West Coast Baja, MX
South of Bahia de Tortugas the coast of Baja California is essentially a straight line. The sailor will look at the charts and notice there are a few nooks and carnies, but nothing of significance. Any weather at all would wrap Pacific swell right on to the beach at any stop. The overlander in a van might find themselves on this side, if they’re really trying to get off the beaten path, and find there are about 3 or 4 towns. With nothing specific to visit in each place aside from the occasional surf break, not many people are venturing to these places by land or sea.
Leaving Bahia de Tortugas with Lawnboy in tow heading further south, we were looking at a strange weather window. There was a storm going on in Southern California bringing rain and winds and strangely cold temperatures. Everyone we knew who was in Cruiseport in Ensenada were now stuck again for longer while this storm raged over head. Us, however, being just far enough south were having a different effect. For there to be storming and winds in one spot, another spot is left without the energy to do much; aka, we were looking at about a 2 and a half week weatherless window. Still air, and as stated before ‘wind makes waves’ so also still seas. What an opportunity!
Instead of hopping 2 nights from Bahia de Tortugas to Magdalena Bay, we could do 2 and a half weeks of day hops, mainly motoring albeit, to visit a lot of these towns that otherwise don’t have protected anchorages. First stop, Ascencion. A lovely slow sail from Tortugas with light breeze and some motoring takes us southbound. Its hard to pass up days like this, clear skies and warm. The desert causes even the air over the sea to be bone dry so there is no dew or dampness inside nor out of the boat. With little wind there are no waves, we can sail in the 4kts there is as the boat isn’t rocked about slapping the light wind out of the sails. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it, but once again this is contributing to our erratic speed. At about sunset we are still 14 miles away, and in a yacht that’s like 3 hours mind you.
“Alright lets fire up the cultivator” commences the process of motoring as the sun goes down. Ascencion is tucked behind a small but tall island we have to go around, and like the rest of the towns here, as a fishing town there is always the possibility of a huge amount of crab and lobster pots scattered everywhere just waiting to tangle one’s prop or wrap their rudder. “Oh it’ll be fine lets just give the island a mile or so space so its deeper than they usually set the pots” and just like that another mile or two is added to the track we have to take to stop. While we see maybe 3 pots, the huge amount of space makes this not too concerning. The wind kicks up of course on the other side of the island as the hot desert cools off and the sea doesn’t causing the air to rise and the sea air to rush in filling the gaps. So its now pitch black and we are motor sailing under reefs zig zagging past invisible crab pots towards a low lying town at the head of the bay.
Once close in we douse the sails and putz around discovering unmarked pangas anchored around as well as another sailboat. Choosing a spot in the dark with the depth sounder we hit the hay after another fun day and apparently successful night approach to a new spot. There’s nothing to see, somehow its totally pitch black aside from the few lights but you can’t tell what they go to anyway so… Sleep? The morning brings light over the hills, down the island’s mountain side, and across a surprisingly flat town. It also lights up there are probably double the amount just things scattered around the bay we somehow navigated through without noticing any of them. Eh, Karma is pretty evenly spaced amongst it all, let’s see whats in town.
