Comocean Sets Sail: Thar she blows!

White-sided dolphins visited Comocean as we left Punta Chivato.

Isla San Marcos

On March 30^th we anchored at Isla San Marcos. According to our cruiser guide by Breeding and Bansmer, San Marcos produces large quantities of gypsum which is exported to ports around the world. It didn’t seem glamorous but we went anyway and were glad that we did.

Anchorage at south end of Isla San Marcos

There is a village of about 600 people on San Marcos and this church is located just south of the mine. The stairs leading to the church reminded me of of an Aztec temple.

Flocks of eared grebes were frequently seen.

Gypsum vein.

Gypsum crystals.

Isla San Marcos gypsum open pit mine.

The island provided a wonderful hike and some chuckles. Someone on the island eats a lot of mollusks. There were piles of shells, including the pink lined murex, and the shells had a hole knocked out of the side to allow them to push the meat out. I happend to find three murexs without holes; one was a perfect specimen.

Here's the chuckle. As we were heading back to the boat we noticed this sitting on the hill beside the road.

Either someone had a sense of humor or this was their version of a restroom for those waiting for the next panga - much nicer than a hole in the ground.

Thar she blows!

Every morning Sea of Cortez sailors force themselves to get out of the sack and turn on their SSB radios and tune to either (or both) Sonrisanet (Geary) or Amigonet (Don) to get the day’s weather forecast. Quite honestly I don’t know why we bother. They use most of the same resources (I don’t think they use the same weather models though) and sometimes they agree, but a lot of the time they don’t. Most of the time they are close, but sometimes they are really wrong! The weather gods are so damn whimsical. One guy doesn’t even recognize wind under 25 knots. We like to put in a reef at 18, so under 25 is significant to us. We live by their forecasts, deciding whether to stay or go, go north or south, reef or not. Geary and Don will be the first to say that the Sea of Cortez has a lot of micro climates and the winds change as you go from west to east. Yes - but with all the technology you would think their forecasts might be a little more dependable.

After a brief stay in Santa Rosalia for provisioning we decided to head north towards Bahia de Los Angeles and the Midriff Islands. Our first anchorage was Bahia San Francisquito. Somewhere along the way, I can't remember where (I am past 60 now and I didn't write it down) we saw our first whales. About 20 feet from our port side we saw black "whale hide" rising above the water, then a pyramidal dorsal fin. Then a second larger fin surfaced behind the smaller one; momma was joining her calf. This went on for a few minutes with bits of whale rising above the water and then sinking, and then the large flukes pointed at the sky and she dove. We didn't get pictures but we immediately grabbed the ID book to identify what we had seen. Of course nothing matched. We shared our experience with other cruisers that have been in the Sea for many seasons and they felt that we had seen a sperm whale. The idea of being next to such a large animal was astounding. We were in 2,000-3,000 ft deep water and there are Humbolt squid (sperm whale's favorite food) so it was possible.

We where in San Francisquito with another boat, Warren Peace, and based on a favorable forecast we

Warren Peace out of the storm.

decided to head north towards Bahia de Los Angeles. We didn’t get very far when the winds started to build and the sky started to darken and look very ominous. “Did you hear something? Yea, there it is again - thunder.” Of course, when there is thunder there is lightning and that’s definitely not good when you are on the big open water in a thing with a pointy metal pole sticking up 70 feet into the sky. The important question was: WHERE was the lightning? Both boats tried to figure out how the storm was moving and determine a course to get away from it. Soon there was lightning to our left, to our right and oh boy, across the sky above us. Warren Peace decided to head back to San Francisquito and wait out the storm. We turned south to follow them and then Greg finally remembered something he had read about storm paths and the correct response so we changed course again and headed NW. We safely made our course away from the lightning and worried about our friends that we left behind.

Pelicans are abundant in the Sea of Cortez.

Pelicans in the storm.

Rain over the channel.

It wasn’t long before we were sailing under sunny skies again. As for the "favorable forecast", we had high winds off and on throughout the day. Our highest recorded gust was a whopping 69.9 knots!!

Baja coast north of Bahia San Francisquito.

The Baja coast reflects its geologic past and mineral riches.

I was so excited by our next anchorage even though it had a name that didn't roll of the tongue: Cala Puertocito (little port) de Enmedio. The scenery was beautiful and the birds were abundant. Best of all, I could hear whales. After sunset I sat on the deck for an hour watching six whales spout and listening to them exhale and inhale. They where just cruising around right outside of this little cove.

Around midnight the swell started entering the anchorage and rocking the boat. Things started to fly off the counter tops and all hell broke loose. We had never been shaken so badly in all of our passages. Sleep was out of the question and we couldn't leave soon enough. As soon as the sky lightened we pulled anchor.

A coyote visits the beach in the evening.

We anchored off of Punta Soldado, north of Animas Bay. When I noticed a sizable lagoon on the chart, being the lagoon junky that I am, I convinced Greg that we should go back south a little bit and visit Punta Islotes in the southern portion of Bahia de Las Animas.

There weren't many birds, but it was a lovely lagoon. At first Greg wanted to turn around and skip the lagoon because of a large group camped nexty to it. As we beached the dinghy a gentleman from the group approached us. The group of over a hundred people where from Dana Hills High School in California. They were seniors from the school's marine ecology class. Their teacher brings his students down every year so that they can apply what they have learned. I thought that this was absolutely terrific. Randy, the teacher, knows the area well because he has a vacation home in Bahia de Los Angeles and has been coming to Baja Sur for the last 38 years.

Marine Ecoloby camp in Bahia de Los Animas.

Anchored at Punta Islotes

Lagoon inlet.

The elegant tern is a Mexican bird which we see frequently but only got a good photo of it at this lagoon. It doesn't enter the water like pelicans or gulls, it just skims over the water and grabs its fish. If you watch closely you can see it do a little shimmy between wing beats to shake off water.

There isn't much vegetation around this lagoon. Little fiddler crabs of various colors covered the shore. It was next to impossible not to step on them. There were red ones, yellow and my favorite a lavendar one.