Legendary Sea of Cortez – Southbound
Tuesday, April 28th – As much as we are enjoying cruising around the Sea of Cortez, it’s time to leave off our travels here and return to Puerto Vallarta. Our land ports are calling! Pulling anchor, we motor out of Bahia Conception turning southeast down the Baja coastline.
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In the afternoon, we are treated to an even better wildlife show than we had in this location on the trip north. We are amazed by a long line of seabirds. There are hundreds of them flying out there parallel to our course. We can see them diving into the water searching for fish. The water is exploding from Pelican dive bombers. There are lots of gulls and brown boobies with frigates harrassing the gulls, making them drop their food so the non-swimming frigates can get it. There must be small fish here, but we are not catching anything.
An hour later, we note a wide, dark band streaming along the water again running parallel to our course. What is it? The water is churned up. What is there?
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Dolphins! We have never seen so many. The line looks like a column of marching soldiers, at least a mile long and very wide. There must be hundreds out there. Whatever caused them to so congregate, and where are they going? A few of them break off from the massive group to frolic with Avante as she, too, is moving across the waters.
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Late in the afternoon as we motor along, the engine suddenly begins to screech. We quickly shift to neutral and the engine dies. With no engine, we raise the mainsail and try to sail, but without even a whisper of wind, Avante just drifts slowly with the current back toward Punta Pulpito. The Captain goes below to troubleshoot the engine and finds that our large Balmar alternator has frozen up. This is the alternator that provides electricity to charge our batteries when we are motoring, but it’s functioning is not essential to keep the diesel engine running. The Captain disconnects the alternator by removing the belts. The diesel engine is started and runs fine. Looking back at the rocks on Punta Pulpito, wee breathe a sigh of relief and continue on to our destination under engine power.
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At the end of the day, we motor into San Jacinto to drop anchor. This is a place that we wanted to return to and spend more time. As we often see along this coast, the nearby landscape is dominated by the multi-colored rock formations.
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Wednesday, April 29th – We wake to the chirping and flutterings of hundreds of small water birds floating around us. Mother Nature has sure shown us a panoply of aquatic life in the last 24 hours!
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We would love to go hiking here, but our first priority is to fix the alternator. The Captain digs out our spare and installs it. As always seems to be the case, there are some issues, and it is not until noon that everything is working and cleaned up. By now, the day is too hot to go hiking, so we just relax on the boat. It is well into spring with summer weather on its heels. As daytime temperatures keep getting hotter, we realize that we are going to have to perform our outdoor activities in the morning.
Thursday, April 30th – It is only 28nm to our next stop at Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen. Once again, it is sunny with no wind, so we are motoring. Our Yanmar diesel engine performs admirably, and the spare Balmar alternator is charging the batteries. With great timing, the wind begins to pickup just as we turn in toward our anchorage! We find Puerto Ballandra to be a good anchorage that is well protected on all sides but the west.
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Isla Carmen, offers us several opportunities to get out for a good hike. Even though it is a warm afternoon, we head ashore for one. From above the anchorage, we have a good view across to the Baja Peninsula in the hazy distance. Later that night, we could easily see the lights of the town of Loreto from our anchorage.
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Hiking out here is a hardscrabble trek across dry rocky, ankle-twisting ground, and it is often breathlessly hot. Needing to protect her skin against sun-poisoning blisters and hives, the First Mate is always in some kind of loose-fitting UV protective garment. Air does flow through it, but how she wishes she could walk about unencumbered.
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Back on Avante, it is shower time. First a jump in the water to refresh and rinse off the salty sweat. Then, up on deck, we shower. The air is warm, but still it is a delight to be able to select hot water on the fresh water hose at the aft end of the boat.
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Friday, May 1st – Due to a general lack of wind, we have decided to get some some fuel at Puerto Escondido today. Because the entrance channel there is fairly shallow and the tide is low this morning, we do not want to try to enter until early afternoon. With plenty of time before leaving Puerto Ballandra, we take an early morning hike down an arroyo to Bahia La Salina which used to have a salt evaporation operation.
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Spring time in the desert is a surprising time as the blossoming plants seem to compete with each other to put on a display. When we first moved to Arizona, we were amazed to see so many paintings of the desert done in pastels. Where did such imagery come from? Our first spring in the desert showed us that, yes indeed, the desert is ablaze in pastel at this time of year.
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Green also predominates with the many green-leaved shrubs and trees budding out in the spring.
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Reaching Bahia La Salina, we come upon an old concrete basin once used to collect the salt as the sea water evaporated.
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Returning to Puerto Ballandra, again we can see the Baja Peninsula in the distance.
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The colors are so jewel-toned, we could not pass up this photo of Avante.
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Raising anchor, we motor to Puerto Escondido to get fuel. It’s early afternoon, but we find that we are still unable to get through the entrance channel. We try to enter cautiously, but begin to scrape bottom and have to turn back. We are stuck in the Waiting Room, waiting for the tide! The Captain decides that the quickest way to get our fuel and get going is to launch The Dingbat and take our two 50 liter fuel containers into the fuel dock to be filled. This is a cumbersome operation with lots of heavy lifting, but by mid-afternoon, we are on our way south to our anchorage for the night at Bahia Aqua Verde.
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Saturday, May 2nd – This morning, we set off for a hike up to the top of the hill on nearby Punta San Pasqual.
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From on high, there is a great view of Roca Solitaria sticking up at the entrance to the bay. A solitary sailboat is motoring out of the bay past it. Note the calm water.
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Looking back to the bay, we are given a beautiful view of the two lobes below Aqua Verde. What a pretty setting! From up here, it does not look as dry and scruffy a land as it actually is.
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Returning to Avante, a flock of pelicans seems to have been drawn to her. Why? We know not. We have not been fishing and have no fish parts to throw over board. It is amazing. We have never seen so many pelicans as we have in these waters.
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Just before noon, we raise anchor and start motoring south toward Los Gatos. Some light wind comes up for a few hours in the early afternoon, and we raise the mainsail and sail quietly along at slightly over 3 knots until the light wind gets even lighter. The engine goes back on for the last hour.
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The sea is calm in the anchorage at Los Gatos, and we take advantage of the calm conditions to transfer the fuel that we had purchased in Puerto Escondido from our plastic containers into Avante’s fuel tanks.
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The view of nearby Slide Rock Point is lovely, but we are most disappointed that Manuel, the lobsterman, is not here this time.
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Sunday, May 3rd – Today we are going another 45nm down the Baja Peninsula coast to Isla San Francisco. There is a little wind, so we raise the mainsail with hopes, but we motorsail for the entire morning. Finally, at noon, we have enough wind to sail, so we raise the jib and turn off the engine. This is the first significant downwind sail that we have experienced since February when we started north from Manzanillo. It’s so nice to sail downwind for a change that even when the wind drops a bit after several hours, we keep slowly sailing the remaining 5nm to Isla San Francisco. We are in no hurry. We have been to this island several times recently, and are just anchoring for the night.
The next day we continue on to Puerto Ballena. We are trolling the fishing line and catch another black skipjack which we release. These nasty tasting fish are the only thing we have been catching. We have been dragging a fishing line behind the boat for most of our travels in the Sea of Cortez and not caught one fish that we consider edible. For an area teeming with wildlife, we are mystified by our poor luck. The Captain suspects that the clear water and fairly calm seas are giving the fish too much visibility.
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Anchoring for the night in Puerto Ballena, we experience moderate Coromuel winds of 10 – 15 knots from just after dark until midnight, but they are nothing compared to what those Coromuels first barreled down on us.
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Tuesday, May 5th – The final destination on our Sea of Cortez trip is La Paz, which is just over 20nm further south. Of course, we motor the entire way under sunny skies and light winds. We need to get ready for the return trip to Puerto Vallarta and our third Southern Crossing, so we stop at the fuel dock and fill our tanks before docking in the marina. After tying up in the marina, we set about our various tasks of boat work and provisioning.
We look back fondly on our time in the Sea of Cortez. We spent over 4 weeks there and have sailed almost 700nm up and down the Baja Peninsula. Other than the strong Coromuel winds that we experienced in our first week, the sailing has been very relaxed. Maybe too relaxed when we reflect on the percentage of time that we needed to motor. The scenery has been rugged, stark and beautiful. We have seen more wildlife on the Sea of Cortez than anywhere else. And the weather has been fantastic with sun and blue skies. If only the wind would listen to our pleas.