Sanispac in Bahia de Conception, April 17-18, 2010

From San Juanico, we wanted to head north about 45 miles to Bahia Santo Domingo (26 51.96'N, 111 50.85W), just inside the entrance to Bahia Conception. We normally motorsail around 5.5 knots to stretch our fuel, but around Punta Pulpito noticed that our speed over the ground (thank you, GPS, for giving us too much information to play with!) had fallen to less than 4 knots. What the heck??? Oh yeah, we're on the ocean and it sometimes has contrary currents!! That slowed us down for a couple hours, but we continued up the coast and eventually rounded the corner into Bahia Conception, a 100-square mile bay with loads of anchorages and beaches. Since it is the Baja, however, those beautiful, dramatic islands and volcanic peaks you see often extend well off-shore underwater. In the middle of the bay you end up in water that is only 24 feet deep.

Baja's major highway, Route 1, runs down the western side of the bay, so there are loads of RV sites, vacation homes, and campsites along the shore. I know it's hard to believe, but it's getting late in the season here and most of the sites were empty. As a result, it's very quiet here except for those 18-wheelers that have to come down this steep hill with their breaks screeching the whole way and then when they hit the bottom of the grade they have to accelerate to climb back up on the other side of the mountain. All night long you not only hear the waves lapping against the boat but the piercing wail of those breaks.

The wind and swell continued strong right into the Santo Domingo anchorage, so we made the decision to continue further into the bay in search of a more sheltered spot. That's not a decision to be taken lightly, since it's another 8 miles into the bay to the next anchorage. But, even after 45 miles, with that much wind blowing, it was a no-brainer. After a nice sail down the bay (yeah, Phil made us shut off the engine for a while just to remind him how beautiful water sounds rushing over a hull), we ended up in Playa Santispac (26 45.78' N, 111 53.17 W) with a bunch of other boats that were also trying to hide from the wind. So after 9 hours and over 50 nautical miles we finally had arrived. Kelly and dad inflated the dinghy so we could go ashore.

Kelly bouncing on the pump to inflate the dink

There's a restaurant at Santispac called Ana's, and we felt like a break from the galley, so we dinghyed ashore to check it out. Well, the place was hopping! Apparently, we arrived on one of the big nights in town. As we ate dinner, more and more people (aka RVers) kept arriving until every table and bar stool was filled. There were probably 80 people in the place. There were two or three groups just waiting for us to finish so they could take our table. They figured it was a safe bet that with kids we weren't going to be staying till the bitter end. The place jumps until 10 PM when it shuts down cold.

Phil and the kids in front of Anna's (and the Pacifico sign)

Walking into the popular restaurant - we were about the only one's that came by boat - see all the SUVs!

We have another long leg to Santa Rosalia in the morning, so we hit the sack early, dreaming of those "exquisitos". More later.

What was behind us as we were leaving Sanispac

The islands that dot the coast in Bahia de Conception

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?

The kids playing on the beach in front of Frank's camp

Ryan posing at the base of the hill where we did our rock hounding

Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, aka/ the Death March, April 12-14, 2010

It's a quick sail from Puerto Escondido to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen - less than 20 miles. Some cruisers try for Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante since it's only 4 miles from Escondido, but it's fairly small and won't hold more than a few boats. Several boats were already there, so we figured we'd stop at Honeymoon Cove on the way back south. Islas Danzante, Carmen, Coronados, Monserrate and Catalina make up a National Park and are patrolled by rangers.

It was another warm, clear, perfect day in the Baja. The nights are still surprisingly cool, but that will probably end in the next few weeks as summer approaches. By then, the water should start to warm up as well. Water temps over the past few weeks have been fairly steady at 70 degrees according to "Fred", our yellow duck pool thermometer that we tie off the back of the boat. Time to break out the wet suits! Yeah, we know that's as good as it gets at Catalina Island by late summer, but we sure miss the 85 degree water we had over 500 miles south of here. It's hard to believe how far we've sailed since we got down here!!

Puerto Ballandra is a nice-sized bay, maybe a half-mile across, but a submarine canyon runs down the middle of it, forcing boats to anchor along the edges. Most of the bay is sand, but some of the bottom is covered with loose rock with poor holding, so be sure to check the set of your anchor. Once the hook is set, though, it's a pretty anchorage, with plenty of rugged hills and cactus. There are even a few, hardy trees near the brackish ponds and along the arroyo where flash floods seem to be the only source of water for the plants up there. There are plenty of birds, including more than a few seagulls that come looking for handouts.

Sabbatical at anchor in the northwest corner of Puerto Ballandra

Kelly at the trailhead with the anchorage in the background

The hike begins

Some of the kinds of things we saw on the hike

Kelly and Ryan in the dried up arroyo

Are we there yet?

We made it to the ridge line and could see Salinas on the other side of the island

Kelly and Ryan with the salt pits in the far off distance

The town we hope to visit on the way back was just too far to hike to

The gang on the ridge line overlooking Salinas

Looking back on where we had come from

For lawnboy - purple wild flowers blooming on ballandra

Heart-shaped bush we found on the island

The "bee" tree had hundreds of bees in it

The little paper lanterns that Phil really liked

The paper lanterns up close

Ryan climbing the rocks on the way back

Yeah, we made it back!

Carmen, as part of the Loreto national park system has some great hiking up the arroyo on the eastern edge of the bay. You can hike from the anchorage all the way to the other side of the island to the abandoned salt-making town of Las Salinas, but it will take you all day to get there and back. It took us two hours to hike up the arroyo to the ridge line where we could finally see the town, but it would have been at least another hour to get down there. Add a couple of hours to explore the ghost town, plus the return trip, and let's just say our smaller crew members would not have been very happy. Nor would the larger crew members that would have had to carry the smaller ones back. (We actually ended up anchoring on the other side of the island on the way back so we could visit the ghost town.) Still, the hiking was fun and was our longest march since we've been in Mexico. There were plenty of cacti, thorn bushes, interesting vegetation and a surprising number of blue, white and yellow wild flowers. (We’ve included some pictures for the benefit of our friend lawnboy who told us we would find nothing green in the Sea of Cortez.) The Phil’s favorite was a bush with seed pods that looked like miniature Chinese paper lanterns. How something so delicate survives in such a harsh environment is beyond me. We saw plenty of signs of goats and rabbits ("Yes, Ryan, those are rabbit pellets again."), walked next to loads of bees in search of fresh water and, in general, had a grand time. I wonder why everyone went to bed early that night?
We spent only two nights in Ballandra since we wanted to keep moving north. The next leg will be 25 miles to Puerto Juanico, a spot that several cruisers have told us is their favorite spot in all the Baja. We'll see...

Wish you were here to enjoy this!

Loreto, April 2010

Loreto is 14 miles north of Puerto Escondido and is an open roadstead, so anchoring is recommended as short-term only. In settled weather, you could anchor off Loreto and take your dinghy into the panga docks, but you wouldn't want to be there in any kind of breeze. You're better off keeping your boat in Puerto Escondido, but that presents the question: How to get to Loreto? You can a) rent a car from one of the chains at the airport (they'll actually deliver the car to you at the marina), b) hike about 30-40 minutes out to the main road and hope to flag down the express bus, or c) hitch hike.

The first day we got a ride to town with some folks who we met while out walking the night before. Right outside the marina is the most high-end RV park I’ve ever seen and a I grew up camping with my grandparents. This RV park outside the marina has a great tienda and a hotel with pool that the cruisers can use if they eat a meal in the restaurant. This RV park is a walk though and when we were walking back the first night we got in we met a couple who decided to turn around rather than walk all the way to the RV park. We got to talking with them and they told us that they had rented a car and would be willing to take us into town for a day of sight seeing. We jumped at the chance. We almost missed our free ride when to our dismay we found out that Puerto Escondido “sprung forward” on the clock and we had the wrong local time. We had to make a mad dash for the dinghy dock in order not to miss our ride.

We had a great day touring the mission, the museum and the town with Sam and Corrine from Alluvium.

We made it to the "first" mission

All of us standing in the museum's courtyard next door to the mission

Ryan in front of the mission

The alter inside the mission

The front of the mission from street level

The mission's bells

The pot used by the padres to make a porridge for the natives

Some of the early tools used by the missionaries

Ryan and I explore one of the early sailing vessels used by the local native people

The courtyard at the museum which is next door to the church

What the early cowboys would have used who worked the mission and the neighboring ranchero

We visited the mission, then spent an hour and a half in the museum next door. It's definitely worth a visit. We also spent a couple of hours combing up and down the touristo street looking at ceramics, woven blankets, jewelry, cheap trinkets, etc. It's all there. The Cap'n also continued his routine of checking out the local ferreterias (hardware stores) in search of light bulbs for the engine instruments, and various bits and pieces to finish the never-ending boat projects.

The next day was the real adventure. Given our three choices and being the irresponsible parents that we are, we introduced the kids to the time-honored tradition of hitching a ride. Don't bother to call Child Protective Services though, we merely asked one of the resident cruisers in the parking lot if we could bum a ride to town with them.

We got a ride from a great couple (Gail and Doug from Native Dancer) who have been coming here forever. They worked for themselves and had winters off, so they started cruising in their 20's and either trailered their boat down here or kept their boat in Mexico!!! Wow! Why didn't we learn that lesson when we were 20? During our 30-minute ride to town, we had a great, rambling conversation with them and learned that many of the old-time cruisers wonder about the lack of new cruisers. There are plenty of older cruisers, but they believe the lifestyle needs fresh, young blood to keep growing. Once in town, they gave us a great tour up and down the two main streets, showing us everywhere we needed to go.
The Sabbatical gang definitely marches on its stomachs, so we needed some re-provisioning. We went to the supermarket ("El Pescador") for staples and Juarez Market for fresh cut meats. There are 2 or 3 other places to get fresh fruits and vegetables, and plenty of tortillerias. You certainly won't go hungry here.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a road trip without some street tacos, would it? Our "guides," Gail and Doug gave their highest praise to "El Rey del Taco" on Juarez Street, so we had to give it a try. Wow! Are we glad we did. They serve two things, and two things only: fish tacos and beef tacos. You walk in and the owner greets you by asking how many you want of each! A couple minutes later and he brings them over to you. All the "fixin's" are on the side table: cabbage, limes, crema, avocado sauce, hot sauces, salsa, jalapenos, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, etc. Just help yourself and heap 'em on! Washed down with a fresh limonada, it's a meal fit for a king, or at least folks out buying groceries.

We were here two years ago while on a cruise ship and couldn't help but notice the difference. Back then, cruise ships made regular stops here, and the town had plenty of folks walking around. Fast forward through the economic downturn, the H1N1 scare and it's a much quieter town today. The cruise ships have stopped coming and tourism is way down. Quite a few stores were closed. Some still had tape on their windows from a past storm warning, but it looked like the owners never came back to open the shops. Back in better economic times, a number of civic projects were started, including paving some of the dirt streets, putting in new sidewalks, and converting the "tourist street" into a pedestrian-only walking street. The projects are almost done, waiting for more tourists. We hope the improvements pay off since Loreto is such a charming, old town.

Our next stop is Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen.







80, Loreto mission sign; 4, Ryan in front of the mission; 2, inside church;6 front of church; 10 bells from church; 17, The pot in which the padres made the gruel for the native workers; 21, Tools used at the mission;27, canoe used by early natives at the mission; 74, courtyard at the missions museum; 65, vaqueros work room; 75 Kumpis family in front of the sculpture in the mission’s courtyard;

Puerto Escondido, April 2010

We spent 3 pleasant days at Puerto Escondido, the "Hidden Port," and nearby Loreto, the former capital of Baja California Sur and site of the first mission in Baja California. In case you need it, the Loreto International Airport is between the two.

The Hidden Port has 3 parts: the "Waiting Room" (the anchorage outside the harbor), the "Ellipse" (another, smaller anchorage, just inside the harbor), and the main bay with the marina (only 10 slips) and dozens of mooring balls. There is some skinny water (less than 10 feet) as you pass the narrow (30 yards wide) entrance into the main harbor, but after that, it's 30+ feet deep. There's fresh water and a fuel dock, but you'll need to wait for an open slip to fill your tanks unless you want to jerry jug it in your dinghy. Then, it's out to the mooring balls. Overall, the marina follows the standard Singlar design and has nice facilities (the Harbor Master's office on the second floor; a mini-tienda selling beer, sodas, some veggies and some staples; a cruisers lounge below the Harbor Master's office; an on-site restaurant; a small pool upstairs; and a nice restaurant and large pool at the RV park about a 20 minute walk away) and a friendly staff. Some long-term cruisers have swallowed the anchor here and store their boats in the marina yard while living ashore. Others keep fishing boats on trailers and launch when they need something for dinner.

Apparently, someone had great plans for this area many years ago. There are wide, paved streets, pedestrian bridges over Italian-style canals, and a couple of lighted roads leading a few hundred yards to nowhere. But, that's as far as anyone got. The place has been unfinished for 20 years.

Escondido is home to the Hidden Port Yacht Club, a great group of folks, with a large book exchange (especially one for kids), a DVD lending library, and a surprisingly active social calendar. They also host "Loreto Fest", the annual cruiser event at the end of April/beginning of May. We plan to be back for the Fest the first weekend in May.

We happened to be in town for one of the weekly Sunday afternoon pot luck suppers and had a great time. One of the sport fishing boats donated tons of fresh fish (yellow fin tuna and swordfish) to the party, and each boat brought a side dish or desert to share. The mini-tienda at the marina sold beer and sodas, and no one went hungry! We met folks that drive down here each year from Canada and the US, as well as cruisers like ourselves. Luckily, we met one other kid boat from Canada that had a boy and a girl the same ages as Kelly and Ryan. The boys spent the days playing what else - video games - while the girls hung out and learned to play about a 1000 versions of "cat's cradle" from one of the cruiser ladies. It was hard to tell who was having more fun, the girls or the ladies who were re-living their childhoods and sitting on the floor playing.

While we were in Escondido we managed to get into Loreto - see the next installment of the blog

Sunrise on the west side of th anchorage at Puerto Escondido

The eastern side of the anchorage and all the mooring balls at Puerto Escondido

The northwest corner

The North side of the anchorage that if you walked across would open up to the Sea of Cortez