That ONE thing you don’t have a spare for is always THE thing you lose or break.

While using the kayak is easy everywhere else, getting from the mooring area to the dinghy dock in Puerto Escondido is just too far a trek for Big Red. So we blew up the dinghy. Intending to add gas to the outboard engine, Brian removed the gas cap. Just as he was contemplating how tenuous that little gas cap retainer cord looked, hoping it wouldn’t break…ploop…the chintzy, plastic yoke broke and our poor gas cap went tumbling into 50ft of water, gone forever. Shi#$%!! Shi#$%!!  Shi#$%!! …is all I heard coming from the dinghy.

Spares Anyone?
If Brian had room for a spare engine, we’d have one. This “always be prepared”-mottoed man has darn near every spare part imaginable.. spare belts and ropes and hose connections and filters and hundreds of pieces of hardware and plastic thingys, normal boat stuff right? But we even have spare rigging, a spare windlass motor, an alternator, chain and cables in case the wheel assembly breaks and dozens more important items...just in case. Who brings a spare gas cap? Not even this guy. Why would anyone?

No gas cap, no dinghy.
You can’t run the engine without the gas cap or pretty soon you’ll end up with no gas (and with gas spewed all over you). More importantly, you can’t store the engine on the back of the boat (where it gets wet when you are sailing) without a gas cap. And just putting a plastic baggie with a rubber band over it probably isn’t the best idea. Plus, the incentive for NOT having to kayak the half mile to shore is pretty high. Brian went to the haulout facility in Puerto Escondido, but no joy. We didn’t want to pay for an $80 taxi ride to Loreto just to NOT find our obscure part, so Brian put on his MacGyver hat. What's the phrase...necessity is the mother of invention?

The Gas-o-Lipiec Cap
Thus was born the now trademarked Gas-o-Lipiec Cap: a fine custom piece of workmanship if I do say so. Brian cut some Plexiglas in a semi-roundish shape (he was sooo irritated he couldn’t make it perfectly round), covered it with a piece of rubber gasket material, drilled a hole through both, added a bolt and wingnut, then cut a small, rectangular piece of metal with a hole to act as a grabber/sealer on the bottom. He did all this in the cockpit with a hacksaw and a drill. Not bad for an hours work. All the while, every 2 minutes: “God, this would be so much easier if only I had my (insert tool) router/bandsaw/sander/drill press…” So glad we DON’T have room for THOSE spares.

Our ad-hoc cap worked as advertised. When we got to San Carlos, we inquired about spare gas caps. Ordering one would take a week. Well, we know what THAT means…a week is probably a month. Forget it. We’ll leave it “as is” for the summer and bring a new one back down with us next season.

Chores and Chillin’
We rested in Puerto Escondido for 5 days. Our weather there was great, though windy most afternoons. We did laundry (so I didn’t have to hand-wash on the boat); got fuel; bought a few staples at the tiny marina store (bread, chips, more cereal-we eat a lot of cereal, milk, onion, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes); ate several restaurant meals; partook in the COK (Circle of Knowledge) where you hopefully leave the circle more informed (rather than more confused); met more cruisers; I made brownies; got some decent internet where I finally wrote and uploaded several blogs; and most importantly, took real (hot and long) showers.

Sleeping Like Babies
We spent a couple more days in PE than necessary… but one of those days, well, we just didn’t feel like doing anything…so we didn’t. Plus, the unspoken truth is…we sleep 10-times better in Puerto Escondido than when we’re at anchor. I know you never should trust a mooring ball - it’s a false sense of security because they do fail. These balls are newly installed, only a couple years old now. But the distinct advantage to these particular moorings is their judicious spacing.
a)  We never worry about anyone parking right on top of us and swinging into our boat, as we always do at anchor. Even our stalker friend from the last blog can't be a space-invader here!
b)  We don’t worry about neighboring boats’ rode/chain combo or anchor not being strong enough and dragging in high winds (although we would worry in really high winds - during hurricane Odile, most disasters here occurred not due to breaking moorings, but due to the boat’s connector lines chafing right through).
c)  Extended spacing breeds good social etiquette: when I can hear your entire conversation like I am IN on the discussion…you anchored too close. This doesn’t happen in PE.

So, mooring in Puerto Escondido is the next best thing to being in a marina. Except it’s better because it’s QUIETER! No dock creaking, restaurant music blaring, squawking pterodactyl condo pets, tourist boat departures or daily bingo announcers. Just the music of the midnight stars. (Too cheesy? OK, maybe a little). In other words, we slept like babies.

Well, we couldn’t get away with it forever - the wind had to come eventually. Geary the Baja weather guru, as well as our downloaded GRIB files, announced that we’d be in for a little blow for the next two days.

Since leaving La Paz, every day we contemplated how long our good fortune would hold. But with the weather so cantankerous this year, our 10-day run of good weather was a downright miracle. So I’ll gladly take 2 full days of hunkering down for moderately high 20-25kt winds as payment for our thus far pleasant trip. It’s WAY better than 7 days of wind for only 2 good days like our southbound trip late last year. Are things back to normal? We’ll see…

So, we high-tailed it out of Bahia Cobre for better shelter just 5 miles away at Bahia Salinas. Not to be confused with Punta Salinas (Saltworks Point) which we had just visited a week earlier on Isla San Jose, much further south…this is Bahia Salinas, or Saltworks Bay, on Isla Carmen.

No Letting Up
As soon as we arrive, the wind starts and doesn’t turn off for 48-hours. So we sit tight and wait it out. We read, write, watch TV shows and movies. I bake peach crisp. We don’t leave the boat until the 3rd morning. By then I am itching to get to solid land.

Bahia Salinas – a Natural Wind Tunnel
Turns out this bay is notorious for funneling wind though the long, low plain of salt flats, cutting a swath across the island with high mountains on either side…another “chute” of sorts; so winds are often higher here than anywhere else. We didn’t realize this until we listened to our VHF radio. The same day we were experiencing 20 kts, boats over at Isla Coronados only 10 miles due north, were reporting calm! What? Hmmm. Maybe we just need to leave and get out of this natural wind tunnel.

Miles and Miles of Salty Plains
On the 3rd morning, we finally ventured to shore to visit the defunct saltworks. Yes, another one. But this was a pretty large operation, with miles of crunchy, salty fields sprinkled with rusty equipment, a huge salt “lake” in the middle, several decaying buildings, a water tower and a small church that was surprisingly (yet, not surprisingly) still properly maintained and ready for service. There are even remnants of a pier and train track system used to haul the product from inland to the beach where it could be loaded onto boats and whisked away to the Peninsula to sell (remember we are on an island 30-some miles away from the nearest town of Loreto).

Bighorn Hunting
Several years ago, someone built a ranch house here that is now used as a hunting lodge for high-rollers pursuing bighorn sheep, like the one we saw on the mountaintop in my last blog. Since this island is one big craggy mountain with sheer cliffs and no roads, hunting these animals must be quite the challenging expedition.

Isla Carmen is a protected island and no one is allowed to walk inland any further than the beach areas, other than the few hunters. In the case of Bahia Salinas, a couple lives here to watch over the crumbling hamlet and maintain the lodge. You must request permission to walk their property. Our caretaker indicated that we could mosey wherever we desired; but he also said that other caretakers do mind and won’t let you any further than the beach, just like the rest of the island. So I guess your luck depends on shift change. Only the current custodian knows whether hunters are roving the island on any given day, plus we found target practice ranges near the salt ponds … so unless you are “gunning” for a Dick Cheney moment …ask before wandering very far inland.

Like Moths to a Flame
Every cruiser here has Heather Bansmer and Shawn Breeding’s “Cruiser’s Guide to the Sea of Cortez”. In this essential book are precise coordinates for good anchoring spots. Usually one, sometimes two per anchorage, they are indicated on the charts with a tiny little anchor icon. We have noticed over our two seasons of cruising here, that people tend towards those points, dropping their anchor as close as boatingly possible with little precaution for their neighbors. Drawn in like moths to a flame, they don’t poke around for other spots, they don’t look to explore the depths farther away, or even make sure of the surrounding swing room; they ride up to the spot and drop the hook, no matter who else is 100 feet away. This has happened to us on several occasions.

Bahia Salinas is wide open… huge. There must be at least one mile of perfectly good anchorable beach length, plus shallow depths at least a half mile into the bay. When we arrived, there was one other boat in all of this space. We are not immune to the draw of the anchor icon… we’ll drive to that spot first if it’s not taken, and then do outward circles looking for swing room on our plotter. We may or may not stop in that spot if no one else is nearby. But if there is lots of room in the bay, we’ll usually look for a place a bit farther away, just in case of this happening…

Table for Two?
This time, we happened to have plopped our anchor close to but not on top of the book’s icon. Well, we were there first. Then another sailboat (yep, those darn Canadians;) came in and proceeded to anchor right next to us, right on top of the preferred anchor point. Now, he wasn’t dangerously close, but definitely within calm talking distance. The point is, with ALL this room, a MILE of space… you can go ANYWHERE and you gotta anchor right next to me? Really? Are we dating? Should I make dinner reservations? You couldn’t even go another hundred feet to the other side of the anchor point, just to give you better swing room? Your spacing might make sense in a very small anchorage. But, here? It’s like a giant, empty Walmart parking lot, and the next arriving vehicle pulls in right beside your car, rather than a comfortable, one spot over. Inconceivable. (I don’t think that word means what you think it means…)

Stalker!
We left. But that’s because we were leaving anyway. The next morning at our sleepy little anchorage of Punta Colorada where we had the place to ourselves, we noticed our best friend rounding the corner. Stalker! We watched him intently as he proceeded to do the exact same thing, anchoring right beside us! Seriously. We left soon after he arrived. We were headed for Puerto Escondido anyway…but I secretly hoped he thought we were leaving because of him.

For a really great anchoring-on-top-of-me story, go to SCOOTS sailblog...scroll down to read the portion: How Not to Anchor 1/19/2016

You gotta love a ½ hour ride to the next anchorage – my kind of day. Round the corner on the far side of Isla Carmen, we pulled into little Bahia Cobre, just 3 miles away. A U-shaped bay with 20ft deep water all around, our view was backed by dramatic, high cliffs rising from the pebble beach. This spot was spectacular. And we had the place all to ourselves…for a little while anyway.  Another sailboat arrived during the afternoon, plus a couple fishermen spent the night in their pangas near shore. This is one off-the-beaten-path anchorage. Since it is about 25 miles from Puerto Escondido in the wrong direction (due east) for most north-south paths, most cruisers don’t venture out this far on a regular basis. But they should…

Best Snorkeling Ever
Just off the east point, lie boulders the size of SUV’s that have tumbled into the sea, providing one of the best snorkeling venues I’ve ever seen. We floated along this rocky outcropping all the way from the beach a ¼ mile to the point and back. Along our trek, dolphins swam into the anchorage; they were busy fishing and paid us no attention but we could hear their breathing from several hundred feet away while we swam. Every now and then, a ray would jump and splat. I’d quickly look up from snorkeling but never caught them in the act from my surface angle. But even rays and dolphins weren’t as interesting as the fish factory down below…

Fish Factory
Entire schools of fish by the hundreds floated along this boulder-strewn reef. Of course, there are your standard yellow & blue stripers and blue spotted pufferfish roaming the shallow spots. But in just a little deeper water, light grey ones (looks like some kind of angelfish) with bright yellow tails were schooling around in large packs! It was so mesmerizing to just float and watch these graceful creatures. Looking closer at these guys you can see they are actually spotted and have 3 distinct white dots near their tail that look to me like pinholes through their bodies.

Rainbow Colors
The most beautiful species were these large, 3ft grouper-like things, brightly painted with every color of the rainbow. Every so often, I found a pair incongruously mingling among the comparably smaller schools of yellow-tailed angelfish, so they must like each other. Preferring to swim closer to the bottom, they were always a bit too far out of reach for good pictures. My camera could not capture their iridescent beauty anyway, even after photo-shopping out some of the greenish underwater tones.

Feisty Fishies
Another feisty type sported a pretty light blue head and dark blue body. Seemingly loners, they did not swim well with others. Each was so territorial he had no issue with swimming fiercely at an entire school of yellow-tails to deter them from getting anywhere near his little hidey-hole. I captured an example of one protecting his rock-abode near the end of my video.

Schooling Silvers
On our way back to the beach I suddenly ran into a swarm of foot-long silver-colored fish. I have no clue to their type, but literally hundreds, maybe even thousands, made their way en-masse along the 20ft deep reef. Sometimes they would lackadaisically float as a group in the same general direction, teeming all over the sea floor like bees. Then, all of a sudden, a switch turned on. Either they got spooked… or maybe the General announced an alarming “Retreat!”… and within a split second, everyone had a single, overriding mindset… bolting out to sea like their life depended on it (probably did!). It looked just like the movie Finding Nemo… a fish super-highway with seemingly no end to the stream! The whole experience was so amazing I went for a repeat, swimming back from the boat by myself a couple hours later just to see it all again. (Plus, I got out of cleaning the boat’s hull.) My fish friends were all still there, in endless supply.

Bighorn Sheep
That afternoon, our new boat neighbor yelled over to us urgently: “Hey guys, look up towards the cliff!” Standing on top of this sheer mountain spine, was a bighorn sheep silhouetted against a bright blue sky. Looking all majestic, it’s as if some documentary director had posed him there for an episode of Planet Earth. So cool!

Spiteful Seagull
After snorkeling, we were sitting down below and heard a tap-tap-tap on the hull of the boat followed by an angry squawk. A seagull had been hanging around us ever since we had arrived, creeping closer and closer, finally hovering in the water only a couple feet away, squawking like he expected a giant feast. Well, eventually he got bold (or stupid) enough to start pecking at our hull! That’s it. We tried to shoo him away to no avail. Yelling didn’t work, neither did shwacking the area near him with an oar…nothing phased him. He’d fly 50ft away for 2 minutes, then come right back. The following morning we awoke to more tapping from our ingrate expecting breakfast. Brian flew out of bed and furiously squawked back at him. Literally… squawked. Time to go.

Paradise to Purgatory
We were leaving early anyway, Mr. Seagull just made it happen sooner. The wind had picked up from the southeast during the night and we’d just about had it dealing with the wrap around swell and rolling side to side. Here is another perfect example of why you just can’t visit every anchorage in one year. Winds are always changing - one day an anchorage might be just dandy, another day it might be hell or… could be both in the same day, you never know. In this case, it degenerated from paradise into, not hell but definitely somewhere near higher purgatory, quite quickly. Even though another day of perfect snorkeling would have been awesome, the uncomfortable boat motion wasn’t worth the stay. Plus, we needed to head to Bahia Salinas to gain protection from an oncoming norther anyway. So we left our seagull friend to pester the remaining boat and hoped he wasn’t dumb enough to follow us!

Fantastic Sealife at San Marte
Most boats skip right over Bahia San Marte, favoring the more popular Agua Verde to the north or Los Gatos to the south. Last year we had to forego anchoring here when we passed by as it is open to south and east winds and not great for strong northerly winds either. This time we got lucky…yet another blessedly calm evening. How long can we maintain this splendid weather pattern?

Shark-Fin Soup
We arrived late afternoon, hopped in the ’yak and paddled over to chat with a newly-arrived boat who we met previously while at Marina Palmira. While kayaking around the anchorage, we witnessed for the first time, strange fish that swam at the surface of the water. Their sharp, silvery dorsal and tail fins stuck up in the air like mini-sharks. We could never get close enough with the kayak to see what they looked like other than seeing their fins and that they seemed to be 1-2 ft long. Hundreds of them darted around erratically, not sitting still for good photos. It was too late in the day for snorkeling, but I’m not sure I wanted to get in the water with quite so many of whatever they were anyway!

Volcanic Dentures
An hour before the sun set, we beached and walked a craggy, volcanic reef comprising toothy, stone shafts thrusting out of the water at a severe angle. It almost hurt your feet to tip-toe on these rows of blunt, up-ended denture-like rock shelves, even wearing good-soled water shoes. Reaching the opposite beach, we scrambled up a steep incline of sharp rock and petrified shell shards to get a good view of the bay (so steep we nearly caused a small shell-slide making our way back down). Sharp, ankle-twisting reef rocks and challenging cliff-top access made this shore visit not so friendly. But WORTH it….

Mobula Ray Shuffle
As we took in the spectacular view of Indigo from above, all comfy-cozy and nestled on her hook in calm waters, we got an unexpected private performance! With the sun behind me, I caught the best photos yet of mobula rays doing their famous ‘jump and splat’. For several minutes, I just stood there in awe and kept clicking as ray after ray took flight. I took so many pics, (36 to be exact) it was impossible to decide which ones to show here. So I didn’t decide, I just included anything that came out decent. Call it a “Study in Rays”. Later on, back on the boat, I caught a video of the rays poking their little wingtips up out of the flat water at sunset. It never gets old.

We did not stay an extra day, but I would have snorkeled if we had…San Marte, with its extensive reef, is just begging to be snorkeled.  Next time…

Punta Perico
From there we traveled up to Isla Carmen, anchoring in Punta Perico for the night. During that long, 30-mile day, we observed dolphins, a couple turtles and a whale that spouted once but never saw again. Here and there, we’d notice a sea lion basking in the water on its back, arm fins straight up towards the sky and feet flippers too, like some dogs do when they sleep… they were just floating along, taking a nap.

In the morning, we got up early and kayaked along a sheer wall, striated with multiple layers of various rock and sediment. We even caught a glimpse of a pod of dolphins swimming around in the anchorage while kayaking! We’ve witnessed so much fantastic sealife this trip… more than last year…but the best is yet to come! Tomorrow, actually!

Los Gatos
This is our second time in Puerto Los Gatos. A 30 mile trek from San Evaristo, it makes for a long day of traveling. So by the time we arrive, no one has the energy to go ashore. I love the red rock geology here so much I made Brian stay a full day this trip so we can explore the center portion of the bay tomorrow.

Fresh Ceviche
That afternoon, a local panga fisherman drives by, asking if we want to buy any fish. Si! I purchase a fresh Cabrillo, he fillets it right there in his boat and places it in my container. I make ceviche: combine diced fish, 1 jalapeno, ½ cucumber, 1 tomato, red onion, juice of 2 limes, salt, pepper, chili powder. I let it “cook” in the juice in the fridge overnight. It’s a great lunch with tortilla chips or crackers.

Cilantro-Deficiency
Ceviche is much better with cilantro, actually everything is better with cilantro… but I don’t have any. Why? Because everything is better with cilantro…and the entire past year I always had cilantro on board… it’s cheap here and I used it in everything…so much so that I made Brian so sick of it he won’t even allow me to buy it anymore! And now he mentally equates fresh parsley with cilantro too, even though they taste completely different. SO, I can no longer have anything remotely leafy and green aboard the boat. Sigh. Soooo sad. There’s only one good thing about my lack of fresh herbs: they took up a ton of room in my teeny fridge. I guess there’s that.

Red Rocks and Snorkeling
The next morning, I made a big breakfast (since we weren’t sailing anywhere) and had a great time exploring all day. We hiked among the gigantic and mysteriously-shaped red rocks lining the waterfront, scampered along the pink sandstone shelf worn smooth away by eons of wind and water, and climbed a unique gully comprised of slippery, sand dune on one side and rocky ravine on the other, meeting together in a V-shape.

Among the waterfront rocks, there’s a perfect, pink sand beach…just right for donning snorkel gear and entering its shallow, sandy water with fins. Snorkeling along the center reef we observed quite a few small fish, but most notably, some beautiful purple sea fans flowing gracefully in the “breeze”.

It’s all Downhill from Here…
Later, we kayaked over to a nearby catamaran to say hello. They were a Swiss couple and had been cruising around the globe for over 15 years. From Europe to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal to the South Pacific, back up to Alaska and down the California and Mexican coast. When asked which was their favorite place - The Sea of Cortez! Well, I guess everything is downhill from here…

When he mentioned the reason, it struck me as thought-provoking - most everywhere else has trees. In the Sea, there are no trees to hide the geology and he thinks that’s why he likes it here best. It made me ponder… Trees are like clothing, outright hiding the underlying landscape; buildings of course destroy and cover the ground they stand upon; grasses and leaves are akin to makeup, further obscuring any unique geology. Most of Baja has no trees, grass or buildings, nothing to hide its wondrous variations in landscape.

Naked Baja
The stark nakedness of the land here in Baja California is truly awe-inspiring. There is peacefulness in such pure, undisturbed desert. Each anchorage freely supplies a bounty of unique shapes and colors and textures …raw geology. You can still feel the cataclysm of lava spewing and sizzling into the ocean, the massive upheaval of shifting tectonic plates shaping these incredible hundred-mile-long, mile-high mountain ranges, the force of wind on a smoothed-out sandstone slope, the relentless pounding of surf into perfect white sand beaches, the eons it took to petrify a shell fossil, the compression required to embed giant boulders into cement, the roiling action of the sea hollowing out a reef system, the power of ancient glaciers that scraped out rock-strewn valleys and sliced off sheer cliffs and carved out the picturesque bays in which we are now anchored. Because there IS nothing else to distract you. No trees, no buildings, no cars, no freeways, no people, no cell phones, no internet. Just raw geology… in all its un-manicured glory.

Punta Salinas – Abandoned Salt Flats
After our delightful stay at Isla San Francisco, we ventured over to Punta Salinas for a lunch stop at an old salt mining operation. Centered on Isla San Jose, we hoped this new anchor spot was situated far enough away from the dreaded, biting jejenes at this island’s south tip. We strolled along the beach, poked around the decaying buildings and paused for a photo op in front of a rusty, decrepit pickup. I climbed a 10ft high salt pile that had hardened solid, fossilizing into what felt like gripping a heap of sharp ice crystals.

And Today the Weather Dictates…
But the wind was picking up. Here is a great example of how weather dictates everything we do. Anchored on a lee shore with wind driven waves building across the channel towards us, Indigo was bouncing out there a little too much for comfort. Not to mention the notion of a wet and wild ride back to the boat, kayaking directly against the wind and waves. So we unfortunately only spent about an hour on shore and did not venture inland into the miles of checkerboard salt ponds. This salty maze looked like an infinite place to explore and we hope to be back.

Whale Sightings!
On our way across the channel we caught some whale action! As a group made their way south, we saw spouts every few seconds. When you can see the white geysers from 2 miles away… THAT’s big. We’d seen several whale spouts in the last couple days, all in the San Jose Channel area, but were never close enough for good photos. (The only whale shots I’d ever caught were from our Mazatlan to La Paz crossing.) Later on in the week, a small one blew a few hundred yards away as we sailed near Isla Monserrat, but he spouted only once and we never saw it again.

We’d heard stories of countless whale sightings this spring: one had a pair visit their anchorage in the middle of the night, scaring them out of a sound sleep; another accidentally sailed right into the midst of a pod… then again while kayaking, the same couple witnessed several surface only a couple hundred feet away. All instances were way too close for comfort.

Awe and Anxiety
In discussing whales with other cruisers, the general consensus seems to be 1/4 awe & 3/4 anxiety. Seeing dolphins or manta rays is always cool; seeing a whale prompts that same instant “cool!” exuberance, but is quickly tamped down by an underlying sense of “crap”. While you want to see them up close to experience that ‘National Geographic moment’, you really don’t want to see them up close. Period. It’s fine and dandy to go whale-watching… on a tour ship… ‘cause it’s not your house.

Indifferent Cows
Whales are like sleepy-eyed, cud-chewing cows standing on a car-lined road, completely disregarding surrounding anxious drivers. Furiously, yet fruitlessly, the motorist honks his feeble horn, hoping to annoy them enough to reverse their ingrained inertia. Consider your anxiety level increase as a motorist if that cow was now a gigantic bull that had the potential to run full speed right into your slowly moving car like a deer attracted by headlights or maybe even just because he was mad (look at what happened to Captain Ahab)… or maybe said bull decides that your nice, shiny, perfectly-painted BMW looks like THE perfect scratching post (the horror)… maybe even, just because this particular bull species has a propensity for jumping up and down, he accidentally lands on top of your hood, smashing it to smithereens. Bull: “Oops, my bad.”

Whales seem to ignore moving boats; they don’t particularly care if you are in their way. And why should they, we’re probably like cockroaches to them, we’re so small! While relatively rare odds, there are plenty of stories spanning the centuries of these giants scraping alongside ship hulls, nudging boats from underneath, flicking their flukes dangerously close or swimming full bore into vessels… even breaching right on top of them. And unfortunately, a slow sailboat just cannot move fast enough to dodge such a gigantic mass, even if you see them first. Just a small bump could cause a crack and sink a boat. One cruising boat apparently ran into a whale and sunk 30 miles outside of San Carlos just a couple weeks ago! So while it would be great to have cool close-up snapshots, that sunken boat report made us very nervous…we can only hope our whale friends stay far, far away.

San Evaristo
After sailing across the San Jose Channel, we landed at San Evaristo. Our second time anchoring in this small bay with a teeny fishing community, it’s a favorite of ours due to the shelter it provides from wind waves. And because of the fish tacos. Lupe and Maggie Mae’s restaurant/home makes the best fish tacos in all of Baja.

30 Knots
That night, we were blasted with an unpredicted 30 knot westerly. While blustery, this was an onshore wind (fortunately for us) so we had no uncomfortable fetch (no wind waves rolling in offshore to generate bounce). But the lack of fetch didn’t mean we slept well. The noise generated by 30 knots of wind is quite something. Plus, we had a banging halyard that could not be fixed in the dark, and then there’s the remnants of our no-see-um bites that still itched like crazy. Despite these minor issues, we were supremely relieved to have left San Francisco’s exposed west anchorage the day before. We later heard accounts of a really rough and rolly night there in those same 30kts winds; so uncomfortable that some boats vacated in the middle of the night, motoring around to the east side of the island for better protection.

Flakey Flurries
By the time we got up in the morning, the westerly wind had decreased to a nice 12 kts. We rounded the corner of the little bay into the San Jose Channel thinking we would get some good sailing; and we did – for literally one mile. Then it stopped. Dead. 12-knots to zero in an instant. Where’d the wind go? We waited a bit but eventually took down the flapping sails and motored on for another couple miles. Then it came whipping up again (17 knots); soooo, we started sailing again. We then noticed another sailboat just ahead of us rolling his sails up. Huh? But it’s plenty windy to sail!? We snickered a bit and kept sailing. Sure enough…our brisk breeze petered out again a mile later, right where the lead boat had given up. No longer snickering, the lightbulb finally went on...

Looking closer at the mountain terrain, the wind was funneling down through the sheer passes and out the valleys like a bobsled chute. On either side of the two valleys – zero wind. It’s also probable we caught more wind passing those “chutes” so close to shore than if we had angled away towards the center channel. Every day, the Sea teaches us a lesson it seems: in sailing or anchoring, in weather phenomena, in ocean water patterns, in nature’s infinite wonders…but mostly, of nature’s unpredictability!

Isla San Francisco in the Sea of Cortez is a cruiser’s desert paradise. This perfect crescent-shaped anchorage, with a white and pink sand dune beach, glittering turquoise waters over a shallow sandy floor and exquisite rock-cliff faces in a myriad of subdued reds, creams, greens and pinks jutting upwards from the sea… well, it’s about as picturesque as one can get. Given the fact that this island is the cover shot of our illustrious guidebook, it’s one of the most popular anchorages here for sailors, power-boaters and charter-boaters alike.

In the morning, we bolted from our horrifically buggy anchorage at Bahia Amortajada and headed to the north end of San Francisco (paradise is a mere 2 miles away from hell) where we did a mid-morning stop, walked the shell beach and watched several duck families cross the channel. We then rounded to the west end hoping to secure a spot in one of the most sought after anchorages in the Sea of Cortez. Getting into this small, secluded bay when there is no southwesterly coromuels, and when it isn’t tooo crowded, all depends on luck. We had to anchor around its stone-strewn eastern backside last year during the coromuels. This year we got lucky on both counts; not much wind and not too packed! Juuust right.

After lunch, I goaded Brian into hiking up to the top of the south cliff for our day’s shore excursion. This view was worth an entire year of cruising. Yes, it was THAT good. The pictures speak for themselves. I could spend two weeks just hanging here, hiking and rock-hunting and kayaking and snorkeling…it just doesn’t get any better than this. Too bad we need to keep moving north. But you can count on it… we’ll be back.

Napping El Nino
El Nino seemed to be taking a nap. Thankfully! Sometimes being wrong is magnificent. Our ongoing weather anxieties included the dread of having to deal with and work around week-long strong north winds on our trek back to San Carlos. But during the first two weeks of our trip meandering to Puerto Escondido, we were blessed with exactly 11 days of perfect weather and only two back-to-back days of 25kts. THIS is what the weather is SUPPOSED to be like! Now we’re talkin’!

Bahia Amortajada
The 3rd night of our trip north brought us to Isla San Jose and the south anchorage of Bahia Amortajada. A long, pretty beach and expansive shallow lagoon, perfect for kayaking and wildlife-watching, beckoned. It was the first anchorage since we left La Paz that we had completely to ourselves.  (Now we know why.) We anchored in lovely water and kayaked to the beach. The guidebook suggests navigating into the lagoon at high tide to avoid fighting the current; we happened to arrive at low tide - but the book doesn’t mention that low tide is so low it’s impossible to get in. We didn’t want to portage our kayak, so we ended up strolling the beach instead. The sun was out, the day was hot and bright, all was well with the world.

Swept Away
Back on the boat I decided to cool off in the 70degree pool water. It looked so inviting I just jumped right in…and was immediately swept 15 ft to the back of the boat. Startled, I quickly swam against this current and clung to the ladder, feeling the water rushing along my legs. What the heck? I’d never felt such movement before and should have known better. Indigo had stubbornly been pointing east out to sea, paralleling the bottom of the island, despite the several directions of light wind we had that day. We wondered in passing why this was so, but didn’t really think too much about it, didn’t feel the current when kayaking. Not until I was IN it. The current that flows down along the outside of San Jose must curve and funnel right in between San Jose and Isla San Francisco. We watched some flotsam pass by at an incredible rate and now I will be watching for flotsam speed BEFORE I jump into anything. Later, we heard a story from another boat who swore the current is so swift flowing in and out of the lagoon that it was impossible to kayak into during mid-tide, they couldn’t make any headway and gave up.

Land of a Thousand Bites
Don’t let the pretty pictures fool you…
While daytime was sublime, dusk brought a living nightmare. Silent but deadly swarms of teeny, no-see-um bugs called jejene’s (pronounced hay-hay-nay’s) flew out of the mangrove lagoon and attacked. Worse than mosquitoes (you can actually see and swat mosquitoes), these beasts are less than the size of the head of a pin. Almost impossible to see and lightning-quick, they therefore cannot be killed. How can you kill something you can’t see! They got everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Sleep was impossible. At least with attacking mosquitoes, you can duck under the sheets – these got INSIDE our clothing, INSIDE the sheets! We tossed and turned and itched and scratched until I wanted to cry. Had it not been for our good screens (we think they only got in when we had to go outside), we’d have been mobbed…taken alive, probably perished.

We’re Getting Outta Here!
The morning sunlight did not dissuade them from crowding into our shady cockpit at first light. Unaffected by burning mosquito coils, the ONLY thing that got rid of them was LEAVING. But we regretfully took some with us. It wasn’t until 2 days later we felt they had all left the boat. But the itching remained a constant reminder of their terror attack. We sustained 2 more sleepless nights of less frequent biting and 5 days of furious scratching. After that, our irritation finally subsided enough to inspect with a more detached eye. I counted over 50 welts on one leg alone, that I could see. Multiply that by 4 extremities and add some for the head, neck, stomach…yeah…that should give some indication as to our sheer madness. Calamine lotion and poison ivy itch cream did little to relieve; I used face mask to dry them out, dabbing each welt with white paste - I looked like a spotted snake for days afterward.

Steinbeck Warning
I should have listened to Steinbeck. He wrote about this vile creature at Amortajada in his book, Log from the Sea of Cortez: “We were anchored quite near San Jose Island and that night we were visited by little black beetle-like flies which bit and left a stinging, itching burn. Covering ourselves did not help, for they crawled down into our bedding and bit us unmercifully.” This phenomenon is still absolutely true 76 years later. Fortunately, we have not experienced these little buggers anywhere else. The term “Amortajada” means shrouded, as in a funeral shroud… if you stay long enough that’ll be your fate.

You Can Visit, Just Don’t Stay
For the love of all mankind, do NOT attempt to anchor there overnight. While the guidebook specifically informs about jejene’s, their claim that mosquito coils and bug spray can be easily used as a deterrent defies our experience.  If you absolutely must see the lagoon, abridge your exploring for a short daytrip. Then run right back to San Francisco or San Evaristo well before the sun goes down if you want to save your skin…and your sanity… for the next week. You couldn’t PAY us to go back. Ever.

Under Pressure
It’s March 2nd and Indigo headed back north again on our way out of the hurricane zone. Already, you say? Well, yes, we didn’t go back to renew visas this year so we need to get out of dodge by the end of April. With the winds the way they’ve been (really windy from the north), we’d been a little (OK a lot) nervous about having enough time… time to be able inch Indigo farther north to San Carlos in between all these week-long northers… and, once we arrive, time to finish Brian’s thousand-item-checklist for putting the boat into dry storage. You wouldn’t think it would be soooo nerve-racking, having to be OUT by a certain date. But it is, and we feel the pressure already. So we cut our time short on the mainland in order to have lots of time to venture north. No one wants to feel rushed when cruising; makes for unhappy campers all the way around.

Leaving Mazatlan
While Mazatlan has a stunning shopping mall, multiple movie theaters, the best Mega(grocery store), a quaint historic district with interesting colonial architecture, and a miles-long Malecon on a beautiful beach… it also has oodles of people, tons of tourists, too many time-share salespeople and walking trinket-vendors up the wazoo.

Despite our initial reaction to the whole touristy feel of Mazatlan and feeling like we’d seen all there was to see within a matter of a couple weeks, we stayed to experience Carnaval. Fortunately for us, our tour guide friends on S/V Cuba Libre showed us around their adopted home and within a couple more weeks they helped us discover some really cool stuff: the artwalk, street hot dog vendors, amazing tacos al pastor, a spectacular bullfight, yummy gorditas, the shrimp ladies, the gringo theater, Cuban food, the carnival fireworks…all things we never would have experienced without their local knowledge.

Soon we got used to riding the crowded buses, going in the claustrophobic market and navigating the hectic downtown sidewalks where I came within 6” of getting clipped by a bus. We began to ignore the steady stream of “salespeople” who inevitably come right up to your dining table, even INSIDE some restaurants, hawking everything from bracelets to banana bread to foot massages (if I only had a dollar for every time I had to say “no gracias”). We learned the trick of fending off timeshare salespeople (tell them you live on a boat - this indicates you have no money) and shooed away the persistent yet terrible street musicians who shouldn’t be allowed to touch an instrument let alone sing.

So for us, it took a bit for Mazatlan to sink in; we like it now. We understand why soooo many Canadians and some Americans move to this city permanently: a myriad of cultural activities, great shopping, awesome food, perfect weather, beautiful beaches, low cost-of-living. Still… Would I fly my mother down here? Probably not. I just don’t think it’s up her alley. Some people absolutely love this place, but it’s not for everyone. Now that we’ve spent enough time here though, we feel comfortable getting around and could certainly play tour guide a thousand times better than when we’d first arrived.

Back to La Paz
While we will miss Mazatlan, we were eager to get back to nature… back to the peace of La Paz, the beautiful anchorages and the stunning waters of the Sea of Cortez. So on Wed, March 2nd we left Marina Mazatlan (we moved there to get the varnish completed) at 7am and headed back to La Paz. This time we had no buddy boat and were on our own for the 2 day passage. But somehow, it wasn’t quite so daunting the second time around.

 “YOU talkin’ to ME?”
A few miles outside the harbor entrance, we noticed a boat trailing behind us, but didn’t pay much attention. Then I heard a call over VHF, a little something like this: “Sailboat just out of Mazatlan Harbor headed to La Paz, this is Salish Sequel.” Normally, hearing a call like that always induces a quandary. Are they really talking to me?  You just never know. Well Watson, we HAD to be the one she was hailing. Why? We were literally the ONLY other sailboat out there!

You see, a person can stand at the Mazatlan harbor entrance and tell exactly where a boat is going to; there are only two choices. If you turn south, you’re going to La Cruz or PV, an overnight passage; if you go northwest you’re headed back to La Paz. There’s just nowhere else to go. (Ok, there is Topolobampo due north, but it’s much farther so most people don’t.) We ended up chatting a couple times over VHF radio with Salish Sequel, loosely buddy-boating by sheer proximity for the first day; we then lost them after dark.

No Wind, Perfect Wind, or Too Much Wind
Brian wants SOME wind for a crossing (a perfect 10kts, on a close reach – good luck with that), so we can sail most of the way and not use up diesel. Sure, tell me something that every sailor doesn’t want. But I’m a realist. For a 2-day crossing, I want NO wind so we can just motor and get it over with and so there is no risk of lumpy, seasickness-inducing-seas. Neither of us wants TOO MUCH wind. At this time of year (well most of the time) the winds come from the northwest. Guess which direction we had to go? Northwest. Bashing into strong winds, to put it crudely, sucks. So we time our crossing via Sailflow and other weather-prediction sites for 3-4 days of super benign weather…and cross fingers.

I WIN!
That first day, we were able to sail for 5 hours (Brian is ecstatic). We then motored for 24 hours straight (Me=Yay!; Brian=frowny face). Then sailed for 2, then motored the rest of the way. Yup. I WIN! Oh, the seas were beautiful - like glass! I overheard this conversation over VHF: “You got any wind over there?” “Nope, it’s like a skating rink out here.” Only a Canadian would use a skating rink analogy, but he was right…it was so smooth you could drop a pin and the water would ripple for miles. Motoring at night, through pitch dark for several hours before the moon rose, was pure peace.

Turtle Migration
The second day, we had our first turtle sighting! I had gotten a bit jealous that everyone else had witnessed turtles in the Sea; we had been here for a season and a half… still no turtles. Lo and behold, we got our fill of them this day. We must have seen 20 or more throughout the day, never more than one at a time, never too close to the boat (they’d duck under if our paths intersected too close). We could spot their dark shells as much as a half mile out, floating at the surface, infringing upon the baby blue monotony of our flat skating rink. Their green/black hard-hat shells stuck above the water several inches, their little feet swimming along back to La Paz. If it took us two days to get there, how long would it take them? Quite the journey. We spotted a seagull standing atop one, catching a free ride. Not sure why the turtle let him; he could have just ducked under and sent him flying away, but he didn’t. Maybe he just needed a friend.

Bonanza!
We landed at Playa Bonanza on Isla Ispiritu Santos 47 hours and 250 miles later. Just before sunrise, we anchored in this expansive bay in the dark. And who should arrive under the rising sun but Salish Sequel. They graciously invited us for delicious sangrias and snacks that evening to celebrate a good crossing.

For two days, we rested in the perfect white sand arms of Bonanza, and then made the final, easy leg to La Paz. We docked at Marina Palmira for one week, just enough time to grocery shop, do taxes (blah), finish my incredibly long bullfight blog (it took 4 hours sitting in the lounge just to upload the video – man, I miss El Cid internet) and do some boatwork (Brian climbed the mast 5 times in one day to polish all the mast steps and clean the rigging – what a feat!).

Heading North Once Again
On March 13th we began our 2nd northern trek to San Carlos. This signifies the beginning of the end of our second season in the Sea…hard to believe!