Up the Sea 1.2. Puerto Escondido to Santa Rosalía
We arrived at Puerto Escondido after a wonderful short sail and ride from Bahía Aqua Verde. The port is very hidden, as it’s name described and opened to a large landlocked bay. It is arguably the best protected hurricane hole on all of Baja and many boats are left here on a mooring to weather the summer storms. Some cruisers stayed for good and meet every afternoon for a drink and a chat in the breezeway in front of the minimart.
Fonatur, a government owned marina chain runs also this marina and the mooring balls. The prices are very cheap, half of regular marinas, and they have a pool and laundry. This particular pool was stunning overlooking the inner bay. With this beautiful bay, friendly staff, minimart and Loreto only a stone-throw away, it is understandable that one would want to retire here.
We explored Loreto a couple of days (link) and spent the other two exchanging the vent of the composting toilet, changing the engine oil and posting a bunch of articles and pictures onto the blog. It was hard to leave, the marinas homey feel, nice people and we liked Loreto, but the Sea called.
Right out of the harbor we had wind and sailed at 6 knots! That was a first in the Sea. Winds come up, change direction, fizzle out. Not much steady sailing we have experienced so far. That is too because the winds pick up at night, some sailors we met travel at night. We want to see the landscape and opt for more motoring because of that. We don’t have much of schedule anymore, because we negotiated with the insurance a larger time window, as there aren’t any storms or hurricanes forming yet. This season is very late and we will be way up in the Sea come August. We are still making our way north though and haven’t stopped at anchor longer than a day. That will come soon.
I like the days at anchor, we relax, swim, read, play games, eat, go ashore, cook or not. Heaven. In harbors we explore new towns, provision, fix things, install new things and are busy. We communicate, post to the blog. So far this was a nice balance. Might possibly be the perfect life.
Sometimes it hits me how lucky I am. Just last summer I had a thyroidectomy and soon after radioactive iodine treatment. My voice was impaired to a whisper because of a complication during surgery for 6 months until February. We debated after the diagnosis if we should stop outfitting the boat and put our dream on hold. We decided to continue, Radu installed everything and I did what I could. I needed the goal, the perspective of eventually going cruising. Only delayed by half a year, the dream was postponed but not on hold, that kept me going. My doctors told me that I was unusually optimistic during treatment and recovery. I am so lucky. Looking over to yet another magnificent mountain range dropping sharply into the sea and then opening up to a beautiful beach, this travel is healing all the bits, which still needed mending!
Our first anchorage was in Bahia de Loreto on Isla Coronado. The island was formed through a crater and lava fields were at the bottom behind a perfectly white beach made out of ground shells. This island was stunning with its rounded forms dropping into the sea. We explored a short interpretive walking path naming the plants along the way. The water was light turquoise and gray with perfect visibility. A three-foot long and skinny gray transparent fish, which looked like a jello rod, was hunting small fish in the shallow water. He was oblivious to us so involved was he in the hunt. The sunset was particularly beautiful as the sky reflected on the calm sea leaving the shore and the rocks on the beach black.
Our next stop was Caleta San Juanico, a very large spectacular bay along Baja. The bay is flanked by large spiked rock columns and other equally large rocks divided the beaches. We anchored in one of the coves and had spotted tents and off-road vehicles ashore. When we got to the beach, all the Jeeps were leaving and a helicopter was flying rounds filming the bay. Very James Bond. Apparently this will be part of a show on the US TV channel ABC about people traveling down Baja and they had stopped for lunch at this remote beach. A lonely camper and his dog, who had parked his truck with a sleeping platform on top on the beach and two other cruising sailboats were our neighbors for the night.
It was getting hotter on the way to Bahía Conception. Our first stop within that inner Gulf was Playa Santispac. That sounded more exotic as it turned out to be. Catering to American and Mexican-American tourists and situated right next to the Mexico No.1, it has more of a truck stop at a beach atmosphere. Forget Armando’s unless you want to get drunk on one margherita for 50 pesos. As for the wifi key. The food was overpriced and terrible. The only other restaurant on the beach is ‘Ana’s Restaurant’. The restaurant has the charm if a university cafeteria and the food was right at cafeteria standard, plastic fork and all, but the owners are nice and there was Wifi. The coolness vibe came with a couple of surfers, born in the US first generation from Mexican immigrants, who were traveling Baja to surf at world famous surf spots like Scorpion Bay. And our camper with dog we saw the night before at Caleta San Juanico was there also.
In the middle of the night we were awaken by a gale. A nearby thunderstorm had sent us wind. Both anchor alarms squealed at about 1:30 am, because the wind had pushed us outside the set circle. Radu went out to check the anchor and if we had moved from our spot and were dragging. It was blowing so hard, at about 35 knots or 65 km/h, he had to hold on to the furled head sail while on the bow not to be blown off. A squall it was, because 20 minutes later all was over and the winds had died down. The air felt dead dry afterwards. The winds had sucked every last bit of moisture out of the already very warm night. We drank a bottle of water to try to rehydrate. The weather is as extreme and unforgiving as the landscape. As beautiful as the deserts and mountains are, the starkness and lack of vegetation lets winds just barrel over the peninsula without slowing them down. Only fans directly pointed at us makes sleeping in this heat bearable.
The next morning we moved before breakfast to a a pretty and small beach, Playa del Burro, situated against a mountain with palapas on the white beach. A few people were snorkeling in the emerald waters. Radu went to scope out the beach situation while I had a swim in the warm water and hung out with Samba in the shaded cockpit writing and reading. I had the loveliest view looking to the rocks, which looked like Tiki statues, which were flanking the beach and out to several small islands and a large gulf beyond. There was a nice breeze. What a lovely afternoon.
Later we took the dinghy ashore to have a cool beer and grilled shrimp at JC’s across the highway. On our way back, we walked along the beach and came by Geary’s beach palapa. Most cruisers in the Sea of Cortez listen to Geary for the daily weather report and predictions on the Sonrisa SSB net, which he has been broadcasting every morning at 8 am for the last 21 years and his 4th July beach parties are as legendary. We found Geary on his shaded, enclosed patio with a palm frond roof in front of his house at a large table covered with paperback books, a VHF and a drink next to him. With his bold head and large frame, he vaguely resembles Captain Kurz at a camp way up in the jungle of Vietnam, a role Marlon Brando played in ‘Apocalypse Now’. Obviously Geary had none of the craziness of Kurz nor did he recited poems, but the atmosphere of the heat, the patios deep shade and the palm and bamboo decor brought Kurz to life for me. Originally from Sacramento, Geary doesn’t find that Bahia Conception is much hotter that central California and he remembered playing golf there at 105° in the summer. He sticks it out during summer a time most Americans flee the Baja to their homeland. ‘Heat on a beach is fine, it should be hot in summer’, he says, and ‘I go to bed wet after a fresh water shower and sleep under a fan’. We wave as we’re leaving and promise to listen to Geary ‘on the net’.
As we took the dinghy back to boat we passed by a secluded beach and saw up close the incredible lava and rock formations, I had admired in the afternoon from afar. As we came back to the boat, dusk had fallen over the bay and reflected in the calm waters. What a beautiful bay.
23-30 JUNE 2016
