June 18: After a warm night's sleep, we awoke to a humid wind from the south that blanketed Cerro Tetakawi and the shoreline with low-level clouds. Curtis figured out and fixed the depth gauge issue. Sue organized and stowed our hastily loaded supplies, provisions, and tools. We inflated the dinghy and set up a bridle and line to tow it astern. Sue also worked on changing the weather, with no luck. What did we expect, cruising in June in Mexico?
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| Fog and a stately cardon cactus on the shore of Caleta Lalo |
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| Red-billed tropicbird |
In the afternoon, we set sail for Bahia San Pedro, 14 nautical miles up the coast, according to the very wonderful Sea of Cortez: A Cruiser's Guidebook by Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer. It was a glorious though brief first sail, with 10-knot winds out of the south and a gentle chop quartering our stern. In late afternoon, the wind died, so we motored the last hour or so to the entrance to the bay's entrance. On the way, we were treated to a life bird -- a red-billed tropicbird sitting on the water! Oh, for a proper zoom lens, moaned Sue, hoisting her point-and-shoot. We also passed through a school of leaping rays. We think they might have been smooth-tailed mobulas (Mobula thurstoni), a kind of devilray with a wingspan up to six feet. It is not known why they leap.
The entrance to Bahia San Pedro is guarded by two stark, rocky promontories that protect the large bay inside. There were two boats already at anchor, one at each end of the bay. Although there was plenty of room to join either of them, we chose to anchor directly opposite the bay's entrance, hoping for a bit of sea breeze but without any swells. It worked: we rolled little if any, and a slight breeze was better than nothing.
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| Rowing ashore at Bahia San Pedro |
June 19: The next morning, we rowed the dinghy ashore to explore. Curtis forgot something on the boat, so he rowed out and back again (giving Sue a chance for the above photo). Sue was delighted to find a large wash populated by cactus and flowering shrubs. She photographed everything in sight, from guayacan trees to passionflower vines to mistletoe growing right on the beach. Curtis, meanwhile, wandered on a parallel track looking for birds or other discoveries. Did we mention it was hot? We drank lots of water...
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| A bee visiting guayacan flowers (Guaiacum coulteri) at Bahia San Pedro |
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| Passionflower vine (Passiflora arida) at Bahia San Pedro |
Sue could have spent another day or two at Bahia San Pedro, but Curtis promised her many more amazing experiences in the coming days. In the afternoon, we weighed anchor and set sail for Las Cocinas, about 15 nm farther north. The south wind built to 20 knots, and we zipped along, tacking and jibing on a series of broad reaches with the mainsail and high-cut Yankee jib.
Small settlements and isolated buildings were scattered along the coast. We wondered if any roads led to these outposts, or if they were water-access only. Sue was also intrigued by several steep-sided, palm-lined canyons that ended right at the water's edge. They looked inaccessible from land and offered no protected anchorage that we could see, so you would likely need a panga (the open skiff favored by local fishermen) or long-range dinghy to reach them.
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| Evening arrival at Las Cocinas |
We motored into Las Cocinas after a three-hour sail and anchored in 10 feet of water in a curving, sandy beach bay, with one other boat -- a ketch -- nearby. An osprey immediately appeared overhead, sizing up our mast as a nice perch. As much as we love ospreys, we hooted and hollered and waved our arms to keep him (her?) off the delicate windvane and anemometer. Las Cocinas was Curtis' favorite anchorage. The water was a brilliant aquamarine. The spit of land south and southeast of us was low enough to allow a constant sea breeze, but the bay's surface remained placid.
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| Small, needlelike fish swam around Cilantro at Las Cocinas |
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| View (looking east) of anchorage at Las Cocinas |
June 20: Sue rowed ashore with her camera and spent several hours tramping around, photographing plants. Curtis went for a swim and dived on the anchor to check its holding, warily eyeing many small, round depressions on the sandy bottom -- probably stingrays. We spent a relaxing afternoon in the cockpit, stringing up towels to hide from the sun but enjoying the (almost) cooling breeze.
Toward evening, as we watched skein after skein of brown pelicans fly low across the bay to roost on a spit of rocky shoreline, Curtis turned on our Simrad Broadband 4G radar to see what the system would make of them. When the flocks were still at a distance, they appeared as a single object, but well before they passed us by, the on-screen image resolved into a series of clearly separate birds. Amazing technology!
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| Coastal sand verbena (Abronia maritima) at Las Cocinas |
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| Mentzelia adhaerens, a type of blazingstar, at Las Cocinas |
