Leaving Bahia de los Angeles

We have been having so much fun we haven’t written a post in a while!

After the excitement of reaching our northernmost destination in the Sea of Cortez, Bahía de los Angeles, the fun kind of fizzled. We enjoyed our time in the village. We shopped and ate out and hiked out to the end of the lighthouse point. Things were pretty good except the water was murky with red tide and cold. We’re talking California cold. Our temperature gauge read 56 degrees F at one point!

In any case we were enjoying ourselves. We were in good company and Foxy made a new canine friend who went on our walkabouts with us. We even took him out to lunch one day.
We wanted to get some time at the outlying islands in the bay. We decided to start with Isla Ventana and then planned to go to Isla Angel de la Guarda. Unfortunately the wind turned on us during the night at Ventana. This coupled with the nearly nine foot tidal swings turned what had been a cozy but beautiful anchorage into a tight spot with rough swell. Shamaya, trying to leave room for the rest of us, had tucked in up near the rocks. In the wee hours they found themselves frighteningly close to the cliff and rocky beach and left the anchorage. It was a dramatic departure and an abrupt end to the great time we had spent with Lance and Pam. SeaGlub also departed northbound while we turned our bow south. The forecast promised uncomfortable nights at Angel de la Guarda so we opted to begin our journey back to La Paz and take a more leisurely pace.
In the end we are happy with our decision. We stopped in once again at San Francisquito and found new and stunning hiking. We met some new friends there. Nancy, single handing on Aldabra, another Catalina, is buddy boating with Jeff and Jules aboard El Gato, an Antares 44i. Those of you who know our boat dreams know the Antares is our lottery boat. If we win, we’re getting one! And yes, when we went over for sundowners we discovered she was just as beautiful as we remembered.

We ended up spending an extra night in Santa Rosalía to hang out with them more. We had a great time. Our only regret is we didn’t get any pics with them since we were all too busy chatting!
From Santa Rosalía our next stop was Punta Chivato. We hiked around the ruin of what was once a beautiful hotel and beach walked while Foxy swam. Then we proceeded to Posada Concepciòn. It turns out Adam has a former coworker, Kirk, who has a house on the beach here. We were able to catch up with him and spend some beautiful nights in the bay. The water is clear and 84°, so we cleaned the bottom of the boat and paddled out to the reef.

We moved on after spending an extra night in Concepciòn as well and made our way to San Juanico. We missed this stop on the way up and we’re thrilled we saw it on the way back. It’s one of our favorites to date. We arrived with wind speeds topping 26 knots and anchored in howling conditions for the first time. In the past, we have been anchored by the time the wind built. This was a new experience with the wind pushing Volare backwards as chain ripped out of the locker and over the bow. The boat performed perfectly though and we swung on a well set hook for a few more hours before it laid down for the night.

We again met some friendly fellow cruisers and spent an extra night in Juanico. Donnie and Wendy on September Song are sailing their first season, having recently purchased the boat. They are familiar with Baja due to their time traveling in a van and camping here. They introduced us to Sarah and Leandro who were camped on the beach. They are making their way from California to Argentina in a truck rigged up for comfortable camping. It was fun sharing stories with all of them over cocktails and a beach bonfire. This time we did get a photo but we’ll have to get into internet access and have Wendy email it to us since it was on her phone! In addition to our socializing, we made a couple of hikes with stunning vistas and even stumbled upon a river that offered a refreshing swim during a long, dusty hike.

We departed San Juanico reluctantly and trekked on southward. We anchored last night in a tiny cove called El Refugio (V-cove) on the north side of Isla Carmen. Stunning does not begin to describe this place. The walls of the cliffs are made of various shades of pink, purple, green and white. The beach at the head of the cove is the softest white sand and the water so clear we could watch our anchor at work from 25 feet above it. We lowered the dinghy to explore what we thought might be a little cave and discovered several caves, some so deep we could have gotten Volare in if not for her mast. The cave walls were beautifully colorful and the clear water revealed the perfect white sand bottom of each cave. The natural beauty of this place has left us in absolute awe of what nature can do.

This about brings us up to date. As I write, we are motoring along on the way back to Agua Verde, hoping to get enough wind to raise the sails. We can only upload one low resolution photo via the Iridium Go and it’s got to be one of El Refugio. We’ll go back once we get internet access and add more. Hope you enjoy!

Anchored in V-Cove on Isla Carmen’s North shore

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