Thanksgiving Day, Caleta Partida
11/25/2021
Thanksgiving Day
Caleta Partida, Isla Espiritu Santo
La Paz, Whale Sharks, repaired boom, Bahia Balandra, Baha
San Gabriel.
Time to catch you up on the last couple of weeks since we
left Ensenada de Los Muertos/Bahia de Suenos rebrand. We motored up to La Paz where we had
reservations for a week at Marina Costa Baja.
The absolutely critical task was to get the boom gooseneck pin replaced
or reinstalled correctly. Before
arriving at our slip we filled up at the fuel dock. This has become a real chore, as our fuel
tank vent seems to be clogged somewhere in the line, and that means that the
fill overflows very quickly even when the tank is not close to full. This means that you have to pump super, super
slow, which is a problem if it’s going to take half an hour and a bunch of
boats are waiting. What we found is that
it was just easier to pour the two 5 gallon jerry cans in the tank (they pour
at just the right speed), and then have the attendant fill the jerry cans back
up with the hose. This only works well
of course if we are just topping off 10-20 gallons, beyond that it gets
impractical.
The
marina is a resort marina with good facilities.
We had scheduled to have our hull bottom cleaned, and we also contacted
Rich Boren, a local expat who runs a sailing chandlery and water maker
business, for a rigger who could help us with our gooseneck problem. He got us in contact with Luis, who turned
out to be the one who was scheduled to clean our hull bottom. After inspecting our issue, he said he could
get a new pin fabricated so that the cotter pins could be installed on the
outside of the larger pin, so we could inspect them and easily replace them (as
opposed to the original set up, which had the cotter pin run through the middle
of the larger pin). What a relief! We were only in La Paz for a week, and
sometimes it can take 3 days just to find the right person to talk to for a
job, much less get them working on it.
There
was supposed to be a marina shuttle in to town for marina guests, but Jen and I
never found it, no matter where and at what times we waited for it. We ended up taking the employees’ shuttle
several times. La Paz has a wonderful
Malecon (boardwalk) with regularly placed statues, palapas on the beach, and
restaurants and bars. It was clean and
felt very safe, and not over run with gringos either. This was a good sign, as we will be returning
to live in La Paz for a month in May when we get our water tank project done.
Some of
the highlights – the Malecon in general, seafood at restaurants like Estrella
del Mar and Bismarkcito on the Malecon and McFisher’s a few blocks back, a
craft beer place on the second story of a building on the malacon that had its
bartenders on the roof of the building across the alley, and they loaded up a
rope strung cart with drinks and pulled it over the alley to where customers
were served.
Another
boat from the PNW, an Island Packet named Stella J (who have a youtube
channel), came in. We’d met them before
in Mag Bay, and together we went to the tour office and scheduled a whale shark
swim tour. It was awesome! Adolescent males hang out and feed regularly
at this time of year at El Mogote, only a short motor in a power boat from
the marina. Swimming next to these
gentle giants was powerful experience, and we swam with at least three of
them.
My cheapo underwater camera thinks it's 2017 - it's not. It was 2021.
Before we knew it, our week in La Paz was coming to an end,
and we’d have to move on as other boats were coming in to take the slip. There was no space for the next few
weeks. So we took an Indriver (alternative
to Uber that is widely used in La Paz) to the big grocery stores and provisioned
for a two week trip to Isla Espirtu Santo and surrounds.
Our
first stop was to anchor in Bahia Balandra only about 8 miles away. For the most part, the huge stretches of long
passages are over now – we’ll be doing shorter sails to our destinations. They’ll be a few exceptions when we cross the
Sea of Cortez to the mainland, for example, but it’s nice that now there will
be a slower pace. In Bahia Balandra it
became clear that we had really finally hit the areas where the water’s
breathtaking hues of blue were a daily backdrop. We paddleboarded to the various beaches and
often had them to ourselves. El Hongo
(the mushroom) is a famous landmark rock at one of the beaches, where there are
interesting rock overhangs and arches.
That whole area is like a large swimming or wading pool – crystal clear
blue water, but it may only be up to your knees a few hundred yards out. Also, you have to make sure to do the Baja
Shuffle – stingrays are a constant danger for their painful stings when stepped
on, so you are advised to shuffle your feet while you walk so they have a
chance to get out of the way. Check out
this water!
When you leave those cold rainy parts of the PNW you long
for warm blue water you can jump in to, and they seem so far away. We found it
here. Not just one shade of blue, but
three, four, or more. Jennifer practiced
her yoga paddleboarding skills.
One day
we had a little land adventure when we tried to get rid of a bag of trash. There are no trash cans at Bahia Balandra, so
we carried our trash in my backpack for the mile walk through desolate, rocky
terrain to El Tecalote.
After
three days paddleboarding, snorkeling and playing with the drone, we moved
on. The last night was rolly due to
winds they call Corumuels that come from the Southwest, which Bahia Balandra did
not have protection from. We prepared
Brightnest for sailing again, and sailed through the channel to Playa Bonanza
on Isla Espiritu Santo. Many claim uninhabited
Isla Espiritu Santo is the most beautiful island in the Sea of Cortez, and it
holds UNESCO world heritage site status.
However, once we arrived at Playa Bonanza (on the eastern side of the
isla) it didn’t look well protected from winds and swell, and seeing no other
boats anchored there, we decided to go back through the channel to the other
side of the island to Bahia San Gabriel. This bay is truly spectacular, with a
long white sand beach, a Magnificent Frigatebird rookery, and water so clear
you could see the anchor chain going out to the anchor on the bottom, and watch
fish and turtles swimming by from the cockpit.
We had the whole place to ourselves (turns out that was because we
weren’t supposed to anchor there, we found out the next morning!) But ignorance is bliss, and we didn’t know we
weren’t supposed to be there, so we just enjoyed ourselves paddleboarding and
checking out the birds.
Swell and wind rocked and rolled us all night long for an
unrestful sleep. In the morning a park
boat came by to let us know we shouldn’t anchor there. They were very nice about it and not mad at
all, just said we had to go (Jen had gotten our park passports all ready to
show them, but they didn’t need to see them).
After that night’s rolly hours, we weren’t too broken up about having to
go, despite the bay’s beauty.
So, we
moved on where we are now, for Thanksgiving, in Caleta Partida, an anchorage
between two islands, Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida, near where they
connect by a thin sand beach at low tide.
We paddleboarded fiercely to get to that beach, straight in the teeth of
a little wind funnel created by the space between the islands. We walked to the other side to see it open up
to the East:
The next day we paddled to the north beach. Paddleboarding into it was spectacular, as
the circle of red cliffs created an acoustic antechamber for the bird calls of
terns to resonate all around, while pelicans flew in formation, dive bombing in
well-choreographed sorties. These same
cliffs kept giving me a start, by the way, when I’d glance up the companionway
and see them looming above the cockpit.
 |
| Cliffs looming every time I looked out the campanionway. |
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