[Maryanne]We woke up at Estero Comau to find we were the only remaining boat… Even the camping kayakers had left. Apart from a couple of local working boats, we had the place to ourselves!
Moring at Caleta Porcelana
The local farmhouse will issue you a ticket to enter the hot springs trail
Ashore was a very picturesque working farm with a beautiful farmhouse set in the hill overlooking the Fjord, but there was also a set of natural hot springs that we were determined to brave. This whole area is very active geo-thermally so there are a number of places to visit where hot springs are found. This particular location we understood had a fee associated with it, but we were uncertain what that fee would be (travel and guidebooks are generally old and with limited information) – one suggested it may be as much as $120 US for a park fee entrance… Gulp. We were hugely relieved to find it was only $700 CLP each (about $1.20 US).
Elsewhere locally (closer to Puerto Montt and the road networks) there are some very high end, spa-like options – this however was a much more basic “there is a bit of warm water in the river in the middle of nowhere” option, but at least there were no crowds.
Nestled in the forest we found our perfect pool
With a smile and a wave from the woman at the farmhouse we set off on a trail up the hill in search of these warmer waters. We had our swimwear on under our clothes, and amazingly the sun came out and we were hot on the walk up – we had a perfect day for a plunge. Eventually we started to see patches of steaming water, and as we turned each bend in the trail wondered if this was it, only to find another pool a little further on. The higher we climbed the hotter the pools got as the warm water mixed with the cooler stream waters, so eventually we turned back down the hill to find our ‘goldilocks’ version and our own private soak. Ahh bliss.
Eventually we found we had exhausted the fun of sitting in hot water, so we dried, dressed and ambled back down to the boat.
Luckily we didn't see the large beetle until after our dip
We were ‘done’ so early with our trip, we determined it would be good to take the boat back along the sound and anchor further north (back at Quintupeu) to save some time for the following passage. So off we set!
A beautiful day to sail
With no real time pressure, the gentle head winds and relatively narrow sounds were a pleasure to tack back and forth in. There were plenty of birds, the odd sea lion and some stunning views of mountains and waterfalls. The sun shone and the skies were blue – oh, what a wonderful day to be sailing about in a boat!
Aside from the view we had the odd plane and bird to distract us
We were happy enough with that - but just as we arrived in the spur for Quintupeu we had a pod of dolphins join us and hang out for a while, leaving us eventually to anchor in the peaceful Quintupeu (this time alone).
[Kyle] We had planned to make it all of the way north to the town
of San Felipe, pretty much the northernmost pace to go on the Baja side, but
the delay in Ensenada (waiting on parts) and then in Santa Rosalia (due to
weather) meant it would be a more relaxing pace if we ceased our northerly
progress a little short.Our northerly
most point inside the Sea of Cortez was now to be Bahia San Luis Gonzaga – two
stops short of San Felipe on our original plan.
Even then, we had a frustratingly slow passage that took
five days rather than three – a combination of having almost no wind and having
to put in extra miles tacking nearly the whole way. Heading south from here we now believe it
should mostly be day sails, and from this point on– we can return to a shared
sleep cycle, enjoy daylight together, and share the sights of this area of
Mexico.
A passage filled with sunsets/sunrises, calms and the odd visitor
So – back to the passage north.Apart from staring at our ETA indicator on
the chartplotter, and wishing the wind would get us there the same week, we
were close enough to land to have some nice scenery along the way. We also had
several dolphin sightings a day and Maryanne had a big whale surface right next
to her in the moonless dark of our first night.
Dolphins put on several shows for us on passage - always a pleasure!
We saw almost no boats during our journey until we arrived
at our anchorage. where there were several pangas criss-crossing the bay fishing
with nets, and a lone (longer term) sailboat; we
guess the longer term cruisers in this area stick south in the winter, and keep
the northerly points for the summer heat.
[Kyle]At the anchorage in Bechers Cove on Santa Rosa island in California's Channel Islands, we had a slow day of watching lounging in the cockpit. We watched the shadows in the hills behind change as the sun tracked its way through the sky and the mini-dramas of the birds floating in the kelp. We followed that with a good night's sleep, which left us feeling fully recovered from running the boat for 48 hours straight to get there.
A slow and easy sail - occasionally stopping to clear kelp from rudders
We left a few minutes after sunrise for what we knew would be a slow 25 mile sail to our next anchorage at Prisoners Harbor on Santa Cruz island. The wind was hardly there, but the islands had effectively blocked the swell. This allowed the sails to maintain their curved airfoil shape without constantly filling and collapsing, which allowed us to move at a nice, peaceful crawl on a beautiful, clear day. We stayed in the warmth of the cockpit enclosure reading to each other while enjoying the gradually changing view of Santa Cruz's cliffs as we slid by.
When we finally reached Prisoners Harbor, we found another boat in our intended spot to the wast of the pier, so we found good holding to the east. Our all-day crawl left just enough time to watch the sun set behind the hills and prepare for the next day before darkness fell.
Sea Lions hang out on their backs all day and we relax along with them (from the boat)
Santa Cruz - day WOW!
We both had a night of weird dreams that kept us up half the night. I kept thinking we were in the boatyard with a million things to attend to. Maryanne dreamt I was in a bad motorcycle accident. When the first light of morning started coming through the hatch, it was way more appealing to stay in bed than to get moving, as I had originally intended. No worries, we had a short day planned, so it getting up late wasn't a huge deal.
We were underway respectably before noon.
The wind was still nearly nothing, but we were only going eleven miles to the eastern end of the island.
We were transitioning from motor to sail when we spotted what looked like a tide rip ahead. It could have also been where the wind started creating ripples in the flat sea.
Fist Dolphin Visit of the day brings a crowd playing at our bows
We unfurled the sails and started slowing the engines in preparation for shutting them down. Just then, I saw three dolphins coming over to play in our bow wave. Oh, we love dolphins. They always seem to stop whatever they are doing to come over and play. We ran to the bow and that's when it hit us. The churned up water way ahead that we thought was a tide rip was actually the turbulence of HUNDREDS of dolphins stretching over a mile!
Maryanne (the marine biologist, remember) thinks one group were probably herding fish into shallower water by the beach at Prisoners in order to make them easier to catch (but admits that is a guess). Eventually they all seemed to leave what they were doing and pass right by us.
..And then the larger crowd joins us and put on quite a show in all directions
It was incredible! We were completely surrounded by hundreds of them. I have never even come close to seeing that many dolphins in one place in my whole life at sea. We had just sailed through the North Pacific Annual Dolphin Conference and they had all joined in as our escorts!
We still had almost no wind, but the noise bad turbulence they made made it sound like we were hearing surf landing at the beach. It was L.A. Traffic of dolphins!
Wow!
We were too slow for them, so they eventually went on their way. The wind picked up and we had a nice, fast sail to our next anchorage at Smuggler's Cove. Smuggler's is beautiful - surrounded by high, yellow hills that turn orange in the late day light.
Safely arrived at Smugglers Cove Some time to relax and enjoy the calm before we wait out the storm
Perfect days of sailing like this are rare and beautiful. We slog through all of the miserable times for a day like this.
We spent a whole day at Smugglers, where we enjoyed Bald Eagles and beautiful views. The last forecast we had been able to pick up called for high winds and rain all day, so our plan was to hunker down behind the hills and have an indoor day reading and cooking comfort food.
It didn't turn out to be so bad. The clouds held off until afternoon, making for a perfect climate inside the cockpit enclosure. Instead of an indoor day, we spent our time pottering around doing minor maintenance and tidying up.
We were just starting to think about donning our wetsuits and going for a swim when the clouds moved in and it started sprinkling. That effectively killed our motivation for that. Back to plan A.
It wasn't until 1 a.m. that the weather arrived. I had set our anchor alarm with a small radius so I would know if were starting to swing in a different direction than we had laid out our chain. It woke us by screaming at us. (Literally. The alarm noise is of a screaming chimpanzee). We resisted the strong temptation to spring out of bed, but instead checked the display to see if we were swinging or if we were really dragging and which way. The distance to our set point increased for a bit and then decreased again. Whew! Swinging.
We were almost asleep again when the screaming started again. This time, we could hear the wind picking up and feel Begonia yawing around when she came to the end of her rode and the bridle turned her to face the anchor. Perhaps I'd better get up this time and have a look.
I turned on the wind instruments. The wind was about 15 knots, gusting to 24 or so - not too bad. I went outside in the rain to see what I could see. At the bows, even though it was really dark, I could clearly see the vee of our bridle going from each bow to where it met our anchor chain in their middle. From there, I could see the first half of our chain as it receded away toward the anchor. All of this was because brilliant bioluminescence lit everything up as if we had strung glow sticks the whole length of our rode. All of the breaking crests of the little wavelets around were also lit up. We seemed to be holding fine, so I went back inside.
Since we had no cell service with which to pick up a detailed forecast or get a good look at a radar picture, I tuned in NOAA weather radio on the VHF just to see if anything new had cropped up since the last time we had been able to check the weather two days ago.
As I figured, the forecast was over a much to broad area to be of any use to us. It basically said, "Entire Pacific Ocean: winds of variable strength and speed, changing to winds of other strength and speed..." Okay. The only helpful information was the buoy reports, which said the waves were higher to the west, from where the storm was approaching.
We had a few flashes of lightning, the rain picked up for a while and then began to decrease. The pull on the chain lessened and its weight pulled it toward the sea floor and Begonia back toward the anchor.
Leftover swell woke us again just before sunrise. Begonia pitched and rolled in at least two difference wave trains. Oh, well. We had to be up to start our next leg anyway.
