SV Gallant Fox

So Many Anchorages, So Little Time

There are dozens of very nice anchorages throughout the northern Sea of Cortez and the Midriff Islands - there are at least 6 in Bahía de las Ánimas alone, and another 4 continuing north along the Baja shore before you get to Bahía de los Ángeles, a mere 35 miles distant. If you stop at any one of these anchorages and don't feel the conditions are good enough to stay and explore the area, pick someplace else nearby and come back later - you may find your original choice is a totally different place.

When we got bounced out of Ánimas Slot by an ugly fetch we moved a mere 9 miles north to get fetch protection at Ensenada de la Alacrán. We ended up staying there for a few days enjoying the snorkeling and the spearfishing. One day, I spent 45 minutes floating above a little red octopus as he was going about his business, changing colors as he moved from kelp bed to rocky outcrop to sand. He gracefully billowed along the sea floor on his knuckles - or, I guess on what would pass for knuckles if he were the kind of critter who had an internal skeleton...

Our next stop was Ensenada Quemada, a very nice place to spend the end of June. It's a big bay - 2 miles wide at its mouth - but its SW end is very nicely sheltered. (That tiny dot somewhere in that pic to the left is our boat, comfortably at anchor.) The beach was good for collecting seashells, plus we got to cheese off the pair of resident coyotes who were scrounging around for something to eat. GB fished from the dinghy with some success and the light afternoon breezes came right through the anchorage so the boat was as cool as could be. Everyone was happy, tra-la. If I were you, I'd spend a lot of time at Ensenada Quemada.

If you must leave Quemada, 9 miles further north is the hurricane hole of Puerto Don Juan which we chose to explore in case the weather turned bad at some point and we needed to make a run for shelter. We confirmed that it is indeed the hurricane hole it's reputed to be, as we were anchored there when a mild, early-morning chubasco came scooting through with a bit of rain and winds in the low 20-knot range. No problemo. Sadly, though, we learned that when conditions are calmer the mountains surrounding the anchorage block almost all wind and it quickly gets very stuffy. Water was far too warm and green for swimming or snorkeling when we were there in late June, but there were interesting boat wrecks ashore. Bottom line: for us, it's a fine place to run to in bad weather, but it's too stifling to stay there when the weather is calm. On the other hand, we met one couple who had been anchored there more than 3 weeks. So, everyone to their taste...

Bahía de los Ángeles was a great stop.  It's an easy 10-12 miles from Puerto Don Juan, and the entire bay has at least 3 good anchoring opportunities around its perimeter. Boats can provision in the town of Bahía de los Ángeles, and the town has some good restaurants though the lack of banks and ATMs impel you to bring all the pesos you'll need -- in small denominations. Nevertheless, it's a nice place: it boasts some excellent public art (that whale shark sculpture over on the left depicts the actual size of those critters). Its museum is a must-see, one of the best-curated museums around, with a seashell collection, displays of local flora and fauna, and exhibits explaining the history of the native tribes, mining and ranching in the area. Certain beaches have excellent seashelling opportunities. And if you're hip to all things military, the Mexican Marines have a unit stationed here. Anchor in their jurisdiction they will board your boat to inspect for drugs; but not to worry - despite their large, fully-loaded automatic weapons they are the kindest of inspectors - like practically everyone else in Mexico they have one or more people whose English is far more fluent than your Spanish, so they are quite capable of making their intentions clear. They wait politely for all gringos to finish anchoring before they approach; they carefully keep their super-panga from putting any dings in your boat; and though their drug-sniffing dog is all business she remains a very mellow beast. Plus they're so friendly they let me take pictures of them in their kick-a$$ super-panga - look how high the sides of that thing are, man. I bet it's armor-plated and everything. (Also: see how they're in full fatigues, all buttoned up? The temps were in the mid-90s when I took these pics - and none of these Marines were breaking a sweat. Oo-rah.)

Next post, we'll move northeastward in early July, from Bahía de los Ángeles through a small cluster of islands with some nice anchorages, and beyond to Puerto Refugio on the north tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda...

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Weather in the North Sea of Cortez

A few words about bail-out anchorages in the Sea of Cortez during summer cruising. By now you may have the impression we've had to use them a lot. Well, we used them occasionally, maybe more often than in other places we've cruised - but do not let that deter you from coming here.

The vast majority of boaters who cruise the Sea of Cortez go no further north than Santa Rosalia (Baja) or San Carlos (mainland), about halfway up the Sea of Cortez. That's too bad, because there is so much to see and do in the northern half. I speculate that most boaters don't travel north because the spring-to-summer weather in the northern half of the Sea can be really squirrelly.  Locals in Bahía de los Ángeles told us the weather doesn't calm down from winter conditions until about the second half of May. Thereafter, as the summer weather picks up, conditions again become unsettled as winds and waves shift their predominant direction from northwesterly to southerly. The unsettled conditions seem to intensify in the area around the northern Sea's Midriff Islands. In June and July, chubascos (basically, sudden strong downdrafts of wind that last a few hours) and thunderstorms become more regular but still cannot be predicted to strike in any particular place. The early summer thunderstorms generally stay along the mainland shore but sometimes the cells can get big enough for boats in anchorages across the Sea on the Baja side to feel what's going on. Starting in July, the northern part of the Sea gets hot. Very hot. Does not cool down at night. Tropical storms and the occasional hurricane come to the region - especially late in the season during August, September and October. (Hurricane Jemina visited both sides of the Sea in September 2009.) Bottom line: from what we had heard previously and from our own experience this past summer, it seems the best weather window for cruising the Sea north of Santa Rosalia is from the start of June through about the first half of July. Not as long a cruising season as you might expect - especially considering that there are some boats every year who spend the entire hurricane season, from June through October, in the northern Sea. Those people are tougher than us.

Due to all the mountains, canyons, islands and whatnot that make the wind and rain bounce all over the place in the northern half of the Sea, weather forecasters can only describe general patterns over broad areas of open water leaving the average coastal cruisers to figure out local conditions for themselves. Our experience with summertime's most unsettled weather always seemed to start with small ripples on the sea surface on an otherwise calm day. Sometimes the ripples kept building to a steep chop but were not accompanied by any wind; other times the ripples built to a small chop and the wind suddenly gusted to the 30-knot range. The large tide ranges sometimes enhanced whatever else was happening with the sea state. Overhead, the most ominous clouds could rapidly build up over the mountains, and then...disappear with no noticeable effects. During the night, we began to see lightning and storms along the mainland side of the Sea. Sometimes it sent us a chubasco, most times not. After a few weeks of cruising, it seemed to us that the weather patterns that most consistently preceded the worst conditions and were most likely to cause us to bail out of where we were to seek better shelter elsewhere, were: long flat cloud cover capping the top of the volcano on Isla Mitlán; thick haze at the water level reducing visibility to two miles or less; and subtle ripples on the water that were not accompanied by wind. Those were the conditions we noticed, about 6-12 hours before strong winds blew or a nasty chop picked up. But, individual results may vary. I have no clue whether we were noticing any particular patterns, or just thought we were.

Lessons learned: in the northern Sea of Cortez, always have a bailout plan for every anchorage. Most of the time we didn't need to leave the anchorage we'd chosen - Ensenada Quemada, for example, located between Bahía de las Ánimas and Bahía de los Ángeles, gave us excellent shelter, cooling afternoon breezes, and lots to do onshore and in the water. Puerto Don Juan is an excellent hurricane hole with things to see on shore, but it is so well protected that it's a stifling place to be in settled conditions.

The weather can change so quickly, we found it wise to prep the dinghy and outboard most evenings to make a quick getaway if we had to leave an anchorage in the middle of the night. Even if we stayed in an anchorage, we were prepared to take down our shade covers if the wind picked up during the wee hours of the night. And we listened closely to the weather forecasts on the SSB - many times, in the mornings as well as the evenings.

But finally, to be very clear: none of this squirrelly weather prevented us from having a really great trip - it just kept us busy, paying all that attention.

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San Francisquito and North

When last we read of the intrepid Fox, it was bouncing its way southwestward through early morning darkness and a dissipating June thunderstorm toward Bahía San Francisquito on the Baja peninsula. Bahía San Francisquito is located about 90 miles up the peninsula from Santa Rosalia on the western (Baja) side of the Sea of Cortez. It's a nice place to run to: it has anchorages that can protect a fair number of boats from either northerly or southerly conditions. It offers a nice beach and an inner harbor for dinghy exploring; plus the snorkeling can be pretty good. Visibility was about 20-25 feet when we were there in the latter half of June; we skirted the edge of a golden-hued, feathery kelp forest that gave the sensation of walking through a sunny autumn woodland. Commercial fishers sometimes stop by in the middle of the night before heading out to their fishing grounds. Aaannnd, if your boat has been amassing the kind of garbage that can be discreetly and responsibly burned and/or buried, there is a large community dump on the southern shore that might suit your needs. Or so I've heard. Ahem.

We spent a few days in Bahía San Francisquito and a couple anchorages just 2 miles further north, taking advantage of the now-calm conditions and the fine snorkeling off all the reefs and rocky outcrops. GB nabbed us some nice fish dinners with his speargun, such as hogfish (the pic on the right shows a male - the one with the bump on his forehead), which have the mouthfeel and flavor of the finest sole. We continued gunkholing in this fashion, taking very short day trips northwards up the coastline: snorkeling/spearfishing in the morning, raising anchor around lunchtime, dropping anchor just before happy hour -- and so on in a glorious, decadent, languid video loop. When cruising is good, it is very, very good. Thus it was from San Francisquito, to Calas Mujeres, continuing north to the very popular, very picturesque, Ánimas Slot.

Ah, The Slot: It's popular because it's a cozy, private, one-boat anchorage. It has a cute little beach, high cliff walls and rocky reefs on either side of the narrow anchorage (hence the name, The Slot), a window that lets you see the view to the north and the spooky, vaguely-Fuji-like dormant volcano on Isla Mitlán, and not one but two! tunnels through one side of The Slot that at the right tide level look absolutely swimmable. Some boats hang out here for days, it is such the excellent experience. Technically, two smallish boats can anchor in The Slot, but if there's a spring tide or the swell starts rolling in, both boats would regret being there.

Hey! Guess what happened to us!

Looked fine when anchoring midafternoon. So fine, we deployed the dinghy and the outboard, in hopes of snorkeling and exploring the shore the next morning. (Equals, Mistake #1: if you aren't using it right then, NEVER deploy your dinghy.) Shortly after we'd anchored, a 34-foot catamaran arrived and anchored what appeared to be a reasonable distance from us. (Mistake #2: if it's a one-boat anchorage, it's best for both boats not to be friendly and try to accommodate the second boat.) At sunset, I took pictures of all the glories around us. Haaa! Verification we were actually there! Sadly, things unraveled overnight, when we experienced the deepest cycle of the fortnight's spring tide. (Mistake #3: no matter how good your depths are, reconsider anchoring in a NARROW cove when the tide is at its absolute lowest.) I tempered the 3 mistakes we'd made thus far, by checking our position and depth at midnight and deciding that the falling tide impelled an anchor watch. So as GB snored blissfully, I sat in the cockpit, looked at the glorious stars, and was amazed at how much water ran out from under the keel. We were still quite safe in OK depths - safe enough that GB could continue to sleep - but I knew he'd want to relocate somewhere out of The Slot come dawn.

Yeah. So: Mistake #4 was letting GB sleep and waiting for dawn, because just before sunrise, we got an incoming swell that progressively grew. By daybreak The Slot had 3-foot rollers. Our 30Kg Bruce plus lots o' chain held just fine, but our neighbor the catamaran thought we were aground. And, did not see me sitting in the cockpit. So, decided to alert us to having "run aground" by blasting their air horn at us. I waved to them from the cockpit - because they did not have their VHF turned on to hail them by - but it was a woman's wave which of course the catamaran must ignore, and wait until The Man of the Boat woke up, pulled on some shorts, and staggered topside to see what all the ruckus was about.

Yeah, so once The Man was In Charge we split - and once the catamaran saw how we were hobby-horsing through the incoming swell, they bailed too. Which was a drag, because ONE boat (i.e., us) could have stayed there and ridden it out until the tide slacked. Too bad the cat waited for us to make the first move. Farkers.

Once we were out in open water, we realized the fetch was as bad as where we'd left. Unfortunately, we still had the pesky problem of the dinghy-plus-outboard thrashing around our stern region. It was GB's task as the biggest, strongest and longest-armed of the two of us, to ride that dinkster like the PO'd bronco it was, & get it stabilized enough for it and the outboard to remain attached to the boat while we exit-strategied to a quieter anchorage.

Times like this, GB's at his finest. He does not flinch, and when serious injury or death is imminent he tends to maintain his concentration. Plus he was technically off the boat, and our dinghy painter can be paid-out to several yards, which could potentially lead to all sorts of advantages for me. Not like I normally think that way [ed. note: riiiight], but by this point I was sleep-deprived so my lizard brain emerged.

Anyway. We bounced a mere 9 miles across Bahía de las Ánimas to Ensenada de la Alacrán - an anchorage protected from the conditions we were having; and a very good anchorage in its own right. Broad beach with eco-resort on shore; outstanding snorkeling; and: our first whale shark sighting ever!!

Protip: The first time you see a whale shark*, your brain might dispute what you're seeing. If the fish is near the surface and right by the side of your boat, your brain may mistake the whale shark's silver-on-brown pattern for a school of small silver fish...but then, realize that the small school is swimming in an impossibly uniform formation...then, realize that there is no "school" of several small silver fish swimming in formation, but instead a silver checkerboard pattern on one fish that's, oh, TWENTY FEET LONG. Our first sighting, was of a little guy of about 20 feet, diving beneath our boat in about 90 feet of water as we approached the Ensenada de la Alacrán anchorage.

Man, that was cool.

* The pic there, is of a whale shark we saw later, from about 40 feet away. They look different up close.

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Sunbrella Shade Covers for the Cockpit - Rear and Side Panels

So for the rear and side panels I was designing for the low-latitude hot-sun cruising we're now doing, I discovered the quietly thrilling beauty of ZOMG, SUNBRELLA MESH. This fabric is great. I got mine from here. Sunbrella mesh sews well, shades well, and ventilates as well as any mesh fabric can. In the photos in this post it looks opaque, but there is some visibility though it. Except, not really enough, so if you are underway when you have your panels deployed (and you will be if you're down here), you have to just periodically take a peek out from under the covers to see what might be bearing down on you.

Rear panel: sparing Cyberspace the details, I cut the rear panel as a large square. Attaches to the rear edge of the overhead cover with Velcro on its upper edge. Bottom attaches to stern pulpit rails with grommets & shoelace-type cord. To raise it, I gathered the panel up and using the bottom ties, ran the string between the two layers of Velcro at the upper edge where the rear panel meets the overhead cover, and then tied all the gathers in a loose bunch reminiscent of a window valance.  That was Version 1.0. In Version 2.0 I set a couple more grommets along the side edges of the rear panel, to give me more flexibility in tying down the rear panel in winds over 25 knots, or to roll it up halfway for times when shade is as important as accessing, say, the swim ladder. It's all Velcro and string. Setup takes about 2 minutes, takedown takes about 30 seconds.

Side panel: The side panel was similar. I say "panel," because for sun protection I didn't need two - just one that I could switch from one side of the boat to the other, depending on where Mr. Sun was. I cut this side panel as a rectangle. Velcro wool along top to attach to overhead cover, grommets and shoelace-type cord along bottom for tying to lifelines; forward-most cord made longer to tie to stanchion for greater stability in headwinds. Advantage: a side panel tied to the lifeline instead of further inboard, creates better access to leave the cockpit and go forward; and allows more air to flow back into cockpit. Unlimited access to winches and sheets. We've found the side panels stay in place just fine with this Velcro-and-shoelace arrangement up to about 20 kt. from any direction; maybe more but we start taking things down as a matter of principle when the wind picks up. I got away with not having to improve on Version 1.0 for the side panels. Yet.

Here's what the side panel looks like, from the outside. The rear panel is also up but in this pic you can barely see it or how it's attached to the backstays and posts. Anyway, the Sunbrella mesh is fairly opaque, which is good for me because when I took this photo GB was working on something and the entire contents of our starboard lazarette had been barfed into our cockpit. So the mesh shade cover is also handy for privacy - our neighbors are less likely to think we're complete slobs.

Here's what conditions look like inside the cockpit with the overhead cover, rear panel and side panel up. Side panel is on the port side of the boat; we are underway, heading SE in the Sea of Cortez. It's about 1100 on July 26, 2009. Sun = high and hot. I estimate the air temperature then was 105 deg.F - fairly typical for that area at that time.

As long as all three shade covers were up, I thought the time was right to take temperature readings to test their efficacy. Under shade cover, on port near helm: 98.1 deg.F.
Under forward spray shield, where there's a combo of Sunbrella shade and clear plastic window material: 106.5 deg.F.
Starboard cockpit coaming, just outside shade cover: 123.3 deg.F.
I didn't follow the scientific method very carefully when taking these readings but I still feel that they  illustrate the need for, and effectiveness of, good and abundant shade protection if you're sailing in low-latitude places. You just can't have enough.

A final word about Velcro which I repeat every so often: I like Velcro and use it a lot, but it has one large disadvantage: while its hooks and wool are quite durable, its backing fabric deteriorates quickly in sun. Like, in one year or less. Believe you me, I've replaced a lot of Velcro on otherwise completely intact boat canvas. My advice? If you're going sailing long-term and have any Velcro anywhere on your boat - buy a 25-meter roll of both sides of that Velcro. No, really - if you find you don't use it, it'll be an excellent trade item with other cruisers. Please bring 1" wide white Velcro for me. I eat it up, you betcha.

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Sunbrella Shade Covers for the Cockpit

One of the ways I prepared for a summer in the Sea of Cortez was to enhance the sun protection and air circulation in our cockpit. We'd been traveling exclusively with the cockpit canvas that came with our Malo 39 some 8 years ago. It is some of the best and sturdiest boat canvas I've ever seen: a spray shield; an overhead cover; and side and rear panels with lots of large, heavy, clear plastic windows that all zip together and tightly fasten to the cockpit coaming all around. It is the type of heavy protective suit of canvas you would expect to come with a Swedish-built boat designed to sail well in cold, wet, windy weather. Its design allows us to use either the spray shield or overhead section separately; or to zip the side and/or rear panels to the overhead section to partially - or completely - enclose the cockpit. Versatile. In the winters of the Pacific Northwest, the fully deployed cockpit enclosure warmed the cockpit 10-15 degrees above outside temps. It was like being able to create your own floating sun room, and it helped keep us cruising comfortably months longer than we otherwise would have. The photo on the right illustrates the fully-deployed cockpit enclosures on two different Malo yachts, one n front of the other, on a cool, rainy Washington day.

As we've traveled south into much warmer climates we still use the original spray shield (I've only had to re-sew worn-out threads and Velcro so far to keep it going), and we've certainly continued to use the overhead section. However it became impossible to use the rear and side panels due to their lack of ventilation and superior ability to retain heat. As daytime temperatures rose into the 90s we even had trouble with the overhead cover, as the headroom and its attachment points made it feel too enclosed to allow for optimum ventilation while still protecting us from the hot sun. (Another difficulty we'd always experienced with the particular design of the overhead cover, was that it deploys with an aluminum support frame, which restricts our ability to use full rotation on our winch handles when sheeting in a foresail.) We also grew to need sun protection from the rear and side for those times when the sun was lower in the sky but still quite hot. And we expected very hot conditions in the Sea of Cortez.

My criteria for the new hot-sun cockpit shade covers I designed, were:

- Maximize shade.
- Maximize air flow.
- Increase head room at helm.
- Not restrict use of any of our four cockpit winches.
- Not impact use of or access to any of the crap essential items we have around the stern pulpit, including LifeSling, KISS wind generator, stern anchor, swim ladder, outboard, emergency beacon, outboard hoist, BBQ's propane tank, radar dome, BBQ, fishing rod holder, and boarding gates.
- Not restrict our view.
- Have side and rear panels that could be deployed and removed quickly and safely while at anchor or underway, in any conditions.

My challenges were:
- Unrestricted visibility reduces potential shade protection.
- Unrestricted visibility, and unrestricted use of winches, and unrestricted access to all the stuff we carry 'round our stern, significantly limits the potential attachment points for any shade cover.

After a lot of fretting, I decided on a very simple design that took advantage of the one attachment point I had that met all the criteria: our boat's Targa arch, on which the forward edge of the original overhead cover attached with a long zipper and Velcro. I couldn't take advantage of the zipper on the arch, as the dimensions of my overhead cover didn't match the original's; but I could certainly attach the forward edge of my creation to the arch using the Velcro. And so I did.

I doubt anyone on the Interwebs is interested in the minutiae of how I put this all together, so I'll just say for this post that for the overhead cover, I sewed a trapezoid of Sunbrella with two slashes in the aft portion to accommodate our dual backstays. Note: I spent three days of measuring and re-measuring the depth and location of those two slashes, and I still got them wrong. Sailing is like that sometimes. Anyway, after I fixed the slashie-fiasco, the construction went smoothly. Basically, Overhead Cover Version 1.0 was attached to the boat at its front by Velcro, at the rear corners by grommets & bungees, and in the rear center by webbing loops and shoelace-type cord. I sewed the inner edges of the sides and rear of the overhead cover with Velcro, to accommodate the side and rear shade panels I would soon make. The beauty part of using Velcro, bungees & string is that it makes the cover adjustable up and down according to my - or the weather's - whim; and it goes up and comes back down very quickly. To illustrate, here's a photo of the cover in place, with the rear bungees and backstay strings tied high on their attachment points. This is the angled-up position we use for light air conditions:

And here's a photo on the left, of the same cover with the rear bungees and backstay strings moved much lower on their attachment points, causing the overhead cover's edges to curve downward like a baseball cap. This is the position we use for windier conditions.  With no more than Velcro-and-shoelaces, Overhead Cover Version 1.0 stayed put in forward breezes up to the mid-20 knot range, but could only handle about 17 knots' crosswind before the Velcro along the forward edge parted, starting at whatever corner was windward. I fixed that problem in Version 2.0 by setting a grommet in each corner of the forward edge through which I ran bungees downward to the grab bars on each side of our windscreen. Version 2.0 stayed in place in winds up to 32 knots from any direction. To put up the overhead cover with all its ties and whatnot takes about 4 minutes. To take it down takes less than one minute.

Why, yes, there was a Version 3.0.

Hot sun is all well and good, but hurricane season in the tropics brings lots of rain too. Our first thunderstorm after we returned to Mazatlan showed me that I needed to elevate the center of the overhead cover to allow rain to run off instead of accumulate in the cover's center, creating Lake Sunbrella. To solve the puddling problem I added a webbing loop in the cover's outside center, which I tied to the aft end of our boom to create a slight peak in the cover's center. E-Z.

More soon coming on the side panels.

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Working the Midriff Islands

The northern half of the Sea of Cortez has a cluster of large and small islands in the center. These are the Midriff Islands. On the Baja (western) side of the Sea, the bottom has a very deep trench that brings cold water and nutrients up toward the surface. Critters of all kinds follow the nutrients, and it's common to see all manner of birds, whales, tuna, dorado, whale sharks, - you name it - cruising around.  On the mainland (eastern) side of the northern Sea the bottom is shallow - in places, VERY shallow - so you have to stay attentive when underway. However, for those who like swimming in warmer waters, the eastern Midriff anchorages might be what you're looking for, starting in mid-June. Heck; we didn't even need to wear our 3mm wetsuits. At times.

There we were: we left Caleta Colorada on the mainland after a hyper-bouncy night, aiming for the SE end of Isla Tiburón and an anchorage there named Bahía de los Perros that looked like good protection from the NW swell and chop we'd been living with. The weather at first light on June 15 (0440) was calm and looked to stay that way until the afternoon. Our course took us about 6 miles offshore to stay in deep enough water while rounding Punta Baja (translation: "Low Point"). The area around this Punta Baja (as opposed the dozen other Puntas Bajas in Mexico) is a bit deceptive: the point with its metal-frame light tower is fairly distinct, and there's water all around, and you feel that you're so far offshore your depth sounder can't possibly be accurately reading 12 feet and less. But yes. Yes it can. Some of the cruising guides suggest staying 5 miles offshore in this area. We sailed 6 miles out, aiming for 40-45 feet depths. The least depth I saw that far out in June 2009, was 9 feet. I think there's been some shoaling since the guide books for this area were published. So I'd recommend rounding Punta Baja about 7 miles out.

There's also the problem of fishermen working this area. In the 40-to-60-foot depths around both sides of Punta Baja, we encountered large strings of double floats marking the fishermen's bottom traps. We learned from a passing panguero that they were catching triggerfish and murex snails this way. The difficulty with these trap floats, which numbered in the hundreds, was that the floats were empty clear plastic soda bottles tied together with black float line. That is to say, practically invisible in most any sailing condition until you're right up next to them.

With vigilance the shallow depths and float strings can certainly be avoided.  Plus, we've found Mexican pangueros to be pretty hip, and they keep as much a lookout for wayward sailboats getting tangled in their nets and floats, as we do for them. It was still surprising to see the traps, and the number of them; they were the first we'd seen anywhere since coming down from the US along the Pacific side of the Baja peninsula in late 2007.

The afternoon wind increased to the usual high teens as we anchored in Bahia de los Perros (Dog Bay) on Isla Tiburón. It had the NW shelter we'd been looking for. I believe it's called Dog Bay because at different times of the day, the different headlands surrounding the bay look like crouching dogs, and dogs' faces. Entertaining.  A few days later we rounded the bottom of Isla Tiburón and anchored at its Bahía Risco Colorado, where we also found NW protection. Mind you, this anchorage is completely open to the south, but the snorkeling off the anchorage's nearby reef was excellent and a female sea lion even cavorted with me for a bit.  It was all good, until the wee hours of June 19. When whoopee, the fetch switched from the north to the south as a thunderstorm built along the mainland shore. The southerly fetch in the anchorage grew quite uncomfortable, bordering on slightly dangerous. We bailed at 0300 and decided to give up on the Midriffs for a while. Destination: across the Sea, south of the Midriffs, to Bahía San Franciscquito on the Baja side, 42 miles away, a popular anchorage that had possibilities for both south and north protection.

Lessons learned: in the northern Sea in summer, conditions can change rapidly and you can be forced to move on at any hour of the day or night, when a nice place suddenly turns nasty. Therefore, prioritize your activities so that you get your most desired things done first. Like snorkeling with sea lions.

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Mexico's Northern Pacific Mainland

After the inauspicious first start out of San Carlos and with a happy Tohatsu outboard, we skedaddled north out of San Carlos for the second time on June 13, 2009. GB and I were both itchy to start cruising again after having spent so long tied up to a dock (somewhat against our will) in Guaymas and spending even more time anchored in San Carlos doing business (somewhat against our will). I for one was already feeling this summer's cruising time slipping away.

In my last post I mentioned that we'd noticed some northerly fetch and swell? Yeah, that continued to plague us all the way up the mainland. I'm talking, not much wind (10-16kt.), but head seas of 3-foot chop on a five-second period. Bouncy. A passing school of leapin', flippin' manta rays (smooth-tailed mobulus if you want to get technical) lifted my spirits as we left San Carlos. During the following few days we alternated sailing with motoring. As the shoreline bent to the northwest, so did the fetch and I'm here to tell you, it did not let up. 

This year, we visited 6 of the "official" anchorages the guide books describe in the 40 NW miles along Mexico's mainland from San Carlos to Caleta Colorada, a location that can be used to cross the northern Sea to the nearest and largest of the Midriff Islands, Isla Tiburón. In order, from south to north out of San Carlos, we looked at:

Bahía San Pedro - we found this to have the most shelter and the least rolliness - though when a NW fetch starts up, it can get mildly unpleasant. We had some annoying swarms of black flies and bees there, but only for the second of the two times we'd anchored there. Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, the seashelling ashore is fabulous. Everyone moving north up the Sea along the mainland stops here, and so should you.

Ensenada Juan Villa - a one-boat anchorage unprotected from all but flat-calm seas. Regardless of how it looks on the guide books' chartlets, it's an open anchorage and wasn't viable when we got there. We moved on.

Las Cocinas - a popular anchorage with "gin-clear water" for snorkeling when conditions are calm. They weren't, for us - a NW fetch kept rolling right in; anchoring there wasn't so much uncomfortable as it was impossible. We moved on.

Pozo Moreno - same.

Bahía San Agustín - same.

Caleta Colorada (28deg.17'N/111deg.25'W) - same. Though, by this time the sun was setting and we decided to anchor here instead of traveling overnight along the mainland's shallow shore (in places it's 6 feet deep or less, 5 miles offshore. SHALLOW). With the NW fetch, we set a stern anchor in addition to our bow anchor to keep us pointed into the waves, which was the only way we got any sleep. We stayed only one night, then set out for Isla Tiburón on June 15.

Later in our travels, we met a couple other sailboats who had followed the same path we had about a week later than we had set out. They had found similar fetchy conditions. However, another boat we know came up the same way around the Fourth of July, and for them conditions were stellar. I even saw from the photos they took, that rumors of the gin-clear waters of Las Concinas are completely true.

Lessons learned: in the Sea of Cortez, you may find anchorages the guide books like, that are absolutely terrible when you get there -- yet a few days or weeks later, the same anchorages may be absolute paradise. So don't feel shy about bailing out on them if you must; always have at least one other anchorage you can bail out to; and if you have the time, try the first anchorage again to see if conditions have changed.

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Outboard Trauma - Detailed Remarks

It was our 7-year-old 9.8hp Tohatsu dinghy motor that failed. The one that we'd just paid 600 pesos (about $46 US)* to have overhauled in San Carlos. Turns out, it hadn't been.

* 300 pesos for the cab ride from Guaymas to San Carlos, carrying the dinghy motor; plus 300 pesos for the overhaul.

I know what all you naysayers out there are saying: "Just row your dinghy; get some exercise; you don't need a motor!!" Lookit: we have a 200-lb., 11-foot Caribe that often carries snorkel gear, fishing tackle, a spouse or 2, & occasionally carries massive loads of laundry & groceries. In 20-knot headwinds. Through surf. So forgive us our indulgence in a dinghy motor.

Anyway, when the outboard failed to start in Bahia San Pedro, GB did his best to troubleshoot the problem at anchor. He inspected the outboard's innards,removed what he could & soaked parts in acetone in the hopes that it would be enough to clear whatever clogs there may be in the lines, to get the motor running. Fail. So, thanks to the miracle of Skymate (tm) satellite email, we were able to contact the outfit who'd worked on our dinghy motor.  They felt our problem might be that bad/old gasoline had clogged the lines & working parts, so GB installed all new parts from one of our 2 emergency replacement kits, and I scrambled around trying to find containers big enough to accommodate over a gallon of "old" gasoline-oil mix** to be replaced by "new" gas-oil mix.

** Difficulty: GB doesn't like to have lots of empty containers aboard; he complains they confuse him and take up too much space -- so, every time I try to save a handy container, GB tries to throw it away. Then emergencies happen and GB says he's surprised I don't have the foresight to keep spare containers aboard. Why, yes, we've been together 24 years; how did you know?

I cannibalized some food containers and GB and I switched some more things around & we were able to temporarily store the allegedly "bad" gas. GB retrieved the motor oil from our starboard lazarette, to mix with some fresh-from-the-fuel dock gasoline. When lo, he saw that his one and only container of motor oil had cracked and was rapidly leaking its contents all over everything else in the lazarette. I responded quickly to GB's shrieks and we salvaged as much of the motor oil as we could.

GB cursed our bad luck. I praised the gods -- because the weather was mild, we were safely anchored in a nicely sheltered cove, and those crazy Swedes at Malo Yachts had designed a deep sump, walled off from the rest of the starboard lazarette, that was precisely the width of a gallon container of oil and in which we have always stored our oils, cleansers and other toxics. So from my point of view the day was sucktastic but could have been much worse. Our dinghy motor had failed, but only 15 miles from a port with mechanics. We had a mess; but it was a CONTAINED mess - it only took a half hour to mop up & bag the oil-soaked paper towels for later burning on shore (if we could fix the dinghy motor) or for more appropriate disposal in port (if we had to return to San Carlos).

GB tried starting the freshly-cleaned outboard with a batch of fresh gas-and-oil, and...Fail. Back to San Carlos to the competent and skilled mechanic who'd done the outboard overhaul. He examined it yet again (and getting an ailing outboard onshore by dinghy and dropping it off via taxi at at the mechanic's is a minor adventure in itself). Anyway, Mr. Mechanic found that our outboard fails were not the result of a bad carburetor nor bad gas. It was bad motor oil. The gallon of motor oil we'd bought in late 2006, before we started on this madcap adventure of ours. It takes a long time to go through a gallon of motor oil when you mix it with gasoline for your outboard, yet it turns out said motor oil has a shelf life. 70 million years to create; less than 3 years to go stale. Dang.

Anyway, the fresh motor oil in the fuel mix we have now, makes our Tohatsu hum the tune of a properly serviced, professionally overhauled, properly cared-for and -oiled outboard. Life is good.  Except for the disposal of the gallon of gasoline contaminated with old oil. That's another story...

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Back in the Blogging Saddle

It's high time I told the details of our trip around the upper Sea of Cortez in June & July, 2009. We'd wanted to explore the northern part of the Sea of Cortez because (1) we hadn't done that yet and (2) we were keen on sailing south from Mazatlan in November 2009 to Central America and points south. The summer of 2009 might be our only chance to see the sights north of Santa Rosalia. Long story short, traveling around the northern Sea was fun; and weather-wise, very educational. If we were to do it again, would we do it the same way? Probably yes, with a couple of minor tweaks.

When last I wrote of the Fox, we had completed a quick haulout in San Carlos, Sonora. Our idea was to travel northwest from San Carlos along Mexico's mainland coast, begin the northern crossing of the Sea by taking short hops across the Midriff Islands (Isla Tiburon and the others), then continue north up the Sea along the Baja coastline. At Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda, we'd loop back down south through the Midriffs, cross back to the Baja coast, gradually heading south with a view to making the southern crossing of the Sea back to Mazatlan some time around the beginning of August. Think of the shape of those Susan Komen breast-cancer-fighting pink-ribbon symbols, and you'll see the shape our planned cruise.

On June 8, 2009, we got about 15 miles out of San Carlos and anchored in a nice cove called Bahia San Pedro (28deg.03'N/111deg.15'W). We'd wanted to get a little further that day but the northerly component to the 19-knot wind made it seem wise to tuck in to an anchorage with a little better shelter than where we'd intended to stop. Snorkeling was fine, and the beachcombing ashore was excellent, thanks to the heaps of deeper-water seashells around the panguero camp.(Seems the pangueros set traps for murex and other gastropods in about 50 feet of water, & harvest the meat for sale.) I scored some beautiful black-and-white (radish?) murex (Hexaplex nigritus), pink-mouth murex (Hexaplex erythrostomus), a Panaman harp (Harpa crenata), a Cortez conch (Strombus galeatus) and a Gulf tulip (Pleuroplaca princeps), which equals awesome. These are the kinds of large, heavy shells that don't wash up on beaches very often. At least, not intact. So yay me.

Well, as lovely as all that was - alas, our dinghy's outboard motor packed it in. After having just been overhauled in San Carlos. We could start it up, but it would instantly die. There were no visible problems whatsoever, and all Gary's troubleshooting was for naught.  Not wanting to spend a couple of the year's hottest months without Mr. Outboard, it was back to San Carlos to confer again with the mechanic who'd done the overhaul. We were off to a flying stop.

Long story somewhat shorter: northerly chop & swell was easy for The Fox to surf on our way back south to San Carlos, but portended the conditions to come. And Mr. Outboard's problem eventually turned out to be...

OLD OIL.

See - the outboard fuel we use for our Tohatsu is a mix of gasoline and oil. Oftentimes when an outboard fails to run, the solution is to get a nice fresh batch of gasoline to feed it. We'd done that. But overlooked the age of the oil we were mixing the gas with. It was nice to have such a cheap and simple solution to the outboard problem, but we'd lost almost a full week of travel while we figured it out. So, the moral to the outboard story is: if the outboard doesn't work, it just might be old gas and/or old oil. Which is quick, cheap & easy to fix.

The second moral of this tale is: when you've been in port for a while especially if you've been doing repairs and upgrades, it's wise to travel no further on your first day out than, say, 20 miles. In case something goes kerflooey that you can't fix at anchor.

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