Puerto Escondido

4/28/2013

On Friday 4/26, we met up with Steve on Pacific, and had dinner at the small restaurant in the port. His wife Susan will be arriving on Sunday and we plan to spend more time with them as well as our other friends that are beginning to show up. We have also been getting together with Rick and Marilyn on Turtuga, and Jack and Alice on Puffin, to play music every evening.  Rick is an accomplished guitarist, Rich is improving his guitar skills, Marilyn plays fiddle, Jack plays mandolin, Alice is learning guitar, and Cathy is learning ukulele.  On several songs, we actually sound pretty good!  More importantly, we have a really good time.  In fact, we are having such a good time here that we have decided to stay until Loreto Fest next week.  We have already signed up to help with the spaghetti feed, and to defend our title of the “worst bocci ball team”.  Cathy has been practicing her bocci, however, so there should be no more incidents of throwing the balls into the spectators!  We plan to join the international yacht club, Hidden Port Yacht Club, which is located here in an old stone building.  They sponsor the Loreto Fest, and have over 400 members!  More boats are coming into the port every day, so we are glad that we have a prime anchor spot before it gets crowded.

Today, Sunday 4/28, Cathy went into the town of Loreto with the folks on Tortuga and Puffin while Rich stayed on the boat and did some chores.  (The car only held 5 people) Today was farmers market day, and they had some great produce.

Rick checking out the melons.

Jalapeno heaven!

Papaya paradise!

Lovin d' limes!

View from the highway toward Puerto Escondido

Bahia Agua Verde to Puerto Escondido

4/28/2013

The anchor was up again on 4/24 at 0900 as we headed north again to the Loreto area.  Our destination was Bahia Marquer on Isla Carmen.  We started out sailing then motored for a couple of hours before the wind filled in. 

Turn on the motor again!

Some islands along the way

We sailed into the anchorage about 1400 and dropped the hook near our friends on boats Tortuga, Pacific, and Puffin.  The wind blew a bit that afternoon and evening, but the next morning was absolutely beautiful. 

Our friends

Did we mention that the full moon was awesome?

We went snorkeling in the crystal clear water on the reef behind the boat.  There were a lot of fish, and it was well worth getting our wet-suits on to brave the 69 deg water.  Rich did a little fishing in the morning and caught enough for a great fish taco lunch. 

Before

After

About 1400 in the afternoon, the weather gave us another reason not to trust the forcasts.  The wind began gusting to 25 knots and switched to blowing us onshore.  We decided to get the anchor up and get the heck out of there as the waves were building rapidly.  Within the next 15 minutes, all the other boats in the anchorage did the same thing.  We put out the jib, and had a nice reach across the channel to Puerto Escondido.  You just never know what kind of weather you might get around here, so we always have to be ready to pull up anchor and leave,  no matter what time of day or night.  We dropped anchor in the protected port and spend the rest of the day cleaning up the boat and putting things away after our hasty retreat.

Back in the calm at Puerto Escondido

La Paz to Agua Verde

4/28/2013

We finally made it out of La Paz and headed north on 4/20.  Our first stop was Isla San Francisco.  This is a beautiful bay with a long beach surrounding it.  We arrived after a 5 hour motor sail and spent the night with about 12 other boats.  The passage was fairly calm with jumping rays, dolphins, and a humpback whale sighting.  We had a light Coromuel wind that night that made the anchorage a little bumpy, but was great when we decided to leave in the morning.

Isla San Francisco

 

We pulled anchor at about 0700 and rounded the point, sailing downwind toward Bahia Agua Verde, our next anchorage.   On the way, we encountered a school of hundreds of dolphin feeding on a giant school of fish.  There were dolphins, diving birds and fish all frothing on the surface for a full square mile of ocean.  We sailed right through the mayhem, and it was truly amazing.

Can you believe this?

On 4/22, we dropped anchor in Agua Verde at 4 pm, just of the south end of the beach.  We wanted to anchor in the South lobe of the bay, but there was already several boats there, and it was going to get even more crowded with all the boats heading north to Loreto Fest.

The boat next to us.

Too crowded for us!

Rich went fishing around the bay in the morning and caught a couple of nice fish that made for a great fish stew over rice for dinner.  We also managed to get some good kayaking in before the winds came up in the afternoon.

On the afternoon of 4/23, the boat Di’s Dream from Alameda, organized a beach cocktail and snack potluck.  There were about 10 boats represented at the party, so it was a great chance to meet some new people that will be sailing around the area with us for the next couple of months.  Unfortunately, we forgot the camera!

Agua Verde is a nice place to hang out, but we were headed north in the morning.

Arriving in La Paz

4/19/2013

We finally left Mazatlan and made the crossing to the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez.  The trip took us about 36 hours of non stop motoring.  The seas were nice and calm with a slight following swell.  At night, the stars and the Milky Way were so bright they reflected off the water making the entire sea glow.  We actually saw a pod of Orcas, that's right, killer whales in Mexico.  Apparently there is a small number of them that live down here year round.  I guess they like the warmer weather the same as us!

Some of the critters we left behind in Mazatlan.

We finally got the anchor down in Bahia de los Muertos just before sunset.  The anchorage was a bit rolly, but not as bad as the last time we were here.  During the night, however, the wind shifted 180 degrees and came up to 25 knots, causing us to get a little too close to a nearby boat.  We decided that even though we had not had much sleep for the past 40 hours, that we would have to do anchor watches all night long.  Not fun!!  We survived until morning and then pulled the anchor up at first light.  The trip to La Paz was fairly pleasant even though we were going through an infamous strait that can have very bad conditions.  It was calm enough for us to have a shower and some warm food.  It is quite a bit colder here in La Paz.  Night temps are in the low 60's and the daytime has barely made 80 lately.

Bahia de Los Muertos

Our slip in La Paz

Wednesday night we had a chance to connect with our friends Paddy and Diane on The Islander.  We had a nice BBQ dinner at a restaurant that uses the front of an old truck as a grill.  The hood is opened, and the large grill is where the engine used to be.  They make really good ribs and burgers and their name is Banditos.  On the way back from Marina Palmira, where their boat is docked, we got locked in the marina after 11 pm. and had to sneak out through a nearby hotel.  We found a cab driver sleeping in his cab, but decided to use him because there was no one else anywhere in sight.  The guy was so tired (and drunk) that he kept falling asleep in the middle of the road and stopping the car.  Rich was riding in front ready to grab the wheel and kept talking to the guy to try to keep him awake.  We were driving on a road with a shear cliff on one side that dropped to the ocean!  Luckily, we made it back to the boat.

After a cocktail at the beach club and a sushi dinner with our friends Bob and Deanne on Dos Leos, who are now docked next to us, we hit the sack early on Thursday night.  Rich had used the day to change the oil in the boat, and do some other maintenance items so we could get under way on Saturday.  Our current plan is to leave La Paz on Saturday morning and head to Isla San Francisco for the night.  We will slowly work our way north to Loreto for the Loreto Fest held the first week of May.

Back to Mazatlan

4/12/2013

Back to Mazatlan

The El Faro light house that we hiked to in November.  Second highest in the world!

We left La Cruz last week hoping to sail all the way to La Paz.  However, the wind gods had other ideas, and we had 24 hours of strong winds on the nose that slowed us way down.  So, low on fuel, we made tracks for Mazatlan to wait for the next weather window to cross the Sea of Cortez.  We plan to leave tomorrow 4/13 at high tide and make the 34 hour passage to the other side.  It looks like this time we will be in the company of several other boats that have been waiting for the same weather window.  

Cruiser pot luck at the palapa on the island.

In the meantime, we had some fun around Mazatlan again.  We visited some of our favorite spots, got together with some friends for a potluck, went out for a nice dinner on the town with friends, and did some serious beach time.

On Sunday, we went to dinner downtown with our friends on Dos Leos.  Bob and Deanne live in Hayfork, which is south of Etna, California on highway 3.  We had dinner with them at Lola Y Pedros, on the plaza, and then went for drinks at the SkyBar.  We ended up closing down the Skybar and had to take a cab back to the marina.  We opted for one of the open golf cart cabs.  These things are called Pulmonias, and they are an open golf cart with no seat belts that goes 60 miles per hour! They also have the stereo blaring disco music the whole time.  It was a great way to end the evening!

Old town Mazatlan

Our favorite burger spot.

On Wednesday, we needed to get to the bank.  We took the bus downtown to the public market where we got a few veges and then went to the Plaza to a place called Beach Burger that is suppose to have the best burgers around.  Well, they really were good.  Nice big homemade patties with everything on it.  

Hiking on the beach

We also took a long beach hike that started at the surf beach Playa Bruja and ended back toward the marina.  It was about a 3 mile walk, but was nice and relaxing.  We went back there a second day and did nothing but sit in the sun and read, before having a couple of tacos for lunch at the local beach restaurant.

Great view, great tacos.  They also have tequila tasting!

Nice scenery at the end of the beach

Some of the wildlife in the marina

Saturday morning at high tide we head for the high seas.  We are hoping for a nice smooth passage with some decent sailing winds, something that is hard to find.  We are looking forward to getting back in the Sea of Cortez where we can kayak, snorkel, fish, swim, and generally get back to nature.