Sights of Angel de la Guarda

Back in September we spent a couple weeks exploring the island of Angel de la Guarda, starting in Puerto Refugio on the northern end and ending up at Este Ton on the western coast. Very dry place, seemingly devoid of life unless you get off the boat and look a little closer, amazing things can live somewhere where there is so little rain fall.

Puerto Refugio on the northern end of Isla Angel de la Guarda

Puerto Refugio

Este Ton

Exploring the Islands Around Bahia de los Angeles

Jim's 1st Sierra

Rattle Snake on Isla Coronado

Bahia de las Rocas

Isla Coronado

Ensenada Alcatraz

Ghost Crab

Wind, wind and more wind.

Ominous looking clouds

It's Tuesday night and we are sitting at anchor in front of the Village of Bahia de los Angeles. An elephante is currently blowing 90+ degrees on us at about 20-25 knots, it's like being trapped in a furnance. The elephantes are cool air that come over the land from the Pacific side, crossing the desert, where it is super heated and arrives here just about the time the sun goes down. They usually blow for a few hours and then die down, they can get quite violent, heard of them approaching 80-90knots. We are anchored pretty close to the beach, so there is no room for waves to build up, so we're not bouncing around at all.

A couple night ago we had headed up to the La Gringa anchorage to attend the monthly Full Moon Party and at some point during the afternoon a Chubasco blew up.  A Chubasco is caused by a local thunderhead somewhere close by, they arrive suddenly, usually with only a few minutes warning. They can blow anywhere from 25-90knots and usually last anywhere from 1 to several hours. We usually don't get any rain with them, the rain is usually coming down somewhere else. We had been on the beach listening to a presentation on cruising in Central America hosted by someone who'd spent a considerable amount of time down there, when someone yelled 'here comes the wind!' and you could see it moving towards us across the water, we all hoped in our dinghies and hightailed back to our boats. This one was coming from a southerly direction over several miles of open water, which kicked up some pretty big waves and put us on a lee shore. There were about 25 other boats in the anchorage with us and a few anchored in between us and the where the wind was coming from, and we were anchored too close to the beach, so Jim decides we better get out of there. Jim's pulling up the anchor and I'm trying to keep the boat pointed into the wind, getting tossed back a forth across the cockpit by our over-sized tiller. We finally get the anchor up and start crashing through the waves, taking everyone of them over the bow. The front hatch didn't seal properly and so we had water pouring through like a water fall directly onto the bed, the cat was yowling at us to do something about it. He didn't like all that water coming into where he likes to sleep, and since that's where we like to sleep, I was also thinking this really sucks. We only had a few miles to go to get to a protected anchorage and by the time we were getting close to Isla Ventana the wind and waves were already starting to calm down. We pulled into the small anchorage at Ventana and dropped the hook in perfectly calm water and watched an amazingly beautiful sunset.

We probably would of been fine if we had stayed, the wind only ended up lasting for less than an hour but you never know how it's going to turn out or how violent they are going to get, if it had been any more then the 30-40 knots we may not have been able to motor our way out of there had we waited for it to get worse. Our 100lbs anchor has never drug, we usually ride these things out, but not knowing about the anchoring systems of the other boats and because we were so close to shore it's probably a good thing we did leave. Although I think if we had stayed we wouldn't of had to spend the next day rinsing and drying everything out, and I would of been able to sleep in my comfy bed instead of the uncomfortable couch. The good thing about it was we got a pretty good dousing and it helped wash away a lot of that yellow sand that was still stuck to everything from the Chubasco we sat through in San Francisquito.

The other wind common in the Sea of Cortez, is called a Coromuel. They are typical for the southern end of the Baja, they come across from the Pacific Ocean in the evenings, nearly everyday and because they don't have nearly as much land to cross as they do further north, they are a nice cool wind. They blow usually from 10-20knots and are a welcome air conditioning like breeze that helps cool everything off in the evening making sleep much more pleasant. You still have to watch the boats around you and hope they're not dragging but relatively mild when compared to the winds we've been getting up here.

And then there's the hurricanes, which occasionally come up this way, but we haven't had to experience one of those yet and hope we never do. Just a few more weeks to go before the end of the hurricane season, we've got our fingers crossed. Only a couple have made up this far north in the last 40 years, so we're probably safe.

Of course when you want to go somewhere and want to put up the sails, there's no wind to be had. It's all or nothing it seems around here.

We ended up missing out on the party, which was held the following day. They were having some sort of floaty competition, where you were supposed to construct some sort of floating costume, we really weren't prepared for that but I had been planning on making my stir-fried wild rice for the potluck.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Let's see if the internet connection is working well enough to get some photos downloaded.....

Sunset as seen from Isla Ventana

Islas Flecha and Ventana

Sun setting at Puerto Don Juan

On the way to Bahia de Los Angeles

First stop after leaving Santa Rosalia was Punta Trinidad or as we have decided to rename it Punta Pastinaca or Bahia de Las Rayas maybe. Couldn't believe how many stingrays we saw as we passed over the shallow water heading for shore. It must be a stingray breading ground or something, there were 100s of them, everywhere we went a dozens rays would be seen trying to get out of our way. Big ones, little tiny baby ones, at least 2 different species.

Lagoon at Punta Trinidad

Just one of the 1000s of rays that must be in this bay, not somewhere you'd want to get in the water or even get too close to the surf, we saw them just a couple feet from the surfline.

This is Punta Trinidad, I think the headland even looks like a stingray

We only spent one night there, I had wanted to try and get some better photos that showed just how dense the rays were but the weather turned during the night and the anchorage got pretty lumpy so we headed out early for San Francisquito.

Heading around the corner into Bahia San Francisquito the currents collide making some crazy white water conditions, luckily we were going with the current and it was pushing us along at about 8 knots, hit this with the current against you and it get really rough and slows you down to a crawl.

Cala San Francisquito, a nice, well protected cove within Bahia San Francisquito. Our 1st Chubasco, high winds associated with a thunder cell, we usually don't see any rain from these but get the wind and in this case sand, the whole boat was coated by the time this was over. Wind speeds, we were told, were gusting over 40knots.

Cala San Francisquito on a calmer occasion.

Bahia Santa Teresa walking distance from Bahia San Francisquito

Some of the cool rocks found out on Punta Santa Teresa

So we arrive at Bahia San Francisquito with 2 good size dorado that we caught along the way and decide to go ahead an anchor in the cove located inside the bay, there were 5 other boats already in there, but with plenty of room for more, that little cala is much bigger than it looks. The best part about this place is the water temp is probably 10-15 degrees cooler than you'll find either up or down the coast from here. So cool and refreshing, temps in the boat dropped below 80 during the night, made sleeping so much nicer.

Another opportunity to get a better dolphin shot presented itself

A Finback Whale's Back Fin

Mr. Pelican wanted to catch a ride with us out to the islands, he landed on the boat and we chased him off about 6 times before he got the hint.

After spending a few days at B of SF, we head for Isla Salsipuedes, a little, guano covered island with nothing growing on it but a few cactus, 1000s of birds and a few Mexican Army guys camping out.

Isla Salsipuedes

What are these things called? I used to know. Amazing display of color

Isla Salsipuedes

While we there we did a little snorkeling and took a little tour around in the dinghy. Neat place but not somewhere you'd want to be if the weather got nasty. Later that evening while I was trying to make the bed, which needed clean sheets because a certain cat, who had eaten one too many giant moths, hung his head over the hatch and threw-up all over my leg, was stepped on by me, who then bit me right through the ankle. Four nice puncture wounds that bled profusely all over my hand woven rug. So the next morning we, with me unable to walk and in an incredible amount of pain, decide we better head for Bahia de Los Angeles and see if we can find some antibiotics, just in case. Luckily it was only a short day of sailing away, motoring actually, no wind at all, seas like glass for much of the way.

Some friend's of ours, who were already in the bay when we got there, fortunately had some aboard and gave me a couple days worth to start with. The next day Jim went into the local clinic and got some more antibiotics and some pain killers. It was couple days before I could walk on it and now it's day 8, one of the wounds is still not completely healed and I still have some swelling going on. The worse part about it is I've been pretty much stuck on the boat, can't walk around too much without my foot swelling up, I can't cool off by jumping in the water and I can't enjoy any frosty cold adult beverages either. Yesterday I went to see the pharmacist at the clinic myself, to see if I should keep taking the antibiotics. There was no wait, no forms to fill out, a very thorough examination of my injured foot, he gave me another weeks worth of drugs and no charge. I love this country!

This really is a beautiful bay though and we have several whale sharks swimming around the boat just about everyday. There's also a cool bat that flies around in the evening, skimming the water, that appears like it might be fishing, I don't know if there is such a thing as a fishing bat, wish I had some night vision goggles or some way to see what they are up to. They're driving Zero crazy, he wants to catch one bad. There's several other boats here now, it's gone from 2 to 20 in just a few days as there is a party planned for tomorrow for the net controllers of which we are not members and so maybe we'll head out and visit some of those nice anchorages around here now that the boats are all here and they are all empty.

Bahia de Los Angeles

Looking out towards the lighthouse

One of the smaller whale sharks that we've seen cruising around the bay