Circumnavigating Islas Carmen and Danzante

After a brief stay, hooking up with friends Dennis and Dan (both of whom we met during the year we kayaked for 2.5 months in Baja), we left Marjean, so that she could visit with friends. We then sailed south to establish ourselves in Puerto Escondido and get ready to kayak with our friends Jill and Bob Stecker from Colorado. You will see some pics of Punta Pulpito. (This is a point halfway, and our anchorage for one night) Jill and Bob had been in Puerto Escondido a day ahead of us, so we had timed our arrival rather well. We even had a greeter and escort, Elvin of Western Sea, and commodore of the Hidden Port yacht club. He led us to our mooring buoy and even offered to take care of Kitty Kira while we were gone.

Working for 3 months on Batwing, had captured our attention so thoroughly that we had to shift gears to get into expedition mode. We searched for our kayaking gear, spent a few days getting organized, paddling a bit to get loosened up and ready for 10 mile per day activity. Ron and I were terribly out of shape from being in the boatyard for so long, we hoped it was not going to be too hard on us to paddle day after day this distance. As you will see by these pictures, we saw incredible scenery and geological features. The weather was beautiful, only one day where the wind blew us off the water, we were blessed. And yes, we completed the circumnavigation of Islas Carmen, and Danzante.

Nine days of sharing our love of Baja with Jill and Bob and we managed to survive the activity! We had lots of fun!

Across the Sea of Cortes, again

After splashing and getting ourselves pulled off the reef AND spending several days working on the rudder—getting it to move freely again, we left Guaymas on a Friday, heading in the direction of Punta Chivato just northeast of Bahia Conception. Now some superstitious sailors would recommend not leaving on a Friday, so we asked Ray, a fellow NW sailor, and he said “being superstitious about leaving on a Friday depends on what religion ya believe in”, and since we didn’t have one, we left. Besides, we had a 36-hour window of favorable weather before a stiff norther was predicted to blow and we wanted to be in the protective bays of Conception before that happened. So off we went with some trepidation. (We still had a twinge of that superstition nagging in the backs of our minds) After all it had been 9 months since we had sailed and we had a lot of new stuff to get used to! We were basically on a shakedown test run across the 90 or so miles of this portion of the Sea of Cortes.

Yes, I had better mention that we also had Marjean along with us as a visitor this time. As some of you may remember we had a third crewmember when we sailed down the coast to San Francisco, and it was she! You will see her in the pictures that are published here.

Off we went sailing well after dark, making such good time that we arrived at Punta Chivato by full moonlight at midnight. Anchoring in the dark is not recommended in Mexico, but with the light so bright, and by using our radar to make certain that we were a prudent distance from the nearby islands and the shore, we settled into our calm anchorage for a brief sleep. After 6 hours of sleep we up anchored and headed into Bahia Conception, once again visiting some of the anchorages we scoped out last year.