Sailing Down the Baja

To head south from San Carlos we had two options: head south on the mainland side for four days to reach Topolobompo and another couple days to reach Mazatlán; or cross over to the Baja and arrive at San Juanico the next day, work our way down and then cross over from somewhere near La Paz. We went with option two and had a smooth passage, including bobbing in place for three hours when the wind died. One of the goals this year is to sail more, motor less, even if it means bobbing.

Rested up, the trek south began. Our goal was to be in Banderas Bay by Christmas. Schedules are the bane of a sailor’s existence, but we thought it was doable if we chugged along. Most stops on the Baja are short day hops. We hit a weather window where we sailed to most of our destinations, but it still felt like we should be changing the words to Route 66. We had San Juanico, Isla Coronados, Puerto Escondido, Agua Verde, San Telmo, San Evaristo, Isla Partido. We’ll go everywhere, man. Ok, it only sort of works, but the stops do have a nice ring to them. Most of the towns are really villages, and they are challenging to get to by road, but by water, they are popular destinations.

Isla Coronados had dolphins swimming by, a couple of fishing boats going by, and a nice walk along the trail up from the beach to the spit. Nice spinnaker run to Puerto Escondido and back to our old friend mooring ball 31.

Agua Verde had no goat cheese again, so we headed on. Of the options for a next stop, we like San Telmo. It’s not as popular as Los Gatos, but we like the solitude and the scenery.

If you charter a sailboat out of La Paz, San Evaristo is about as far north as you will get in your week. We got there just before eight charter boats arrived. We could see them coming from Isla San Francisco, and to their credit, many of them were sailing. We had just dropped anchor in the bay when they all charged in. Charter boats do not believe in slowing down in anchorages, nor really in giving anchored boats space to safely swing if the wind picks up. A practice new to us was driving through the anchorage just using bow thrusters. This same boat anchored with the person on the bow not understanding depth markers and had no idea how much anchor rode was out. The anchor was dropped and everyone went to the bow to look over at where the anchor was. They decided it was good. They did not back down on it to set it. We decided to leave the confusion, and we weren’t the only ones. We headed to the north side and had a nice quiet, safe anchorage to ourselves.

We dinghied back over to the town side in the morning hoping for internet, but it was not to be. The tienda wasn’t open yet. Almost all of the smaller villages on the coast are phone bars deserts and the only way to get any access is to buy it from a tienda or a restaurant.