Long Leg to Cabo

Light House on Punta Tosca

We finally got tired of Magdalena Bay after trying to kill most of August in hopes of avoiding the worst of the heat that we knew we'd find once we got into the Sea of Cortez. We set off on the what would be to date the longest leg of our journey, 180nm to Cabo. We had thought initially that if it turned out to be a windless day, which it did, we could always break up the voyage by stopping for the night at Punta Tosca on the Southern tip of Isla Margarita. One of the guide books (published in 1988) described it as an acceptable anchorage while another one says for emergency use only. Francisco de Ulloa anchored here in 1539 and described it as a good place to anchor, well a lot has changed since then, Isla Cresiente may not have even been present at that time. What we found when we approached was breaking waves about 100 yards on either side of the supposed anchorage and a number of sharks swimming around, not that sharks would be a problem but it did make it all seem a little more ominous. There didn't seem to be any calm water just east of the light house, so we continued on.

Fortunately the wind finally did pick up as we motored away from Isla Margarita, we put up sail and we were joined by 100s of dolphin heading in the same direction we were.

Sun Setting on our 1st Overnight Voyage

As soon as it got dark however, I got seasick. I had felt fine all day, but something about trying to navigate in the darkness made me nauseous. I went below and tried to get some sleep. Jim woke me up at some point so I could take the watch while he tried to sleep. At around 2am the wind was dying and we were only going about 2.5knots so we took down the sails and started up the motor, that was the last of the wind we'd see for a couple days. I went below to throw up some more, fell asleep for a couple hours, Jim woke me up again to come and see the bioluminescent plankton we were moving through. I've been told by several people that this is why they like sailing at night far more than any other time of the day. It was pretty cool, looked like there was a alien ship with it's lights on hovering below the surface of the water. It made my nausea return though, so was really unable to enjoy it all that much.

Fishing Boat at Dawn

The next morning, I'm still sick, which is strange, the only other couple of times I had been seasick I felt better after throwing up and it would pass after awhile, I now have diarrhea too, so I'm thinking I must have something more, maybe food poisoning. Jim tried again to get some sleep while I went on watch for a few hours. He wasn't really able to sleep, so he let me sleep, which I did for most of the rest of the day. While he was on watch, he saw a school of marlin with one, what he estimated to be about 900lbs, come out of the water about 40 miles north of Cabo. 

It was approaching dusk as we neared Cabo and there were literally 100s of rays flying out of the water, they would jump, flap their wing like fins a few times, fall back in the water and try again. Tried to get a picture, but they wouldn't come out of the water when I had the camera ready, and I wasn't feeling all that hot anyway, so I just gave up. We also saw what we think was a female, which are much larger than the males, being followed by several males, which made us think it was breeding season. Seems I remember seeing a nature show on the sex life of rays where they described the same behavior.

It was dark by the time we reached the anchorage in front of Cabo San Lucas, there weren't any other boats there, and there was a bit of a swell but not too bad, we figured we were tired enough to sleep through just about anything. Slept until about 2am when Jim noticed the movement of the boat had changed and when he got up to take a look, found that the wind was now coming out of the south and the swells had gotten much larger. Not being a good place to be when the wind comes from the south putting us on a lee shore with breaking waves just a few yards away, we pulled anchor and moved the boat into the harbor thinking we could sit at the fuel dock until they opened as we needed to top off the fuel tanks anyway. We got to a fuel dock, tied up the boat and was met by a security guard who said we could not stay there unless we paid for the night. When I asked how much that would be, he pulls out his chart and shows me that it would be $158 US, but I said "it's 3am and you open at 6, you want $158 for 3 hours?!"
"Si"
Tried to talk him into something more reasonable but he wasn't budging. So we untied and went in search of another fuel dock, luckily there was more than one. At the other one, the guy comes out and says "No problema, you buy fuel from me, I not charge you, we open at 5:30". To which we said "Gracias! Senor" and Jim gave him a cigar.

So at 5:30 we got our fuel and we were on our way, it was still dark out and so we did not get to see Cabo, we heard Cabo, it was Friday night after all and the clubs go all night long it seems and there was one rather loud, obnoxious parrot in the harbor making all kinds of noise, not knowing he should of been sleeping because of all the lights.

Marina Puerto Los Cabos

So we only made it as far as San Jose del Cabo that morning, Jim was exhausted and I was still throwing up and Zero was looking pretty miserable too, so we figured we bite the bullet and pay for a night at a much too expensive marina so we could recover before heading on.

Turned out that we didn't get too bad of a deal at Puerto Los Cabos, the marina is fairly new and still under construction and while they advertise that they get $23-32/ft per month and they wanted $100+ for one night for a 45'slip, which was a bit better than the prices they wanted in Cabo, which is all rather ridiculous if you ask me, for one thing it's more than any marina in California charges and for another it's off season and all these marinas are half empty, but anyway, when we balked at the price, they offered us a slip on the other side of the marina which didn't yet have power or security gates for $40/night, we took it. We make our own power, haven't needed to plug into the dock in years, make our own water too by the way, supposed to self sufficient when you go cruising, right?

Marina's Artworks by Mexico's Famous Woman Surrealist Leonora Carrington

After a couple days of finally being someplace hot, it was in the upper 90s when we got here, big change, we were still wearing sweaters on the way into Cabo, we decided that maybe we should stay a few more days, get acclimated to the heat, since it's at least 5-10 degrees hotter in La Paz. The marina manager, Jim, made us a deal for 2 weeks at about $20/night, which we decided to go ahead and splurge a bit, not like we're in a hurry anyway.

Beach where we've been going to swim about everyday

Mothra and the Gecko

Puerto Los Cabos

Made a new friend, he gave us a ride to town in his Jeep

So we've been here, acclimating to the heat, finally gotten to the point where I can function during the day instead of just lay around and sweat, meeting interesting people, making new friends, not learning much new Spanish because everyone here speak really good English, eating at all the different tacos stands (favorite so far has been the fish tacos at restaurant Puertos los Villas and the guy who cooks pollos al carbon while blasting Michael Jackson music), swimming in ocean water that doesn't send you into shock (although I did get stung by something on my foot that created the most unbelievable pain for hours without leaving any sort of redness or swelling), and  just getting to know our way around. Zero's been having a grand ole time too, he sleeps all day under the awning and roams around at night and so far has stayed out of trouble.

Think maybe we'll head out of here in the next couple days, go check out Los Frailes and Ensenada de los Muertos before arriving in La Paz.

P.S. I think maybe it was food poisoning after all, Jim got sick too, but not from anything we ate from Mexico but the peanut butter we brought from the states, a couple days later while cleaning out the frig, I found the jar of peanut butter was bubbling, not good! It was something both of ate before getting sick. Think maybe peanut butter without the sugar and preservatives isn't such a good idea when you get to these tropical places where things like to live and multiply at a much faster rate. You should see the varieties and colors of the different molds that will grow on a corn tortilla after only a couple days, amazing.

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.

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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.