May 18, 2010 - Santa Rosalia

May 12, 2010 – Puerto Don Juan, Bahia de los Angeles

May 12^th is a big day – my Bella’s birthday. It is hard to believe that she is six today. Time goes too fast. We called to wish her a happy birthday and she was already wearing the pink ‘princess’ dress which Isha and I had found in the public market in La Paz. Although I think that Mexicans girls would wear such a dress for parties or special occasions, it had all the elements necessary for a make believe dress up for Bella. She was wearing it for her birthday breakfast. I expect to see photos on facebook.

Our day in Santa Rosalia was hot and very muggy. The sky over the water was hazy and I almost melted on my two trips to get provisions in town. Two trips were necessary because I have found the eggs don’t travel well if lumped together with lots of other items. Here, except in “supermercados’, they are sold by the kilo and given to you in a plastic bag. If you want them to get back to the boat whole, they are best carried very carefully. So the first trip I went to the famous bakery, then the fruteria with the fighting cocks in the backyard and finally to the grocery store. The second trip I picked up tomatoes, mangos and eggs. We have been warned that shopping up north is very sparse.

That night we invited a couple from the sailboat Juniata to join us for drinks. They had been anchored near us the night before and we had wonderful photos of their boat against the sunset to give them. Dave and Marcia are from California but now live in their boat. They were full of good information on the northern area of the Sea of Cortez since they have summered over here for several years. Yes they say, it is hot, but they love it. Anchored out, there is almost always a breeze. There is a small community of boats that stay here and they all become friends and have fun together. They made it sound intriguing, until I remembered how hot it felt in town that day. It was dark when they left and we were surprised to see that it was pea soup fog in the harbor. We have not seen fog here before.

We left very early the next morning for the 75 mile run to Bahia San Francisquito. This is located where the sea narrows and the current and tides start to make an appearance. As we went north, the sea temperature cooled quickly to 66 degrees. The sailfish and marlin we had seen in the Santa Rosalia area are nowhere to be seen up here and there are almost no other boats around. We anchored on the south side of Punta Santa Teresa which is the south side of Bahia San Francisquito, planning to visit San Francisquito on our return trip south.

The next morning we headed north another 35 + miles to Bahia los Animas via the channel Salispuedes (leave if you can.) This is a narrow channel that is very deep and carries the majority of the water flow to the upper Sea of Cortez. The tides here, unlike further south, are significant and it is easy to see that running against the maximum it might be impossible to make much headway. We did fight a small current north, which puzzles me. Based on the tide tables the current should have been with us. We were running near shore where fishing is reputed to be better and I wonder if perhaps there was some type of eddy formed on the sides of the channel by the stronger current in middle. It remains a small mystery, but the result was a slow day north.

We arrived in Bahia los Animas in mid afternoon and opted to anchor inside the bay behind Punta Islotes. From our anchorage we looked down between the hills to the valley of Los Animas. There were no other boats nearby, but the beach is road accessible. There were a couple of shanty like camps on the beach with scruddy looking people. Neither of us felt entirely comfortable anchored alone there, so we pulled up our anchor at around six and headed north to an anchorage near the head of Bahia Los Animas, Punta El Pescado. On the way we passed a small flotilla of shrimpers. They had been anchored above us along the shore and now, in the evening, were headed out to the Sea. Apparently these shrimpers have changed fisheries and now fish for Humboldt squid at night. The squid are huge, up to six feet and 100 pounds. They are extraordinarily aggressive hunters and grow to full size in a year. They are found in huge schools and stay on the bottom during day, coming up to lights at night. Earl and I are tempted to try to catch one. Earl has the gear, but somehow we haven’t tried. It maybe because we are normally asleep after dark, however I think in part it is because we are both a little intimidated by the thought of catching one of these giants and then having to deal with it.

After a peaceful night we headed north to Puerto Don Juan, a wonderful hurricane hole on the southern side of Bahia de los Angeles. This is a lovely bowl with a long sand beach on the south side that is reputed to have good clamming. Earl is tempted, since clams are among his favorite foods. We explored the beach with Daisy and then stopped and chatted with boaters on the sailboat Amwagomi, a 31 foot ‘golden hind’. Miriam and Gordan are about our age, retired school teachers from California who have spent 14 years sailing in the South Pacific. Eager to hear more about their travels, we invited them to join us for the evening. We thoroughly enjoyed them and by the time we finished dessert, Earl was ready to leave for the Marquesas.

We were amused to find that they had also found easiyo (yogurt making packets) in New Zealand and had shipped back a large stash on their boat when they shipped it back from the South Pacific. Apparently if you ship your boat into Ensenada, no one asks what you have in it. The rest of the boat was packed with the brewery equivalent of easiyo - just mix the packet with water and sugar and in five days you have beer.

May 15, 2010 – Isla Partida, Midriff Islands.

The next morning early, while Daisy and I stayed in bed, Earl went to look for clams. He was somewhat at a loss as to how to dig these – there seemed to be no particular sign in the sand that a clam was below. Using a small gaff hook, he managed to dig up three and came back.

We pulled anchor to explore a little of Bahia de los Angeles. Our first stop was at the village of Bahia de los Angeles. It is the largest community up here, but it is still small. It has several groceries stores and we visited the largest one which was good sized. For whatever reason, we were not inspired by the town, so we got back on board and headed north to an anchorage behind Isla Mitlan and Isla Coronado, under a volcanic cone. It was a lovely peaceful anchorage that we had to ourselves. Earl steamed his clams and said they were the best he had ever had – pretty high praise. Obviously three were not enough, so we decided on an early run back to Puerto Don Juan to dig on the morning low tide. This time Daisy and I came to help. I was using a large spatula and Earl was using a dingy paddle to dig in the sand. I finally said the magical words –“There are no GD clams on this GD beach”- which, as in the past, immediately resulted in finding some. Ultimately we found the best way to dig was to run our fingers through the sand and we headed back to the boat with sanded fingernails and a pretty good haul of several different types of clams, some white and some of the type called chocolate. I think we will acquire a couple of small hand rakes for future clamming.

That night we hosted happy hour. In addition to our friends from the Amwagomi, we were joined by a couple from a 48 foot sailboat, Rupert and Judy. They live in California and are architects specializing in building “green houses”, “off the grid” etc. He is English and both of them have sailed all their lives. He is a naval architect by training and built the boat out of mohagony in England 20 some years ago. They sailed it there and in Brittany where they have a house. In addition they have crossed the Atlantic several times and made multiple cruises to the South Pacific. Apparently their business allows them to take lots of time off and they plan to sail to Easter Island next winter.

The next morning, we all took off in different directions. We headed SW to a small island that is part of the “Midriff Islands” called Isla Partida. The anchorage was tucked in between the island and a couple of little rocks which were white with guano. Three miles away is Island Roca (one of many by that name in the sea) which is a bird rookery. Apparently 90% of a species of gull, Heermann gulls, which range all the way to British Columbia, come here to nest. Before it became a protected area, it was mined for guano. We have discovered, painfully, that where there is guano, there are bobos, and this anchorage was no exception. They don’t bite, but they drive you crazy! Tomorrow we will start south.

May 18, 2010 – Santa Rosalia

We spent our last night of the cruise in San Francisquito which is a well known hurricane hole. There was some wind, and, for a change, no bobos. Then we headed south to Santa Rosalia, a 75 mile run. By the time we were half way there, the water temperature had gone from 62 degrees to 75. It is extraordinary. We saw almost no one fishing up north, nor did we see any fish or porpoise. We suspect the water temperature is partly the cause. Suddenly, about 14 miles north of Santa Rosalia, we saw a pod of pilot whales. While we were photographing them, porpoises arrived and then a sailfish jumped. We are happy to be back here and Earl is itching to get back to the area near here where we saw all the bill fish.

We are spending today at the moorage in Santa Rosalia. These trips to town are beginning to remind me of our trips to shore when we gill netted in Cook Inlet. Earl obviously loves the cruising more than the ‘porting’ and so we seem to spend the minimum time possible in towns – which is a pity. I would be happy to spend a couple of days exploring here, not just shopping – but Earl has fishing on his mind and we plan to chase sailfish tomorrow. In a little over a week, we need to be back in La Paz where we will put Serenity ‘to bed’ for the summer.