Southern Crossing to La Paz
19 April 2016 | Marina Palmira
Pat (and Melodie)
Today is Tuesday April 19.
We crossed over from mainland Mexico to the Baja peninsula on Friday/Saturday April 15-16. We had a really good passage, 235 NM in 34 hours. We left with about ten other boats at about 7:00 am on Friday. You may recall that we were planning on leaving the Monday prior. Well we did leave and we got about 20 miles off shore and found the wind was coming from a different direction than forecast and the waves were not conducive to a pleasant passage. So we turned back to Mazatlan. We did not return to Marina El Cid. We got a spot at the Fonatur docks. The same place we had all the work done back in November.
Fonatur has only one dock, but charges half the price of El Cid. They don't have all the amenities that El Cid does, but the docks were in good shape and the bathrooms were clean. We would stay there again.
So we left out of Mazatlan motor sailing in light winds. Many boats were waiting in Mazatlan for good weather to make the crossing. At about 3:00 pm the winds picked up and we turned off the engine. We sailed until about 11:30 pm when the winds died back down. Many of the boats were going to Ensenada de Los Muertos. We decided to try Bahia Bonanza. It is closer to La Paz and would make for a shorter sail on Sunday. We motored through the night and when the sun came up, so did the wind. We began sailing again Saturday morning crossing over the top of Isla Cerralvo at noon on Saturday. Transiting the Cerralvo Channel we were close hauled and had to reef the sails way down to stay comfortable. The boat got really salty from all the sea spray.
We arrived at Bonanza at about 3:00 pm. We had never been there before and found it was quite open. Although the water was calmer, the wind was still blowing in the high teens. It did look like a nice anchorage to return to sometime. We chose to continue on to our alternate anchorage at Pichilingue. Several boats did decide to stay at Bonanza and were happy with the conditions there. We saw a whale breaching a half mile behind us as we were mid channel in the San Lorenzo Channel. What a nice treat. Spectacular and not too close to be a danger. We arrived at Pichilingue at 5:30 pm, 34 hours after leaving Mazatlan.
It was a really good passage for us. Sailing for almost half the passage and no breakages or other drama along the way. Once again we had a bright Jupiter to light the night sky. The moon was up part of the night which is always nice. Mars and Saturn joined us later in the evening as well. Actually that would be early morning. Melodie has an astronomy app on her phone and enjoys figuring out what the brightest stars and planets are on the night watches.
We are at Palmira Marina in La Paz now while we get ready for our friends Bill and Charlene. They arrive tomorrow. We washed the boat yesterday and today we will go to the grocery store. She was very salty. Soon we get to go out and get her all salty again. Marina Palmira remodeled since we were here last year. New office, store, bathrooms and laundry room. It's really nice (and closer to the docks too!).
We will leave tomorrow and spend a week gunk holing in the nearby islands. I expect we'll make it as far north as San Everisto, with stops at Isla San Francisco and Ensenada Grande. The weather is supposed to be sunny and clear all week.
That's all for now.