The breeze from Agua Verde looked like being grand, though in fact it died off in the late afternoon so the last four miles took 2 hours. Leaving Agua Verde larger boats often go outside the low lying offshore rock and reefs called Roca San Marcial, though the charts and guide books say there is plenty of water and room between the rock and Punta Marcial. I passed inside and in the small boat felt happy with the space available. This point is a significant corner on the coast. In front of Agua Verde the coast runs nearly east-west, but at Punta Marcial it turns sharply South and runs along for many miles as a tall mountainside dropping into the sea. It’s utterly magnificent and interestingly deceptive. Though you may be making good time along the coast, the scale of the mountains and their great extent north and south makes it seem in the clear air as though you are hardly moving. The navigation for the day was superbly simple. Once past Punta San Marcial, keep Baja on your right and turn in at the cove with the red cliffs. The distance to sail, anchor to anchor is just under 20 miles, and with the dying breeze in the early afternoon, it took most of the day to do, but a fine and pleasant day of sailing and sunshine it was.
Still there were no dolphins around, though I saw whale spouts all around the boat in the distance and some very large fish jumping clear out of the sea and crashing back again. Suddenly, close at hand astern came a loud long exhalation and I turned round just in time to see the broad grey back of a whale as the breath-hole closed and he slipped back below the surface, perhaps 100 feet astern. Once again he rose and blew, a little farther away, and then was gone. I waited all day to see him again and perhaps I did. Far off to the East, a mile or more I’m sure, my eye happened to fall for a second on what had to be a whale “spy-hopping”. He had to have been standing on his tail and holding his head far above the sea.
Coming in to the anchorage I was surprised to see Con Limon there ahead of me. They had spent the night at Agua Verde, though we’d only just spoken briefly and earlier in the day I thought I’d seen them headed toward Isla Santa Cruz far off shore but hadn’t been sure in the distance. Somehow they’d managed to turn back into the coast and reach harbor before me during the day and I’d never noticed when they crossed my bow. They were ashore gathering firewood for a bonfire, which promised well for the evening but my eyes were all full of the scene above the beach. The red rocks that make the very visible cliffs you see as you sail in from the North are somehow different from most of the volcanic rocks around and they weather into great rounded shapes and incredible bands of filigree instead of the harsh angular shapes of the basalts and volcanic ash cliffs. The late afternoon sun was warming the already red rocks with amazing light and I hurried to anchor and get ashore with the camera. I’m not often floored by simple geology but Puerto Gato is magnificent beyond description. Some of the photos I took are good reminders of the place, but nothing can compare with sailing into the bay, paddling ashore and walking among those fabulous cliffs yourself.
The campfire ashore that night was as good as the stones earlier. We sat in the dark staring into the small flame, Renee then Winston taking turns poking and feeding it. Renee had a large sack of sliced limes ready for the beer and the stars were stupendous overhead, even in competition with the nearly full moon. We talked over most of the world’s problems and opportunities and traded stories from Alaska (where we had all worked at one time or another) to the South Pacific, where Renee was a Peace Corps volunteer. When the fire finally ate the last bit of wood and died to coals we paddled silently to the boats and to bed.