The anchorages in the Sea of Cortez vary greatly from one another. Some have excellent reefs for fishing and snorkeling, others have terrific seashell beaches, and you never seem to see the same rock formations twice. We’ve seen precious few onshore crittes – turkey vultures, osprey, insects and small lizards, mostly – but we never…
So. There we were in 57 feet of water in Bahia Agua Verde, with a busted anchor windlass. GB believed after some serious testing* that the problem lay in the electric windlass motor. Which, fortunately, was heavy but portable when next we were at a port with some repair opportunities. GB manfully raised the 66-lb.…
Puerto Escondido sits on the eastern lower third of the Baja peninsula, about 22 kilometers south of Loreto and about 175 miles north of La Paz, at 25 deg.48.4’N and 111 deg.18.1’ W. The port is a beautiful oval indentation in the coast, surrounded by high mountain peaks and lots of natural beauty, completely protected…
If you’ve done a lot of sailing in the Pacific Northwest like we have, you will discover upon leaving La Paz and traveling the Sea of Cortez, that the anchorages feel similar to those in the San Juan/Gulf Islands and the Strait of Georgia up to Desolation Sound. In other words, if you’ve traveled up…
Every cruising port has an informal cruisers’ net on some VHF frequency or another where general cruising and port information is exchanged. La Paz boasts a second cruisers’ net – this one, on VHF 21 about a half hour before the more standard cruisers’ net starts on VHF 22 at 0800 Monday thru Saturday. Both…
So when we arrived in La Paz on March 5 we arranged to stay at Marina Costa Baja, located a few miles to the north of La Paz proper. The livin’ here is pretty sweet – for the price of 2006 moorage in Shilshole Marina in Seattle, you get free (and excellent) Internet service, free…
In February, we chose to travel no further south than Banderas Bay and the greater Puerto Vallarta area – mainly because we’d intended to return north to explore the Sea of Cortez as spring began and we didn’t want to have to tax our poor selves overmuch beating back to weather for hundreds of miles. …
OK; it’s either "sappy," or "cheesy," or possibly "trite," "corny," or "unimaginative." But here’s another post where I describe sights we’ve seen that are so tacky with the telling, you’d think you were reading a cruising magazine or something. This is the kind of stuff boating fantasies are made of. We begin with a classic…
Moving 21 miles south from Bahia de Matanchen we stopped briefly at the rolly anchorage of Chacala. This one definitely requires bow and stern anchors to reduce the boat’s motion by keeping the boat bow-to the incoming swell. When we anchored there, there did not appear to be significant current – we and other folks…
As I was saying previously…The Fox is so new and well-built that very little has yet gone kerflooey. The 6-item list below comprises stuff that is not especially essential to sailing but makes life aboard more comfy — if all works according to spec. However, here’s the preliminary disclaimer, again, to forestall any unpleasantness because…