April 2022 – GypsyKramer

The beginning of the goat trail. The road into Agua Verde is behind Nina. This was the best part of the trail.

After an overnight stay at Mangle Solo on Isla San José, a spot we hadn’t tried before, we motored on to Agua Verde. Eight other boats were anchored around the bay, but none of the really big. We spent a couple of days here waiting for the north winds to die down so we can keep heading north, and maybe even get some sailing in.

Anchored off the point in Agua Verde. Gypsy is on the right. It’s a nice protected bay.

We like to anchor down by the point so it’s a hike to get to town. On our first walk in we thought we’d try the goat trail. It looked doable. We got about two thirds of the way around and lost the trail completely. That much of it was loose rock on a steep slope influenced our decision to turn around and head back to the road. We thought it was a fairly rough trail, but we know that someone had been there because there was a pair of dead flip flops just off the path where we turned around.

Views from the road into Agua Verde. In bottom photo, the dirt road in the background goes to Highway 15, about 20 miles from town.

The second morning there, we woke up to a 174′, mini cruise ship, the Safari Voyager, anchored by the town. We drank our coffee and watched an inflatable dinghy zoom to the beach on the point and set up a row of folding stools. The zoomed back. Horses arrived on the beach, but not by dinghy. Passengers were dinghied to shore where they sat on the stools, changed their shoes, got on the horses and headed out. Later a string of kayaks was deployed and folks headed out for another adventure. We briefly talked to a couple from the boat who were from Portland and they were out enjoying themselves. We guessed there were about fifty passengers on the boat. That evening, after the sun went down, lit like a small circus, the boat headed out. We weren’t sure where they were going, but they would be missing some spectacular scenery by traveling at night. We looked them up online and their itinerary does pack a lot into a seven day cruise but it’s the Sea at a gallop.

Our next day in Agau Verde, we headed toward the palm grove, hiking up the path the horses had gone up the day before (the evidence was pretty fresh). Some parts of the path were steep, rocky, and narrow. Would have been interesting on a horse.

Known as Tacos on the beach, the restaurant Brisa del Mar has internet, and really good fish tacos. When the wind was blowing, sitting in the shade was cold. Puffy coats were needed.

The basketball hoop, which can double as a soccer goal, at the school in town. The green building is the school.

A view of the sea heading toward the palm grove in the distance.

The only horse we saw in Barra de Navidad.

Barra de Navidad was as far south as we went this year. On the way back to the Sea of Cortez, we stopped at Bahía Chamela and the small town Perula. The new malecón and panga dock is finished. We did some grocery shopping, made new friends and played some nicely competitive Mexican Train. Meanwhile we waited for a weather window to head back past Cabo Corrientes and into Bahía de Banderas. We got a slip at Marina La Cruz for a couple of days. After a rolly night off Punta Mita,we started our crossing to La Paz. The weather window looked good, so we decided to skip Mazatlan as a stop. Some sixty-three and a half hours later to cover 334 miles and we dropped anchor in Bahia de Los Sueños (also known as Bahia de los Muertos – depends if you want dreams or dead). It’s not quite La Paz but we were tired and it provides a good bay to catch up on some sleep.

Pichelingue. There are two guitar cases on top of the car, probably for the band on the right. We don’t know if the four guys in the band and all their instruments came in the car but since they were much younger than the other beach musicians we’ve seen, they might have squeezed it all in. We weren’t the only ones enjoying their music.

We headed up to Pichelingue to wait for good weather to hit La Paz for some major provisioning. Ran into cruising friends and met some of the campers on the shore. Pichelingue has free camping and is a short drive from La Paz and stores. Otherwise, the services offered are trash barrels and some restaurants. There were actually more campers than boats in the bay.

Heading out of La Paz. There’s a tight turn you have to make right where the ship was anchored to head into and out of the narrow channel that goes into La Paz.

After a couple of days, we headed into La Paz to anchor in the Magote. It took us three tries to find a place to anchor. The Magote was full of boats and because of the strong currents, many have extra long rodes out to try to dampen what one cruiser dubbed the La Paz waltz, the swing that happens every time the tide changes. We finally ended up on the far end down by the Naval base and had room to breathe.

In our wanderings, we went to the La Paz Art Museum which had a nice photo exhibit. Mercado Bravo for fresh vegetables. Allende Books and the Spanish language bookstore up the street were both wandered through.

After three days in La Paz, we motored up to Ensenada el Cardonal on Isla Partida. Walked over to the other side of the island and back. It’s a good introduction to the geology and desert landscape of Baja. As we left, we hauled up the anchor to find the biggest clump of grass we’d ever caught.

Some of the scenery on the walk to the other side of Isla Partida from Cardonal.

Some of the weird and amazing patterns on Cardons, or Elephant Cactus.

More Ensenada el Cardonal. The boat on the bottom right was leaving as we dropped anchor. It sounded like it was driven by a steam engine

Isla San Francisco. Only nine other boats at anchor, four of them sailboats. Hiked up the hook and around and this time went to the bay on the north side. Beautiful curved sand beach, amazingly stark beautiful landscapes.