July 13th – Bahía las Ánimas – Jim’s Blog #58

We’re now about two-thirds of the way up the inside eastern edge of the Baja Peninsula. Our log says that we have now cruised for about 3,400 nautical miles (approximately 3,800 statute miles). At an average speed of 5-6 knots, that amounts to approximately 620 hours of sailing/motoring during the 8.5 months that we have been cruising since the beginning of November. If we assume that an average day of travel lasts about 9 hours to get from one anchorage to another, we have spent nearly 70 days (out of the 250 that we have been cruising) actually getting from place to place. So generally we’ve been relaxing in anchorages over 70% of the time that we’ve been out. And of the 70 days that we have been sailing/motoring, we have encountered only a handful of days that have been uncomfortable. Not bad for an eight-month vacation!

We left Santa Rosalía on Thursday, July 10th and motor-sailed to Ensenada la Trinidad, a small dent in the coastline about 10 hours north. The next real bay was about 80 nautical miles north, but would have required that we leave in the afternoon and sail all night to get there in daylight. We prefer anchoring at night and getting a good night’s sleep, rather than stand 3-hour watches all night where we never really get the rest we need. Ensenada la Trinidad, however, turned out to be a rockin’ and rollin’ anchorage with little protection from the easterly swells, so we had to wedge ourselves into our bunks and ignore the constant rolling motion of the boat. We left early the next morning to get out of the constant rolling of the boat and to make sure we would get into Bahía San Francisquito early in the afternoon.

On the way up to Trinidad we were able to sail a bit, and were enjoying the quiet, when we heard the sound of a very large snort. Looking around, we saw a very large whale about 3 boat lengths away from us on the port (left) side (probably 120’ away), expelling breath through his blowhole, and paralleling our course. The distance from the back of his dorsal fin to the front of the body that could be seen above the water was at least 30’ long. It was not a Gray Whale, since Grays don’t have a dorsal fin. So we went to our sea life identification book, and decided the beast was a Fin Whale. Checking out the diagram of the whale in the book to determine the size, we found that we had been viewing about one-third the length of the entire whale. That means we had about a 90’ whale taking a look at us.

We did the whale look-up later to determine the full size, but at the time we were more than aware that we had a monster following us, and our thoughts immediately turned to what a whale that size could do to our boat if we were mistaken for a whale of the opposite sex. We held our breath, grabbed a handhold, and attempted to get a picture of the whale. We were too flustered to get a good photo and just at that time the whale went down, the wind died, the sails started flapping, and we became absorbed in getting the sails furled. After we started the engine and handled the sails, we noted the whale now on our starboard side about twice as far away and it soon disappeared. Apparently he/she passed under our stern while we were otherwise engaged.

Reading further about Fin Whales, we found that there are several sedentary populations of these whales in the Gulf of California (our name for the Sea of Cortez) and that they occasionally make close approaches to divers as they pass – almost as if they are curious. We assume this whale was simply observing us and had no other plans for us or our boat. It was certainly an eye-opening experience, and I couldn’t help but think that we were awfully close to harpoon distance, if we had been whalers.



Later that same day we were approached by three dolphins that played around our bow for at least 10 minutes. We got some movie footage of the dolphins, but they didn´t show up very well. Here´s a still of two of them that we got.


On Friday, due to a lack of wind, we motored up to Bahía San Francisquito where we ran into ‘A Cappella’ and ‘Zephyra’ waiting for us in the anchorage there. ‘A Cappella’ had left two days previously in the afternoon and went straight to this bay. ‘Zephyra’ left a day ahead of us and also stopped off at Ensenada de Trinidad. Also in Bahia San Francisquito were several large, rusty fishing boats that were anchored during the day to let their crews sleep; so they could catch and process squid all night. When we first showed up we were invited to cocktails with Ed and Cornelia on ‘A Cappella’ along with Russ and Debbie from ‘Zephyra.’ It was wonderful to sleep on a boat that was steady in the water.

We stayed an extra day, and invited the other two crews to cocktails on our boat that afternoon. After two days of sailing/motoring, it was enjoyable to sit and do nothing all day. I got hot at one point in the afternoon and stepped off the side of the boat into what I expected would be the 80° water I had experienced in Conception Bay. Not so! The water was about 70° and a shock to my body that I didn’t expect. It reminded me of my pre-teen summer ritual at the local swimming pool, where I used to dawdle around the edge of the pool dreading the moment of contact with the water, even though I knew my body would get used to it almost immediately. I must have wasted hours getting up the nerve to get wet, and I still have that initial reluctance to get wet unless the temperature of the water is at least 80°.

That night the fishing boats did their nightly processing so close to our boats that we could smell the squid, hear the Mexican music on the boats, and even observe the assembly line on a couple of the boats. It was definitely time to leave. As we departed at about 8AM the next day, we couldn’t help but notice the tin cans, food wrappers, plastic bottles, and other trash floating in the bay from the fishing boats. It occurred to us that these decrepit boats probably didn’t have holding tanks; so swimming in their vicinity was not an option.

All three sailboats brought up our anchors within a few minutes of each other today, and headed north to Bahía las Animas. The water was absolutely flat most of the day, not a breath of wind until about 2PM. Sheilagh and I kept cool by watering each other down with the fresh-water hose in the cockpit. In the course of the day all three boats encountered large groups of dolphins playing together and possibly feeding in a couple of locations. Several of the dolphins split off and rode our bow wave, while we saw several baby dolphins playing in the group. We saw no whales in the last two days, but we did see a seal lying on its back in the water with its flippers extended up out of the water and lacking only a good novel and an umbrella drink to be totally content (at least from our perspective).

This is one of my favorite seats - on the bow pulpit facing back toward the boat - from which I can see the wildlife, particularly dolphins swimming below


Tonight the cocktails were on ‘Zephyra,’ a very roomy ketch with a center cockpit, whose original home was Lake Tahoe. Russ and Debbie bought the boat there, did some chartering with visitors to the lake, and eventually transported it down to the San Francisco Bay Area to prepare it for cruising. Russ entertained us with a description of the geology of the area that he had learned about thirty years ago, and had retained an amazing amount of information from the course. We can see a perfectly shaped volcano a bit north of us with an absolutely flat top. We are anchored near some lava cones that show evidence of having expelled gas some years ago, forming caves in the rock. We may do some exploring tomorrow. More later . .