The Sea of Cortez - April
We decided to venture out by ourselves for a month long journey up the Sea of Cortez, further north, and work our way back south to La Paz. Did a shorter run today to Isla Coronados where we’ve been before but its one of our favorite islands. Hard to get sick of the white sand and beautiful volcanic rock. We did a short hike on the trail there. Seven Seas, Steven Spielberg’s 280 foot yacht, came in later and anchored on the north side of the island. Just to give you perspective, there are usually 2 or 3 other boats in any particular anchorage. Most are usually sailboats. So this yacht really sticks out! Since Darryn and I both saw ET as kids, we feel we helped pay for it! As we enjoyed watching the sunset, we saw an incredible sight. Approximately 15-20 dolphins came playfully swimming by our boat! We haven't ever seen such a big pod! It was exciting enough that they came by once but they passed our boat three times! They were jumping completely out of the water at times! It was quite the sight! There is so much amazing wildlife in the the Sea of Cortez. We have seen some really spectacular fish off the beach and off our swim grid at night with the lights on. Now that it is warming up here we hope to put our snorkeling gear to use. I learned that the Sea of Cortez is called nature’s aquarium and was a place that Jacque Costeau spent much of his time. Now I see why.
Do you see the profile on this rock?
April 2nd - Left Coronados today and headed to San Juanico Bay which is absolutely stunning! The volcanic rock formations were probably the prettiest we’ve seen. Layers of color and interesting formations of cliffs. So many seashells on the beach! I was in heaven! Found some really interesting shells, which of course I can’t help myself as I plan to make something with them. I could sit for hours looking for the prettiest shells and Darryn could spend hours skipping rocks! They don’t call him Skipper for nothing! ;) Hiking and kayaking around here was very fun. This was the kind of day that was exactly what we were looking for, a lazy, fun day with no schedule. Murf ended up eating some shells and probably something else and ended up getting sick later. Poor thing, it lasted into the evening. Thank goodness she was fine by bedtime. We do not have any service out here so no Netflix or TV! (believe me, that's fine!) Evenings are spent making dinner, talking, reading or playing a game. We do have a satellite service called Iridium Go that we use for weather and some messaging and simple email. It also gives us the ability to voice call in case of an emergency. Watching weather is of utmost importance so we can plan our travel accordingly. We make our own water with a multi filter RO system. This keeps us from having to drink bottled water, which we try to avoid. One of the things that is quite shocking here in Mexico is the lack of recycling. Most places we’ve been don’t have recycling at all. This last marina has plastic recycling but no paper or glass recycling. It is hard to just throw away these things. We compost our food scraps in the ocean. We just have to do our best!
April 3rd - 6th - Off to Bahia Concepcion today which will take most of the day. It is a huge bay up past Loreto in the Sea of Cortez, and the largest sheltered bay on the Cortez coast of Baha. Beautiful volcanic mountains and cliffs on the way up. Anchored right at the entrance at Bahia Santa Domingo (Punta Hornitos). Most boaters don’t go up much further than this as everything is quite remote. The beach at our anchorage was long and a few people were camping. Lots of great shells again! Bright orange and purple colors, amazing that nature has the ability to create such beauty! The water was so calm, not a ripple in the water. A large pod of dolphins passed the boat. It was so quiet and serene as we enjoyed the sunset and made dinner. We leave tomorrow for Playa Santispac in the this huge bay.
April 4th - It's Easter Sunday, a much different one this year! If you would have told me last Easter that we would be cruising the Sea of Cortez in a year I wouldn’t have believed it. Headed down to Coyote Bay to Playa Santispac. It is full of locals spending the holiday at the beach. The water is so clear and aqua blue. Lots of locals on jet skis. It is super shallow near shore, Murf loved running through it! There were about five other boats anchored here, mainly sailboats. We took the dinghy out to check out the area, which is full of little islands with white sand beaches. It is in the 30s today! (that's 90s in Fahrenheit!!)
April 5th -Traveled down the bay a bit farther to Isla Requeson. We wanted to see this island and make water, which we prefer to do when we are away from shore (cleaner water). Isla Requeson is a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow sand spit. Since it is the day after Easter, there were a lot of locals still camping and enjoying the beach. The shallow shore once again made it very fun for Murf to play fetch in the water. The south end got a bit lumpy later in the day so we moved about a mile to the north for shelter, and had a flat calm night!
April 6th - Today was spent cruising to Bahia Santa Barbara. A few sailboats were anchored here and there were some beach homes. We kayaked to shore to walk on the beach to find the store we read about, and found it a short walk across the highway. Most convenience stores in the remote areas, including this one, don’t carry much of anything and the residents don't speak English (which makes sense). It is so interesting to see how different the rural communities live in a developing country. Restaurants are literally dirt floors with kitchens out back that have a sink and stove, not much more! We had a coke, and chatted with a cute little girl who insisted on unpacking our backpack to inspect each item, including Darryn's wallet! Later we took the dinghy out to cruise around the islands and bays nearby. We headed back to Playa Santispac to eat lunch at one of the two restaurants. The weather has been in the 30s the past few days so a cold Pacifico with our fish tacos tasted great!
April 7th - 8th - Early foggy start to Santa Rosalia, a small town which used to be a French Copper mining town. There is French influence everywhere, the architecture, a French bakery, French items on the menus in the restaurants. A pretty clean town, with lots of town squares. There's a real feel of community here, and the locals are so friendly. There is a ferry that goes across the Sea of Cortez to Gyamas (on the mainland) every other day. The marina is small and owned by the government. We are enjoying the history of the town and the lack of tourists! (except us of course) Nobody speaks English which is good for us to practice our Spanish. We walked to the Coffee Star coffee joint our first morning and it didn’t open until 9:00. What coffee place opens at 9??? Only in Mexico!!! We spent the next day checking out the history of the town and backpacked to the grocery store to stock up on produce and a few other food items. We were amazed at the expanse of abandoned mining facilities, acres upon acres! This was obviously a very busy place at one time! The rusted relics and buildings have their own kind of beauty actually.
Church built by Gustav Eiffel and steam engine from the copper mining days...
For our last night we found a great place for dinner, Tonkas. Great food and great margaritas.There aren’t many restaurants here so it was great to find this gem. There are more taco stands and very casual type places, some right out of resident’s homes, with small stands on the sidewalks up until the late hours! Very cool!. Not only are restaurants scarce, but there aren’t any chain stores here other than the grocery store. Its all local little shops! We left early the next morning to head to Punta Chivato.
April 9th - Cruised from Santa Rosalia to Punta Chivato. A strip of high end houses lined the beach here, along with a landing strip and several private hangars. It appeared that there were a few different beach communities here and an old resort on the point. We met a local guy from Oregon on the beach with his dog, his vacation home is in this community. He told us that years ago the resort was a high-end, fly-in resort which is now abandoned. The likes of John Wayne and other stars have frequented there in the past. We did see the air strip there as well, and saw a plane land. There was another structure that looked amazing that was abandoned, and never finished. We learned that it was an idea of a high end fly in restaurant that was never finished. The partners had a falling out. It seems there are a lot of abandoned buildings in Mexico. Such a shame.
The beach here is an unbelievable stretch of millions of shells piled up! I am going to have to think of something to make with all of the shells I have collected! So family, get ready for necklaces for the next few Christmas and birthdays!!
After spending time on the deserted beach (other than the guy from Oregon and all the shells) we went back to the boat and made a Swordfish dinner with home made mango salsa. We spent the evening enjoying the sunset and reading.
April 10th - Woke up early today to enjoy an awesome sunrise. Took a short cruise over to a wetland area and dropped the kayaks for a cruise into an amazing estuary. It was so serene and beautiful, and we saw lots of wildlife including jumping fish, small rays, and an abundance of birds. Stopping to watch these birds fish in total silence was a very rare treat. Murf loved taking it all in at the front of the kayak. Afterwards we boated over to a cute town called Mulege. Super interesting town as it is inland two miles up a river, Rio Santa Rosalia. We took the dinghy into town, with buildings and homes along the way. There weren’t really any other boats on the river and we tied up on a super rickety old dock near a small outdoor restaurant. I literally had to bend down so my center of gravity was low so I could slowly make it off the dock! From there we walked into town and it was very small and charming. The little shops, taco stands, and restaurants were strung along a 3-4 block area. There was a town square, which we have found most of these recent towns seem to have. We found a place for late breakfast at La Casita, an open patio restaurant, and had one of the best breakfasts we’ve had since we’ve been in Mexico. This wasn’t a tourist town, mainly local residents.
Kayaking on the estuary and heading into Mulege in our dinghy...
After leaving Mulege we went south down to the entrance of the Bay of Concepcion to anchor for the night. As I was making dinner a panga of four locals arrived unexpectedly at our boat.They were asking us to fill their large jugs with fresh water. Of course we obliged and gave them 15 gallons of water. They didn't speak much English but they were very nice and they sold us 1/2 of a yellow tail they caught that day. They were camping at the nearby beach. Darryn offered them some beers and watched as they filetted our fish. We also gave the two younger guys some school supplies we had on board. What a great day!
