June 4, 2018-South of Coyote

wingssail images-judy jensen
Fred Driving

I was supposed to be cooking but instead I sat on my haunches in the gathering darkness silently looking at the waves which were rocking us. There was a northerly blowing outside and we should have been protected in the harbor but the waves were refracting around the nearby point into the bay and, not only that, they bounced off the rock wall behind us and right back to where we were sitting, making them doubly big. The motion was not dangerous but uncomfortable. I like my anchorages quiet and flat, like a mill pond. I often say, “I’ll go a hundred miles before I’ll stay in a rolly anchorage,” but here we were. We’d been tolerating the movement all afternoon, waiting for sunset when the wind would slack off and the seas would settle down. But that was an hour ago and no sign yet of a let down. In addition to that, the wind was coming over the hill at the head of the bay and flogging the awning. I hated everything about this.

I looked at the bowl of marinating pork in front of me and my cooking utensils, to say nothing of my glass of scotch. I was all prepared to BBQ. Judy was already doing her bit in the galley below deck.

“Fuck it,” I said loud enough for Judy to hear, “Let’s move to the other corner of the bay. Now.”

We could have done this at 3:00pm, in fact Judy had suggested it, but I said, “No, it’ll calm down at night.” Right.

“What about your cooking?” Judy asked.

“It’s right here in front of me, I haven’t started yet.”

“OK, I’ll turn off the potatoes and be right up.”

“Turn on the running lights and the instruments, please.”

I started the engine and Judy came up and went forward to raise the anchor.

Fifteen minutes later we were anchored in the other side of the bay. It was totally still, motion wise I mean, the wind still came in over the hill and gusted down on us. We struck the awning. Then it was really nice.

“This is heavenly,” said Judy as we finished our cooking and settled at the table for a beautiful, peaceful, meal.

This isn’t the first time on this cruise we’d been surprised by a strong northerly which wasn’t forecast. It happened a week ago in San Juanico. Nor was it the first time we’d decided to move just as night fell. Once in Phuket we already had the steaks on the grill when the wind switched and the waves rolled into our anchorage. We upped anchor and motored a couple of miles and found our way into a protected bay using the chart plotter and our GPS and anchored in the dark wondering what it would look like in the morning. It turned out to be beautiful and the quiet night made the tension of entering an unknown place after dark worth it.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
Point Mercenarios-San Juanico

We’ve been on the move south since we last reported. After we left Coyote Bay we spent a couple of days at Punta San Domingo which was especially beautiful. We then sailed to San Juanico, also gorgeous.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
San Juanico

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Baja Beautiful

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Anchored in San Juanico

We sailed on south to Isla Coronado for a night and the next morning motored over to the town of Loretto for a meal out and grocery shopping. Presently we’re in Balandra on Isla Carmen where we first anchored 20 years ago with Rovia and Far Niente and our friend Carl encountered a mountain lion.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
Dingy Repairs in Balandra

This time we haven’t seen any mountain lions, but there are Big Horn Sheep here. We found some hoof prints ashore and saw one on the beach, but none close enough to photograph, unfortunately.
In a day or two we’ll head to Puerto Escondito for water, fuel, and propane, and continue our trek south.

Other Topics:

Fuel Usage:
The fuel situation is interesting; we’ve kept track of our usage and the tank we’re on should have been dry days ago, but we’re still running on it. I’m going to let it run out just to calibrate my consumption calculation which has not been correct since we changed the propeller over a year ago.

Dingy Repair:
We’ve had to totally re-glue the transom of the dingy. It was a big job over a 3-day period and I have no confidence that it will hold. Still, one of the air tubes is leaking somewhere and I can’t find it. Damn Zodiacs, won’t keep the air in or the water out.

Electrical:
Oh, then there is the heat/electrical situation. Over the past week the temperature outside has gotten gradually warmer, (hotter, some might say) and with the extra heat our refrigerator has been running more often, almost constantly, which uses more power. That and the fact that the sun and wind have not cooperated to keep our solar panels pointed to the sun and out of the shade of our big awning means we’ve been low on power these days. To compensate we’ve been running the engine longer. That’s a drag.

Bees:
Finally, Bees. There are a lot of bees at Isla Carmen. They cruise around inspecting everything. We keep them out of the cabin with good screens and shoo them away if they do get in, but out in the cockpit they are a constant nuisance. They are always around and landing on everything, including us. They are not angry and not out to sting us, after all these bees assumedly have their own agenda and it doesn’t, also assumedly, include committing suicide and stinging us. They are just looking for something, water maybe. Beer cans are really inviting so be careful if you have an open beer. Otherwise, just remain calm and gently brush them away if they land on you. But I’d rather they go find some clover.

Again, that’s cruising.

We haven’t been doing much, but we’ve got a few nice photos, click here to see them all.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Isla Carmen