Check out more images from the Islands north of La Paz here.

Hola! We're back in La Paz for a couple of weeks after two wonderful weeks spent exploring the Islands and National Park north of La Paz. Our Spot was reporting our positions along the way for those of you who are following us. Otherwise we had no cell service, no internet, no civilization to speak of, just swimming, snorkeling, hiking, beach combing, sailing, kayaking, and socializing. Livin' the dream!



Our first week of adventures started with joining the Women Who Sail (WWS) Rendezvous for a tour of the islands lead by Captain Holly Scott. Holly runs a sailing charter company out of SoCal, and writes a cruising guide to the Baja Peninsula (Charlie's Charts), so she was a wealth of info on all the places we visited.

WWS is a Facebook group of over 7,000 women around the world who are all cruising, living aboard, sailing locally, or hoping to be soon. Heidi joined the FB group about three years ago when there were only 2,500 members. Since then the group has rapidly grown and the members share a wealth of info on all things cruising and sailing related. Post any sailing-related question and you'll receive 10-20 answers within minutes. We've met lots of WWS members all down the coast of California, and many more in Mexico.


The crews of the BYOB (Bring Your Own Boat) in the WWS Rendezvous in San Evaristo. Thanks Frankie Grant for the photo!

Last year Captain Holly Scott started the first annual WWS Rendezvous in the British Virgin Islands, where about 40 WWS from around the world chartered several boats and had a great time. This year the second annual WWS Rendezvous was based out of La Paz where about 60 women from around the world chartered 6 boats. We joined in as a BYOB (Bring Your Own Boat!) along with about 5 other boats. Although predominantly a gathering of sailing women, DHs ("Dear Husbands", "Deck Hands", "Dock Heads"--spouses or significant others, etc.) of BYOBs were invited to join in the festivities. So Captain Kirk was one of 5 guys who joined the 60 women! Lucky him!


Heidi and Seattle sailing buddy Teresa who joined the WWS Rendezvous on a charter boat, then jumped ship to hang with us for a few days. BIG THANKS to Teresa for bringing us our new hand-held VHF! We somehow lost the charging cord to charge our old one...maybe it will show up some day and then we'll have two.

Our long-time sailing friend Teresa from Seattle was on one of the WWS charter boats until we kidnapped her to sail aboard Due West with us for the last few days. Tosh and Tikka were all too happy to give Teresa her kitty fix!

Our new friends on s/v Pablo, Sherri and Steve from Santa Cruz, did such a great write up of the WWS Rendezvous on their blog, if you want to read more about this fun event, you can check out their post here.

For our second week in the islands, we headed back to La Paz for a day to drop off Teresa, pick up our Seattle friends Jared & Karen, re-provision, and re-fill the water tanks before heading back out to the same islands. Since we visited most of the same places again with Jared & Karen, our write-up below will combine both weeks. The entire trip from La Paz north to San Evaristo and back is about 100 nautical miles round-trip.


Seattle friends Jared & Karen came to visit us for a week. They have chartered with us in the Caribbean and we always have a great time sailing together.

As you might imagine, getting boat parts, mail, and other popular US items (like Trader Joe's food!) or Heidi's Neal's Yard Remedies products in Mexico is next to impossible. Thankfully Jared & Karen helped us out by bringing a duffle-bag FULL of items we'd ordered and shipped to their house. It was like Christmas in April when they arrived! Once again we had real peanut butter (NOT Skippy!), gluten-free oats, a lycra suit for Kirk to keep the jellies away, mosquito netting for our companionway hatch, and electric fly swatters! BIG THANKS to Jared & Karen for being our mules!

Isla Espirto Santo and Caleta Partida



Isla Espirto Santo is an amazing National Park with many coves, bays, anchorages, and beaches only accessible by boat. If you don't have your own boat, you can take a day-trip tour from La Paz, or be dropped off with your camping gear to hike and camp around the island for a few days. There are also kayak tours where you can kayak there and then camp ashore.

When we stopped at Bonanza Beach on the way to La Paz (see previous post), that was on the east side of Isla Espirto Santo. This trip we explored the west side of Isla Espirto Santo. The geology of this island (and the whole area really) seemed like we were sailing in the Grand Canyon, or Lake Powel. Red sandstone cliffs, uplifting bands of conglomerate rock, and volcanic basalt everywhere. A geologists field day!


There are two fishing camps at Caleta Partida, one on each side of the shallow sand bar cut between the two islands. This is the camp on the south side of the cut, which is the north side of Isla Espirto Santo.

At Caleta Partida, a crater-formed bay between Isla Espirto Santo and Isla Partida to the north, there is a VERY shallow passage between the two islands only passible by dinghy at high tide. The reward for getting the dinghy through the shallow passage is going to the Sea Caves on the northeastern side of Isla Espirto Santo, only accessible by water. The first time we went through with the WWS group, we went with Don & Lisa from s/v Windcharmer.



Not having great tide-tables for the area we weren't sure about high-tide so in the shallowest part Don hopped out and pulled the dinghy along in 12" of water while he shuffle, shuffle, shuffled his feet to scare the sting-rays away! On to the Sea Caves, which were awe-inspiring as the dinghy floated in the caves with the surge moving us around, while we looked out of the "windows" from inside. A very dynamic experience! The second time back with Jared & Karen we did our tide-table home-work and went through the cut at high tide, but the wind and waves in the sea cave area were larger, so it was a whole new experience.



On the way back from the caves, our old Seattle sailing buddies Roger & Karen on s/v Meridien dinghied over from the next bay and met us in the shallows of the cut for a few minutes. It was so great to see them again, only wished we all could have cruised together more this year before they headed north...but that was not in the cards, so maybe that will happen next year.

After the cave experience, we dropped Jared & Karen off on the south side of the bay, on Isla Espirto Santo, and they hiked to the top of the ridge through scrubby cactus and thorns, where they ran into a herd of mountain goats! Who knew there were goats on Espirto Santo?

A local phenomenon that occurs randomly some evenings in the La Paz Islands area are night-time winds called Coromuels ["Cor-um-wells"] that gust down the valleys into the bays blowing 20-30kts and more. We experienced these several times on both the WWS week and the second week with Jared & Karen. Several times we stood anchor watch (Kirk getting up every hour all night long to assess the other boats around us), and one night we stayed up, alternating every hour, to ensure all was OK.


Our 50lb Rocna (thanks Mom & Pete!) with 300 feet of chain keeps us secure at night.

We have a 50lb Rocna anchor with 300' of chain, we set it well, and it holds great, so we weren't worried about Due West dragging. However, you never know about the anchoring skills of those anchored around you, and charter boats, which may not have adequate equipment aboard or experienced crew, etc. And in fact several boats did drag in the night, luckily none near us. When ever possible, we set the anchor for the night-time winds with no boats up-wind of us to drag down on us. We have heard that once we get north near Loreto, the Coromuels go away...only to be replaced by Chubascos and other similar local windy phenomenon. Always new tricks to learn, that's what makes sailing so much fun...

...That is, IF you're actually sailing. The joke around the Sea of Cortez (much like in the San Juan and Gulf Islands of the Pacific Northwest) is that we really should have a trawler (power boat) because there is rarely any wind in the daytime (just at night when you don't want it!?) and we end up motoring, a LOT. In our WWS week we sailed one day when Teresa brought the wind with her! During the week with Jared & Karen, we sailed parts of two days.

Isla San Francisco


Due West anchored in picturesque Isla San Franciso, a former volcanic crater with white sand beaches and turquoise waters. We are the white sailboat in the middle of the photo, next to a white powerboat.

Next stop, Isla San Francisco, about 20 miles north of Caleta Partida. Here we took a hike up to the top of the ridge, which had been the rim of the crater, and where Jared took the panoramic photo at the top of this post. The 360° views from there were stunning to say the least. Karen took advantage of the crystal clear waters and went snorkeling (still too cold for Heidi & Kirk to swim!) Besides tropical fish, she saw mabula rays and sting rays.


The crazy antics of these Mabula Rays (a type of smaller manta ray) kept us entertained on several occasions. Heidi's brother Arne got some fantastic shots when he was in Baja a few years ago. Thanks for sharing your pix Arne! :-)

On the WWS trip Kirk hiked to the top of the ridge with a bunch of the gals and took this beautiful shot of all the boats in the bay at sunset.



Isla San San Jose
Next up, Bahia Mangle Solo, at the north end of Isla San Jose, a short 5-miles north of Isla San Francisco. This bay with its white sand beach is known as the perfect viewing area for dolphins and migrating whales (including humpbacks, grays, and blue whales.) So you might be wondering...did we see any whales?

Nope... save for a few random dolphins here and there in the distance, and a whale shark fin we saw at the Sea Caves, and Jared thought he spotted a whale tale just south of here. But our friends Sherri and Steve on s/v Pablo saw a blue whale almost too close for comfort! We did run across a small pod of bottlenose dolphins feeding and leaping. A few of them eventually swam over to Due West and put on a good show swimming on the bow wake for Jared & Karen.


None of our dolphin photos were quite as good as this photo, again courtesy of Heidi's brother Arne, from his trip to Baja a few years ago.

Isla San Jose is the one place that we have swum to date! The day we arrived here during the first week the air temperature was in the high 90°s, and we were HOT. For once the cooler water actually felt great and we had a good swim before most other WWS boats showed up.

With the WWS group we had a fun beach bonfire one night, and the next morning we went ashore to hike around and see the Cardón cactus, a larger cousin of the Suguaro cactus that can grow to 70' tall! Luckily for us many of the cacti were in bloom on Isla San Jose and it was a beautiful if stickery walk, with burs and thorns stuck in the soles of our shoes. Not a place you want to be barefoot.

Isla San Jose was as far north as we got before turning back for San Evaristo.


San Evaristo's "Mini-Super" tienda actually had a pretty excellent selection of food, both packaged and fresh.

San Evaristo
San Evaristo is a sleepy, dusty fishing village made up of about 40 families. There is one restaurant, one tienda, one church, one school, an agua purificada (purified water) plant, which also makes hielo purficada (purified ice), and a lot of dogs, cows, goats, and fishermen. The nearest town is a 5-hour drive away.


Maggie Mae (named after Rod Stewart's song!) and her daughter-in-law cooking dinner for us in San Evaristo.

For the WWS visit to San Evaristo, we all brought school supplies, books, and LED solar lights (Luci lights) to donate to the village. In a heroic feat, Lupe and his wife Maggie Mae and their family served a fabulous buffet dinner to all 65 WWS sailors. They served fresh caught fish and shrimp from their village, plus lots of side salads, salsas, tortillas, and of course margaritas! The whole experience was so good we took Jared & Karen back the next week and had another delicious meal with just the four of us.



Speaking of margaritas, Jared was our master-mixologist aboard Due West concocting nightly margaritas from scratch with limejuice, tequila, and Mexican "Controy". As we were in San Evaristo near the end our week, we thought we'd pick up more margarita ice at the hielo purficado plant.

Clearly their definition of "purified" and ours were different. The ice was "bag-your-own" at 20 pesos (about $1.20 US) per kilo. Since we didn't bring a bag, Jared emptied out the contents of his backpack into Heidi's backpack, and we shoveled ice into his pack. Given that the "purified ice" was shoveled from the floor by a fisherman still wearing his fishing boots, into Jared's backpack, we declared the ice to be "NON-purificado" and used it only in the cooler, not in our drinks. Sadly the last night we drank warm margaritas.

Our two weeks in the Islands came to an end too soon, and we were back to La Paz, saying goodbye to Jared & Karen, and Heidi hopping on a plane to ABQ to visit her parents Verne & Willa. We're happy to report that Heidi's dad has recovered extremely well from his strokes last fall, and she had a good but short visit there.

We are in La Paz for another week, getting some canvas sun-shade covers made to help keep the boat cooler, as well as finishing up the water-maker installation before we head back north again for two months. We also acquired an IridiumGo satellite modem which we'll send us daily weather updates as well as let us keep in touch with family and friends, and enable Heidi keep tabs on her business better. As we said above, there really is NO Internet or cell coverage in most of the Sea of Cortez, which makes it hard to run a business, let alone keep in touch w/ family.

Next week we'll be heading back north to spend more time in the islands on our way to visit Loreto and Puerto Escondito. We are looking very forward to the prospect of swimming with whale sharks too! Stay tuned on that front...hope you're all enjoying a beautiful spring wherever you are. Tosh and Tikka send kitty-kisses, they are SO LOVING being boat-gatos!



Remember to check out more images from the Islands north of La Paz here.