Magdalena Bay

Setting Sun on Isla Magdalena

After leaving San Juanico we set sail for Isla Magdalena about 90nm away at about 2am so we could arrive before dark. Motored for quite some time, running over a couple fish traps in the darkness without getting caught up in them (nice thing about a full keel boat) and finally got some good wind around 11am and turned off the motor. We caught a dorado soon after that and man was it good. We arrived in Bahia Santa Maria just as the sun began to set.

Village of Puerto Magdalena

Next morning we headed for Magdalena Bay and anchored in Man O War Cove near the small village of Puerto Magdalena. Puerto Magdalena has a population of about 130 if you count the dogs and is a WiFi hotspot, at least it is in the evenings when the generator is turned on. Met the guy who helped get computers for all the residents of the village so they would be able to get online and learn for themselves about the future plans the government has for the bay, give them a better idea of what they are voting for or against.

Some of the Plant Life on the Desert Island of Magdalena

Went ashore to stretch the legs, meet the people and see if anyone had beer to sell. The lone restaurant was closed, seems only to open for the cruising crowd in the fall during the HaHa, there's also a market and a deli, same deal I think.  Woke several people up in the process of looking for the guy who another fisherman had told us sold beer, guess we arrived during siesta, but did eventually end up with some Tecate Light, hardly worth the effort. Met some Italian tourists who had rented a little house there for a few days so they could get some sun and do some fishing, certainly wasn't expecting that.

Ponga on Magdalena Bay

We then headed up the bay to Puerto San Carlos to get some supplies and top off the fuel tanks. That's where we met Mark and Jane on their way up to Ensenada (that's Jane in the green with the smiling face). We went and found the grocery and the beer store, a good taco stand, then met Jorge who proceeded to get us all shit faced and then tried to do again on the following evening. Jorge works on one of the fishing boats and gave us a bunch of fish which we cooked up, made some awesome fish tacos.

Getting fuel at the dock in San Carlos

Pelicans waiting for the next boat full of sardines

Super Taco in San Carlos

Ernesto Butchering a Baqueta

Ernesto has a little market where he sells beer and also a seafood restaurant where we got some good seviche tostadas. He showed us how to prepare the red grouper for the grill. He cut it from the back and then gutted it and took out the back bone leaving the belly in tack.

The Wednesday Market in San Carlos

Jorge told us about the 'farmer's market/flea market' that is held every Wednesday morning. We were able to find much better produce there than what we had seen in the stores. You can also by fresh meat there and underwear and things like that.We bought some pork chops for the next leg of the trip just in case we don't catch another fish.

Mexican Truck Ferry

We left San Carlos to go back and anchor at Man O War after spending one too many nights bobbing around with the current holding the boat in one direction and the wind pushing us in another. The current running past San Carlos is wicked. Marcos, the guy who runs the internet cafe, told us that next time we should anchor near the Pemex pier, not so much current over there. Anyway, that is when Jim somehow spotted the above spectacle off in the distance. My camera has a 57X digital zoom and I was somehow, from the deck of a moving vessel, able to get this shot. I had been wondering how they got the trucks out to Magdalena Island seeing how there is no pier, dock or anything and this is the way they do it, 2 pongas lashed together and the truck riding on top. Vehicles that make it to the island stay there until they die and then usually abandoned right where they took their last breath.

Uncharted Navigational Hazard in Mag Bay at approx Lat 24.36'.9 N and Lon 112.05'.4 W, NE of Punta Belcher.             Pass on the outside, on the inside is the shoal that this boat struck before it sank.

 

Birds Feeding on Bahia Magdalena

San Juanico - A Fishing Village with a Surfing Problem

After leaving Bahia Tortugas we stopped for a couple days at Bahia Asuncion. The cruising guide says a good anchorage exists on the Northeastern side of Isla Asuncion, what it doesn't say is that only if you have absolutely no sense of smell would this be a good idea. Isla Asucion is home to a large sea lion colony and very large colonies of sea birds, mostly what I saw were cormorants. Sounds cool, but the smell is horrendous and something that once detected stays with you for hours afterward, and being deaf might help too as I'm pretty sure, sea lions are some of the noisiest creatures on the planet, not to mention all those birds. Visiting these places is best done at the comfort of your own couch with a good video from the BBC. As it was we still got a good whiff of it even anchored over 2 miles away when the wind shifted during the night and we had plenty of sea lions swimming and barking around the boat all night. Nature often doesn't smell very good at all.

Asuncion

Hadn't planned on spending much time there but we were running low on water and when Jim went to start the watermaker up he realized that the mount for the pump had broken, so he spent the day Jimmy rigging it up so it would work at least while we were still at anchor and so we decided we weren't in any real hurry anyway and you can't really rush these things. The next night was spent near Punta Abreojo.

____________________________________________________________________________

Traveling by sailboat allows one to spend more time in each point of space you come to than you otherwise normally would or maybe would want to and so we arrive in San Juanico one full year after leaving San Francisco Bay.  We also arrive on the 1st warm day the San Juanicoans have had all summer and the 1st warm day we've had since leaving San Diego and Jim was finally able to take the long underwear off. We've finally found warm water!  Well it's warmer as the presence of frigatebirds would indicate and people playing in the water without wet suits on, but it still wasn't really hot enough out to make me want to jump into 68-70F water.

Southern side of the Bay at San Juanico

1st of the 4 points, also the easiest waves to ride. We watched surfers ride waves for over a minute and was told that on good days, not only does the population of the town triple but you can ride waves that will take you well over 1 mile.

San Juanico is pretty far off the beaten path like a lot of the small coastal towns we stopped at while heading down the coast, if driving you either need an off-road vehicle and no fear of getting stuck or lost out in the middle of nowhere or you have to take the long way around, which takes you about 150 miles or more south before heading back north on 60 miles of dirt road. Regardless of this, they get a bit more tourism due to the fact that it has some of the best surfing waves in the world and is also a pit-stop for the Baja 1000. It also appears to be one of the best place to learn to surf, which would of been tempting had the water been a bit warmer.

 Super friendly people like everywhere else we've visited so far making their living primarily off fishing. The other residents of the town are American surfer dudes who live their lives with the goal of surfing every day. They told us that most of the cruising boats don't bother to stop there, I don't know why they would skip it. It's a nice anchorage as long as there's no heavy southerly swell, and the bay is a bit shallow, we did have to anchor out about 500 yards. It has a couple good restaurants, including El Burro with decent fish tacos and beer and there's even a guy who makes pizzas on the weekends, a couple markets and internet cafe. Although, it was the only town of any population above a couple hundred that didn't have it's own cell tower, but they say they're next on the list.

The Magnificent Frigatebird, there were hundreds of these guys flying above the bay. The frigatebird needs a high spot to take flight from and so you will never see them land in the water or on the ground but will see them roosting on boat masts. They nest on high cliffs and feed by snatching food off the surface of the water and also by harassing other birds into dropping their catch.

Those are frigatebirds on the upper stays, the frigatebirds go home at some point in the afternoon and the boat will then become covered with pelicans.