splendid isolation: Caleta San Juanico

CALETA SAN JUANICO

4/3 Anchor up at 9:45 to finish our heading of 6 miles north to Caleta San Juanico, our original destination days before. Calm wind on the nose and rolling smooth swell. Halfway there saw wind forming on the horizon. Nasty swell and gusty wind again. Very very annoying. Forecast is never correct. Let me rant on the local Puerto Escondido/Loreto radio-Net. They do a daily forecast every morning. I will explain that these are seasonal gringos in the most protected bay one may ever see. They leave their boat in this bay or to the north, coming each spring on vacation. Wallets full and worries empty. They are strapped to mooring balls, sail covers never removed, cockpits enclosed with biminis and wind-dodgers similar to an incubator, and they might motor to one of 5 islands within their 10 mile radius, a few times each season. They give a lousy weather report and usually joke about any wind reaching the teens. Little do they know that actual cruisers, outside of their perfect bubble, might be depending on the only radio contact and information in the area to navigate the shifty area. From this day on I gave up on their reports. We finally got into San juanico with winds gusting over 25 knots. I wrote down that their weather report for this day said 5-10 knot winds, light and variable, with flat seas. “it’s gunna be a great day” WRONG. 5 sailboats and one power boat in here. We over-heard on the radio of an alleged stolen dinghy reported last night. Campers on the beach. I had trolled 2 poles on the way up, not being able to real them up in time, they were caught in the motor. This made anchoring more stressful than dangerous. Claire heroically jumped in to untangled the mess. That evening I caught 5 roosterfish in the surf drop off on the SW beach.

4/4 Wonderful bay. Aquarium cove to the north. Surf fishing to the SW. Reefs to the S. Two Islets on the northern side. Many areas to tuck into and explore. We decided this area is so vast and hard to explain that it looks like a mixture of those mountain paintings in Chinese restaurants, fly-fishing lagoons with greenery similar to the American NW, Moon rocks and cliffs, Bahama beaches and reefs, and New Mexican cactus deserts. Caught a big Grunt and white sea bass surf fishing again. Dangerous toilet situation caused stress amongst the crew, leading to a tense evening. Met Ben on ‘IriExpress’ gave us tips on foul weather sailing.

4/ 5 Anchor up at 6:20AM heading 22 miles back to Loreto. Discussion with Ben last night gave us outside insight. Trying to continue 50 miles north to Mulegé area, with the time crunch of my mother’s departure, unknown weather, and not many anchorages seemed to be the poor choice in this situation. We have never departed on a Friday and have never back-tracked this entire trip. But we already know the course back south, we know the town, we know that their is a bus there, we know where to anchor, and we know it will be a quick ride. So we left, for now, abandoning our dream of Mulegé. Actually there was no wind and we did not sail. We motored straight there. Anchor down at high noon. Scorching hot. Walked with Mom to the bus station to buy her ticket. Very nice dinner out at a restaurant we had tried to go to on our first outing in Loreto. Funny how things like that happen.