June 22nd – Ramada Cove near San Juanico – Jim’s Blog #53

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and we are currently nestled in a small cove on the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula. This is a cozy little bay situated just north of the larger San Juanico Bay where most cruisers stop on their way up the coast. San Juanico Bay faces southeast and protects boats from the north wind, but we are blessed with southeast winds and Ramada Cove offers protection from that direction. There is room for about 5 or 6 boats here, and there were four when we arrived. We had to squeeze in on the edge, but got out of the wind and swells that had followed us north.

On the 19th we had left Puerto Escondido and made our way to the north end of a neighboring island called Isla Carmen. We joined ‘A Cappella’ in a very small cove named Vee Cove, apparently named for the small cut in the shore resembling that letter of the alphabet. Without our cruising guides we might never have seen the cut in the shore. Even with the guide and a GPS location we had difficulty finding it. We finally saw A Cappella’s mast seeming to stick up above a rock, which signaled the location of the cove. Two additional boats were there as well; so we were anchored fairly close to one another.

After we dropped the anchor, we had our celebratory cervezas and then set out in our dinghy (with Ed and Cornelia in theirs) to explore some shallow caves along the shore. We could get our dinghies about 30 feet inside and just barely had room to turn around. In the shadowy depths within the caves we saw hundreds of foot-long Rainbow Runners swirling around in two separate balls. Rainbow Runners are supposedly tasty fish that are a pale white in color with two light blue stripes along each side of the body with a light orange stripe between them. It’s a beautiful fish that blends well with a sandy bottom, but were very visible in the shadowy caves. If I had taken my spear with me, I could have just thrust it into the middle of a ball of fish like that and had some fish for dinner.

As it was, we did some snorkeling and then returned to the boat to prepare for dinner on ‘A Cappella’ with Ed and Cornelia. Preparing for dinner means taking a fresh water shower standing on the side deck of the boat using our fresh water hose (with hot and cold water). We use some bio-degradable shampoo and soap and rinse into the scuppers that flow into the water beside the boat. We maintain decorum by washing our swimming suits as we wash ourselves, toweling off everything, and then going below to finish the job. When we are alone in an anchorage, we can dispense with the decorum, although our children would call this TMI (Too Much Information).

The next day we set sail for another island, Los Coronados (“The Crowns”), which is what a lot of the islands are called since they were formed by volcanoes and have the look of a crown from a distance. We got there fairly early, traveling with ‘A Cappella,’ dropped the hook, and stayed below in the cabin to avoid the hot sun most of the afternoon. We were awakened at 5AM by a horrible smell of dead fish and bird shit that permeated the cabin; so we immediately closed all the hatches, sprayed the boat with air freshener, turned on the fans, and made some hot chocolate to save our olfactory sensors. By 8AM the wind had changed and the smell was gone.

The next morning we went looking for Chocolate (cho-ko-la’-tay) Clams that were supposed to be fairly thick on a neighboring beach. When we got there we saw dozens, if not hundreds, of dead squid lying on the beach and floating next to the shore. These were about a foot long and four inches in diameter and the stench was overpowering. There were a few sea gulls gorging on the feast. We immediately backed away from the beach and tried another beach that was free of the dead Squid. We were told that the clams stick two small feelers out of the sand in about six feet of water that show as holes about a half inch apart. It is necessary to dive down, dig a wide knife to the side of the holes about 2 or 3 inches away and scoop it across the holes about 4 inches deep to dig the clams out.

The only holes I noticed while floating on the surface were about an inch apart. I dove down with a wide spatula in my right hand, scooped under the holes and prepared to grab the clam in my left hand. Imagine my surprise when a small stingray (a foot long from nose to tail and 5 inches wide at the head) glided out of the sandy cloud I had created. I was startled enough not to grab the sting ray, and it didn’t seem too offended. I tried clamming a few more times and uncovered two more stingrays and several scoops of sand. We are told that stingrays are prevalent here in Mexico and that we should never walk along a beach or in the shallow water without shuffling our feet to alert the stingrays, which can produce a very painful sting with their tails if stepped on. Until my clamming expedition I had no idea of how well a stingray could stay hidden beneath the sand – I am now a believer in shuffling my feet when walking on the beach.

The horrible smell of that morning convinced us not to stay there another night; so we headed north to San Juanico that afternoon, while ‘A Cappella’ went south to the town of Loreto to do some provisioning. It looked like it was going to be a great sailing day, but the two-foot chop was right on our beam and caused our boat to rock sideways in a very uncomfortable manner. We raised our main sail to give us some stability and had to zigzag up our course line to stay out of the troughs. We passed a fleet of fishing boats that were anchored off the coast, and later learned that these were engaged in fishing for squid at night with very bright lights and spending the days at anchor cleaning the catch. Apparently there are so many squid in the area that they die from overpopulation due to a lack of available food; so the fishing boats are helping to alleviate the situation.

As we approached San Juanico, we could see that the bay would not protect us from the wind and waves; so we rounded the northern corner and came into Ramada Cove that furnished great protection from the southeast. This is not the sort of protection we would need from a hurricane, but the daily weather reports show no disturbances building up to the south of us. So far there has been just one named storm early in June, far to the south, that quickly dissipated. We are currently about a day and a half away from a hurricane hole in the event of a named storm, and historically we should have about 5 days to get to a good location, strip the boat of sails and anything else that could blow away, and set anchors and lines to prepare for a big blow. You can believe that all the cruisers in the Sea of Cortez are keeping a wary eye out for any inkling of a storm that could develop into a hurricane. More later . . .