In The Sea 3.3. Around Santa Rosalía.
We left Santa Rosalia with the forecast of winds in the afternoon. That suited us well, we would get through the narrow Craig Channel without too much turbulence and in the afternoon sail down the Bahía Santa Inez.
And sail we did. It was a moment of Zen. The one and a half hours of sailing went by in a snap and were followed by by higher seas and choppy waves barreling down the bay. In the SE winds we were sailing along the waves from the same direction and heeling around twenty percent at times until we turned on the motor to give us more speed. It was getting uncomfortable and the waves from the side were hitting the side decks and spraying into the cockpit. We furled in the headsail and held onto the grab rails. The next half an hour felt like two hours until we got to the part of the bay shielded by Punta Conception and soon after entered Bahía Conception.
Arriving in Playa Santispac, we saw a couple of boats anchored we knew from the dock in Santa Rosalia and our neighbors on SV Kashmira. Also our friends on SV Slipper were there, we had met on our first trip in the Sea in 2016. Soon a dinghy came over with an invite to join a group of cruisers for dinner ashore. We were tired from the passage but the company was great and made it all worthwhile!
The next day was Sunday. It was a sunny and summer-hot day, 30°C/95°F hot and humid. Mexican families from the nearby towns of Mulege (20 min drive) and Santa Rosalia (1 hour drive) gathered along the beach enjoying the warm water and kayaking to the small islands ringing the bay. There wasn’t the slightest bit of wind, so we hung out in the shade of the cockpit with fans blowing right at us, one for each of us. I swam around the boat several times and stayed in a wet bikini all day to stay cool. It barely cooled off at night, I slept until the early morning hours in the cockpit and slept the rest in the v-berth.
We left Playa Santispac the next morning for Playa Coyote, another bay in Bahia Conception, a very pretty bay we hadn’t anchored in yet because it doesn’t give much wind and swell protection but predicted winds looked favorable for the next nights. We arrived after less than an hour of motoring slowly past a submerged reef and small islands dotting Bahía Conception all these smaller bay anchorages are located in. Playa Coyote is particularly beautiful and has a tropical feel with its aqua-marine water and white, orange, purple and also turquoise beach houses under lush palm trees. We found a good anchoring spot close enough to the shore but a good distance away from a band of rocks.
Radu went immediately below to tend to the watermaker which had not been working since we left Santa Rosalía. It wasn’t sucking water in, meaning the unit didn’t make enough pressure to press the saltwater through the membrane to make drinking water. Radu cleaned all pipes and the membrane, which did the trick and after we made 5 gallons of water. Lucky us that it is working again because this could have cut our trip South short. That’s why we had procrastinated and had not dealt with it the day before. We celebrated with a late lunch of guacamole and quesadillas and then a nice breeze came up keeping us cool until evening and a gentle swell rocked us while we read and wrote.
The next day was amazing. It started with a neighbor on a sailing boat came by to say hi when we had breakfast. David has been living in the bay for the past fourteen years leading the NOLS school (National Outdoor Leadership School) on this beach. He was busy getting his boat ready and to drive back home to Wisconsin for the summer, so he left after a quick chat. We went ashore soon after and got a little lost on our way to a market on the highway and found instead the NOLS school. The school is closed for the summer until October and we walked around the beautiful, tree shaded compound of several houses, meeting rooms, outdoor bathrooms and viewed their fleet of sailing skiffs and finally found an open gate to get to the highway.
We shopped a bit for avocados, milk and coke (for our favorite Cuba Libres) and sat down in Berta’s Restaurant next to the tienda. A attractive and outgoing lady, Anita, sitting by herself. greeted us and it turned out that her late husband had founded the NOLS school here in Coyote Bay. We spoke about alternative learning and how curiosity doesn’t kill cats, and her adventures while living on the Baja for most of the past thirty-five years. Then by chance, Dave happened to come for lunch as well and chimed in on the subject. Educating kids to becoming strong, independent and daring individuals is at the heart of NOLS and we agreed that the conventional learning systems miserably fail to facilitate deep learning.
After delicious fish tacos, Anita invited us to her house which is the oldest on the beach. Right on the beach sat a white stuccoed bungalow with large, metal frame windows allowing the sea breeze to cool the open, square living space. A generous bathroom with a sunken tub was to the side. This was one of those places where the spirit of spontaneity and creativity rule. Her late husband had sailed to this beach fifty years ago and had founded this little community which consists now of twenty dwellings plus the school. Tap, as Ernest L Tap Tapley was called, had been an adventurer and artists, who had lived life fully and with an open heart, said Anita, she wouldn’t miss a minute of the exciting thirty-five years they had together. Over mago juice we continued our passionate conversation on her porch overlooking the bay until we saw the winds come up and we thought it safer to get back to the boat, but not without the promise to have Anita over to our boat soon.
The next morning we woke up to find the batteries very low at only 55% charge and had to turn on the generator to bring them back up, because the sun was still too low in the sky. We have more than 5 year old AGM batteries we will need to replace soon because they are not holding the charge anymore and take a long time to recharge. I am hoping for lithium batteries which are lighter and way more efficient and recharge fast. Another item for the wishlist!
We stayed another day in this pretty bay before motoring back to Santispac. We hitchhiked into Mulegé and a phone call revealed that we need to be back in Puerto Peñasco by June 1st for a doctors appointment. This will be a short season for us, only 9 weeks long and we won’t go further south as planned and we rather want to enjoy our time and slowly sail back up the Sea. Right now we are leaving Bahia Conception after eight days here on our way back to Santa Rosalía where we will provision for the next three weeks passages back to Peñasco.
