June 5th – Isla San Francisco – Jim’s Blog #49

We left La Paz on Sunday, June 1st, just as the tide was going out, and rode a 1.8 knot current out the channel. The day showed a high overcast, the first we had seen in a long time, but no rain clouds to speak of. The overcast held in the moisture, keeping the humidity high, while the sea was flat smooth. We seemed to glide out onto the Sea of Cortez held suspended between the gray water and the gray sky, but the sky cleared in an hour or so.

We elected to motor to a bay just north of La Paz (about two hours away) which had been recommended by several other cruisers. Balandra Bay is known for a “mushroom rock” caused by the erosion of a sandstone layer below a harder lava cap. Naturally someone found it necessary to knock it over some time in the past, and the town council cemented it back in place. In fact toppling it became so popular that the town council finally had several fiberglass replicas made and apparently replace it regularly.

We were amazed at the clarity of the water in Balandra Bay and decided to spend a couple of days there. On the evening radio net we heard from Rich and Debbie (with sons, Kyle and Ryan) on ‘Oasis’ who are headed back toward Cabo San Lucas and eventually back to San Diego by July. They asked us to stay an extra day in Balandra Bay and have dinner with them on Monday evening before they continued on south to Cabo San Lucas. We had been trying to connect with them before they left the area; so this was an ideal arrangement.

Sunday evening had one of the most glorious sunsets we have seen in awhile – the type that has rays of sun descending down through the clouds – as if the Almighty is sitting directly above and showering His blessings down on us. That is certainly how we felt at the time. That night, however, we had our first experience with a “Coromuel,” a very warm and strong night wind from the south that sweeps down out of the hills onto the water. At midnight we began to hear the rigging lines slapping against the mast and the sound of wind whistling over the hatches. The wind increased to at least 20 knots, if not more, and we were immediately wary of our anchor set.

We turned on the GPS in the cockpit and noted that we were within the 100’ of chain that we had let out over the 16’ depth, a ratio of about 6:1, which is a better angle than the usual 5:1 scope. The other two sailboats and the power boat in the bay were spread out far enough that they would not threaten us at all if they should drag their anchors. I went right to sleep, but Sheilagh claims her anxiety kept her awake most of the night, and she got me up at 4AM to check on the conditions again. At 7AM the wind and sea were perfectly calm, as if there had been no wind the night before. Apparently the warmth of the water at night and the cooling of the land cause these adiabatic winds, and they occur so often that they have been given a name all their own: Coromuel.

We spent the next day relaxing and examining the bay in our dinghy. We had to take a close look at the “mushroom rock” to see what it was really made of, and decided that it was definitely not a fiberglass replica. It appeared that some considerable masonry work was keeping it in place. The bay is accessible to the Pazaños (native citizens of La Paz) by car and we noticed several families sunbathing and swimming on some absolutely pristine, white sand, shallow beaches. One couple had waded around a headland and found a beach to themselves very near the “mushroom rock.” I’m afraid we disturbed a rather cozy date on the beach as we tiptoed by them to see the rock.

The sailing vessel, ‘Oasis,’ with Rich, Debbie, Kyle, and Ryan onboard, anchored near us at about 2PM and called to re-invite us to a spaghetti dinner that night. We knew they had been away from a store for awhile, so we asked about their supply of beer, a favorite beverage of theirs. They said they were on their way to La Paz the next day to resupply, but for the moment they had no beer, one bottle of wine, and half a bottle of vodka. We immediately loaded up a plastic bag with some cold beer and dropped it by ahead of the dinner invitation to help them out. We also brought a bottle of wine for dinner and a pineapple-upside-down cake for dessert and had a very enjoyable evening catching up with what they had been doing. They had been higher up in the Sea of Cortez for the last several weeks and shared the information they had picked up that wasn’t in the guidebooks. The evening was finished off by a puppet show put on by their new first-grade graduate, Kyle, who may be a script writer someday.

We had the same strong Coromuel wind that night and decided it was time to move on. The next stopping point would be Isla San Francisco, which was about 30 miles north. The morning weather report suggested there would be a southern wind to speed us north; so we delayed our departure to take advantage of the wind when it would be stronger. Alas, the weather report was wrong and we ended up beating into a wind that grew to 25 knots with white-capped seas almost directly on our nose. We shortened sail, but had some exciting moments as the sails flogged the rigging while the boat plunged and soared over the 4-6’ waves. We ended up pulling all the sails down and motoring the last hour or two to get to Isla San Francisco. During the last couple of hours we were huddled under the dodger, watching spray come over the top and wet down the aft portion of the cockpit along with the entire deck of the boat.

When we finally arrived and anchored, there wasn’t anything we could touch on the boat that didn’t leave salt on our hands. We used up some of our fresh water to wash down the boat from bow to stern to eliminate this salty residue. However, the water was so clean that we simply started up our water maker to fill up both tanks to the full 40 gallons apiece. In marinas and crowded anchorages we usually avoid making water because it takes a lot more filtering of the water, less fresh water is produced per hour, and the filters take a lot of cleaning afterward. We broke out the celebratory beers after anchoring successfully and collapsed in the cockpit to recover from the “beating” we had received.

We were immediately contacted on the VHF radio, inviting us to a cocktail hour on one of the Tucson Sailing Club boats who were traveling in a group. This is a group of sailors who live in Tucson and keep their boats in San Carlos Mexico. Periodically they take group trips to the Sea of Cortez for a couple of weeks at a time. We had run into the sailing vessel, ‘Niña,’ with Jerry, Ken and Chris on board, who were in a neighboring slip to ours in La Paz and who explained the situation to us. It was the crew of Nina who had extended us the invitation, but we were worn out from the trip over and begged off. We had hoped to join them the next day, but in the morning the entire Tucson Sailing Club boats had departed for El Gato (a bay farther north), and we were left alone with one power boat in the anchorage.

The bay was teeming with a variety of fish, including puffer fish, needlefish, and some larger ones that Sheilagh spent some time trying to catch for dinner – no luck. I inflated the kayak to explore the bay and get some exercise and got in a good hour of paddling in the cool of the morning as I circled the edge of the bay. When I got back, we set out in the dinghy to go up on the beach and look around. We waded around the edge noting crabs, a variety of smaller fish, shells of all sorts and chunks of coral. Someone had built a cairn of white coral and others had added shells, almost as ornaments. We added some coral and some shells and continued wading along the beach. As it got hotter we simply walked out into the water and ducked down to our necks. The water along the shore was very warm due to some darker pebbles that absorbed more heat, but even the cooler water over the white sand was still 75° or so.

We planned to go snorkeling the next day, but the weather report insisted we would have southerly winds (from the south), and, since we were heading north, we decided to leave early and see if we could get lucky. We were determined to pull into any of several small bays along the way to Agua Verde, if the weather refused to follow the prediction. As we set out, we had a good south wind, and had a good sail. More later . . .