Cruise Log #19, Bahia Concepcion to Isla San Marcos
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Updated 18th of July, 2005
Route map from San Juanico into Bahia de Concepcion, north to Isla San Marcos on our way to Santa Rosalia.
As SolMate heads into hurricane season we head farther north into the Sea of Cortez for protection.
Besides the uncertainty of the weather, the geology of the Baja Penninsula also provides a real
challenge to navigators. We're paying more attention to weather forecasts, as well as the charts
and sailing guides as we explore the rugged right coast of the Baja, picking our anchorages
with care, one eye on the sky and the other eye on the rocks underwater.
Safely at anchor, our focus shifted to food and wildlife. Hurricane season is hot, hot, hot in the Sea
of Cortez. Burnett forced marches have been mostly curtailed. Our main activities have revolved
around eating and provisioning, to include a long-distance provisioning trek to stock up on the necessities of life,
tortillas and beer. Then, food requirements met, we re-focused our sites underwater, enjoying the most awesome
sealife displays of our whole cruise.
Low tide, just us and the volcanic reefs in Medano
Blanco after a 25-knot wind finally blew
itself out.
Mother Hubbard visited our fresh food locker while we were anchored in Santo Domingo. The closest
town was clear across the bay. Early one cool (hah!) morning, we left SolMate anchored in
Santo Domingo in Gale's capable hands (paws), and "carpooled" to Mulege with our friends, John and Linda.
The four of us, dragging our two dinghies behind, motored Nakia five miles across the mouth of the bay,
anchoring just off the lighthouse at the mouth of the Rio Mulege. John let out a conservative
ten-to-one scope in case the wind came up, battened down the
hatches on the mother ship,
then we hopped into our respective dinghies and motored across the sandbar into the river. We
parked on the beach next to the Port Captain's office, and began the forced march to town. And
we walked and we walked, and we sweated and we sweated, and we walked some more. It was three miles
up river into town from the Port Captain's office. Fortunately, half-way to Mulege, a friendly tour-bus
driver offered us a welcome ride in his air-conditioned bus. Aaahhhhh....
A cursory tour of Mulege revealed a neat little village-full of little touristy shops, a couple of tiendas
and one large supermercado. We foraged in the mercado, a tienda and a beer store. In less than two
hours the four of us were loaded down with two shopping carts-full of groceries. We crammed ourselves and
our purchases into a taxi and were cheerfully chauffeured back to the beach for $5US.
By noon we had the dinghies retied to Nakia's stern and were headed back across the bay to
relieve Gale on anchor watch.
Gale on anchor watch, 98 degrees in the salon.
With the larder refilled, SolMate turned left into Bahia de Concepcion, where the temps had
been reported 5 to 10 degrees hotter than in Santo Domingo, hovering around the century mark.
Fifteen other boats were as silly and we
were, braving the oven to celebrate the 4th of July with our host, Geary, in El Burro Cove.
Geary lives in a palapa on the beach, as do many other ex-pats in Bahia de Concepcion. His explanation
of the convoluted procedure for building and living on the beach was fascinating. The
beach is public. Anyone can use it. And anyone wishing to park a camper or launch a fishing boat can
use whatever piece of sand is accessible, even if someone else has built on it - yards, patios,
unlocked homes, or carports. A person wishing to build on the beach rents his little plot of sand,
which remains public, from a land concession, and then builds on top of that public land. If he
secures his
property, it's his own private domain, but because of the transitory nature of the agreement, most
settlers build flimsy little palapas out of cheap materials equipped only with the bare essentials.
It all feels rather temporary, but Geary's been living that way in El Burro for ten years.
El Burro Cove anchorage and a portion of the palapa community.
Geary cooked the dogs and the cruisers brought side dishes. We ate, played cards, ate, played volleyball and ate some more. We spent all day at Geary's, eating and playing. After dark, we hauled our indigestion back to the boat to watch as marine flares lit up the night.
From the left around the table, Gale's back (Blew Moon); MJ's hat; sitting across from John and Linda (Nakia); to the right of
Jaynie and Ray (Adios); and Allen (Blue Moon).
Our host, Geary, cooking the dogs.
And more eating - SolMate only stuck around to explore one other anchorage in Bahia de Concepcion,
Santispac,
for the express purpose of sampling the fare at Ray's Restaurant. That's where Stan celebrated his
48th, with calamari (squid) and camarone (shrimp) - both to die for. But then we had to vacate the
hot box.
The carnivores in us satiated, SolMate cruised out of Bahia de Concepcion. As we rounded the corner
into the main channel, we happened upon three hapless pangeros paddling along in their disabled panga.
Two of them were in the water kicking and pushing, another was attempting to paddle with a swim fin
strapped onto a broken oar. What a sight! At the rate they were going, they would have reached the
beach by, maybe, midnight. We nosed the mothership up alongside, grabbed a line and towed them 3/4 of
a mile to shore. The grateful pangeros offered us a bucketful of clams in gratitude, but
this time our gastronomic resolve held and we told them, "No gracias, somos vegetarianos." Besides,
their thankful grins were payment enough.
SolMate dropped the pangeros in shallow water, where
one paddled while the other two pushed from behind.
From cabin thermometer readings in the hundreds, it was a relief to anchor out at Isla San Marcos,
where the mercury dropped ten degrees. The humidity fluctuated between 60 and 80 percent,
though, so we were moving pretty slow....
Slow motion was just fine for observing the fast and furious sea life around us in Sweet Pea Cove. The
water clarity fluctuated; on the good days, we could see 20 feet, great viewing for the hordes of manta
rays, whales and other little sea creatures populating the island's waters. The most spectacular display
was the pod of killer whales that entertained us while they fed on manta rays, right next to the boat.
Pilot whales and dolphins have also cruised through the anchorage, foraging for squid. The huge squid
provided the human fishermen quite exciting sport, as well.
