From Above El Burro Cove Looking Southeast

Vagari is the cool looking sailboat in the center

Full Moon Over Coyote Island At Sunset

Sleeping Dogs

The Churches are always Spotless

Even in the smallest towns or villages

Old Mulege Prison

We operating the inmates were let out during the day. The town is so remote they couldn't leave.

Christmas Lights and Flowers Are Always Appropiate

A Spotted, Dotted, Yellow Belly, Black Throated, Long Tail Lizzard

Hiking Above El Burro Cove

Pot Luck Sunday Brunch At The Hidden Port Yacht Club

Sunset from the North Anchorage at Isla Monserrate

Sunrise on the same mountains in the sunset photos

Beach rocks

The cactus meet the sea at the north anchorage

Yellow Stone On Isla Monserrate

The name is not from the flintstones

Hiking Up "Steinbeck Canyon"

This canyon is three miles East of our anchorage. Steinback's "Sea of Cortez" is a short of great read. It's about his trip around the sea on a boat in the 1950's

We Have No Plans And We Are Sticking To Them

Interesting day cruising (4/20/09 Monday) The forecast was for good NW winds in the morning dropping in the afternoon then becoming light SE sometime tomorrow.

We left at 9:30 for an island 17 nm to our SE that has a good anchorage in both the N and S sides. It was a great day, mostly sailing, motoring just when in the lee of an island. We sailed between two and six kts per hour.

Of course with the NW wind we went to the South anchorage planning to move to the North side the next day. We approached our anchorage sailing at 6 kts with the wind slightly behind us. We rolled in the headsail then Rhea turned Vagari around into the wind so I could take the big mainsail down. As I worked on the sail Rhea keep turning the boat to face the wind. We ended up heading SE into the wind. Now the SE waves and wind are going right into our planned anchorage. Not good.

No problemo. Just go back four miles to the North anchorage. But wait, we could both see that back a mile or two there was still a good NW breeze. The next good anchorage was 13 miles away and usually crowded so it was unlikely that we could get a decent spot to drop our anchor.

Decision time. The South anchorage is small with rock reefs on both sides and it has a very narrow area of anchoring depth bottom with a steep drop off on the seaside. We had not spent a night there previously.

The North anchorage has a huge anchoring depth self and we have spent two enjoyable nights there two years ago.

By the time we motored four miles North the wind had almost died and all we had to contend with was the waves left over from the daytime NW winds. We are rocking and rolling a little as I write this.

(Tuesday AM) The "swell swells" decreased during the evening and we were fine.

Posted via Ham Radio from Isla Monserrate 25 deg. 41 min. N 111 deg 02 min W
23hrs UTC 4/21/09

The Mountains Meet The Sea At Puerto Escondido

I hiked into these mountains Saturday

Moonrise over Puerto Escondido

Isla Carman

100 Year Old House (2)

The lady who lives in this house came out as I was taking this picture and said in English and Spanish how beautiful the wood was. She also wanted me to take a photo of her old dog. Could you refuse? There are no trees in this part of the Baja so this wood came from France as ballast in clipper ships returning for another load of copper.

More Sleeping Dogs

I woke him up

Slag from the smelter was loaded from this structure onto a boat for dumping outside the harbor. At first I thought the black sand was from volcanic rock.

Some More of Santa Rosalia (5)

Sailing Wing and Wing

Sailing Down The Baja

Sunday the 5th we left Santa Rosalia early before we got the latest weather update. The update differed from the previous benign forecast. It was blowing at 25 kts, about 25% above our limit of what we consider comfortable sailing. The waves were large, probably up to eight feet. Once underway going back wasn’t an option due to the wind angle so we continued to the first protected anchorage, which was about 25 mile away. A wild ride but Vagari and her crew did fine we just weren’t happy about it. The next day we had a very lazy sail the remaining eleven miles to our original destination.

We had a classic cruising sail for the next 44-mile leg. The forecast was for very light winds from behind us with no waves. That is what developed. After the first four hours of motoring we felt a slight wind on the back of our necks so we set the sails in a “wing and wing” configuration. That is both sails are set perpendicular to the length of the boat on opposite sides. This give the maximum sail area exposed to the light wind. The wind speed got to perhaps eight knots but we were able to scoot along at three to five knots, which was fine. The temperature was in the seventies with lots of sunshine so life was good.

We went 34 miles the next day to Puerto Escondido, no wind, had to motor all the way. We planned to stay here for an extra day to clean up the boat and rest but the forecast for the weekend is 25 kts from the north so we will stay here until Monday. After that we will see what happens.

More later.