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Across to Baja!


We left San Carlos at 12:15 PM on January 28 and had the 
anchor down at Isla Coronados on Baja at 8:55 AM on January 29th.
 It was a fast and comfortable sail........worth waiting for!



The only other boat we saw out there was this shrimp boat:

Sunset out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez:
Sunrise at Isla Coronados:
(notice the moon)
When we were at Isla Coronados (with cell service) we heard from some former cruisers and good friends from home. Kurt and Nancy were in Puerto Escondido with their Fifth Wheel. They were heading to Los Barilles for a month, but they would be at Puerto Escondido for one more night.  So we pulled up anchor and headed for PE:

We had Kurt and Nancy out to the boat (on a mooring) and then we went to the 
PE restaurant for very good brick oven pizza.  The next morning we said our
goodbyes to them, fueled up, and left PE. 

An unusual (for winter) south wind was predicted so we sailed north and dropped the hook off of the Juncalito beach for the night. The next day another north wind was predicted so we decided to just head 25 miles south to Agua Verde where there are anchorages for both a north and south wind.

When we arrived there were no boats, but it slowly filled up - including the "Uncruise" ship Safari Endeavor (in the picture below) which arrives in Agua Verde very early Monday mornings and leaves the next night.
They tow in multiple kayaks, paddle boards, and chairs and then bring boatloads of their guests ashore in the very large inflatable dinghies that they use to give their guests shoreline tours. The guests can also take a mule/horseback ride up over the hill and back. 

 We stayed in Agua Verde for a week. One of the highlights is the restaurant that the women's cooperative started in 2015. Most of the other women weren't too interested after awhile, but Leanor continued cooking and the restaurant is now run by Leanor and her family. She has the absolutely best fish tacos in Baja. Many other items are on her new printed menu and she just started doing a Tuesday night buffet while we were there. She also now has a FaceBook page!


The very first Tuesday night buffet:



One day there was a tremendous amount of bird activity out at Roca Solitaria.
It was calm enough to dinghy out there and check it out.  The whole island was
surrounded by a huge school of sardines and the birds were going crazy:



The weather finally cleared up and calmed down so we could do a lot of paddle boarding and a few quick afternoon swims (water temps ranged from 66-71). 
The other boats all left so we had the cove all to ourselves for another day or two.
One day we hiked up the hill behind José's, down to the cemetery, and over to the beach to the north of Agua Verde and then boulder-hopped back around to the beach behind José's. It's a good hike with
a few small beaches between the boulder-hopping. Jim found his first paper nautilus shell on one of those beaches!




After a week the weather report was predicting another strong northerly. We decided we wanted a change of scene and headed north while we could. We ended up in Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, but is was too crowded to be comfortable in a strong north wind. We decided to go back to Puerto Escondido to wait out the next northerly where we stayed for three days. We did laundry, had showers, bought a few things at the store and did a bit of wifi.



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