We left La Paz a week ago last Wednesday and have been slowly working our way northward up the east coast of the Baja. We made a short hop the first night from La Paz to Caleta Lobos, where we met the owners and crew of ‘Firecat’, a beautiful Moorings charter catamaran, then pushed northward past Islas Espiritu Santo and Partida to gorgeous Isla San Francisco.
We shared the anchorage at Isla San Francisco with several other boats, including probably all the other Caliber 40s in Mexico – ‘Hello World’ from Seattle and ‘Pamdemonium’ from British Columbia.
We went hiking on the beaches and rocky ridges during the days and had many happy hour get-togethers.
“The craic was 90" as they say in Ireland… endless great stories of waterfront misfits and imprudent mariners, but the best was a 1 day old fish story. Kevin (from ‘Pahto’) and Steve and Charlotte (from ‘Willful Simplicity’) had been hiking across a ridge 500 feet above the bay when they saw a mahi-mahi swimming in the shallows just of the beach. "I’m gonna go get it" said Kevin to the amazement of his hiking mates. He flew down the precipitous hill with the abandon of a starving man, his hoofprints reportedly 8 feet apart by the time he hit the beach. He plunged into the shallows and swept the 3 foot fish onto the beach with both arms! We’d put down $5 that this was not a well mahi, but still, the guy caught a live pelagic upper-level predator with his bare hands from the top of a mountain.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kevin, the amazing Mountain Top Fisherman.
K had his own excitement when he shot what he thought was a small snapper in a hole and pulled out a sweet, big, very dead Leopard Grouper instead (“It was dark in there”).
We continued northward last Sunday, stopping briefly at Punta Evaristo for a night, then on to Puerto Los Gatos where, after a nerve-wracking passage between two rocky reefs K further tested S’s nerve by directing her to park right up near the beach. We dropped the anchor in only 7 feet of water and had an unbeatable front-row view of the beautiful red rocks that make up the northern point of the bay.
A quick hydrographic survey with K snorkeling along the 5 ft isobath while S shot him in the back of the head with the laser range finder (she rather enjoyed that part) confirmed that the grounding shallows were out of reach with 40 ft of chain down.
After a quick visit ashore we tried to leave the next morning, only to be beaten back by the waves whipped up by the 20-kt northern winds. All the boats in the anchorage watched us leave, and a half-hour later they all watched us come back in; some provided good-natured commentary, others provided the socially crippled responses one might expect of people who live alone on the ocean in ageing plastic pods that whiff of raw sewage and mildew.
We were up before the sun the next day, following the parade as every boat in Los Gatos hauled anchor and, taking advantage of the morning calm, set off for their selected harbors to sit out the forecasted norther.
We had selected Bahia San Marte, only about 15 miles to the north, and made it there by late morning. ‘On Verra’ was already settled in, an interesting couple of circumnavigators… Alicia’s been a full time blue water sailor all her adult life, Alfredo the Italian was high-end lingerie corporation exec ($300 bloomers, Italian dressage horses, early retirement) who at 60 is more fit than K was at 19. We shared the anchorage for the next several days, each boat spinning like a second-hand around the clock as the nominally "northern" winds whipped over the surrounding hills from a variety of surprising directions.
We left San Marte this morning and came around the corner to Agua Verde. There’s a small fishing village on the beach nearby and scads of sea birds. We’ll go ashore tomorrow to check out the town and hopefully buy some vegetables.
Happy birthday Kathryn Ann! We love you!
