SantaRosalia-BLA

Santa Rosalia - Bahia Los Angeles

Santa Rosalia was a fascinating town and we really enjoyed our stay there. The harbor itself was one of the dirtiest we've been in. A hangover from its industrial past and also from the nightly load of squid refuse dumped in the water as the local fishermen clean up their catch. One consequence of this was the amount of growth on Trick's hull after only a week in the harbor. We could barely move under power - mostly because of a barnacle-encrusted propeller which had been cleaned just before we sailed into Santa Rosalia. One solution several cruisers adopt to prevent this is to put a plastic grocery bag over the propeller. The bags are fragile enough to break up if you need to use the engine in an emergency.

Our first anchorage after Santa Rosalia was Trindad to clean off the propeller after our stay in Santa Rosalia. Otherwise, we would probably have continued on to San Francisquito, about 80 miles from Santa Rosalia. We left the anchorage early the next morning and headed for San Francisquito.

San Francisquito is a delightful anchorage with an inlet to a tiny inner harbor that accommodates a few boats with extra security from almost any weather. There were a few houses on the beach around this small harbor. The sand was almost pure white and conditions were about as dry as they could be. A brief walk over an arid, sandy area brought us to a beautiful open beach that seemed to stretch for miles. There were a few huts and a rather empty looking hotel on the beach but no-one was there.

Signs of a more unsettled future were already brewing as towering cumulus clouds rose over distant mountains almost every afternoon. This is typical of the Summer weather cycle where the hot sun fills the atmosphere with water during the day,followed by gusty winds and rainy thunderstorms as the air cools at night. No rain ever reached us so we were just about the only water supply for the local population. Bees were always on the lookout for water and can be a major problem unless some care is taken to keep them under control. The bees here were taking the water from a cloth we had hung out to dry. The first sign of bees is a few scouts from land. If they find water there is a strong chance the boat will be inundated with bees, so most cruisers take care to prevent access to water. Other cruisers put out a bowl of water on the bow of the boat in the hopes of keeping the bees away from the cockpit. We have heard reports of bees emptying a gallon bowl in just a few hours.

The Midriff Islands called us from San Fransisquito and we set course for Isla Salsipuedes, one of a group of three islands a few miles offshore. The wind strengthened throughout our day and we arrived at Salsipuedes in quite strong winds. There also seemed to be a lot of current, creating quite turbulent waters. The cruising guide warned of submerged rocks which had us watching out very carefully and using our Interphase sonar to check for underwater obstructions. We tried out the Southern slot on Salsipuedes, but decided it was too narrow and rather unprotected in the conditions we were experiencing. This was something of a surprise, given the information in our cruising guide. There were other things in the cruising guide which didn't seem to match the island, so we decided to head back towards the Baja coast rather than attempt to pick our way through reefs to other anchorages in conditions where the surface of the sea gave us few clues about what lay below. With hindsight, there was probably a safe anchorage on the Northwest side of Isla Animas, but it was getting late and we didn't want to risk arriving in a strange anchorage after dark. We chose to anchor in Puertocitos Enmedio which turned out to be a beautiful and sheltered bay where we lingered to hike and kayak. Our cruising guide once again confused us by swapping the legends for the pictures of Enmedio and Animas Slot. The high mountains surrounding the bay seem to intensify the heat of the already hot days but Enmedio was such a lovely place that we lingered there to explore. We saw what appeared to be a wild dog on the shore and a few fish in the water, but nothing like we had experienced farther South.

Puerto Don Juan is one of the safest hurricane holes in the entire Sea of Cortez. It is just South of Bahia Los Angeles and we pulled in there to check it out in case we needed to hide there from any hurricanes. We found a couple of fellow cruisers already there and, wouldn't you know, - the very next day our cruising weather forecasters reported the birth of hurricane John a few hundred miles away over the island of Socorro. It would take John a few days to work its way North to Bahia Los Angeles but we decided not to move since we had anchored in an ideal spot that we would probably lose if we left. We spent several days exploring this sizeable anchorage in very pleasant conditions while keeping a very attentive ear on the weather reports over the single sideband radio. The fiddler crab in the photograph was about 1 cm across the shell and seemed to have hundreds of friends lurking in the undergrowth around the beaches.

Eventually, about 23 boats took refuge in Puerto Don Juan and we met all kinds of cruisers, including many we had met previously on our travels North. Taave was the youngest one we met. He was 6 months old and the happiest baby I have ever met. I'm sure the 24/7 attention available from mom and dad helped a lot, plus the constant attention from lots of other cruisers who wanted to play surrogate grandparents. Most of the time here was taken up with making preparations for the hurricane. Making sure anchors were secure and removing everything possible from the boats to reduce windage. Even sails went below.Despite our best efforts at preparing Trick for the storm, we dragged anchor in a chubasco which came came up in the middle of the night, with John due the next day. We thought that the hurricane had arrived early and fully expected the 30-40 knot winds to increase to more than 60 knots before we were done. John tried to get the anchor up to reset it, but it just wouldn't come up. Patricia steered Trick around the crowded anchorage, doing her best to avoid other boats and their anchors and, of course the rocky shores surrounding us. It didn't help that the moon had set and the clouds obscured any stars, so it was one of the darkest night we've ever experienced. We tried deploying a second anchor which we couldn't persuade to set, growing ever more exhausted with our efforts. Thankfully, the wind began to die down, lessening the urgency of our situation and we finally realized that we could haul the reluctant anchor up using one of our sheet winches. We then found our way back to our original anchoring spot, guided by other helpful cruisers who had been keeping an eye on us. We reanchored but maintained an anchor watch for the rest of the night. What an exhausting and terrifying experience! Our fellow cruisers were wonderfully supportive and several came by the next day to offer help complete our preparations for the hurricane.

The reason for dragging the anchor became apparent when we finally managed to haul up the anchor. It was fouled with two loops of chain which also explained why it was difficult to pull up. We had been aware that Trick circled around the anchor a couple of times as the wind shifted each day and we checked twice a day to make sure the anchor wasn't fouled. It often was and I suspect that the situation was worsened by our choice to have only 60 feet of anchor chain attached to nylon rode. Under most circumstances, we could get away with using mostly chain in the relatively shallow anchorages. In Don Juan, however, we had deployed over 200' of rode in about 20' of water in anticipation of the storm. The chain mostly lay in place on the sandy bottom, but the light but slightly negatively buoyant nylon followed Trick as she was blown around by the wind which often resulted in the rode snagging on the projections of our Danforth anchor. We now use a claw anchor, similar to the Bruce anchor which doesn't have projections to snag the rode. We also compromised our desire for lightness by installing 200' of chain rode which should suffice for most of our anchoring needs.

The cruiser nets on HAM and Single Sideband Radio had daily reports of John's progress up the coast of Baja. Frightening winds and rain in La Paz and Puerto Escondido with severe flooding in many places. People were killed in Mulege where the river rose to rooftops and cars were washed into the harbor in Santa Rosalia. Thankfully, John's arrival in Puerto Don Juan was barely noticeable. Ominous, but spectacular clouds accompanied by light rain which caused a spectacular rainbow arcing across the the anchorage.

We slept most of the day after our harrowing night. Most of the cruisers spent the day putting their boats back together then took off for the village of Bahia Los Angeles to stock up on groceries. Once provisioned, they took of for the local islands and Puerto Refugio where there is usually an abundance of whales and other sea life. Unfortunately the rains brought out swarms of insects around the islands. The 'bobos' proved to be the worst. These are swarms of tiny flies which crawl into eyes, ears and nostrils, creating so much discomfort that most people just retreated into their cabins.

It took about a week for us to recover from our experiences in Don Juan and make it around the corner to Bahia Los Angeles. Fortunately the insects hadn't been bad in Puerto Don Juan and didn't really bother us in Bahia Los Angeles.

The village of Bahia Los Angeles sits at the bottom of huge mountains which almost reach the sea. We anchored off the sandy beach and explored the town which had pretty much everything necessary to keep us comfortable. Grocery stores, restaurants, internet cafes and lots of wonderful people.

One of the attractions was the town museum. The car sculpture outside first attracted our attention. Painted to represent the ocean with sculptures of seals made out of car tyres. Closer to the museum was a reconstructed whale skeleton.

The bay was huge and spectacular. Surrounded by majestic mountains and a chain of islands interrupting the exit to the Sea of Cortez. The daily weather patterns were fascinating, although a little worrisome at times. The hot summer sun heats up the air on the arid Baja peninsula where it rises above the mountains. The near-tropical mainland on the Eastern side of the Sea of Cortez is much more humid so the air heated by the sun over the mainland carries a lot of moisture with it. The moisture forms massive towering clouds over the mainland which build up throughout the day. As night comes along, the air cools rapidly. On the Baja side this means that the cooler air starts to fall, building up speed as it rolls down the cooling mountains. This is particularly noticeable off Bahia Los Angeles village where we experienced 50 knot winds one night. Just a mile or so down the bay the night winds are much lighter because the mountains curve around to face each other so the wind effects cancel. The local effect of geography on the weather conditions has been an important lesson here. Over on the mainland, the cooling nights bring spectacular thunderstorms which can occasionally travel right across the sea and affect the Baja side. Thankfully, there are plenty of weather experts on hand to warn of the more severe conditions.

The weather was easy to cope with most of the time and we spent many balmy days in quiet anchorages just relaxing, swimming or hiking Fish often surrounded Trick, both at night and during the day. We didn't do as much exploring as we wanted to with Trick because we were still quite nervous about our anchoring skills and the 'bobo' reports from other cruisers suggested that we probably wouldn't want to leave our cabin, even if we did find a pleasant spot to anchor.

Fate still had some knocks in store for us as we discovered one very windy night. One of our solar panel mounts worked loose and allowed to wind to blow the panel right into the wind generator. Every blade on the generator was smashed and the safety glass over the solar panel was crazed. Surprisingly, the panel still worked at about half power but the wind generator was going nowhere. Once again fellow cruisers stepped in to help. One reported an old generator lying in the yard of one of the local houses, then another cruiser came up with a set of replacement blades for us. Wow! what a wonderful bunch of people.

Bahia Los Angeles is known for its population of whale sharks. We wondered how long that will continue as we watched a couple of the local tourist pangas filled with screaming teens chasing a school of whale sharks around. The pangas would speed up to the school, stop and let everyone jump in the water to swim with the sharks. This usually involved swimming after the sharks as fast as possible as they swam away from the pangas. Everyone then got back on board the boat to catch the sharks again and repeat the progress. It took about a half hour to chase all but one of the sharks away. Thankfully the pangas then lost interest and left the remaining whale shark alone. It was probably 30 feet long and seemed quite at ease literally swimming circles around the boats and kayaks quietly drifting close by. You can see the dorsal fin next to the powerboat in the photograph on the left. It came right up to the kayaks and even bumped Patricia's kayak as it swam beneath it. They are beautiful looking creatures with a geometrical pattern of white spots all over their bodies. John got in the water to take shots like the one on the left. His mouth is at the top of the picture. The water visibility here was only a few feet - not surprising if the whale sharks are feeding on the plankton in the water. Nevertheless, it was quite easy to get shots of the shark as it swam within a few feet of the camera. Probably the high point of our year in the Sea of Cortez.