that car!!! As is usually the case after a Costco trip, it was probably a couple of hours before everything was separated, wrapped and into the freezer, with everything else stowed away.
The first task on Friday was to take literally everything out of the v-berth (which truly acts as our garage normally) and to wash everything down to be sure it was fresh and clean when our guests arrived. While we had the mattresses out we stored a few more things in the abyss (the storage beneath the v-berth) and Owen installed a cell phone charger, 12 volt fan and connected the reading light that had been installed, but not connected, for years!!!
We managed to stash a few more things under our bed, our sailing gear bags were stored outside for the next couple of weeks and we were finally left with just a few things that would need to be shuffled out of the v-berth every night.
Saturday, we got our laundry back, the bed made up and everything that we could was tucked and tidied in anticipation of our company arriving!
Harvey and Linda arrived on a 5pm flight on Saturday and grabbed an Uber to La Cruz. We barely gave them a chance to catch their breath when they arrived, dumping their stuff on board and whisking them off to Blanca Ballena for Pina Coladas and dinner. During dinner, we had a chance to discuss our upcoming itinerary – it was only at that point that we realized Linda had never been sailing! You sure have to respect someone who is ready to jump on board a boat to travel 200 miles over the course of nearly a week having never sailed before!! We sure had to hope we didn’t ruin her for sailing!
We had originally intended that we would likely leave the dock on Sunday but as that was market day we decided to stay put through to Monday. That let everyone explore the market, and let me stock up on fresh bread, fruit and veggies. We were now truly bursting at the seams and ready to go!!!
We got away a little after noon on Monday, after Owen, Linda and Harvey made a trip to the Port Captain to check us out and to add them to our crew list. Our first destination was Yelapa, an afternoon’s sail across Banderas Bay. We arrived just at dinner time and were guided to a mooring ball. It didn’t take to long to figure out that this was not going to be a really comfortable night – Yelapa is exposed to the swell coming in from Banderas Bay and as soon as the afternoon wind stopped, we turned sideways into the swell and were rocking from side to side. Linda was feeling the motion pretty quickly but stayed on deck and seemed to manage to keep her spirits up. I was below trying to make dinner, alternately trying to hold the plates in place and fighting my own queezyness!!! When my freshly made Chimi-churri dumped into the sink, spilling all the contents all over the dishes, I nearly cried!!! We managed to eat dinner without any other mishaps and everyone headed to bed early, mostly in hopes that the rocking would lull us to sleep rather than driving us crazy!!! We had actually intended to leave the next day but we really, really wanted to visit Yelapa so instead crossed our fingers that night two wouldn’t be so bad and called for the water taxi to take us to shore. Yelapa is very isolated – in our original reading we had understood that there was no road in and everything arrived by water. In fact there is a very crude road into the community, but old habits die hard and pretty much everyone and everything still arrives by water. In the old days, the supplies, food and even people who were arriving would be transported up the rather steep streets of town on donkeys – unfortunately the mighty ATV has now mostly replaced the donkeys but it was pretty easy to picture them when we were wandering in and around the narrow, winding, cobblestone streets!!! We enjoyed breakfast on the beach, watching a steady stream of tour boats arrive, barely finish a drink and be rounded up again for the next part of their tour. We were sure happy to be doing this at our own pace!!! We followed the hoards of people up the hill to the waterfall behind town. When we arrived there was a huge tour group – all doing quasi-photo shoots in the pool underneath the waterfall (that tour guide missed his calling!) and we reluctantly joined the throngs. But then, we heard the “boat 5 let’s go” and just like that we were the only people there!!! We explored a bit more of the town and then headed back to the beach for a round of Pina Coladas and then got the water taxi back to the boat for the night. Night two was quite a bit more settled and pleasant, thankfully!!!
Yalapa Harbour
We were up before the sun the next day, intending to make Ipala before dark. We had a lovely slow sail out of the bay and made it around Cabo Corrientes with no drama (though a little rolling!). Linda even took the wheel at one point! We arrived in Ipala and anchored beside the only other boat in the small bay. Our intention was actually to only stay for a few hours and get rested up before pushing to do an overnight to Bahia Chamela.
We are making a sailor of Linda!
At some point that day we had sailed into some brief cell service and I had received an e-mail that Mom was not having a good day. Shortly after we arrived in Ipala I received a message on the Zoleo asking me to phone home – I sent a message that I would not have cell service for a couple of days and that I hoped all was well. Unfortunately, my sister then had to send me a message to let me know that my Mom had passed away that afternoon. I was shocked and destroyed. I had spoken to her while we were in Yelapa and she had been telling me she was terrorizing Costco on a motorized scooter on the weekend. I would later learn that she was happily visiting with friends the day before and after a pretty rough start to the day that day, she went back to sleep and just did not wake up. Though I was destroyed that she was gone and so saddened that I had not been able to say goodbye to her, I was comforted by the fact that she went exactly as she wanted to: at home, not having wasted away for months. We considered staying at Ipala for a night to let me wrap my head around what had happened but, more importantly, I wanted to get to cell phone service so we decided to head out as planned.
To say the night did not go well would be an understatement!!! As soon as Linda tried to go to sleep in the V-berth (which of course did not now have the big hatch open), the pitching waves made her feel sea-sick. Owen suggested that she should lay down on the floor in the salon as it is the most stable place to be – this was a great suggestion as she was able to get to sleep there. It should perhaps have been considered, however, that all of the stuff on the settees was not likely to stay put all night!! I had given up on sleeping, both because I was not enjoying the movement in our bed, and because I couldn’t quite shut my brain off, so I sent Owen off to sleep and took over the wheel. We did have the windvane driving but with crazy gusts and big rolling seas, it was having a hard time. I was giving the wheel a bit of an assist every once in a while when we suddenly had a big gust and a contrary wave – the combination of which caused us to pitch first one direction and then the other – in one fell motion, all of the items on the settees went raining down on poor Linda. I was frantically banging on the back hatch to get Owen’s attention to come to her aid as the wind was still being uncooperative and I didn’t want to leave the wheel. Owen dug through the suitcase, back pack and various other items to free Linda, who, in her miserable state, had barely noticed how buried she was!!!! Unfortunately, that would not be the last attack on her – a few hours later another pitch of the boat caused all of the books, etc. that were roped in on the starboard side behind the settee (and which had not moved up to this point in the trip), once again raining everything down on Linda!!! Owen once again dug her out (joking that he hadn’t even thought to hit the buttons on the electrified tennis racket bug zapper that was squarely on her face!).
The conditions finally began to improve around sun up and by mid-afternoon we were setting anchor in Bahia Chamela – although we were still in about 20 knots of wind, at least it was flat!!! I was finally able to call home and had tearful conversations with my sister and Bob, reassured to know that they were holding up okay. Understandably, Linda really rather wanted to touch shore at that point!!! She had been a trooper through a tough night but just wanted to feel ground under her feet! We launched the dinghy and headed into shore where we were able to wander around and then enjoy dinner and very strong pina coladas at a beach side restaurant. Our departure from the beach did not go as planned – we pushed the boat out, everyone but Owen jumped in and Harvey and I were ready to row as soon as Owen got in – unfortunately he hesitated just long enough for a huge wave to completely swamp and flood the dinghy! Miraculously none of us ended up out of the dinghy and Owen managed to launch himself in and, with the help of someone who had been fishing on the beach, we got away from the beach and past the surf. So there we were, with water half way up the inside of the dinghy, Harvey first trying to bail with his flip-flop before I dug out the bailing cup, everyone’s belongings soaked!!! Linda was remarkedly unphased by this most recent disaster!!! We were going to make a sailor of her yet!! After hanging up everyone’s clothes to dry, we all had an early night.
We left Chamela at daylight the next day. We had originally hoped to be able to make it to Barra de Navidad as that day was Owen’s birthday and his Mom, along with his other brother and his wife, were all awaiting our arrival in Melaque. Unfortunately, we realized that the only way to do that would have been to do another over-night and instead headed for Tenacatita.
We arrived in Tenacatita mid afternoon and what a paradise it is!!! The water was 28.7 and calm!! We finally inflated the paddle board and launched the kayak and Harvey and Linda took a trip into shore – I went for a swim in the glorious water and Owen and I took the toys for a turn once they were back at the boat. This was a place we would have loved to have hung out for a few days, but with family waiting in Melaque and the date that Harvey and Linda were due to go back to Puerta Vallarta fast approaching, we knew we had to move on.
We headed out early the next day and slowly sailed/ motor sailed around to Barra de Navidad. We finally managed to work our way up the narrow channel through the sand bars (thankful to a fellow sailor who had earlier this year posted his GPS coordinates for getting in) and anchored in the Lagoon – such a strange thing to be anchored in about 9 feet of water that was flat calm!!! We tried to call for the water taxi but, realizing that they were busy running people back and forth to a wedding at the Island Resort, we finally launched the dinghy and went in to meet up with Owen’s family for his birthday dinner (albeit one day late). It was so good to see everyone and to get healing hugs from family members – so very needed at that moment.
The next day started off on a high note as the French Baker arrived in the lagoon. We had heard tales of this wonderful event but weren’t sure we believed them. But then, sure enough, just after the morning net we hear “zis is the zee French Baker entering zee Lagoon” over the radio – we anxiously starting watching for him and were so excited to see the panga, decked out with display tables of fresh baked pastries, coffee urns and even bottles of wine, approach. We all chose a treat to enjoy for breakfast.
We later took a cab to Melaque and joined in on a barbq at the hotel where the family was staying. Owen’s parents had stayed at this same hotel for all of January and February for many, many years before Covid, and then Owen’s dad’s declining health, stopped their trips. This was his Mom’s first trip back and it was so nice that Dennis and Cindy were able to accompany her – they only did the month of February and did not stay in the same unit of course, but it was nice for them to get away from the miserable weather and to meet up with friends who had all been staying at the same place for years. As we had been to visit a couple of times in past years, we were also able to greet people that we had met in our past visits.
Harvey and Linda were set to catch a bus on the Monday morning from Melaque and decided that morning that, as they did not want to worry about getting themselves and all of their bags to the beach in Barra and then by cab to Melaque in order to make their bus, they would stay at a unit at their Mom’s hotel that night– this would give them a night with air conditioning and they would be a very short cab ride to the bus. It had been quite a scene that morning – we were again unable to raise the water taxi so we had all four of us, all of their bags, our back pack and the garbage loaded into our very small dinghy!!! That night we left everyone at the hotel and made our own way back to Barra and our suddenly empty boat!!
We headed in again the next day and spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool before going to dinner with Mom, Dennis and Cindy. We would spend a couple more days in that routine, heading into Melaque, hanging out with the family and cabbing back to Barra at the end of the day.
View from under the Almond Trees
Finally it was March 1 and everyone else was set to fly out. We again made the trip into Melaque, did a quick trip around the Tanguis (weekly outdoor market) and then handed out hugs, seeing Owen’s Mom, Dennis and Cindy off in their cab for their trip home.
Just like that, everyone was gone and we were left alone in Barra. It was now time to make plans to start returning north.
tjsailing 