splendid isolation

Friday, May 3, 2013

Drive into Mulegé

It’s hard to keep all the photos into chronological order. This is a separate post of our adventure into Mulegé. We left the boat anchored in Coyote Bay and drove into town a few times.

4/16 Mulegé for supplies and tour with BOB

LINKS to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulegé

http://www.mulege.net/

entrance to concepcion

looking north

across, east to santo domingo

bob drove us up to the top of the radio tower

our friends on 'salish sea' and 'prairie oyster' leaving coyote bay and heading north to punta chivato for their crossing.

classic

sergio

the mission

pretty good right?

perfect tour guide

an awesome house (villa) that bob was house sitting

look at that italian tile! the temperature drop was huge. it was so cool inside.

the back house

kitties got into the yellowtail

cleaning the fish for bob. favors, trading, bartering. we love mexico, this is how life should be lived.

looking down into 'the orchard'

claire made some ceviche with the scraps

this place was a fortress. whoever built it had serious money and needed serious protection.

flood damage from the hurricane a few years ago.

salvador dali fan

mud crust from the flooding

so crazy.

the flooding from the river filled the whole downstairs, up to a few inches deep in the second story.

this is the impact from the raging river. these fence posts weren't your average. this place was a fortress.

debris

from where i'm standing to the end of that path is where the river normally is. so it was all the way to the foreground and over a story high of a raging river.

palms surviving

the house was built properly on the river. water flows under and into the plumbing for the house. plus it keeps this area cool for a perfect wine cellar.

hi!

the secret to a delicious margarita

$10 pesos... thats about 80¢

bob helped us out so much! we got fully stocked for our time in coyote bay and our crossing.

subsidized living. you get a free house out here in the desert, from the government, if you trade your waterfront property on the dangerous river bank.

coming over the hill back into coyote bay

playa santispec

there we are! posada concepcion

introducing.... LITTLE CHEF!

posada concepcion

Mulegé and Punta el Sombrerito

SOMBRERITO

4/12 Finally no more hard WNW wind. Anchor up at 10AM a little late. Leaving San Juanico. Plan is to sail as far north as we can get to Coyote. ESE winds. 2 ft swell. Most of the day. Best beam reach of our trip. Holding 6.5 kts sometimes 7! Pulled into view of tiny San Sebastian aka Puerco. Adorable little bay but with East wind and swell growing it looked uncomfortable and ‘Splendid Isolation’ was loving this beam reach. Claire threw our first reef into the main and we cruised on. 20 miles left to Santo Domingo. 15:00 Cruising 5.5 kts with just enough time to make it by dusk! Anchor down at 20:30 off Sombrerito just outside the Mulegé river mouth. Decided to go here over Domingo or Coyote. Uncomfortable rocking with the sets but we made it through the night. We almost ran aground coming in the dark. Greatest day of sailing yet. Wing and wing off Punta Conception. Over 5 kts all day, usually 6+. Someone hailed uf on the VHF but we missed it because I was setting the anchor and claire was pulling the dinghy in. Oh well.

4/13 “HARD TO PORT!” repeated in my head all night. That’s what I had shouted to Claire when I saw the shoal and shoreline, hearing voices from the restaurant. We came close last night. Horrible depth perception in the dark, plus over the shoal was more water, so it all blended together. Woke up every few hours to check the depth sounder. Depths of 17 feet and 13 feet at low tide just before sunrise. It got calm for a few hours in the still of the night. Back to slight north breeze and rocking with the stunning sunrise. Fluffy clouds out there make me think of south winds. Now that I can see...we almost beached it last night. We’re anchored literally on the shore. WOW. We are officially grounding sluts. 4^th time? 5^th? Anchor up around 7:30. We motored out off the river mouth. Scoped it out and watched pangas go up the channel. Our cruising guides say its possible for shallow draft boats to get into the rivermouth, to anchor or tie to the small pier. Which sounded nice, calm, and a quick dinghy ride up the river to town. So we crept in at 1.5 knots sounding 11ft. All good. Got in and saw that since our out of date cruising guides, things have changed. Not at all as spacious as it seemed on paper. As we decided to abort, we grounded. I checked the sounder. Said 10 ½ feet. Put a stick over the side and stuck the bottom. I reset the depth sounder so its as accurate as can be. It’s been offset by 5 feet this whole time. So last night was actually only 7 feet of water right off the shore. We tried to push off with the stick and reverse the motor. That had worked in La Paz. Not here, it was sediment river mouth, soft bottom. Luckily I timed it with the tide and it was getting higher for the next hour. I dinghyed off the old dock and it was a few feet deeper, but not worth sticking around for. After some patience we floated up off the bottom while Claire spun the boat around 180º. Got out of there around 9AM. En route to Coyote Bay. North wind picked up. South was forecasted. Which was ok because we flew down the entry way. Very thankful we sailed over 50 miles yesterday. Anchor down in Coyote Bay, east of Isla Ramon. Gorgeous houses. Good wind protection. 17’ of water.

not our photo. but this is why we sailed here!

i'm sure most of our posts are confusing. hope this helps. the lowest waypoint is San Juanico. the middle point is san sebastian aka puerco, where we planned to stop but the swell wasn't the right direction so we continued to the top waypoint which is Mulegé.

This is what we woke up to! super shallow and super close to shore.

looks like a little sombrero right?

that restaurant looked way more inviting in the dark.

sorry no photos of us getting stuck in the river mouth. they would have been entertaining but due to the fact of the matter we were busy and couldn't take photos. usually why we don't have many open water photos as well.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punta_el_Sombrerito

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

San Juanico Cove and Northbound

BACK IN SAN JUANICO

4/8 Still gusting from the West. This is rare. We have only seen north and south majority in the wind the past 6 months. Comfy swing back and forth with no swell because it is offshore wind. One other boat in here. They are in the ‘better’ spot to anchor. But we hate being crowded, especially between two islets, with no room to let out scope. We are getting anxious for our Guaymas crossing. 12:45PM wind switches to a hard East. My guess this will be routine til at least Wednesday. Strange Calm periods of wind last night where you would finally doze to sleep rocking like a baby in a cradle and then BAM a huge uppercut of 30+ knot winds from the West throwing the boat on it’s side.

4/9 Windy morning more northly coming into the mix. NW-NE. 8 boats total here now. Guess they realized what the weathers up to. And they are all anchored between those islets… why be so cramped? East breeze this afternoon again. Predictions following through. Big swell outside the bay slamming on the reefs and rocks.