Isla La Partida

[Kyle]As we were pulling up anchor in Isla San Francisco, The cruise ship that we had seen in Los Gatos came in and dropped theirs. Again, we passed close by them and waved as we turned for our next stop on Isla La Partida.

We were not the only ones with an early start

We had very little wind, but we knew it was coming, so we were doing our best to wait patiently for it. We spotted lots of other sailboats, mostly going north, mostly motoring. We crept up on Partida very slowly, being careful not to startle it. We didn’t want our anchorage to spook and run even further.

As we arrived, we got a huge treat. I saw a big splash out of the corner of my eye. I thought it might have been a dolphin, but there was only one splash. Dolphins do it a lot. Another one came a couple of minutes later and I was able to see that it was a ray doing a big front flip. As we approached the anchorage at Ensenada Grande, we saw more and more of them doing all kinds of tricks: front flips, back flips, wingovers, hammerhead stalls (where they come out forward, stop and fall back in backward).

Mobula Rays entertained us very well

When we got our anchor set, we noticed several smaller ones in the anchorage, whose main trick seems to be a painful-looking belly flop. Perhaps they were juveniles trying to get the hang of it. As sunset approached, there were flying rays everywhere. The loud crack they made when they hit the water would bounce off the cliffs in a receding echo, making it sound like we were half a mile from a shooting range, or in the middle of a sporadic firework display. What great evening entertainment! Even late at night, every time we would hear a splash, we would each crack a smile.

We decided to sleep in a little the next morning. That was a huge mistake. Our plan for the day was to hike a trail from the beach to a viewpoint on the other side of the island.

The trail started out nice enough, but it wasn’t long before the abundant trail markers were directing us to leave the nice dirt path and go straight up the arroyo, hopping from boulder to boulder. That kind of walking wears you out pretty fast. It feels more like negotiating an obstacle course, albeit a mild one. By the time we had covered most of the distance to the top, both of us were feeling way more tired than we had expected to be by that point. We were committed by then and were determined to see the hike through. When we finally broke through to a view of the eastern side of the island, we were more than ready to sit for a while and have lunch with a view.

The way down was not as difficult as we had expected, which was a relief. Our main problem was that all of our stepping stones had also become cooking rocks. We were descending through a shadeless oven. At one point, I went to get an annoying rock out of my shoe and found that I could not lean on anything to do so because everything that wasn’t covered in needles was way too hot. When I grabbed my shoe, I found the sole was too hot to hold onto as well.

The guys at the picturesque beach scuba camp, whom we’d chatted with on our way up, sympathized with us once we made it down and kindly supplied us with an iced water – heavenly.

After rowing back to Begonia, the first order of business for both of us was to have a swim. Ah, that was marvellous! In a few minutes, all of the excess heat of the day was carried away.

We decided the next time we go hiking in these parts, we’re going to get up early and get it done before the sun gets too high. Midday is for finding a breezy spot to camp out in the shade. You’d think México would have a name for that.

Enjoing Ensenada Grande

After successfully avoiding falling asleep after the swim, we decided to tidy up a bit before the sun set. That didn’t work either. The rays were putting on an even bigger show than they had the night before, which made it impossible to go inside and do anything. We watched them for a couple of hours until it got too dark to see them any more. Maryanne was being constantly frustrated while trying to photograph their antics. They would jump on one side of the boat; when she would raise the camera, they’d start jumping behind her. She’d spin around and they’d start jumping behind her again. There were so many, it was hard to know where to look.

I eventually gave up on photography and got in the dinghy to see if I could get closer. I managed to get to where I had one come up to eye level maybe eight feet away. That was pretty cool, but the coolest thing was when I tried to track it once it was back into the water. I looked down and saw dozens of them swimming under me. They were all evenly spaced and it looked like I was gliding over a giant checkerboard. It turned out only a tiny proportion of them had been jumping.

Some kayakers launched from the beach and managed to get into the middle of a very big group that were jumping all around them. They must have had fifteen minutes where there were at least five rays in the air at the same time. That is going to be one cherished vacation memory!

A Brisk Sail to San Evaristo (correction: Isla San Francisco)

[Kyle]We knew that our next sail to San Evaristo was going to be short and in strong tailwinds, so we made a point of NOT getting up early. We stayed in bed until we were sure the sun was up and visible. We even got a little extra time because it had to clear the high mountains of Isla San José to the east of the beach.

The wind had built all night and leftover swell was starting to wrap around the point and roll us around. By mid morning, we were fed up with it and ready to leave. We turned away from the beach, unrolled half of the jib and shot down the San José Channel. The kayakers were launching right behind us. We wondered if we would see them in Evaristo.

The San José Channel is narrow and shallow. It is supposed be a great place to see dolphins and whales taking advantage of the increase in food concentration. All we saw when scanning the sea were whitecaps. The waves grew big enough for Begonia to begin surfing, which bumped up our speed a couple of knots.

Before we knew it , we came racing around the corner at Point San Evaristo. Turning across the wind was not fun. We rolled back and forth, got hit with spray and felt the full force of the 20kt winds. We were glad when we finally made it inside the harbor where the seas were flat.

Our relief was short-lived, though, because the harbor was full of other boats hiding out from the blow. We motored around a bit, measuring the gaps between all of the other boats with our radar. Once we determined there was not enough space for us, we decided to abandon Evaristo and continue south. It’s too bad. I was really looking forward to it. It was supposed to be a nice little fishing village with plenty of good hiking.

We unrolled half the jib again and continued south. We were now headed for a nice, big bay on the south side of Isla San Francisco, ten miles further.

By the time we got there, the wind was getting a little too high for stress-free sailing. We were starting to move psychologically into a state of heightened awareness, where we knew we had to start being especially careful about everything. We both went from thinking, ‘Oh, this is fun!’ to, ‘Let’s get this over with.’

When we came zinging around the point marking the west side of the anchorage, one boat after another appeared around the corner. Damn! The next protected anchorage was 27 miles further. We did not want to have to keep going.

By the time we were in full view of the anchorage, we counted thirteen other boats. We were not going to have our choice of spots. We tried the anchor in the first place, but it put us too close to the boat behind. If they left before us, we might have to move so they could get their anchor up. We motored around a bit more and finally decided on a spot behind all of the other boats. The water was pretty shallow there, so it may have been rejected by the monohulls with their deeper draft. There was a little swell there, but not uncomfortably so. The wind was forecast to slowly die to nothing, which should stop the swell. Being in the back with an aft-facing cockpit means we had an unobstructed view of the beach behind as well as the most privacy. It turned out to be a really good place to wait out the winds until we could go ashore and start exploring.

Once the wind was down in the morning, we went ashore to climb a couple of hills.

Exploring Isla San Francisco

If the sea level were three meters higher, Isla San Francisco would be two islands. As it is, the two portions are connected by a wide salt flat between two opposite-facing beaches. We started by crunching our way along the crust of the salt until we found a trail zigzagging purposefully up the biggest of the two hills. After a while, the switchbacks stopped and the trail angled it’s way up and around the curve of the hill. As it did, it stayed just above a line of cliffs below. Without any intervening hill in view between us and the bottom, the elevation had the effect of making it look like we were floating high above the whole scene.

The trail continued to curve away until we eventually crested a saddle at the top of the cliffs, opening up a view of the anchorage. We could see where the sea grass lined up in rows over the white sand bottom. We could look down on Frigate birds turning in lazy circles and Pelicans folding their wings and diving in for a beak full of fish.

We descended, crossed the flats and started our second climb of the day. This one started out as a nice stroll up a mild slope until it intersected a ridge with a vertical drop off one side and a 45˚ slope on the other. We followed the cliff top, hopping over boulders in spots and being very careful with our footing until we made it all of the way over to the other side, where the trail angled steeply toward the beach below.

Beauitful Isla San Francisco

Once there, we walked along the shore, looking at shells and watching the birds eat their fill from enough minnows to feed them many times over.

Back at Begonia, I had it in my mind that I was going to spend the rest of the afternoon sailing the Pudgy around the anchorage, but once I stepped aboard and sat down, gravity took over and canceled that plan. Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe not. We each spent the night independently thinking up one little job after another that we wanted to get done. By the next morning, I had somehow managed to have a busy day planned. My first and main task was to dive under Begonia and give the bottom paint another scrub. The Sea of Cortez is such a thriving ecosystem that I seem to have to do this almost once a week. It’s nice that it’s so lush, but it can also be a real pain.

Any frustrations faded after I entered the water. A large group of Puffer fish were gathered in Begonia’s shadow. They’re such ungainly things – little boxes propelled by ridiculously undersized fins. They milled around in slow circles. Their dopey, nervous faces made them look a little lost. At one point, I counted forty-three of them before I lost track. For simplicity, I just named them all Timmy.

The water was a little warmer than it had been lately, so I took the time to do as thorough a job as I could on the scrubbing. I was hoping my cleaning might last longer if there are no patches of growth for new ones to gain a foothold. As I scrubbed, I got stung by innumerable varieties of tiny jellies that were clearly not happy with me. There were so many of them, I couldn’t possibly avoid them, so I just tried to keep an eye on the ones that were big enough to be visible.

When I finally made it back aboard, Maryanne was deep into some task. She was surrounded by paper and there was her and a computer in the middle. I decided to stay busy with the rest of my list until she ran out of steam and decided it was time to start winding down for the day, which came for her about an hour after I was ready.

Los Gatos

[Kyle]We were up early for what we knew would be a slow sail to Los Gatos. The wind was light, but still strong enough to keep us moving at a steady walk, which made for a nice day enjoying the changing scenery from a flat sea. The highlight was when a Blue Whale crossed our bow no more than two boat lengths away. They are such huge animals! For the rest of the day, we read to each other and tidied up and fixed a few minor things along the way and before we knew it we were almost there. Through the binoculars, we could see a whole stream of northbound boats with their sails down and engines on disappearing behind the bluff into our anchorage. I was worried we wouldn’t have much space and would end up on the outside again.

A pleasant sail with whales and orange algal bloom patches
we arrived in time to have fish delivered to the boat

It wasn’t bad. There were four other boats, all lined up in front of the beach with just a big enough gap for number five. We pulled in and set the anchor. About a minute later, while we were still in the very early stages of shutting everything off, a panga approached asking if we wanted to buy any fish. Not really, I thought. I’m kinda busy right now. Maryanne however was very happy and had other ideas. For 50 pesos we got what I think was a grouper, that Maryanne was able to use to make a delicious fish dish called kedgeree. We had just enough time left to enjoy it over sunset.

We were up early the next day to deploy the dinghy and get to shore. Everybody else beat us to it, though. By the time we left Begonia, the whole lot piled onto one dinghy and sped around the corner to the next anchorage, presumably to meet up with someone there.

We rowed ashore and landed on the beach. Los Gatos is surrounded by sandstone rock that erosion has worn away unto beautiful curving shapes, making it look a little like Zion National Park in the U.S. There were few paths, per se, but we spent the morning scurrying all over the rocks, marveling at the amazing shapes and enjoying the novelty of being able to get traction on solid rock.

We followed the shore for a bit and then found a road we had hoped would allow us to walk to the next cove. After a few minutes of that, I left Maryanne and took an animal trail to the top of a hill to get our bearings. Our road had left the coast completely and was headed nowhere hospitable for a long way. We turned around and headed back to the beach...

When we got there, all of the other boats were pulling up their anchors one by one and heading north around the corner, leaving Begonia as the only boat. When we got to the dinghy, we met three kayakers who had camped for the night on the beach who were also leaving. We had the whole place to ourselves!

Amazing rock formations of Los Gatos

We returned to Begonia to watch a brilliant sunset as it descended behind the steep mountains to the west. The orange light made the red rocks of Los Gatos seem even redder. When the stars came out, I noticed that the only artificial light we could see was coming from our boat. What marvelous peace and solitude!

I was up early the next morning so I could see the last of the amazing starscape before it faded. I sat in the cockpit drinking coffee and watching the eastern horizon go from a thin blue line to an explosion of red. I was inside cleaning out the coffee pot when I heard what sounded like the underwater sound of a panga’s propeller approaching. I’d better get used to fish, I thought.

Instead, I went outside to find a small cruise ship dropping anchor. Well what do you know? Los Gatos has Cruise Ship Day. We were glad we managed to get all of our photos the day before when it was easier to keep unexpected people out of the shot. We passed by them as we left the bay. There were a couple of people who got up early enough to be out on deck. We waved to them and they waved to us as we turned south toward our next stop at Isla San José.

Our sail was another slow one. It was warm and flat like the sail to Los Gatos, only this time, no whales.

We pulled up to an open beach (Solo Mangle) right in front of a handful of fishing camps and set anchor. For a while, it looked like one of the families ashore was getting ready to launch their panga to meet us. How were we going to refuse a fish when they went to so much trouble? It turns out it they were going somewhere else with it. The kayakers we had seen leaving Los Gatos arrived and set up camp on the beach. That’s 22 miles of paddling in two days.

From Los Gatos to the Cordon forest of Solo Mangle

After dark, we went out to have a look at the night sky. Again, like the night before, our anchor light was the only artificial light in evidence. Looking up at the moon, there was a really prominent Moon Dog, which was likely the leading edge of the next day’s winds. Maryanne says she doesn’t ever remember seeing a Moon Dog before and was quite taken with it. There are several types, but this one was created by octagonal ice crystals in the stratosphere, which reflected the Moon’s light in a big ring 22.5˚ from the center.

Agua Verde

[Kyle]Our first day in Agua Verde, as we were rowing ashore past another boat, the owners come out and asked us why we were anchored way back in the swell instead of up by the beach. When we explained our transmission issue, they called up the power boat in the anchorage, Sand and Barnacles, and explained our predicament to them.

Sandy and Barney (get it?) have, get this, satellite internet. Barney needed internet to keep in contact with work, so he bought a satellite dish, which he carries around with them. When they are anchored for a while, he takes it ashore and sets it up. It’s powered by a solar panel and a battery and transmits WiFi to their boat so they have limited internet in places like Agua Verde where there is no cell phone coverage at all.

They offered to let us use it if we needed to help sort out our issue. It was a tremendous help. We were able to download a parts catalog, find exactly what we needed and start emailing distributors in La Paz for prices and availability. The rest, we can hopefully do over our ham radio between here and there. Otherwise, we may have had to wait until we started getting cell phone coverage near La Paz to get the ball rolling. With the long lead times to get things delivered in México, Sandy and Barney may possibly have saved us a month at a marina and kept us from having to delay our departure to the South Pacific. A BIG thanks to them for that!

While we were aboard Sand and Barnacles, Sandy gave us the rundown on the things to do in the area and even drew us a map. Maryanne has been keen to see cave paintings since we got to México and Sandy’s map told us how to get there.

We started with a walk over a hill into the adjacent valley, where we stopped at a small graveyard. From there, we dove into a palm forest for a while before exiting at a giant, deserted sweep of a beach. Way at the other end, a lone tree marks the beginning of the trail up the mountain to the caves. We climbed up, entered the caves and searched and searched, but we couldn’t find anything that we were sure could be cave paintings. Only when I went to sit at the entrance for a rest before the long walk back did I see them right above my head like a sign above a doorway. For some reason, we were expecting to be deep inside, where they would be better protected from the elements. The paintings were simple; mostly handprints with a few other marks around the edges. Maryanne guessed that it may have been to indicate the number of people in the group that lived there.

The amazing route to the native cave art

The caves were accessible from Agua Verde, but it seemed a stretch to say they were in the Aqua Verde area. From up there, we could see that our journey was going to be several miles back, much of it on sand. We were tired from the walk and the heat, but buoyed by finally getting to see some petrograms. By the time we made it back to the graveyard, we felt like we were on the home stretch. Well, rather than do that, we took a right and headed across the desert through more sand.

We were trying to find a back route to the beach behind where Begonia was anchored. There was a small restaurant there and we had been invited to join nearly everybody from the anchorage for dinner, so we were trying to save some time. The swell had made a beach landing undesirable and we had originally intended to walk there from where we landed the Pudgy (on the calm beach) before we got distracted by Sandy’s map. It was a bit of a slog through a dry and inhospitable land, but we eventually found a road. We had seen RVs camped on the beach, so we knew there had to be a road to it. We climbed a rise and emerged at a spot overlooking Begonia, which meant we were going the wrong way. We turned around and followed the road as it descended back into the valley before climbing another ridge behind our target beach with the restaurant. A little bit more mooshing through sand and we were there fashionably late.

Technically, the restaurant needs more advance notice than they had for me and Maryanne, but they were able to make do and accommodate us, although it seemed to be at the expense of the others’ portions. The other gusts had all known each other for a while and it was very nice of them to include us. We swapped stories back and forth. One interesting tidbit: each of the four men at the table was a pilot of some sort.

View from the beach restaurant where were joined fellow cruisers

The tide was low, so we were all able to walk back to our dinghies along the shore, rather than having to take the long way on the road. The erosion of the sandstone made a nice little shelf almost like a sidewalk cut out underneath the cliffs. Along the way, there were tide pools to peer into and shells to admire.

After rowing home, we’d had yet another long, tiring day, only this one was much more fun.

For day two in Agua Verde, our goal was to buy some cheese.

Cruising in a boat can be a strange lifestyle sometimes. On the surface, in many ways, it can seem like an exercise in extreme simplicity. We don’t have a car. We don’t have a yard. We hardly have any stuff. Even though I often complain that our boat is full, most of Begonia’s contents are tools, spare parts, safety equipment and items necessary for the running of the boat. Maryanne and my personal effects are limited to our wardrobes, our computers and a few small souvenirs.

However, when anchored in a remote place like Agua Verde, doing something as simple as buying cheese can turn into an all-day expedition. This can sometimes make our really simple life seem ridiculously complicated.

We started the day with a row to the beach. When we got there, we completely forgot our cheese goal and started poking around the tide pools along the shore. We did that until we ran out of accessible shore, then we found a trail.

The trail climbed up one of the local wumps, giving us great views of the whole anchorage and had an impressive variety of prickly Baja plants at which to marvel. I remain continuously amazed at two things about Baja; it’s arid crumbliness and the fact that every single living thing here is prickly. Nonetheless, it’s beautiful and endlessly fascinating to see how many different organisms have managed to thrive in such an apparently hostile environment.

We descended back to the beach where we landed the dinghy and then joined the road for the long way to Aqua Verde village. I know we were in no real danger, but looking around, it seemed like such a crazy place to be. Away from the beach, there were no cooling breezes. Heat just radiated up from the sandy ground. Thorns and cactus needles provide no useful shade. If it weren’t for the road, there would have been no sign of humanity at all. It seemed far too easy to forget that, over the ridge, we were only a quarter mile from a bunch of RVs and boats gathering on their respective sides of the beach and imagine being lost in a trackless and inhospitable desert. Neither of us imagined we would have much chance having to spend a night out there.

The road left the baking valley and crossed over the ridge toward the village. Things suddenly seemed less dire then, although we were beginning to get weary from our cumulative mileage. We had been told we could buy goat cheese from somewhere way on the other side of the beach. Once there, we could see no signs of a store or even any people. We took a right and headed inland a bit until we started to see a couple of kids playing with a worn out soccer ball. They were playing in front of what might have been a house, but might have been a store. We went in and asked about buying some cheese. The woman told us they didn’t have it, we had to go somewhere else. She then gave us directions in super-fast Spanish, which ended with her saying “Derecho” (right), but pantomiming a straight ahead and turn left while doing so. We hedged our bets by going straight out. (It turns out I had it wrong; Derecho means straight. The direction 'right' could be derecho or derecha, depending on context, but usually derecha.)

We soon passed a very busy household with an outdoor cooking area that could well have had a side line of making cheese so we engaged in a conversation with them. We were then sent back on the other side of the store. She yelled something to someone and soon we had the whole village herding us to the goat cheese man.

Fun around Aqua Verde

He was in a pen with a whole lot of goats and told us he would be out in a minute. He then took us to his house, where he produced a big wheel of cheese for us. We bought half for 50 pesos (about $2.50 or £2).

The tide was low enough by then for us to take the shore path back to the dinghy. It was still pretty far, but at least we could see our goal the whole way.