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The 26th of January started before daylight with pelicans all around the boat. A school of fish exploded close by and all the birds worked the edge, keeping the fish near the boat. The wind had eased over night and a very light breeze from Northwest was about. I stayed up in the pre-dawn and got the boat ready for sea. Underway before 0700, ghosting along before a fair breeze. I tried the spinnaker but the wind was too light to keep it filled, so I changed back to the working jib and main, with a preventer on the main and the pole in the jib. Breeze light and fitful. Yesterday I could have made the crossing to Isla Partida in 3 hours (if nothing broke nor bent). Today the first 4 hours only showed four miles progress on the 17 mile crossing. I persisted though and in the afternoon a good breeze came up to carry us along toward the first cove on the North end of the island, El Embudo. . .the funnel! One has to wonder what sort of a captain would anchor in a bay with a name like “the Funnel” but. . .it was really pretty. Rock
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walls to left and right lead to a white sand beach
at the head of the bay. I short tacked up the bay with nobody to applaud the
good work. . .nobody to help get her off the rocks if I fouled up either though.
Finally cast loose the sheets and ran forward to throw the anchor overboard,
more or less in the middle of the harbor, small as it was. I was very uneasy
going to bed. This cove offers protection from the North around through East
to South, but is wide open to the West and there are many miles of fetch to
cause trouble. The night at anchor there was restless in fact. Shortly after
dark a small breeze came in from the West and swung us around facing the open.
I sat with the anchor a while to see if it’d found a new set and couldn’t even
tell that it had noticed. In the morning in fact I looked through the clear
water and could clearly see the marks of chain and anchor shank on the white
sand. The anchor had buried the first time in about three times its own length
and had only moved a foot or so after the wind changed. As it was the breeze
never amounted to much, perhaps five to ten knots at best and the boat spent
the night facing the mouth of the cove and chuckling to herself. I simply woke
frequently to be sure it wasn’t coming on to blow.
The sun was over the ridge in the morning by 9:00 and the rocks along both walls of the cove looked like they should be good snorkeling. I tunneled all the way back to the aft end of the quarter berths and found the snorkeling gear hidden up against the transom. Loaded the works into the canoe and paddled to the sandy beach. Waded in knee deep. It seemed doable, if cool. Put on the fins and mask, deep breath, the first cold shock, then gee, not too bad. . .and fish everywhere. They seem a lot like the fish I saw snorkeling on Hawaii years ago. Some must be exactly the same. For instance, the one they call humuhumunukunukupuaa in Hawaii, they call “Perico” here. They weren’t common, but I saw two or three at a time off and on. By far the most common seem to be a sort of perch, yellow above, white below, five black vertical bars, swimming in schools with quite a range of sizes. Then there were “angel fish”, with rather a purplish colored body and orange tail and pectorals, some very small but very purple fish, lots of coral, tons of anemones and just one needlefish, maybe 2’ long and the size of my thumb.
Back on board and defrosted, I decided to shift anchorage to the next cove South on Isla Partida, Ensenada Grande and do some sight seeing along the way. Last night I had sailed right past the two tall islets (Los Islotes) just North of Partida, even though I could
hear the sea lions roaring and see clouds of sea birds overhead.
The islands are built of brilliant red stone, but completely covered above by
white bird paint. Even the lonely cardon cactus near the top of the larger
islet was painted white all over. The birds seemed mostly to be frigates and
pelicans with now and then a cormorant. The breeze started out just easy sailing
and fell light as I approached the islets. In fact, for a bit there was almost
none and we were down to bare steerage way and it was clear that a current was
setting us down on the reef at the far end of the larger islet. Just as I was
ready to start the engine to escape the reef a bit more breeze came in from
the South, not enough to ripple the water, but enough that we gradually stemmed
the current and moved, close hauled, back South along the Partida shore. About
level with the mouth of last night’s cove it finally died altogether for the
day, so down went the motor and we steamed into Ensenada Grande at 2:30 and
anchored easily in the middle cove. Two kayakers were headed in to camp in
the first cove and two other boats were steaming about trying their choice of
different anchorages in the 3rd cove. One came very close to us
and dropped his anchor but found a weed patch and couldn’t get a set. . .The
swim suited lady running the anchor windlass on the bow cleaned off the anchor
while the man in charge ran the engine and yelled instructions and they tried
again, again finding a large weed patch even though he had been very clear about
only dropping the hook in sand. While she discarded the second crop of seaweed
he gathered speed and returned to the 3rd cove after all. As he
passed he shouted “. . .I guess you have to know where to anchor in here or
you just drag huh?” I waved back like an old timer.
That evening in the setting sun I paddled around the three coves admiring the strange ways the desert sun and restless water had shaped the shoreline here. It was as though the sun baked the stone a little harder, like the crust of a loaf of french bread, then the patient gnawing of the sea left the crust unsupported and drooping in incredible shapes.
In the last of the daylignt, returning to the boat I suddenly noticed another kayaker paddling close alongside me and was delighted to see him mimmick my every move. It seemed to good a chance to pass up and there was one frame left in the camera. Call the result “Me and My Shadow” or perhaps”Self Portrat of the Paddler”.
The 28th of January began at midnight with a somewhat stiffer breeze from the West. All the anchorages on Partida and Espiritu Santo Islands are more or less open to the West and this middle cove in Ensenada Grande is as bad as any of them. The breeze at times was up to 15 or so, enough to raise a good little chop, but again, I had anchored far enough offshore on good enough sand that the anchor just followed the wind around and we simply turned to face the open mouth of the bay. It was definitely a loud and lively night from that point on though and I woke up to made fairly frequent trips on deck to check our bearings. The moon was nearly full and very bright and it was easy to see that nothing was moving that shouldn’t.
Next morning the wind continued and seemed to be rising and I could see whitecaps offshore with the binoculars, so I cleared for sea and got the anchor aboard. With the wind onshore as it was I got the anchor on a short scope and set the main with one reef then brought the anchor aboard with the chain all in a mess on the foredeck, put her on the better offshore tack with just the main, lashed the tiller and jumped forward to get the working jib on her quickly. With both sails well filled she held her course with the helm lashed while I tidied up forward. The mess was all put away and everything ship shape before we cleared the main point at the South entrance of the Ensenada and it became obvious the wind offshore was a good bit stronger than it had been at anchor. Early in the day I thought a lot about the second reef but never really needed it. After so much downwind sailing the past week it felt good to have the boat hard on a good breeze. She sent occasional showers of spray over the foredeck and across the cabin to keep me cool and soldiered along at a great pace. I lay on the offshore tack over an hour before tacking back over toward the islands again. We were making excellent time up the coast, showing over 4 knots on the gps and tacking through 100 degrees on the compass, though closer to 110 on the gps. We beat up the coast of Partida, past famous Partida Cove and Candelero on Espiritu Santo. There were four or five boats anchored in Partida and one, a handsome ketch, was making sail to come out as well.
Close in to Espiritu Santo about level with Isla
Ballena I tacked offshore again for another hour. Then it quit. Farther
offshore I could see the ketch that had sailed out of Partida Cove slatting
about, then furling sails and steaming South on the course for La Paz. I
lay there with one reef down and the working jib both sheeted in hard to try
to stop the rolling. I couldn’t believe such a fine wind died so quickly
but that was the truth of the matter. The chop quickly lay down and though
there was a bit of roll to the sea, the surface was all but glassy. At 12:35
I lowered all sail and started the motor, generally following the Espiritu
Santo coast on South, still dithering about a destination. After two nights
exposed to the West and getting Westerly weather I was interested in better
shelter for a night. None of the coves on the West side of Espiritu Santo
can offer that, no matter how beautiful they are. . .The chart showed two
or three possibilities closer to La Paz on the Baja shore, Estero Balandra,
Caleta Lobos and of course, Pichilinque. I held on across the San Lorenzo
Channel (“Canal San Lorenzo”) on a course for Caleta Lobos, running the engine
at very low rpms, sails down, centerplate up, making 3.7 knots with no fuss
whatever. About mid channel a very slight breeze came up from the East, enough
to feel on your cheek but barely rippling the sea. I hoisted the full main
with the board still up and it filled and steadied. Speed jumped to 4.3 to
4.7 knots on an almost perfectly even keel. In the binoculars I could make
out two separate large sand beaches ahead and finally identified them from
the chart as Playa Tecolote and Estero Balandra. In the mirage of the bright
day the RV’s parked along Tecolote all looked 20 feet high and the restaurant
with the tall thatched roof looked more like a Mexican pyramid. The dunes
behind Estero Balandra seemed to climb well up into the hills. I abandoned
Caleta Lobos and headed up for Estero Balandra. Quite suddenly, about a mile
off shore, the wind came up a good notch and I jumped for the centerplate
tackle to lower away, secured the engine and entered the bay all set to anchor,
under sail after all. There was one other boat in the harbor over towards
the balancing rock, so with this new breeze I tacked in and tucked up tight
under Punta Diablo, a long, though fairly low dark stone cliff. With that
I had shelter through about 290 degrees and in fact, the wind held as it was
over night and it was an excellent anchorage in 15 feet over very fine white
sand.
The morning’s beat had flooded the cabin floor (also the bilge on a Potter 19) about an inch deep over the top of the carpet with slopping from the centerplate trunk, so I had been drying carpet up in the cockpit all the way across in the calm. Anchor down, I spread the whole works to dry on the cabin top and went ashore to walk around. The dunes are beautiful behind the bay but very hard to walk in as the sand runs downhill ten inches for every foot you climb up. The public can get to the beach by walking around from the road access at low tide and two young couples were sunning on the shore when I landed, no longer the uninhabited islands of the past few days, but nice to visit. The rocks in the cliffs around Estero Balandra are particularly susceptible to sea water erosion but last very well in the desert dryness above. This makes for fantastic waterside overhangs as the sea nibbles the rock out from under the cliffs. The route from the road to this beach leaves no choice but to walk on the low tide layer of stone with thousands of tons of rock over your head. I did not linger under. The famous balancing rock which used to mark this outcrop apparently fell over some years back but has been restored and remains (with its reinforced stem doing very well thank you) as quite a remarkable landmark.
Walking back to the canoe I noticed small disturbances in the sand near the low tide line and stopped to see what was making them. Grabbing a handful of sand around the little pile on the beach and rinsing it off I found the secret of the perfect enameled sea shells. This is where they live and these were absolutely perfect and fresh. . .but still alive. I carried one in my hand a while, thinking about perhaps boiling it to remove the inhabitant and keep the shell, then decided he wouldn’t make even a taste on the end of the tongue and would probably get more use out of his own shell than I would anyway, so I dug him a new hole and put him back on the beach. Just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke I quickly uncovered four or five more and returned them as well.