Category: 2007 – 2008 California – Baja & The Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan Voyage – Blog

Dear F&F,
January 22
We were up early and Ardys of s/v Odyssey, who speaks very good Spanish, hailed Ysidro on VHF radio channel 16 and arranged to have two fisherman bring us to the Lagoon. The anchorage was very protected and the conditions were calm so after locking every possible hatch & locker, we felt comfortable to leave the boat unattended. We took a 45 minute thrill ride to the lagoon with our driver Caeser and his marinero (deck hand). We transferred into the panga of Noel who was to be our guide. At this
time of year, the season is not yet at it\’s peak and so there were only two other pangas in the lagoon with us. San Ignacio is a Federal and international biosphere and the locals take protecting the whales very seriously. San Ignacio is one of three major whale calving areas on the Baja California coast. The others are Scammons Lagoon (north of Turtle Bay) and Magdelena Bay where we will be headed soon. Scammons is not safe for boats to travel as the coast is very shoaly and is not easily navigated.
San Ignacio would be a great opportunity to see the whales close up. The Lagoon is \”L\” shaped and each leg is about 10 miles per side. The locals are only allowed to take us in the entrance area which is about one square mile. They told us they get up to 300 whales inside the Lagoon, but don\’t want to disturb the Mothers and their young calves. There is a boundary where the pangas do not cross. So if the whales are interested, they come out to check out the pangas full of tourists.

At first, we saw up to 10 adult whales just basically cruising the Lagoon. Finally, we saw a Mother with a calf our guide told us was only 2-3 days old. At 10 feet long and probably 1000 lbs it was still a newborn. Since the calf was so young, he was still timid and stuck very close to Mom. We could see where propeller blades had hit the mother\’s back in the past, but fortunately she seemed to have completely healed from the experience. The baby\’s skin is dark gray and smooth, the Mother\’s,
crusted with barnacles. Eventually we saw another Mother with her calf. Baby #2 was a few weeks old and VERY interested in playing panga. This was the highlight of the day – the baby whale came right up to the boat and all of us aboard were able to \”pet the baby whale\”! Even Mom came up for a rub and to rub herself on the panga to get those pesky barnacles off her back. This was a wonderful experience. We got some reasonable video and good photos which we will post on the web when we next get
internet access. We took the 45 minute panga ride back to our boats, downloaded the photos, watched the video and recounted what a unique experience we had all had this magical day……

Dear F&F,
January 18
Turtle Bay is a sleepy little port almost half way down the Baja California coast enroute to Cabo San Lucas. It\’s popularity is the fact that it\’s the best \”all weather\” harbor between Ensenada and Magdelena Bay. Circularly shaped, it is truly where the desert meets the sea. About 1000 people live here and there are a few restaurants and one small hotel. The main attraction for cruisers to stop here is for fuel and rest. And in our case, a chance to fix our \”reacher\”. The sail from Isla San
Benitos was a windy one and I got a little lazy and didn\’t secure the sail properly when it was rolled up. A blast of wind unrolled it and put about a 10 foot rip in the leech of the sail (the back part of the triangle). Our friend Jeff on s/v Beatrix told us he had a sewing machine and Cindy and I went to work. First we used a special sail repair material called \”sticky back\” (a polyester dacron) and carefully placed all the ripped areas back in place. We then stitched the sail up with Jeff\’s
machine. The process took the better part of 7 hours, but we were proud of our work & hope to have many opportunities to use this sail in the days ahead.

January 20
After getting some diesel brought to our boat via \”panga\”, (high speed dinghy), we set sail on a beautiful day with s/v Odyssey (Marv & Ardys). The day began with a slow motor down the stark, but beautiful coast line and then we saw our first whales. We lazily motored along with two different groups, the larger of which let us tag along for 1/2 hour or so at about 50-100 yards. After that, the wind came up and we set our repaired reacher and it looked great. The wind went aft and we put up our
spinnaker (colorful front sail for going nearly straight downwind).
The spinnaker was flying and we were enroute to our next planned stop, Bahia Asuncion. Just after we dropped the spinnaker, we changed course and two whales went right under the front of the boat 10-20 feet away! I don\’t know who was more startled, me or the whales. One was clearly swimming upside down as I could see the white coloration of the underside of its body. We soon rounded Isla Asuncion and in a nice big anchorage area set the hook (anchor) for the night. Odyssey soon arrived and we
discussed our plan to proceed to Punta Abrejos/San Ignacio Lagoon for the next day.

January 21
Basically, Beach House became a power boat as there was no wind and we motored the 55 miles to the anchorage at El Medio, just East of Punta Abreojos. Abreojos translates: keep your eyes open. Which we did due to the many shallow, rocky areas as you approach the anchorage. There were also many lobster traps with surface floats that we had to dodge. This spot was recommended by our friend Dan Melnick who was here with his wife a few years earlier. Upon arrival, we anchored next to s/v Ahe Kalii
and s/v Easy Lady. s/v Ahe Kalii had as skipper, Chad Butler who, small world, is good friends with our friends Ty Hokanson and Dave Robertson. Chad informed us that both boats had hired a \”panga\” (local fisherman\’s high speed dinghy) and taken the 45 minute ride into San Ignacio Lagoon. We thought this was too good to miss as all aboard had gotten a chance to \”pet a baby whale\”…..

January 17th
We awoke at 5:30 am, the wind was blowing 20 knots from the N/NE. We left the anchorage at dawn with 1 reef & staysail (the smallest of our 3 front roll-up sails). We set course for the SW corner of Cedros Island & were soon greeted with gusting winds to 30 knots. We were making good speed & noticed we were catching up to a sailboat several miles ahead of us. An hour later, s/v Beatrix with Jeff, Kathy & Fiona hailed us on the radio. We had met them in Ensenada. They did not stop & were making a
direct passage to Turtle Bay. We both kept leeward (downwind) of Isla Natividad and experienced a wide range of wind & sea states. At one point the wind was so light that we used our gennaker (also called reacher, the largest of our 3 front roll-up sails). A bit later the wind subsided so much that we had to motor for a while. Before we knew it, it was blowing 30 knots again. Unfortunately Scott did not secure the gennaker furler (sail roll up device) & it unrolled unexpectedly on its own. It wildly
flapped in the wind for only 1 minute, but that was enough time to rip the sail about 12 feet along one side. We took the sail down & stuffed it into the sail locker. As we passed Point Eugenia, the sea flattened and we cruised along comfortably at 7-9 knots with full main & genoa (the middle of the 3 front sails). We arrived into Turtle Bay at 2 pm, less than 1 hr behind Beatrix. We had been at sea 7 1/2 hrs. We anchored in the large protected bay & made radio contact with several of the 10 other
cruising boats here.

January 18th
The next morning we filled 8 of our 5 gallon jerry jugs with diesel fuel. The local guys bring the fuel in a tank in their panga (large high speed dinghy). In the afternoon we took our own dinghy to shore. It was Santa Barbara Island style landing. Which means a very high dock with a vertical ladder you must tie your dinghy to & then climb up. We threw an anchor off the stern to prevent the dinghy from bashing into the pier. We were greeted by Gary Webb of s/v Sparkle, another Ensenada cruiser. He
had arrived a few days before, so gave us his personal tour of town. There are probably 1-2000 people living here. The main highway is 90 miles away (Baja Hwy 1). The roads are mostly dirt. There are a few shops & a couple of restaurants & a bakery. The main industry used to be a fish cannery, but it closed about 10 yrs ago. The local people were friendly. We did a quick check of our land-based email at the internet store. There are 6 computer stations, but only 1 or 2 seemed to work. We had a manana
time lunch of tacos & burritos. Cindy continues to horde milk, eggs & tortillas at every opportunity.

In the evening we tackled our repair of the gennaker sail. Fortunately our friend Ty Hokanson, retired sailmaker, had furnished us with self adhesive dacron fabric called \”sticky back\”. Scott worked for Ty\’s father as a teenager & knew enough to fashion the repair. The job was made faster by the sewing machine we borrowed form s/v Beatrix. Cindy\’s past sewing experience came to play. We wrestled the big, stiff sail material through the machine reinforcing the stuck on patches with stitch. Imagine
trying to thread a needle in the dark on a moving boat with cold fingers. It took us 7 hours to finish the job but we felt quite accomplished (as well as cold & tired) at completion.

We have not yet hoisted it to inspect our handy work, because the wind has been blowing non-stop all morning. It may sound like we are prima donnas: we complain about not enough wind, and then too much wind. Eventually it will subside. When it does, we will reinstall the gennaker on its furler. Meanwhile Scott has completed his routine engine & generator maintenance; added diesel from our jerry jugs to the main tanks. We bid fair winds to s/v Beatrix who are heading directly to Magdelena Bay today.
We may leave here tomorrow, weather permitting, but have 2 planned stops before we reach Magdelena Bay. The first is Bahia Asuncion 50 miles to the southeast and then perhaps Bahia Ballenas (one of the main whale breeding areas of the Baja Peninsula), home of San Ignacio Lagoon. From there, Bahia Santa Maria and on to \”Mag Bay\”.

We are uploading weather faxes via single-side band radio. This gives a great information 2-3 times per day without using up any of our Winlink or Sailmail (High Frequency Radio) alloted time.

Fair winds to you all, more soon….
Cindy & Scott

January 16th
The elephant seals were so interesting to watch that we went back ashore with the better camera & video equipment. The animals were more active & Scott got some great shots. We will post them when we next get an internet connection. It was an amazing treat to watch the mothers with their pups and the big snouted males lazily watching their harems. The babies were so cute and made sounds like monkeys. The females sounded like deep resonating barking dogs and the males sounded something between
an echo in a 55 gallon drum and a jack hammer!

Our landings on the beach at Isla San Benito were done in our dinghy with its reworked stainless steel wheels. The wheel system design we got from a fellow cruising friend, Dan Melnick and as you will see when we post the photos, the wheels flip down so we can pull the dinghy ashore.

Dear F&F,
We just went really slow all night to wait for sunrise to approach this island. The 2-6 am watch went the slowest & I got frustrated with my inexperience in sail trim.

There is a small fishing village on one of this groups 3 islands called Isla San Benitos. There is a lot of kelp so we had to be careful steering around it when we motored in. While I was napping (right after we set the anchor, since I\’d been up since 2 am) a fisherman came out to say hi to Scott & his children asked if we had any candy. They knew enough English for that! Scott told them we would come to shore later. After 2 hrs of nap, I got up, showered & felt semi-functional. Was eager to get
on land to take a hike. I prepared ziploc snack bags with a combo of trail mix, soy nuts and a chocolate for the children. I\’m not exactly carrying a surplus of candy! We did stock up on a bunch of D & AA batteries which we said might be useful to trade for fish or lobster. The dinghy battery was dead, but there is a lawnmower type pull start cord, so we got it fired up. Hadn\’t used it since Newport Beach. The fisherman & his son were on the shore & helped us pull it up out of the surf. We had not
really used the drop down wheels on the big dinghy before, they worked fine. It is heavy with the engine though, so it was nice to have extra help. The 3 children didn\’t seem too disappointed with the snack I gave them. They sat right down on the rocks & ate it. We changed from our \”get to the beach\” sandals, into our tennis shoes for hiking. We went probably 2 miles including a good uphill climb to see the lighthouse (defunct) & overall view from the top. It was a nice sunny day, and the breeze
was appreciated while hiking (chilly for standing around). We also walked over where the elephant seals congregate. Lucky for us, many had pups. They vocalize a lot & sound more like screeching monkeys than what you would expect from an elephant seal. The big males look so weird. We didn\’t go too close, but hopefully got some good photos. Scott estimated the largest males were over 1000 lbs.

We were hungry so ate \”dinner\” at 3:30. I made chicken tacos, very satisfying & easy. The sun went down behind the island hill about 4:45 pm. I am glad we will both get to sleep all night. Another sailboat from Vancouver Canada, literally just dropped anchor next to us, s/v \”Bandit\” who apparently also came here directly from Ensenada. Otherwise we are the only non-fishing boat anchored here. We have received email that 2 other Ensenada boats headed south today. The next 3 or 4 planned stops will
be daytime sailing only, anchored at night. But we will probably stay here at least one more night. The anchorage here is very calm and the weather for the next several days appears to be ideal. Scott is able to receive weather faxes over our high frequency radio and we can get text weather as well. This is all part of the long distance sailors day.

It was a big milestone for me to have those 2 overnighters right off the bat. The learning curve still feels pretty steep, but Scott is very sweet & encourages me to just try things & not be afraid to make mistakes (mainly I am inexperienced in sail trim & navigation). He is amazing me with his Spanish that just comes out of him. Sometime a French word or 2 sneaks in, but he is not afraid to try & that makes people very happy that he even makes the effort.

Cindy & Scott

Dear F&F,
We realized after we altered our plan to go to Isla San Martin, that the timing was such that we had to slow way down to arrive during daylight.
We try never to enter a new place at night. We arrived in the channel between Cedros Island and Isla San Benito around 6am after basically forcing ourselves to go only 3-5 knots all night. We are anchored in 45 feet of water in a nice smooth bight just off the village.

The islands definitely have the look of \”the back of beyond\”. There are about a dozen fishing \”Pangas\” (small skiffs) with outboards and everyone seems to be home, not out fishing. The shore has a very small village and it looks like everyone is sleeping in. Where we have anchored, just outside the pangas, we can hear the Elephant Seal colony on the middle island, barking away. Snug harbor, catching up on sleep and then we will go ashore. We\’ve gotten a \”two thumbs up\” from other cruising friends
who have said the locals are friendly and the hikes are terrific. Scott has seen a few whales \”blowing\” in the distance, but Cindy thinks he\’s pulling her fins…..:)
More later,
Scott & Cindy