Folks who cruise their boats up in the northern Sea of Cortez during the whole summer – and there are quite a few of them – are far tougher than we are. Things were really beginning to heat up in the northern Sea during July. The hours from 1100 to about 1400, when the sun was hottest, saw us either passed out in the cabin from the heat and increasing humidity, and/or bobbing in the warm water, hanging on to our anchor chain in the shade of The Fox's bow. In contrast to June's hot days but relatively cool evenings, during July the nighttime cooling-off of the land was negligible. I've always been heat-intolerant, and now even GB was getting the vapors, so we decided to leave Puerto Refugio and slowly return south along Baja, eventually to cross the Sea to Mazatlán. Where the summers are just as hot, and there's even more humidity. No; it isn't logical. Sailing is like that sometimes.
Anyway, we sailed south along the eastern side of Isla Angel de la Guarda
for about 42 miles to the island's SE end, and an anchorage above a rock-and-gravel bar that extends from Angel de la Guarda to Isla Estanque (29deg. 03'N/113deg. 06'W). Heermann's gulls nest here on dried seaweed cushions they build right on top of the rocks. Dolphin frolic in the channels. And occasionally, you meet friends at anchor. We had fun with the crew of Trumpeter, exploring the beach, collecting seashells, and generally enjoying one another's company. There were 4 of us, including 3 good cooks and one very lucky diner (me). Sadly, we were on the move soon and said our quick goodbyes.
Trumpeter and another vessel had shared with us that for the preceding 5 days, conditions through the Midriff Islands, including the nearby and much sought-after Isla Partida, had been quite windy making the Partida anchorages uncomfortable and choppy. (We hear this is often the case in the Midriffs; they seem to get (or create?) weather that might be somewhat enhanced, compared to similar anchorages nearby on either mainland shore.) With reports like these, we decided to bypass Partida and make for the Baja mainland to try a popular anchorage just 22 miles away from Isla Estanque: Cala Puertocito de Enmedio (28deg. 50'N/113deg. 14W). Enmedio promised mucho snorkeling and fishing adventure.
Yeah, so the next morning, there we were, snorkeling. About 1000 we felt the water get a bit choppy for no apparent reason. The wind was only blowing about 15 knots from the SE but by now we'd learned enough about the Sea of Cortez to suspect that something might be coming our way. Back to The Fox we hied. We were already pulling down our shade curtains, raising the outboard and stowing the dinghy on deck when the SE wind gusted to 32 knots and stayed there, putting us on a lee shore in 3 directions. We followed the same tactics we'd done in late June when we were last in this area: bail out to the SE shelter of one of the anchorages of Bahía de las Ánimas, less than 6 miles away (28deg. 49'N/113deg. 18'W). Result: a calm-water anchorage with maximum wind gusts of 19 knots. Sweet.
From there,we returned 40 miles south to Bahía San Francisquito. We left San Francisquito shortly before 0100 the next morning, in order to make Santa Rosalía, 82 miles away, by midafternoon. The winds stayed out of the SE the whole day, increasing with the sunrise from 10 knots to about 27. It was a very lumpy ride through head seas, but that day was the day we wanted to make a port, so we sailed when we could and motored when we needed.
Notice to all mariners transiting this section of the Baja coastline: commercial fishermen set large drift nets (the one we encountered was 6 miles long) anywhere from 1 mile to 5 miles offshore. You may want to adjust your course to take you offshore of these nets, especially if you transit this area at night – the nets' floats are very hard to see and sometimes they are left untended. That said, this was the only area of the Sea of Cortez's entire Baja coastline where we encountered fishing activity this significant. The more you know…
m
Leave a Reply