Puerto Escondido for a hike

Jay and I continued south from Punta Pulpito, with stops at Caleta San Jaunico and Los Gatos, and with a small side trip to tow a fishing panga that had a broken down engine to shore.  We then met up with Searover II at Isla Coronados.  Isla Coronados is a volcanic island with some beautiful white sand beaches and a somewhat challenging hike to the peak.  The beginning of the trail is lovely packed dirt and lined with rocks so there is no chance of getting lost.  As you start to gain altitude it becomes all rock that is somewhat loose and footing can be tricky and the only way to stay on the trail is to follow the not always so obvious rock cairns.  As you come to the steepest part is is loose pea gravel stones that give way under your feet, two feet up one foot back.  However the view from the top is extremely rewarding and makes the effort worthwhile!

Just some of the residents of San Jaunico

A drascombe sailing the bay at San Jaunico, it is part of
a wilderness leadership school that is based out of
Bahia Concepcion.

Jay practicing his freediving

One of the views from the top of Isla Coronados, looking over the anchorage
towards Loreto.

Jay and I made a stop in Loreto to replenish the larder on Kialoa.  At Loreto you must anchor off the small harbour, which is only big enough for Pangas and dinghy in to shore.  While shopping it is always a good idea to keep an eye on the palm trees because if the wind comes up then the waves build fast and its a wet ride with a full dinghy back to the boat.  Luckily this time it stayed calm and we stayed dry.  It was a lovely slow spinnaker ride the rest of the way to Puerto Escondido where we tied up to a mooring ball just as it was getting dark.  The next day after checking in with the Marina, Karina, Gary, Jay and myself shouldered our packs and headed up the road to the Tabor Canyon.  After hiking there last year we had thought that it would be a cool place to camp for a night.  And it truly was!  There are some parts of this "hike" that are quite challenging for me and Karina.  Luckily for us Jay and Gary are both experienced rock climbers and they were able to help us negotiate some of the trickier spots.  The canyon has spectacular rock formations, lovely freshwater swimming holes and beautiful greenery.

Karina making a crossing

The view from one of the more open areas

Jay heading further up

Our camp, there were not so many flat spots and it was
rocky but the mountains are beautiful.

Gary and Karina enjoying one of the beautiful freshwater pools

From Puerto Escondido Searover headed towards La Paz and Jay and I on Kialoa headed to Agua Verde, still one of my favorite places!  

An Osprey enjoying its lunch, Agua Verde

Across to the Baja

It is a 70nm crossing from the Guaymas area to Santa Rosalia on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez.  A little too far for Kialoa to make the crossing during the daylight hours that we get.  So we left Bahia San Pedro and Searover II (who had a guest and would be crossing the sea at a later date)  at 4 pm and prepared for Jays first overnight crossing.  One of the preparations was throwing the fishing lure in the water.  I have been throwing that thing in the water for a year ......almost everytime we were underway.  I never caught a fish.  Jay threw it in the water and had a fish within 20 minutes!  Fish for dinner!
The remainder of the crossing was uneventful and we spent quite a bit of it motoring along in lumpy seas, with an early morning arrival at Santa Rosalia.

Jay and his fish, you can still see land behind us....

Santa Rosalia is an interesting town, essentially built by a French mining company in the 1800s, it retains its mining town feel.  The copper close to the town has been extracted but there are still mining operations going on nearby.

Old wooden buildings, some of which are just barely hanging
in there

Inside of a church, designed by Eiffel, displayed at a world
fair in France and then purchased by the Boleo mining company
 shipped to Santa Rosalia and reassembled, so the story goes.

A portion of the old Smelter building, slowly being reclaimed
by the forces of nature.

We spent several days in Santa Rosalia.  Long enough to get the US election results.  We did not hear any cheering on the dock that night.

There were some american boats that had been drowning their dismay and were not feeling their best the next morning. 

From Santa Rosalia we started heading south with a stop at Isla San Marcos, Punta Chivato and then into Bahia Concepcion.  Jay was keen to see whale sharks and we had talked to one boat that had seen them in the last week.

We were not disappointed!  There were two of them in the same bay where I had seen them last spring.  And we nearly hit one as we were entering the bay.  Luckily it was off to the side but it was a near thing.

The view from a fish camp at Isla San Marcos

Beautiful sailing weather from Punta Chivato
to Bahia Concepcion

Whale shark!  This one was feeding in the bay where we anchored
Its not a very big one!

The chart plotter logs 5000 miles

On leaving Bahia Concepcion the chart plotter turned over 5000 nautical miles.  That felt like an occasion!  We managed to keep the boat at 5 knots and steer 5 degrees as well to keep it all symmetrical.

Shortly after that we caught two fish!  An auspicious day.

It was a fairly long and boisterous downwind sail to Punta Pulpito.  Kialoa was moving really well with a reef in the main and only a little foresail.  What a great boat! Jay was having a fun time even though we had to hand steer the whole trip.  The wind vane was not behaving well and waves were a bit overwhelming for the tiller pilot.

We arrived in Punta Pulpito in the late afternoon and had a happy meet up with some friends from last year.  The crew of Second Safari came over for fish tacos.  We needed help eating up the fish as my little cooler had packed it in.  No more cold beer on Kialoa, that was a sad day!  

Punta Pulpito is a fairly spectacular chunk of rock sticking up from the sea and with its steep drops and rocky base it made for some great snorkeling and fun hiking.

A compass rose?  Ancient cairn or newer pile? There are
cleared camp sites at the top of Punta Pulpito that look like they
have not been used for many many years.  

Early morning at Punta Pulpito