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.

This is the “Eiffel” Church In Santa Rosalia (2)

See below for more information.

Abandon Smelter in Santa Rosalia (6)

These photos are of the old abandon copper smelter next to the Santa Rosalia harbor. The town is trying to save and even restore as much of it as they can.

Osprey (one eating a fish) On Top Of Smelter

Sidewalk in Front of House

Santa Rosalia

Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, Mexico is a unique town for this part of Mexico with its old wooden buildings in a desert area with no trees and a French flavor. The town was founded in 1869 to mine and process the high-grade copper ore from the area. After being started by the Germans, a French company purchased the operations in 1884. The town has mostly wood houses rather than adobe and block. The wood was used a ballast for the sailing ships returning to take another load of copper back to France. The mines closed in the ‘50s. Because of the French connection the town has a church designed by Alexander Gustav Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame. The church was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 189?? along with the tower as an example of an easily relocated building. Not sure how it ended up here but the plaque in front of the church says it was shipped from Brussels. We have been here a couple of times before. My previous posts give more details on this city of 18,000.

This trip I rode my bicycle to the top of the mesa south of town to visit a graveyard and get a great view of the city. The pictures are below.

Near the top of the mesa on the south side of town is a large graveyard. (6)

The graveyard is a sprawling area with no clear boundaries except the sharp drop offs to the East and North.

The tradition information is on the gravestone back with flowers and a lovely seating area in the front. I think the concrete structure is a cistern to water the tree.

Flowers are always appropriated and long lasting if the proper variety.