We were all ready to go, decided to check the weather this morning one last time. If the forecasters are right, this will be the first ever hurricane to hit Baja in the first week of June. Back in the 50's there was one that hit in the last week of June. The worst news is that we don't think we will be able to actually leave La Paz again until June 5th or 6th. Hopefully the above forecast is just wrong. Hopefully it doesn't make a right hand turn and visit La Paz.
UPDATE: They were right. Peace. This is Ballandra. You can actually drive to this beach so it's not exactly desolate, but I don't mind sharing a place this gorgeous. We climbed a sand dune and found a lagoon on the other side with a deep blue hole. What an amazing surprise. This kind of beach is Ginger's paradise. She ran to the end, jumped in the water for a swim, then ran to the other end, repeat.
We've been in the La Paz anchorage and it's been a challenge. You need almost twice the normal amount of room in the anchorage, because, instead of everyone swinging the same way with the breeze, the tides push boats towards each other, and around each other. It's like a giant game of bumper boats. The strong tidal currents push us in one direction different directions and then the wind works on the boat from another direction. It makes for a very bumpy, jerky ride. Moving about the boat requires hand holds and careful movements as the boat jerks around in unpredictable ways. Boats often drag their anchors under these uncommon conditions and we all run for our boat hooks and fenders, the game of shuffle board boats begins. After a week of all this fun, we decided to spend a day in Fonatur Marina. Slips are at a premium here, mostly due to the hi-jinks in the anchorage, but Marina Fonatur is a very reasonably priced marina, although it is located way up into the bay where it gets very shallow. Ashika only needs about 6 feet of water to keep her off the bottom and we needed to fill our fresh water tanks before we could leave the bay. Charts showed plenty of depth for us all the way to the dredged channel leading into the marina. The dredged channel is quite long, and we did not expect any problems, after all it’s dredged. Although we were at high tide, Ashika’s keel skimmed across the sand just before the end of the channel. OK, that was close, but no harm no foul. But indeed, we discovered Ashika’s depth meter was 1 foot off, and we had narrowly missed going aground on the trip in. Whew! We believed we could cross in front of the submerged sand pile and avoid having to go all the way around it. I think that’s called arrogance and we were quite wrong. We skimmed to a stop. Dois tried to push Ashika over the shallow spot but much to his chagrin, pushed us further on top of it. He put all rpm's into reverse, but it was too late, we were stuck in the sand. I put out a call to the cruising fleet and Kevin from Andante responded that he could come help with his 20 hp outboard, yeah. Dois threw him a line from the starboard bow and Kevin revved up to a full power tug while I applied full reverse, nothing moved except a whole lot of churned up sand. Dois threw Kevin a line from the port bow chock and tried again. This time, as I revved up Ashika’s 85 horses I thought I felt movement, yes, we were backing off the submerged island and returning to the safety of 15 feet of beautiful water. Thank you Kevin. There was a mild southerly wind predicted for the afternoon and a larger westerly for the evening so we headed out to Bahia Bonanza on the east side of Isla Partida. There are wrecked boats littering the bay, most from last seasons Hurrican Odile. I was watching our depth meter, calling out the amount of water under our keel. “10 feet, 11 feet, 9 feet…” when suddenly my callout was “5 feet, 4 Feet!, THREE, TWO!!, ONE POINT FIVE!!!” Dois had thrown the engine into reverse at three, but it takes a couple of seconds for Ashika’s folding prop to reverse and grab enough water to stop forward progress and begin the reversing. We managed to get around the shallow spot, and made the rest of the way into our slip with further mishap. We would find our later that our depth meter was a foot off and our return trip would be a humbling experience. The marina was deadly calm and after a week of interrupted snoozing, we slept the sleep of the dead. We bought another night. Dois filled all the water tanks and washed the boat, I did 6 loads of laundry and cleaned cushions, while Ginger terrorized birds on the dock. Leaving our slip was tempered by our destination; the desert islands of La Paz. The San Lorenzo channel is between Isla Partida and the La Paz Penninsula and there are dangerous reefs off the ends of each land mass. We had buoy lights and gps waypoints to guide us but the wind and waves fought the helm trying to push us to one side or the other. In between catching items being flung around the cabin, I tried to calm Ginger, who was shaking in her fur. About an hour later we spit of the channel into a slightly calmer sea and we pushed along our gps track from our last visit here keeping a flashlight focused on the depth meter. It was a harrowing 20 minutes with Dois on the bow trying to make sure we didn't bump into anything while I'm at the helm, blind, trying to hear Dois’ voice on the wind. Each time Dois shouted a direction, Ginger went wild, thinking her Daddy was in trouble (cause he never yells). Finally we reached 15 foot depths and we thought we were as close to shore as we dared go. It was still blowing hard, but we had found a level of acceptable protection and dropped the anchor. What a very long day. The reward: Playa Bonanza is a desolate beach, with so few visitors that seagulls lay their eggs in the sand and large shells are heaped up the sand dunes, left for the wind and sand to polish into jewels. The island is uninhabited except for those critters capable of scraping a living out of this desert Xanadu. There are trails and tracks everywhere, some looking like impossibly large kitty prints. The southerly was not "mild", it was 20+ knots and was making the trip to the east side a completely nasty ride. We changed tack and headed for the west side of Island, Bahia Grande, and watched the wind roar just outside the bay worrying about those forecast westerlies. The strong easterlies convinced us that the west wind forecast wouldn't be any more accurate, but I think it was really just a lot of wishful thinking. The west winds showed up, fast, furious and on time, 6pm. We faced a narrow channel in the dark, but we had very little choice, we had to go. I thought this seagull was acting downright suspicious, so when he took off after Ginger, I snuck up see there to see what treasure he was guarding behind that grassy knoll... Lo and behold, her chicks were hatching. All three had cracked their beautifully camoflaged shells and were working their way out. I would have stayed for the grand reveal, but Ginger was making the parents too nervous. The sea is 50 shades of turquoise rimmed by miles of white beach that's not really sand but a finely ground shell. From the beach you can see colorful reef fish in the crystal clear waters. Hike up a sand dune and gaze on miles of untouched desert, mountains and cactus gardens. There is also a keen sense of being watched, your unlikely presence most certainly a curiosity. Peace.
Sweet PicklesAs difficult as it was, Dois and I agreed we must sail on. Anchor hoisted, we pointed the bow toward the next little slice of Mexican heaven; Isla San Francisco. The natural bay is large and accommodating, thankfully. There are quite a few boats migrating north for the season, marching along, each with a date with a slip or boatyard or safe harbor from the dreaded hurricane. As usual we seem to be going against the grain.
This lovely creature followed us on our way to Puerto Los Gatos. He seemed to enjoy Ginger's incessant squealing or at least he was very curious what kind of creature could make such screeching noises. That water is still a bit chillier than we expected (and are used to), but with the cold comes clarity. We were anchored in 20 feet of water, but it seemed more like 5 feet. We were living in an aquarium.
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