Mazatlan to Isla Isabela

First: Follow the Gallant Fox link for a laugh on Mex/Gringo relations. They've been hanging out down there for a while and his blog is entertaining to the max.

The crossing from La Paz to Mazatlan was uneventful. The days (weeks) when there is a Norther blowing down the Sea of Cortez, it can be a very wet, bumpy beam reach. We got lucky and slipped through between blows.

The lights of Mazatlan appeared in the pre-dawn of day two and we were lined up for the entrance to the estuary containing Marina Mazatlan, some nine miles north of the downtown by eight AM.

I noticed on the radar that Ron (S/V Bonny) was about nine miles south and closing on the coast. I hailed him on the VHF.
"Ron! Where the hell you goin', boy?"
"I'm lined up with the harbor." he says
"Ron. Marina Mazatlan isn't on the charts. Grab your cruising guide and get back to me."
"Oh..." came the reply. He's almost two hours south.


The entrance is a little tricky. If the swell is up, it can break across the entrance. Once you're committed, it narrows and dog-legs to the left... then right... past the dredge... Marina/hotel El Cid... and you're home free. I hailed the marina on the radio and they had two marina staff on the dock to take our lines. Being New Year's Eve Day, the office was closed. I gave Ron our paperwork (we'd be gone for a week), grabbed a shower and a cab to go find Rachael.

The reason I was in such a hurry to get out of La Paz was to spend Christmas with my daughter; staying in the Ex wife's second home in the Barrio near downtown Mazatlan. Cute little house... Cheap, too.

Not all was lost. We caught up with her and squeezed in a few days before renting a car to drive Rachael and Brian down to Puerto Vallarta via Rincon de Guayabitos for their flight home.

Back in Maz, we'd invited Roland, a Saskatchewan Wheat Farmer we'd met in Guayabitos two years before, to come down and try some sailing with us. As soon as we had a weather window we were off for San Blas with a stop at Isla Isabela, a wildlife refuge seventy miles off the coast and almost directly on our course. It's an overnight sail but typically, the 20 kt following breeze died and we were motoring shortly after dawn. The island is visable from afar, but getting there seems to take forever; blazing along at walking speed.

Isabela is thinly populated with a transient fishing camp inhabited during the week with Pangueros from San Blas and four student researchers from the University of Mexico City camped out on the North East side of the island... plus a trickle of Yachties who stop there in good weather.

The best anchorage in settled weather is in the South Caldera; the remains of its partially collapsed volcanic cone - this anchorage also reported to be an anchor eater. Matt (Sonadora) was out exploring in his dinghy and directed us to a well protected spot where we dropped the hook in twenty five feet.

The dinghy had a small hole from rubbing on the deck somewhere along the way and we damn near went to the bottom on our first try to get ashore. Roland is a handy guy. When the patch kit didn't work, we used 5200 (Marine adhesive) and a spring clamp to hold it until it dried. Someone told me that a license should be required to use 5200. Once you use it on something it never comes apart. With the Dinghy repaired, it was back to shore for some exploring.

Isabela is a breeding ground for the quite rare Blue Footed Boobies. There are also nesting colonies of Frigate birds and the ubiquitous Temple Dogs; IE: Iguanas that love hanging out in Mayan or any kind of ruins. There are some poorly maintained buildings on the island with it's staff of resident iguanas laying about in the sun. Sounds like Yachties!

A second crater with it's algae green stagnant lake is located in the center of the island. We hiked up to the rim, dropped down and skirted the lake and hiked up the oposite rim and back down to where the research team was camped. We chatted with the students for a while, spied on Boobies in the bush doing their cute little mating dance and bought a Snapper for dinner from the fishermen at the camp on our way back to Argonaut. Tough life, eh?

The next day, we weighed anchor with no issues and set sail for San Blas and Matanchen Bay, six hour's sail south.