BAJA HOPPERS: Caleta San Juanico, April 14-17, 2010

We had a gorgeous sail from Puerto Ballandro to Caleta San Juanico. Several folks we've met have told us this is their all-time favorite place in the Baja, and now we know why!

Since we had winds from the north, we chose the northern anchorage between the rocks known as "The Spires."

The "Spires" - from the crazy camera that makes everything blue

One of the rock formations in the anchorage where you can snorkel

There were about 10 other boats in the area, so anchoring is always fun. We found a spot a few hundred yards off the beach and were only in 15 feet of water. You have to balance your desire to get "tucked in" to the best spots with the need to not get on top of your neighbor. The "Golden Rule" we all learned in kindergarten still applies: Don't anchor any closer to your neighbor than you would like them to anchor next to you! Still, there's plenty of room, even if you have to move out a few yards. The worst you'll have is a bit of swell from the Sea of Cortez to deal with. With your basic "land and sea breezes" predicted for the days we would be here, all we'd have were some 10-15 knot, on-shore breezes in the afternoon that die off as the sun goes down. We could deal with that.

The north side of the anchorage where you can also snorkel

Our first trip to shore was to walk around and see the "Cruiser's Shrine" that's tucked up into the corner of the northeastern beach. It's more informal than the name implies, but it's still fun to see all the signs, markers, and art projects from prior cruisers. Some folks put their boat names on wooden boards, others carve them into rocks, others make flags, etc. Then they hang them all over the one tree on the end of the beach. Some of the markers are quite the elaborate art project, while others are simply messages tucked into wine bottles. Some of the markers note visits for 5 or 6 years in a row! Kelly and Ryan grabbed a Magic Marker and immediately wrote our names on a flat rock, but who knows how long that will last before the sun fades it into obscurity. I wanted something more permanent and gathered shells to make a mobile. Our boat's name is now spelled out in shells that hang down from a branch on the tree. Hint, hint: There's plenty of room for you to come down and add your name!

The gang in front of the shrine

The first item we left at the shrine

Our second addition to the shrine

One of the cruisers was celebrating a birthday while we were here, so we had a pot luck dinner on the beach in his honor. The cruiser community is amazing: On a few hours notice for the party (literally, one of the cruisers went around in her dinghy announcing the event to each boat at 1 PM, for a party at 4 PM), we ended up with a chocolate mole chicken salad, a couple of curry dishes, pasta and rice salads, cabbage dishes, salamis, cheeses, an award-winning salsa with jalapeno AND serrano chilies (muy caliente, but muy bueno!!), chocolate brownies and a hot peach cobbler! Wow! The variety and creativity was amazing! One of the cruisers even brought her fiddle to play "Happy Birthday," as well as that other birthday classic, "Turkey in the Straw."

Sabbatical brought a bocce ball set and that was as popular as ever. But we were most intrigued by a new game we tried called Coob(?) (Who knows how to spell it,we wouldn't know an umlaut if it bit us in the butt!). It's supposedly a Viking game of some sort, with each team tossing foot-long, 2-inch diameter dowels at opposing blocks of 3" x 3" wood about 10 yards apart. No, you don't have to wear horned helmets to play the game, but for such a "casual" beach game, suffice to say that folks' competitive natures came out just a wee bit. We may have to make a set to add to the boat's equipment list.

Of course, one of the great benefits of the pot luck is the chance to meet your fellow cruisers. It turns out that one of our neighbors Claudia from Pelican is a no-kidding geologist and told us about the obsidian rocks that were right above our heads in the cliffs. They're called "Apache Tears" by amateur rock hounds, and they were fun to find and dig out of the hillside. They range in size from a pea to a golf ball.

Kelly rock hounding for "Apache tears"

Mom pointing out one of the obsidian rocks aka "Apache tears"

Ryan has found one too!

Terrie, another cruiser from the S/V Circe taught Kelly about a dozen tricks with string (aka cat's cradle).

We also met one of the semi-locals, Frank,a guy from Taos, New Mexico, that comes down here each winter to ride his mountain bike over the dirt roads. He simply parks his camper on the beach and settles in for the season. He's a great guy and gets invited to all the pot lucks. In fact, he was the one that brought the award-winning salsa dish. Man, we need to get that recipe! Frank was fun but his dog “Babe” was a hoot. She would dig up crabs on the beach and throw them in the air. She was more fun to watch then the local pelicans.
Our days here have passed too quickly and we want to come back on our way south. We haven't even had a chance to explore all the other beaches in this beautiful bay or look for quartz in the southern hills. San Jaunico has turned into one of our absolute favorite places in all of Mexico!

Our next stop: The entrance to Bahia de Conception for a night, then on to Santa Rosalia. We met some friends from Old Moon that were coming back south and they raved about the "exquisitos," the legendary, bacon-wrapped hot dogs with all the trimmings in Rosalia. Hmmm, we may need to try a few of those and see how they compare to the infamous "Cubi Dogs," another legendary hot dog, but this one from the Cubi Point Officer's Club in the Philippines that the Cap'n used to love in his mis-spent youth in the Marine Corps. And, since it was a French mining town for so many years, Santa Rosalia should provide our first real baguettes since the legendary French Baker in Barra de Navidad, some 600 miles ago. Maybe they'll have croissants too? Oh, dare we hope?