Bay of the Dead

Well, it’s been a little while since my last post.  It seems there is always something to do on the boat – fixing chafe points on lines, changing the oil on the engines or cleaning the bottom of the boat.  Whoever thought that cruising was just sitting around drinking margaritas was gravely mistaken!  It’s been a lot of fun so far, sailing around the east cape from Cabo San Lucas to La Paz.  On our way, we had planned to spend two nights in Bahia Los Frailes (23^o22.863’N,109 ^o25.286’W and 45 miles from Cabo), Ensenada de los Muertos which translates as Bay of the Dead (23^o59.215’N,109 ^o49.620’W which is 45 miles further) and Puerto Balandra (24^o19.268’N,110 ^o19.868’W which is 12 miles outside of La Paz).  Anyhow, because a Norther (a wind that can gust over 30 knots and blowing straight down the Sea of Cortez) was forecasted, we decided to spend a couple of extra nights in Los Muertos to weather out the storm.  In fact, the wind blew so much one night, our anchor began dragging and we had to reset it at about three in the morning.  It was great fun hanging out there though – there was a beautiful boutique (14 room) high-end hotel on the beach with, I think, six guests.  It had one of the most impressive model train exhibits I have seen outside of the train museum in Balboa Park.  The hotel was more than happy to have cruisers hang out at their pool and there were lots of cruising kids there so it made for a good time for Danielle and Harrison.   Barb even had a moms’ night out with many of the other cruising moms if you can believe it!

Once the Norther had blown through, we decided to head north from Los Muertos to Balandra Bay through  Cerralvo Channel (24^o15’N,110 ^o00’W).  While the Norther had died down somewhat it did make for some serious San Francisco Bayish sailing as the wind and swell coming down through the channel was still pretty strong.   But, once we made it to Puerto Balandra it was all worth it.  Puerto Balandra is perhaps one of the most beautiful bays I have seen.  The water was crystal clear water and we anchored in about eight feet of water.  There were about six other boats here (as compared to the 30 or so in Los Muertos).   The beaches were pristine and you could walk out from the beach for probably a quarter mile in knee deep water.  Harrison and I dingyed around trying to catch some fish and discover all the inlets while Barb and Danielle discovered the bay by sea kayak.  Harrison and I even found our way deep into the bay where there was a huge protected mangrove area.  The water was so calm we could have water skied!

This morning (Thursday Nov. 19^th) we cleaned the bottom of the boat and, since we are beginning to run out of food, we decided that we would head for La Paz (24^o09.376’N,110 ^o19.650’W) and spend some time reprovisioning and discovering the city.  We will likely be in La Paz through Thanksgiving.  Anyone want to come visit?

I should also hopefully upload some more photos today (or tomorrow) and will put out another post when they go up.

More later,

Michael