June 10th – Agua Verde – Jim’s Blog #50

It’s hard to believe, but this is my fiftieth blog since last November. How can there be anything left to say? Well, there always seems to be, especially when every time we set sail we arrive at a different location. We arrived in Agua Verde yesterday evening after motor-sailing for about nine hours. During the first three hours we had the south wind that was predicted, as we sailed between Isla San Jose and the Eastern side of the Baja peninsula. The experience was similar to one I had on a raft trip on the Green River in the Grand Canyon. We were surrounded by stratified hills on both sides that narrowed at the north until Isla San Jose ended on the right side, opening us up to the full width of the Sea of Cortez. There was a 1-knot current flowing in our direction, which was similar to the flowing of a wide river.

We know the Grand Canyon was created by erosion, and that must have been the case here. What was strange is that most of the ridges approaching the water were cut off vertically, as if someone had been dynamiting to create a road along the Sea of Cortez. This reminded me of the glacier activity I observed in Yosemite National Park (who can forget Half Dome?). Could there have been glacier activity down here? Also, the look of the cliff-like hills on the east side of the Baja peninsula remind me of the Columbia River gorge. I’m not in an internet location where I can research that at the moment. If someone has some information on the formation of the Sea of Cortez I would enjoy hearing it.

This reminds me that we aren’t getting a lot of comments from our readers except when Sheilagh delivers one of her occasional blogs. She seems to have a lot of females agreeing with her take on the cruising life. We publish most of the comments people send in; so feel free to do so. Naturally we have to edit them to eliminate foul language, curses, and anything I don’t agree with. Not!

After passing Isla San Jose, we encountered East winds for the next three hours that allowed us to sail even faster than we did going downwind – it’s called a beam reach and is the fastest point of sailing. Sadly, the wind died after three hours and we ended up motoring the last three hours. All in all, we saved a lot of diesel fuel and got to this very enjoyable anchorage under good conditions. Normally we could expect north winds that would have fought us all the way, which is why we decided to go for the full nine hours rather than stop in a bay along the way. From here on up, the stops are closer together and there are more really enjoyable anchorages.

Agua Verde is a fairly large bay with three lobes where boats can anchor safely with protection from the winds and seas. There were about seven boats in each of the three lobes, and we picked a good spot in the westernmost of the three lobes along a high bluff that should protect us from nearly any strong wind. We had rocked a lot at night in Isla San Francisco; so in Agua Verde we dug out our “flopper stopper” (a device we hang from our whisker pole at the side of the boat to keep it steadier in a rocking sea). It did a great job for us in preventing our rolling sideways during our stay here.

We installed Sirius Radio on our boat; so we can get all kinds of programming by way of satellite. We are able to catch all the news of the election process as well as talk radio, both liberal and conservative. We have a set of speakers in the cabin and another set in the cockpit; so we can direct the output to either location or to both locations. When Sheilagh wants some quiet and I want some music, news or talk, we simply direct it to my location (usually in the cockpit) and she retires to the cabin. Periodically we both listen to our IPods (actually Sheilagh has a Palm Pilot with the same capability) together, each of us with separate audio books we are “reading.”

Agua Verde is both a fishing village and a goat-raising locale. There are goats throughout the scraggly hills and we often hear the sound of a goat bell clanging as the lead goat is directing the group to another hill-side location. At 6PM the first night we watched two groups of goats amble down a steep grade on one of the hills nearby and up onto the hill on the other side of a spit of land on an equally steep path. We learned that these goats follow that path every evening and then return the next morning – and without any human intervention. I’m not sure what keeps the goats from wandering miles away, since I have yet to see a fence of any sort.

Naturally goat cheese (queso de cabra) is a good buy in the only tienda in town, as we found out on our first day here. We landed on a gravelly beach and walked a quarter of a mile on a dirt track to get some supplies. [I mention the gravelly beach because it’s more difficult to get the gravel out of one’s sandals after leaping out of the dinghy and hauling it up the beach. Sand flows right out of the sandals but not gravel.] The Tienda was not recognizable as a store except for a small sign that read “Tienda” over the door to a shack that had some shelves along the inside wall and a refrigerator turned on its side for a freezer. The vegetables and eggs were fresh, and we got a big chunk of goat cheese that turned out to be a bit rubbery. Slicing it thinly seemed to do the trick, but it is not the type that will melt onto a quesadilla.

That evening one of the cruisers suggested a get-together on the beach for all the cruisers in attendance in the bay, and we had about 12 couples gathered there at 5:30PM that evening. Getting together on the beach in the Sea of Cortez is a lot easier than doing it on the mainland, where the Pacific throws breaking waves at the beaches. Here the water gently laps the shore and there are no breakers at all to disrupt a dinghy landing or launch. Everyone brought his/her own beverages and an appetizer to share. We took deviled eggs, which were a big hit next to the 4 types of guacamole and chips that some of the others had brought. We met cruisers who had been at it nearly 10 years of full-time living on their boat, and others who were as new to it as we were. The talk usually centered on what lay ahead in terms of anchorages, winds, currents, and local events as we go further north into the Sea of Cortez.

Back at the boat, after the happy hour on the beach, we were visited by 6 kids in a panga with an adult doing the driving. They were asking for candy or soda in English (apparently practicing their language skills). We gave 3 cokes to split between the 6 kids and passed along a cerveza for the driver to encourage their foreign language skills. We are told by more experienced cruisers that it was a custom in the past for local kids to pick up garbage for a few pesos, or offer to do some sort of work on the boat for payment. Apparently things have changed over the years; so that handouts are preferred now.

The next morning I kayaked quite a ways around the bay, hugging the sides to see the fish and other sea life in the extremely clear water. I paddled continuously for over an hour, usually in time to a variety of Beach Boys’ songs from my IPod dangling around my neck. It doesn’t get much better than that! The only concern I have is that I might be developing my arm and shoulder muscles so impressively that I won’t be able to fit into my T-shirts. Sheilagh doesn’t think it will be a problem for a long time yet, nor is she particularly impressed with large shoulders, she says.

As I was kayaking, I thought I might be close to running aground on some of the large rocks below me, only to find that I couldn’t reach it with my paddle when I would thrust it straight down. The water is so clear here that the bottom seems to rise up to the surface, and the fish are very visible. On the other hand, I noticed some small waves breaking on something immediately ahead of me, which turned out to be a large rock that came clear to the surface. I realized at the time that I could kayak anywhere, but some of the fascination for me is the challenge of the unknown that may be lurking nearby. I was invigorated by the need to watch what I was doing, since an inflatable dinghy won’t last long if it rubs up against coral or sharp rocks.

When I mentioned this heightened sense of thrill at the newness of what we are doing to Sheilagh in a discussion later, she commented that my sense of “thrill” at what we are doing is nothing but “anxiety” to her. Over the last several months we have been visiting places we had visited a couple of months before, so there was less of the unknown in what we were doing. Now that we are heading north into the Sea of Cortez we are back to encountering everything as “new” once again. This is not helping Sheilagh’s sense of concern about the unknown. In this particular anchorage we moved our boat once already to put it in a more protected position – something we would not have had to do if we’d been here before. Next time anchoring here should be a “piece of cake.”

I took my Hawaiian sling out for some spear fishing a couple of days ago and managed to spear a triggerfish. A Hawaiian sling, for those who don’t know, is a spear with three sharp points on one end and surgical tubing on the other end. You simply put a thumb in the rubber tubing, grab the spear by its back end, and pull the spear back, cradled in the V between the thumb and first finger. When I get the spear point within a foot or two of a fish (either by tracking it or having it swim by), I pull back the spear, release it in the direction of the fish, and the surgical tubing thrusts the point into the fish faster than it can react. A trigger fish has very strong jaws and a barb at the forehead that prevents its being pulled out of a hole. In this case I couldn’t get it fully into my string bag and I didn’t want to be bitten by it; so I discontinued my hunt and headed for shore with the fish held away from my body and wrapped in the string bag and some rope.

When I got it back to the boat, Sheilagh was in the midst of preparations for hosting Jim and Jan of ‘Mañana’; so she double bagged the triggerfish and tossed it into the freezer. By the time she got it out to fillet the next evening the combination of the cold and the hard scales (triggerfish are said to have been used by the Indians as sandpaper) made it impossible to deal with; so we still don’t know how well triggerfish taste. Sheilagh has given me instructions to spear only larger and softer fish in the future. I’m not sure I can get close enough to hunt one of those.

I checked the bottom for barnacles in the fabulously clear water and was surprised to find very few growing after three weeks. When we were tied up in marinas we had to have the bottom scraped every two weeks to stay ahead of the growth. It seems that this cleaner water and distance from other boats has its benefits. We decided it’s time to move on so we’ll have more to say later . . .