Still heading north
03 June 2015 | Isla Coronado
Vandy
Hello, we are anchored tonight in a pretty little cove on Isla Coronado, which is approximately due east of the town of Loreto. The water here is a very bright yellow- green, and not very deep. But deep enough for us.
Speaking of green water, last night we anchored in the beautiful bay of Agua Verde, where the agua is indeed verde, and also very clear. Flocks of Heermann's gulls roosting nearby continually made us laugh with their rolling calls, which sound remarkably like babies' belly laughs. 25 degrees 30.941'N, 111 degrees 04.066'W.
The night before that, we anchored in a cove at Timbabiche. Timbabiche is fun to say. Try it. 25 degrees 16.221'N, 110 degrees 56.383'W.
You may have noticed that we've been staying in a different anchorage every night. This was not our cruising plan, for June in the Sea of Cortez. We'd planned a leisurely sail north, visiting and exploring lots of beautiful anchorages along the way, arriving north of the hurricane zone way ahead of the time when the chance of hurricanes entering the Sea increases. I would have been able to tell you more about Agua Verde, for instance, than that the water is actually green.
But no. This year, there have already been two hurricanes in the eastern Pacific. Two! Hurricane Blanca, who's currently churning out there now, is bucking the trend of moving to the west, and is currently moving north toward Baja. History says that she will eventually veer off. But for now, we have to plan for her to continue to move north, and so we are moving steadily north, to stay well ahead of her projected path.
This isn't difficult, as we have a big head start, we can sail all day and all night if we have to (we don't have to), and we can continue to go north until we basically bump into the Arizona border. That will certainly be out of any hurricane's way. It's just annoying because we're not able to stop and enjoy many of the places we'd hoped to, on our way north.
But...now we have lots of places to look forward to visiting on our way south, in November. When all those pesky hurricanes are done for the year.
We've been enjoying ourselves and the nice weather. Every day, after we've dropped anchor, we jump into the water and cool off. The air temp is well over 90 but the water is 81-84 degrees, so it feels really nice. The scenery is stunning and the weather is clear. Sometimes, there's even wind, so we can sail. The water takes every shade of blue and green, and is usually very clear.
Eric saw a "little" humpback whale breaching repeatedly yesterday, as we approached Agua Verde. It was little - for a whale, anyway - maybe twenty feet long. Over and over, it breached, as it moved along a path parallel to SCOOTS. And then, its mom surfaced to breathe. She was NOT little. She was enormous! So what I took from the scene was this: a toddler whale swimming and leaping alongside its mom "Hey mom, c'mon mom, let's play mom, c'mon mom, jump with me mom..." every mom knows the drill. It was really cute.