Caleta Partida to Isla San Francisco
24° 49.097'N, 110° 34.062'W

We left Caleta Partida on Sunday, May 8 for Isla San Francisco, which is about a 22 nm run to this island at the upper end of Bahia La Paz, about 42 nm from La Paz itself to give you an idea of the size of the bay. Isla San Francisco is a small island with a nice anchorage affording good protection from north, east and south winds, but not so much from the west or more importantly from the southwest, the direction that the coromuel winds come in from except for the small area at the south end in the "hook", which tends to be shallow where we dropped. Anchored in 19 foot of water with rapidly decreasing depths between us and the shore we were set for the first two nights with only a moderate coromuel condition. We are getting so good at this that we don't even use the "flopper stopper" any longer. Maybe Marisa is getting her sea-legs? The third night the winds switched to the north and we had the fetch across the bay to contend with, but still not bad. We put out some extra anchor road or scope to compensate and keep us off the beach. All was well.


This is a pretty spot, a large acring bay with beautiful clear water and white sand beach. We were joined again by Swift Current, Blue Rodeo, Endorfin, Taking Flight, Panta Rhea, Honcho and several other boats. Cirque showed up the third day and invited practically the entire fleet aboard for great appetizers and Louis' pineapple rum punch.


We took a group hike to the top of the hills above the "hook" for photo opts, then to the bay on the east side of the island to look for 'agate' rocks known to be found there. We struck out, but several others in the party found a few. This bay was a good place for paddle boarding, swimming and snorkeling at the point. Louis and Laura aboard
"Cirque" who we first met down in Zihuatanejo, came in the last evening and hosted quite a group onboard their boat. Louis is a retired Bay area school physical education teacher, semiprofessional juggler and sailor extraordinaire; probably having done more open ocean racing than anyone else that I've met before including the ill-fated 1979 Fastnet Race off the English coast that took so many lives, multiple Transpac and Tahiti races, North Atlantic races, you get the picture. They keep their boat absolutely spartan, no above deck appendages or canvas; dodger or bimini, no shade or shelter for the cockpit whatsoever. Everyone has their own way of doing things.


We were having fun, but decided to leave our group early to get to Bahia Aqua Verde, as a first stop in route to Santa Rosalia, our intended final destination of this trip and about 180 nm north of Isla San Francisco. There are many good places to stop in between and we only have a month left, time to get going.