If Puerto Escondido, about 15 miles South of Loreto, is the best hurricane hole on the coast, then the boat launch ramp must be the best of its sort too. . .deep, steep and long. . .I’ve used it at fairly low tides without trouble.
At high tides I saw a Hobie 33 launch smoothly. The ramp is just one small part of what must be millions of dollars of development started and stopped about 14 years ago. A French firm obtained the property and permits for a major resort, harbor and housing development, put in electricity, water, streets, sidewalks, lighting, the sea wall for the future marina and started on some condominiums, hotels and the harbor master’s office. Then they went broke. Fourteen years later there is a rumor that the Mexican agency Fonatur may be resuming construction of the marina and the hotel next spring. For now they have 2 full time employees guarding the water supply (good, tasty potable water) and the parking area around the boat launch ramp. The parking area is fenced and gated, though not to very high standards. . .but I left truck and trailer there under the watchful eye of the guards for three weeks more or less and all was very secure.
I spent a couple of hours rigging the boat, checking everything again, inflating the dinghy (a Sea Eagle 330 inflatable canoe), launching, locking the truck, rigging the rudder (first time for the new rudder built specially for the trip. . .and it actually fit well) and cranking down the center plate. . .finally ready by mid afternoon. The tide was ebbing fairly well at the time. . .Escondido has a very narrow entrance channel and the tide runs in and out of the main harbor quite briskly. In this case it was forcing me hard up against the hard black rubber fenders on the concrete seawall. The exit was not entirely graceful, but the little 6 horse pulled her away easily enough and we squirted out through the entrance channel, past the large (cruise ship) dock and out to the “Waiting Room”. The Waiting Room is actually another very good anchorage outside of the entrance channel with room for probably a dozen boats, though only 4 were there as I approached. I motored over to look for a slot for us but the breeze was calling, so I passed through the fleet without touching the anchor and motored out into the open. After all, I’d just driven 2,050 miles, filled out pages of forms and chased all over town getting permission to sail. . .why just anchor up?? With room around I shut down the motor, got the main and the “working jib”on her and ghosted through the wind shadow of the high point South of the harbor. The working jib is a high cut “110%” (laps the mast a little bit) jib that turned out to be the workhorse for the trip. Out from under the mountainside we found a good NW breeze of 15 to 20 stirring up surprising whitecaps (I later heard this was the tail end of a 4 day blow, so the size of the rollers in the channel should not have been surprising. . .I just didn’t know it had been blowing 4 days at the time). In the open I could make out the upper end of Isla Danzante and generally headed for where the harbor is supposed to lie on the Northwest corner. I could just lay the North end of the island close hauled on port tack and the boat surged delightfully into the chop. Within fifteen minutes I was hove to pulling down the first reef. Definitely a good breeze out in the channel. The crossing was a delight in the afternoon sunshine, though the spray flying over the cabin top had me in my rain jacket as soon as the reef was tied down. Even having detailed charts of the area I wasn’t sure exactly where the entrance to “Honeymoon Cove” was at first and closed the Island near the Northern tip. . .the shape of the cliffs and the gravel bar joining them almost convinced me that was the entrance and I stood in quite close and hove to. Study with the glasses convinced me I was about to sail the boat onto the beach. . .let her fill again offshore, turned, ran off downwind a short ways and saw the real entrance opening close on my left. The chart showed a rock off the entrance point though nothing was breaking that I could see. . .but I gave the point a lot of room before beginning to beat up into the bay. The $10 dollar seats (the little cove tucked tight up inside the entrance) held a 27’ motor boat, the “Con Limon”. The upper end of the main bight held a large trimaran and a beautiful wood sloop 40-odd feet long. The best choice for me seemed to be up close to the rocky out crop cliff between the little cove and the larger bight, so I beat up, close tacking in the smooth water and brisk breeze until I was quite close to the cliff, hove to, ran forward and lowered the anchor and 30’ of chain overside. No bottom. Another ten feet. No bottom. Hauled it all up on deck, decided to try anchoring behind the two larger sailboats up close to the gravelly-cobbly beach. Found bottom in about 20’ really close to the beach and paid out about 100’ of scope. Got the sails off her and checked the anchor. . .which could be clearly felt bumping over rocks as she drug slowly down wind. Suddenly she found a rock she liked or a bit of sand and seemed to hold. I stood by for another few minutes, putting on the sail covers, tying off halyards and then, convinced she was holding, responded to two separate invitations to turn up for dinner on the trimaran. Dinner was delightful, fresh caught yellowtail fried in bread crumbs and olive oil (Rob, the trimaran’s skipper caught and cooked the fish) pasta and salad. Goodness. Conversation (they were all tickled that I’d launched and sailed straight away the same afternoon), red wine and Mexican beer (with of course, Mexican limes). As the sun set we all just scrunched deeper in the cockpit and talked the evening away. The party was: Rob on the trimaran (from Lake Tahoe. . .about half time now), Mike and Debby from the big wood sloop and Winston and Renee from the little motor sport fishing boat. All had been here before. . .mostly for many seasons. All told a grand welcome to the country. After dinner Mike and Debby left for Escondido, motoring out into the chop and the rest of us settled down to sleep. Or rather, I did. I guess the rest of the bay was pretty busy all night. Winston woke up to find the wind had shifted a little and his stern anchor wasn’t keeping the Con Limon away from the rocks on either side of the picture book cove. . .so he woke up Renee and they shifted around to the deep water anchorage behind Rob’s tri. While they sat to check if they were dragging or not it became obvious that yes they were holding just fine, but the trimaran was dragging down on top of them. They let out more scope and waited on results. Rob on the tri meanwhile woke up sensing he was dragging and shifted a little upwind and to the West, tried again and clearly felt his anchor hook on a good rock, .or so they told me in the morning. I slept through the whole thing and was totally amazed to see the changes in the arrangements around me as daylight came.
By noon everyone had left and I was alone in the cove. The wind outside was just dandy and fair for a run to my next stop, but there were things aboard I wanted to continue tidying up and I dearly wanted a run ashore. So the day passed at anchor, chores got done and a grand walk ashore showed me the real shape of the whole North end of the island. By evening I was more than ready to sail for the South. In the early morning hours I woke to a strange sound. . .sort of a “whoof-whoof-whoof-kersplash” sort of thing. . .poking my head out the hatch I was amazed at the stars. . .the large moon of last night had set and the stars came right to the mountaintops all around and there were more of them than I’d ever seen before. The strange sound was a pair of pelicans fishing in the luminescent bay. Little fish streaking under the surface and leaping along the top left long trails of glowing green and white. . .but the pelicans, launching themselves in short takeoff runs (three good “whoofs”) and immediately plunging into the schools of fish set up enormous flashes of cold light. I watched for half an hour at least, then crawled, shivering, back in the bunk to doze til daylight.