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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