June 2021 – GypsyKramer

Finally, cheese. Goat cheese from the farm between San Juanico and La Ramada. Fresh made that morning. Secret to the pattern, plastic colander.

Last season, the farthest north Gypsy got was San Juanico, or if you are a camper, San Basilio, which is the name of the point rather than the bay’s name. The wave and wind forecasts were sounding like we’d be in for a bouncy time if we anchored in San Juanico, so we headed around to the north side of the point and anchored in a little cove called La Ramada, where we’d be safe from anything out of the south. There were three boats anchored there. We knew one of the boats, Raven, from Rose City Yacht Club in Portland, and Interlude, whom we knew from the SSB nets but hadn’t actually met in person yet. It’s always nice to put faces to voices and we soon got to know each other. We played bocce on the beach with Interlude, Raven and a couple of campers from Stevenson, WA.

On the road to the farm at San Juanico. The bottom center photo is the entrance to the farm. It’s not a landscape that you’d associate with fresh vegetables, but behind the trees are a number of raised beds with a basic, but effective watering system. Produce was organic and beautiful. We discovered that raw beets are really good with lime juice. The green bag was part of the haul. Nina had a full backpack full of produce as well.

Plants on the way to the farm. While it’s desert looking, it was spring and leaves were intensely green, cacti were in bloom or about to, and where there were colorful blooms, the colors really stood out.

There’s a road that connects La Ramada to San Juanico, and we walked down it to the farm for fresh greens, eggs, and goat cheese. We discovered that fresh raw beets are very good with lime juice. Got some wind thru the night – low twenties. It got a little rolly, but nobody dragged. In the morning, Raven started back to Puerto Escondido to haul out, and we headed north to the south side of San Pulpito with Interlude. The scenery is gorgeous and the fishing was good! We caught a spotted sand bass on a lure that our friend Annie recommended.

Spotted Sand Bass on Annie’s lure. Tasty fish.

When it’s calm at San Pulpito, you can head out to the point to the sea cave. There’s a huge obsidian plug that you go past on the south side, that has curlicues at its edge. Different kinds of rocks, vertical, ropy, weathered into lacy patterns. When you think it can’t get any more amazing or varied, it does. We dinghied through the sea cave using our paddle. On the way back, we caught more two more sand bass. Interlude had invited us over for happy hour, but when we offered them a fish, we were invited to dinner. We brought fish to grill and brownies for dessert, and Laura made the rest of dinner. In the morning, Interlude headed to the north side of San Pulpito, we were off to Santo Domingo, at the top of Bahía Concepción. Later we heard that Interlude hit a rock and damaged their keel badly enough that they had to make a trip back to La Paz to get her hauled out and fixed.

San Pulpito. The black patch on the left is obsidian.

The north side of San Pulpito and a group of pelicans hanging out.

We realized that we needed to be thinking about haulout plans. Santo Domingo sort of had phone bars so we could call or email folks. We liked Puerto Escondido last year. It’s easy to get to by plane or car, the yard is concrete and the boatyard knows their stuff. When we phoned, we found out we’d waited too long. There were a number of boats there that never splashed, probably Canadians unable to travel due to Covid, and the yard was already full. Javier would see what he could do and we’d talk in a couple of days. Plan B, involved heading over to San Carlos, on the mainland. We contacted them. They had room. After talking with Javier again, it was looking like we’d be hauling out for the summer in San Carlos. At Santa Rosalía we would have better internet and Bill was able to work it out with the marina and yard in San Carlos.

A Brown Pelican at San Pulpito. Still one of Nina’s favorite birds.

Goats in town, Agua Verde. One of our older guide books describes Agua Verde as overrun with goats. Not really true, but the cheese is very good.

Our next stop was Agua Verde with SV Jo. We anchored in the northwest part of the bay, and they settled into the central part, nearer town. We met up to eat at the restaurants in town. On our first night in, we tried one of the restaurants on the beach, Faro San Marcial, that had a couple of young men sitting at the other table. The waitress took our order and soon after, the young men took off. They came back shortly with a grocery bag that looked like it contained our dinner ingredients. They were doing the grocery run. The next day we all went for tacos on the beach at the other restaurant. The fish tacos at Brisa del Mar will now be on our list as a must do every time we’re in the area.

The welcome to Agua Verde sign. The big sign tells what’s available in town, but not necessarily where they are located. We eventually found the tiendas, tiny grocery stores, but we did have to ask for local help to locate one of them.

Clockwise starting top left: Gypsy at anchor (the boat on the left); the sign for the last part of the road going down to the beach that reads Peligroso solo 4×4 (danger 4×4 only – even that was optimistic); different views from the road. Once past the sign the road isn’t too rough.

From where Gypsy was anchored, you can dinghy into town, or walk up the road that goes around the cove. We hiked the road into town. It was definitely not a road you could walk in flipflops and the maximum driving speed on most of it would be 5 mph, assuming you had the ground clearance to actually be able to drive it. There were some campers on the beach that actually made it down. The walk in had spectacular scenery with many of the plants in bloom. When we got into town, we hit two of the three small tiendas in hopes of goat cheese. No luck. We were told it was dry season, probably because there were baby goats.

Spring in the desert. The flowering bush in the top left photo is Ironwood and the
cactus with the bloom on the lower left is an Old Man Cactus.

We also walked to the small cemetery over the hill mentioned in the guidebook. It was a small family plot, located seemingly in the middle of nowhere. At a fork in the path you could wander through a palm grove that had big, curving palms on the ground.

Looking down on the cemetery. It turned out to be a a small, family cemetery that was showing signs of neglect and how harsh the climate here can be.`

Palms on the ground. You can see how big the trunks are with Bill standing by them. We could only guess why they were growing horizontally, strong winds and saturated ground, maybe from a hurricane. That might be why they were on the ground, but the curving trunks were strange.

Other animal life in Agua Verde. The pig was tied up and asleep in the shade of someone’s front yard.

The next day, we headed on to Puerto Escondido, while Jo’s destination was Candeleros to check out golfing options at the resort there.

Fishing on the way to Puerto Escondido. Nina refers to this as catch and release salad. It was the only thing she caught.

PE has changed since we left. Rates have increased. There are more large motor yachts. And there is construction on the seawall entering the harbor for a cruise ship dock. The channel and the Elipse are getting dredged. The restaurant is now run by the marina, and the prices there have gone up, too. We spent a couple of nights on a mooring ball and headed back out. Before we left, we caught up on laundry, showers, reliable internet, and with friends.

The south side of Isla Coronados was lovely and we had it to ourselves. We saw dolphins while we were out in the dinghy and were joined by a glass-bottomed tour boat that kept driving through the pod and a panga that stayed back from the pod. The other boats left, and we got some more dolphins! And bees looking for fresh water.