True Sailors at Last

Just a quick post as I try to get caught up with a few items of interest. We visited several anchorages on the islands and Baja coast continuing our southerly journey in search of some warmer weather and water. We hit the jackpot of warm water at the small anchorage of San Cosme—hot spring! Off the rocky point at low tide there is a good size pool with a sandy bottom where one can relax in nice, warm ocean water. Even Lily, who typically does not enjoy warm water, enjoyed the hot spring (though she may have just tolerated it because she was so interested in all the streams of tiny bubbles rising from the sand that she was trying to get).

At another anchorage (I can’t remember which one), we walked along a small beach and found a lot of moray eel carcasses of all sizes that must have gotten blown out on a big storm?? I’m told they are gentle creatures by nature, but after getting a close look at their teeth I sure wouldn’t want to mess with them!

One of our great successes of the season was sailing off our anchor while leaving Bahia Salinas. I know it seems pretty basic since sailors have been doing it for hundreds of years, but as we have an engine which gives us a higher level of control we just never did it before. Salinas is a fairly large anchorage, there were no other boats around, and the winds were light so we hoisted the anchor and lifted the sails to sail to our next destination without ever starting the engine. Now we finally feel like true sailors!

Here are some random pictures of our sailing and beach wanderings.

When we got to Agua Verde we had our first contact with anyone in several weeks. It is amazing how difficult it is to get used to not having any cellular or internet connections. There is a part of being disconnected that is really nice, but having the world’s information (or disinformation as the case may be), at your fingertips can be handy as well. Our standing joke when pondering something that we didn’t know the answer to was, “just Google it”. But as sailors what we miss most about being disconnected is weather information—specifically, how much wind and from what direction. Anytime we saw another sailor we asked if they had any weather information. It is amazing to think that 20+ years ago when we first sailed to Mexico (before such expansive cellular networks, weather apps, or Starlink), word of mouth was our only source of weather information. Not that weather forecasts are always accurate, but it does give you some sense of security in knowing what to expect.

So, using the wifi from one of the palapa restaurants on shore we were able to weed through hundreds of junk e-mail and send and receive text messages to let everyone know we were okay. Having wifi was quite a luxury in such a small and remote village where the only source of power is from solar panels or generators. I was lucky to be there when a produce truck came to the restaurant, so I bought some fresh produce. I was hoping to find someone who baked bread, but I ended up going to the small tienda and buying a loaf of white bread—the last and only bread there.

We also bought a chunk of goat cheese at the tienda, then took a walk about to find some of the free ranging goats that make the milk that is used to make the cheese. We just happened upon some of them at the right time (well, right for us maybe not the goat), to witness a goat giving birth. She is the one laying in the shade in the back. Sorry it isn’t a great picture, but we didn’t want to make her nervous.

While we were in Agua Verde and once again connected to the world beyond out boat, we found out that two of our sailing friend couples who had not launched their boats this season were planning to spend some time in Mazatlan. In spite of understanding that we were at the mercy of the winds and seas we were determined to make it to Mazatlan while they were still there. Step one was to head back across the Sea of Cortez to mainland Mexico. The winds were not exactly favorable for great sailing on the 22 hour trip to Topolobambo, but they were light enough to not work against us.

We anchored in Santa Maria Hook just outside the channel into Topolobampo for a few days to rest before making our way through the channel to the marina to refill our water and fuel supplies. We decided that this would be our first time going to and from the marina without touching the bottom—and we did it!

We did, however, have other excitement in the channel. Right after discussing that as many times as we have made this trip, we have never had a ship coming through at the same time…jinx, we received a call on the VHF radio to “the sailboat in the channel” to make the center path clear. We replied that we would stay to the left. When you are the only boat in the channel it seems huge. When there is a large ship bearing down on you it seems to get smaller and smaller! The closer it got the further we moved to the left, eventually deciding to travel outside the green marker buoys. Perspective is everything. As the ship passed beside us, the channel seemed huge again, and we wondered why we were ever nervous about it.

There was excitement on the way back out to the anchorage as well. First we saw orange smoke and a few boats on the water just off the fuel plant. Then a helicopter flew over our boat so close that I could have hi-fived the pilot from the top of our mast. It circled back around several times and dropped divers into the water. I initially feared the worst like a damaged fuel line in the water, but it seemed more like some kind of training op for the Mexican version of navy seals or coast guard. It was pretty cool to watch, and we were amazed at the amount of water disturbance that the helicopter causes that the diver has to jump into—and that was in calm water.

Back at anchor awaiting a weather window to make the 44 hour trip down to Mazatlan we had an uninvited overnight guest.

I may have said this before, but it is said that there are 3 kinds of wind in the Sea of Cortez: no wind, too much wind, or wind from the wrong direction. And that is not too far from the truth! In order to see our friends, we decided to take a chance and head towards Mazatlan at the tail end of winds from the wrong direction in hopes of catching some favorable winds before they became too strong. The journey was uneventful. The favorable winds never filled in, so they never got too strong (or at least we stayed ahead of it). We’ve had better sails, but we’ve had way worse as well. And we made it in time to visit our friends and experience the eclipse—but that’s a story for next time…