Bahia Santa Maria
03 November 2008 | Bahia Santa Maria, Baja Mexico
Brian
We have arrived in Bahia Santa Maria! This is a large anchorage but does not have a town. It does have small fishing villages set along a river feeding into the ocean. The fisherman use pangas to motor from the river mouth out to sea. They catch fish offshore and shrimp in the salty river. The surf is running about five feet faces but I need to get the dinghy drop-off at the surf together with Nancy or figure a way to anchor the dinghy just outside the surf. The beach break is just turn and burn so not much fun.
The beach party was fun and a group of Mexicans drove trucks along the beach for miles from La Paz to sell us food, cerveza, and a live band, which played rock & roll.
The sail was two great days of sailing (15-22 kts of wind) wing & wing directly down wind. Four Points average about 6 kts. The last four hours was directly beam to the wind a 3:00am with gust to 25 kts and 8 foot seas. It was difficult to say the least. All the "stuff" in the boat was shifting back & forth and sounded bad. We just had to hold on to stop from flying across the boat. By the way, we all wear harnesses and are strapped to the boat. So far this last four hours into Bahia Santa Maria was the toughest part of the trip. Once inside the anchorage the swell dropped and we anchored in 30 ft of water with no problems. During the two-day sail we caught a beautiful three-foot Mahi Mahi or Dorado as they call it here in Mexico. I posted a picture in the gallery.