May 20, 2016
 |
| Passing Mulege |
Don and I had been looking forward to seeing John’s reaction
to Geary’s 8:00 AM bagpipe rendition of Amazing
Grace, but it was quieter than usual and John didn’t stir until the weather
report came across the VHF radio. I got
up and made coffee. The combination of
lumpy water and cool wind discouraged me from swimming. We sat blearily in the cockpit until Don
decided it was time to hit the road. We
motored over to Playa Coyote to say goodbye to John and Julie on Myla and then headed out past Isla
Coyote and south of Isla Blanca into the main body of the bay. We turned north and passed carefully over the
shallow water off Punta Arena. The wind
was favorable, so we shut off the motor and sailed up the bay, past Mulege, and
back out into the Sea. We were making
six knots with about twelve knots of wind on our quarter. It felt glorious to be sailing in such
perfect conditions.
 |
| Approaching Punta Chivato |
A couple of hours of pleasant sailing brought us to Punta
Chivato where we had planned to anchor.
Unfortunately, Punta Chivato didn’t offer much shelter from an east
wind. The wind wasn’t blowing hard
enough to make anchoring dangerous, but we were rolling heavily.
We were hungry, so I assembled tostadas and we ate
lunch. Then we settled down to read,
relax, nap, and write as our whims dictated, all the while trying to determine
if conditions were going to improve or deteriorate and send us scuttling around
to the other side of the point. As dinnertime approached, it became apparent
that I would not be able to cook with the boat rolling to the degree that it
was. We pulled up the anchor and motored
through three to four foot seas around to the north side of Punta Chivato. Just before we arrived, the wind dropped and
then commenced to blow from the north east.
We were no better off than we had been on the other side. We dropped the anchor and sat, staring at
each other and waiting for the wind to abate as the sun sank lower and
lower. Finally, we agreed that it would
be worthwhile to set a stern anchor to keep us pointed into the swell.
 |
| North Side of Punta Chivato |
Setting the stern anchor involved hauling copious quantities
of buckets, hoses, lines, and fenders out of the starboard lazarette in order
to reach the second anchor which, being heavy, was stored at the bottom. The debris completely covered the sole of the
cockpit, rendering driving and dropping the stern anchor more difficult than
usual. We were balancing on small,
pitching spots while attempting to concentrate hard enough to keep the anchor
rode out of the propeller. Finally, we
dropped the stern anchor and motored forward to the extent of its anchor
rode. Then we dropped the main anchor
and backed down towards the stern hook, carefully taking up the slack as we
went. Our resulting position was well enough
aligned with the swell that we were able to barbecue chicken while I used the
pressure cooker to make mashed potatoes and whipped up a tomato and cucumber
salad. It was 21:00 before we ate dinner
and none of us stayed awake long once the dishes were washed and put away.
May 21, 2016
 |
| Transiting the Craig Channel |
It was a good thing we had gone to sleep early because the
wind changed back to the southeast in the middle of the night and by 3:00 I had
to get up and secure the crockery, which was rattling noisily in its rack. We would have been better off without the
stern anchor at that point, but it never occurred to my sleepy brain to let out
the stern line as Don did when he got up several hours later.
 |
| Gypsum Mine of Isla San Marcos |
We weren’t comfortable where we were, so we left by 8:45 and
motored over flat seas north to the Craig Channel, a shallow strip of water
between the Baja Peninsula and the southern tip of Isla San Marcos. Depths dipped below thirty feet throughout
the channel and, though that was expected, I was relieved when the bottom
dropped away on the other side and we were able to turn and head directly for
Sweet Pea Cove on Isla San Marcos. On
the way, we passed a large gypsum mine where a big bulk carrier was being
loaded. Two more were lurking
nearby. After seeing no commercial
shipping since La Paz, it suddenly seemed quite crowded.
 |
| Coming into Sweet Pea Cove |
We stopped at Sweet Pea Cove for eggs scrambled with
tomatoes, peppers, and onions and fresh tortillas. It was quite warm and we swam in the rather
chilly (after the 80 degree water in Concepcion Bay) water with a strong
current running north. From Sweet Pea,
we had another fabulous sail all the way to Santa Rosalia. We saw a small, shiny, black whale that we
took to be an orca just as we were leaving Sweet Pea, but he refused to pose
for a photograph.
 |
| The Marina at Santa Rosalia |
Santa Rosalia had a man made harbor surrounded by a tall sea
wall. It once held two marinas, but the
older one was wiped out by the last hurricane.
All that remained was the new Fonatur dock built in 2006 that had room
for about a dozen boats. It was only half
occupied and we easily found a slip. It
was also possible to anchor on the far side of the harbor, near where the old
marina was once located. One wrecked
boat remained on shore and another poked its bow about water in the center of
the harbor.
 |
| Ferry Dock in Santa Rosalia at Sunset |
It was very warm, so we lounged around the boat until the
sun dipped towards the horizon. I caught
up on the sleep I had lost at Punta Chivato.
Hunger eventually drove us to leave the boat and walk up to downtown
Santa Rosalia. I had been craving
carnitas since we arrived at the carnitas restaurant in Sayulita after closing
time five weeks before. La Huasteca was advertising carnitas, so I prevailed
upon Don and John to go there for dinner.
Unfortunately, they were out of carnitas (and scallops and lobster), so
I had to settle for garlic shrimp. We
were all tired, so we left our exploring for the next day and returned to the
boat where John and I were soon asleep.
May 22, 2016
 |
| Santa Rosalia to Guaymas Ferry at Dawn |
I was awakened before dawn by a strong wind flapping the
bimini extension, which had been rolled back to reveal the stars. I got up to secure that and heard the ferry
to Guaymas blowing its horn as it approached the dock. I snapped a few pictures of the dawn and went
back to sleep for a couple of hours.
When I awoke again about 7:45, I got up and went to shore to
shower and do my laundry. I returned to
the boat about 10:00. Don was still
sleeping, but I made coffee and John and I drank coffee and read until Don
stirred. Just after noon, we decided to
go into town for breakfast. Don
complained that one of his flip flops was missing and blamed a dog that had
followed our boat neighbors home the night before. However, when I went to put on my Teva
sandals it became apparent that something more sinister was at work because
someone had cut very neatly through the ankle straps of both shoes.
 |
| Palacio Municipal in Santa Rosalia |
We walked up into Santa Rosalia and explored the downtown
area. Santa Rosalia was developed by the
French copper mining company El Boleo.
They built the wooden houses and shops which seemed so out of place in
Baja. The Palacio Municipal looked like
nothing so much as a large train station.
It was even painted in the same colors as the depot in my home port of
Benicia. We passed the Iglesia Santa
Barbara, a church built of steel beams and cast iron plates by Gustav Eiffel in
1884. It was exhibited at the Paris
Exposition of 1889 and then purchased by the director of El Boleo and shipped
to Santa Rosalia.
We ate brunch at El Muelle and then bought a
 |
| The Iglesia Santa Barbara by Eiffel |
Back at the boat, Don did laundry while John lounged in the
cockpit and I worked on my blog. We
weren’t very hungry after our big lunch, so we put off going into town to get
dinner until nearly 21:00. Finally, we
walked into town and split a pizza. It
was a quiet Sunday night in Santa Rosalia and we couldn’t find an open ice
cream store, so we headed back to the boat and got ready to leave.
 |
| El Boleo Bakery |
At 23:37 we cast off the lines and set off to make the
crossing to Guaymas. There was a good
breeze, so we put up the sails and turned off the motor. The moon was full and we could see the lights
of Santa Rosalia behind us. We couldn’t
have asked for a nicer evening.
May 23, 2016
 |
| Dawn Crossing the Sea |
I had the midnight to 2:00 watch. The wind quit towards the end of my watch and
I had to roll up the jib and continue under motor. By the time Jon came on at 2:00, we could see
the outline of Isla Tortuga in the distance.
We had three to four foot swells, which made sleeping difficult. John called me back on deck about 3:00 to put
the jib back out because the wind had increased to twelve knots. I was still awake, so was glad to shut the
motor off, thinking it might be easier to sleep without the engine noise. Not! I
lay there all night, monitoring our position on the GPS and keeping an eye on
the wind speed.
 |
| Cabo Haro |
The sun was already rising by the time I came back on at
6:00. We were still proceeding happily
at over five knots under sail. About
7:30, the wind started to drop. I tried
to roll up the jib, but the furling line was so encrusted with salt that it
wouldn’t budge. We were still moving
faster than four knots and had made good time all night, so I decided to wait
until John got up to furl the jib. By
the time Jon came up at 8:00, the wind was back up to ten knots and we
continued sailing all the way to Guaymas.
 |
| Cactus Covered Island |
I tried to sleep for the rest of the morning, but only
managed a couple of short naps. I got up
again at noon and came out to witness rounding Cabo Haro. We cleared the cape and turned up into the
bay where Guaymas is located. Several
large ships were anchored in the outer harbor.
We continued up the bay and rounded an island covered in so many cactus
that it appeared to be a pine forest.
Behind the island, we could see the city of Guaymas, the marina, and the
forest of masts in the boat yard where we would be hauling out.
 |
| Doney's Loncheria |
We were hot and tired when we arrived, so we napped and
showered and didn’t try to do much that afternoon. We walked into town for an early dinner at
Doney’s Loncheria. Then we took a walk
through downtown Guaymas. A number of
fine old buildings were in stages of advanced disrepair, giving the town the
appearance of decay, although it was bustling.
We walked until dark and then stopped for ice cream before returning to
the boat. I couldn’t even stay awake
long enough to finish one drink. I tried
to read, but fell asleep in my clothes.
 |
| Guaymas Appeared to Have Seen Better Days |
May 24, 2016
 |
| Guaymas Marina |
Our mission for the day was to prepare Comet to be hauled out at the Marina Seca (dry marina) where she
was being stored for the summer. The
desert sun is quite hard on equipment and there is always the danger of items
disappearing from unattended boats. We
needed to remove all the sails and canvas, as well as the barbecue, propane tanks, autopilot, and safety equipment. The dinghy had to be deflated and stowed in
its protective cover. All the lines were
brought forward and bundled together where they could be wrapped in a tarp to
protect them from the sun. Don and I
started by removing and folding the sails while John emptied the water
containers and dosed them with chlorine to prevent algae from growing in
them. Once the sails and dinghy were off
the boat, we rinsed the salt out of everything.
It was amazing how rigid the lines had become. They were completely encrusted with
salt. Even a thorough rinsing did not
completely restore their flexibility.
They would require a good washing with soap and fabric softener.
 |
| View of Guaymas from Comet |
After we worked up an appetite, I made bacon and
eggs with warm tortillas. We tried to
find a rental car to drive to the border, but were unable to find one even to
use while we were in Guaymas. After brunch,
John and I set off to the bus station to buy bus tickets to Nogales where we
would cross the border and pick up a one way rental car on the other side. We walked up the main street for a few blocks
but, seeing only buses heading the other direction, eventually determined that
outbound buses used the next street over.
We finally caught a bus and had no trouble riding it to the Tufesa bus
terminal. Our tickets cost 360 pesos or
about $23 for the six hour ride to Nogales, Sonora. After buying our tickets, we visited three
auto parts stores looking for a biocide diesel additive, but finally had to
admit defeat. We were hot and thirsty
and couldn’t find anywhere to buy a drink, so we hopped back on a bus and rode
it downtown where we found an Oxxo for cold bottled water.
At the boat, Don was just finishing scrubbing down
the dinghy. We spent the remainder of
the day wrapping scraps of sunbrella around the instruments, furler, blocks,
and other exposed plastic parts.
As evening came, we barbecued a big slab of
marinated arrachera and ate it with beans, tortillas, and salad. Guaymas didn’t offer much in the way of
nightlife, but we did take a walk uptown to explore and get some ice cream for
dessert. John fell asleep early and I
wasn’t far behind him.
May 25, 2016
 |
| Marina Seca from Afar |
I got everybody up early on haul out day. For once, we ate breakfast before we got
started. I cooked the last of the bacon,
eggs, and tortillas and then gave the remainder of our fresh food to the fellow
next door. He was quite glad to receive
it as he was down to beans because he was hauling out, himself, in a few days
and didn’t want to buy groceries. We
stripped the dodger and bimini canvas off and removed the remaining equipment
from the cockpit area. We packed our
bags, cleaned the interior, and set out roach bait to discourage infestation in
Don’s absence. I wrapped up the lines as
best I could. By noon, we were ready to
motor across the bay at Guaymas to Gabriel’s marina seca where we had an
appointment to haul out at 13:00. The
bay was rather shallow and our haul out time was set to coincide with high
tide.
 |
| Pink Sandstone Island |
The yard was tucked behind an island which
looked like the Disneyland version of desert with pink boulders and cactus. We had been told to look for a large white
buoy, beyond which we would see a series of small buoys leading to the travel
lift. We looked and looked for the white
buoy, but had located the small ones before we noticed it tied to a severely
listing shrimper. We couldn’t raise
anyone on the radio or the telephone, so we eased the boat into the ways and
tied it up there while Don went in search of the haul out crew who must have
been at lunch.
 |
| Comet out of the Water |
 |
| The Ways at Marina Seca |
Despite a slow start, the guys did a very careful job of securing Comet in the slings. It was the policy of the yard to send a diver down to inspect their placement before beginning the lift. It took quite a while, but we were happy to wait, although it was blistering hot in the yard and we were glad of the bottle of mineral water I had grabbed off the boat as we left. They were equally careful while blocking the boat, using four stands on each side and one each in front and back and chaining opposing stands together to prevent them from slipping. When Comet was secure, we were able to remove the wheel and stash the jerry cans and outboard motor below. Don went to the office to take care of the paperwork and call a taxi while I lowered the heavy bags to the ground with a halyard. The taxi beat Don back to the boat and we were soon wedged into a Nissan Sentra with all our gear for the short trip to Hotel San Enrique where we spent our last night in Mexico.
 |
| Mexican Plumbing is Always Entertaining |
John and Don shared a room for 520 pesos and I
had one to myself for 450. Hotel San
Enrique was nothing fancy, but it was clean and there was hot water in the
shower. It seemed strange and rather
lonely to have all that space to myself.
The mattress was the usual Mexican torture device, but I didn’t dare
open my big duffle bag to remove my foam pad for fear I would never get it
closed again. Shortly after we arrived,
we reconvened to go out for dinner.
John, being the wild and crazy guy that he was, wanted to go somewhere
with a little action. Guaymas, at least
downtown, was not geared towards partying.
Since it was our last night in Mexico, we decided to spend 200 pesos
($13) to take a taxi to San Carlos. We
stopped at Los Arbolitos, a nice upstairs restaurant with a water view. We had margaritas and shrimp stuffed with
cheese and wrapped in bacon while watching the sun set.
 |
| View from San Carlos |
Unfortunately, even in San Carlos things were
pretty slow. We were among the last
customers to leave the restaurant and, though they had called us a taxi, it
never arrived. The employees had left,
but we were still standing by the side of the road, 26 kilometers from our
hotel. Finally, three Mexican fellows in
a nice minivan offered to take us with them back to Guaymas. They were headed that way, anyway. They were very friendly and we had a nice
conversation on the way back. We were
very happy to get home and I gave the driver the taxi fare for his trouble.
May 26, 2016
 |
| Desert Near Guaymas |
 |
| It Got Greener as We Traveled North |
John and I got up early to have time to eat
breakfast in the hotel restaurant before we left for the bus. The taxi picked us up at 8:00 and we were at
the bus station by 8:15. The bus was on
time and we left at 8:50 for the ride across the desert to Nogales. At first, we saw lots of sand and cactus, but
the scenery grew gradually greener as we approached the border. Cactus gave way to palo verde trees and shrubs
until we were glimpsing cottonwoods in the wetter areas. Our bus was supposed to arrive in Nogales at
14:15, but it was closer to 15:00 by the time we arrived. We easily got a taxi to take us to the border
where we walked through a gate (the first one had a bypass for those of us with
big bags), along a passageway, and through another revolving gate of the sort
with the interlocking metal bars inimical to carts or big bags. Each of us somehow managed to get through
with lots of pushing and squeezing and annoying our fellow travelers. Passport control was quite backed up. We waited for quite some time before we were
finally admitted, but didn’t have any real difficulty.
On the other side, everyone was still speaking
Spanish and it still felt like Mexico.
We quickly found a taxi to take us to the rental car agency where things
finally started to feel American. We
needed a full sized car and we found ourselves loading into a big, black Dodge
Charger. Not having eaten since early in
the day, our first stop was a disappointing meal at Carl’s Jr. In cholesterol comas, we headed west for
Southern California and home.
 |
| Sunset Near Phoenix |
No comments:
Post a Comment