Puerto Yvaros and Topolobampo
07 November 2011 | Topolobampo
Ellen
We left San Carlos around 7am on a very calm day. Too calm as we had very little wind and ended up motoring most of the way to Puerto Yvaros. It was a spectacular sunset though. We arrived at the channel into Puerto Yvaros around 9am and followed a shrimp boat in as it's pretty shallow even though it's well marked with bouys. We anchored infront of the fishing pier and it was a comfortable calm anchorage and a good place to wait out any bad weather.
We were only going to stay overnight to rest up but the next day the winds were from the South and so we waited until they switched back around to the North. When we finally left, we had about 12 knots of wind from the West North West which was great as it was a nice broad reach in about 2 feet of swell - quite comfortable. We figured on 20 hours to do the 90 mile run to Topolobampo and we were going along at over 6 knots so had to reef the sails to slow the boat down or we would arrive in the dark. We slowed down even more later as we were approaching the channel and it was only 4:30 am with 6 miles to go. The channel is 12 miles long and starts 2 miles out of the bay itself with very shallow water on either side.
We are at the new marina in Topo and it's quite nice and not too pricy at 16 dollars a night. We are the only sailboat here. They don't get too many coming in here. So far we really like it here although we haven't even seen the town yet.
Ian met one of the owners of a big powerboat here who offered us his captain and dingy for an afternoon of exploring around the bay of Topolobampo which we did this afternoon. It is a very beautiful place and I think that it is as yet one of the few undiscovered places on the Mexican coast.
Tomorrow at 6am we are off on an inland trip to the Copper Canyon. Very excited about it and it will be the first time Ian and I have spent time together off of the boat in over a year. We are taking the train from Los Mochis at 7am. We expect to be gone between 5 and 7 days so I will blog about it when we return.