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| The dinghy surfs a big swell and tries to pass us |
June 21: Isla Tiburon, the largest island in the Sea of Cortez, was our ultimate destination for this mini-cruise. In retrospect, it was a bit ambitious for Cilantro's inaugural sail in this part of the world, but we were blithely ignorant of this as we departed from Las Cocinas around 6:30 a.m. According to the
The Cruiser's Guidebook, Tiburon (Spanish for "shark") was at least 60 nm from Las Cocinas, as the booby flies. The south wind should take us there easily, with a few long tacks to avoid a shoal area off Punta Baja that extends 4 or 5 miles out from shore.
Because of the angle of this part of the coast of Sonora, and the offshore position of Isla Tiburon, our heading for much of the day was 270 degrees magnetic, nearly due west, even though it felt like we were headed north. The NW/SE orientation of the Sea of Cortez, and of the Baja Peninsula that parallels it, takes a bit of getting used to.
Winds from the south built to 27 kts, so we reefed the jib and hit our fastest speed over ground yet -- 8.3 kts. Black storm petrels accompanied us, their small dark bodies dipping in and out of the wave troughs. We also saw plenty of brown boobies and blue-footed boobies, small flocks of black terns, and two pink-footed shearwaters. No whales, perhaps because of the warm water (85 degrees F) at this north end of the Sea. A persistent humid haze, combined with our distance offshore, meant that we were out of sight of land for five or six hours, a new experience for Sue. In late afternoon, the wind died down, so we motored the final hour and a half, arriving in Bahia del Perro (Dog Bay) after 11 hours, 45 minutes, and 77 nm. We were dog tired in Dog Bay...
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| Islas Cholludo and Datil, south of Isla Tiburon |
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| South tip of Isla Tiburon, with Isla Cholludo in background |
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| View from Ensenada de los Perros, Cilantro at right |
June 22: Cilantro stayed put this day. Or at least, she was supposed to, but she dragged anchor once, so we had to reset. We spent several hours ashore on Ensenada de los Perros, exploring for plants, birds, and anything else. The terrain here was noticeably drier and starker than at Las Cocinas or Bahia San Pedro, but Curtis found 20 species of birds, including a Brandt's cormorant and a purple martin, and Sue photographed a flower on a sour pitaya
(Stenocereus gummosus), a sprawling, night-blooming cactus. See photos of five large cactus species we saw on Isla Tiburon below. Sue also spotted a lone coyote trotting through the brush -- perhaps one of the "perros" of Ensenada de los Perros?
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| Sour pitaya cactus (Stenocereus gummosus) |
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| Organpipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi) |
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| Saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) |
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| Cardon cactus (Pachycereus pringlei) |
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| Senita or old man cactus (Lophocereus schottii) |
In the afternoon, back on the boat, we were visited by a man and two boys in a panga filled with homemade fish traps, bedrolls, and minimal other supplies. They showed us a
langosta (spiny lobster) they had caught, and the youngest boy, maybe eight years old, asked if we had any candy or soda. We handed over some apples and oranges, which he wasn't terribly excited about! The three of them set up camp on the shore of the bay, near a huge pile of discarded Murex shells that Curtis had investigated on his morning walk. As the light waned, a solitary sea turtle head appeared and disappeared, moving through the bay. The warm glow of sunset was complemented by a spectacular full moon rising.
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| Sunset in Bahia del Perro, Isla Tiburon |
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| Moonrise over Bahia del Perro, Isla Tiburon |
June 22 marked our fifth straight day of south and southeast winds. It would have been nice to wait until the wind shifted to west, north, or east before beginning our trip back south to San Carlos, but we had no weather updates other than our own observations of barometric pressure (steady), clouds (a few fair weather cumulus), and winds (consistently south and southeast). We had been unable to pull up a weather broadcast on our shortwave radio, and we did not have SSB (single side band) radio. There was certainly no cell phone service on Tiburon! We had seen no other cruising boats since leaving Las Cocinas, and only a handful of pangas. The VHF radio carried lively conversations (in Spanish) between local fishermen.
So we decided to head out first thing the next morning and motor into the wind and waves. To sail would have required so many tacks back and forth that it probably would have doubled our travel distance and required sailing all day and all night. Sue didn't vote for that.
