Storm Warning

The winds finally abated, we departed Santa Rosalia and headed to Punta Chivato. This spot is known for its spectacular shell beach. The beach is about a mile long and about four feet deep in shells. Not small broken pieces of shells but full on shells piled high. If we were collectors, we could have spent days here discovering many treasures.  We did keep a couple of souvenirs.

Just off the beach there is a small community. It has its own dirt air strip, so several of the residents are Canadians and Americans with their own planes that fly in and out for the season. There is also an abandoned resort. We walked through it and as we were walking back, we spoke with a local who gave us a brief history. The original resort was built in 1963. Since then it has had several different owners who would revive and update the buildings then it would fail, be sold and the process would repeat. On our walk through the property we noted computers and wifi equipment in the buildings so the last failure must have been somewhat recent. Interesting and eerie to walk through and sad to see someone’s dream not pan out.

From here it was on to Playa Santispac in Bahia Concepcion. This was one of our favorite locations on the way north and it did not disappoint this time either. It’s a beautiful beach with a couple of restaurants and an RV park right on the beach.

For years we told our kids to never hitchhike for a ride. So, on a do as I say not as I do note, we hitchhiked from the beach into the village of Mulege (pronounced moo-li-hay) about 10 miles away. I’m sure this is the makings for a Hollywood horror movie. Setting – Secluded desert beach, Cellular service – none, Country – Foreign, Language – not spoken. What could possibly go wrong?

In reality, the area is a popular vacation and “snowbird’ area with people from the US and Canada, in fact the guy who picked us up was from Chilliwack BC and our ride back was from Portland Oregon. There is a “pick up” spot on the driveway from the beach and another area on the highway junction of the town. We did not even have our thumb out. So technically we weren’t hitchhiking. Remember kids do not hitchhike.

While we were in Santispac our friends on Sedna caught up with us. We hung out with them for a couple more days then we all departed for San Juanico. This became a mini reunion as there were several boats we knew from last season all in the bay. This of course required a major happy hour on board Agave Azul.

After a couple of days in San Juanico it was off to Isla Coronados. There were five or six boats that sailed over as a group. It was yet, another, gorgeous beach that just required some lounging, snorkeling and beach bocce ball.

Beach Bocce is an interesting sport in that the ball will stop dead in the soft sand, roll forever on the hard sand or head for the water if the beach has much of a slope. If there are large rocks on the beach, its like mini golf trying to bounce off the rock and close to the target. Its not likely going to be in the Olympics anytime soon. If it was and the dope testing included alcohol, we’d all fail anyhow.

We spent a couple of days in Bahia Calanderos anchored in front of the beautiful time share / resort Villa del Palmar. It was Tom’s (on Advantage) birthday so five us headed to the resort to partake in the all you can eat breakfast buffet. Arrived at 8:30 Am and left at noon. We got our monies worth as it was our only meal that day.

That was the fun and games. The National Weather Service is predicting a tropical storm (Raymond) that is heading for the Baja Peninsula. Tropical storm, Raymond, was apparently unaware of the rules of tropical storms. Tropical storms are all supposed to done with by November 1^st which is usually considered the end of hurricane season.  This one came as a bit of a surprise being this late in the season.

There is a great group of people who have access to, and knowledge of, weather who give freely of their time to get on the local VHF and more far reaching SSB radio nets to keep us all informed of what is out there. While we get the information we can, and it is often the same source, its still comforting to have a second and third analysis of that info. Once the weather settles, we’ll be on our way again.

Fast forward 48 hours and we are writing this from Puerto Escondito. It’s a well protected anchorage and our place to ride out the storm. It turns out Tropical Storm Raymond learned the rules. The storm turned westward and outside of the Baja and dissipated rather quickly. All we ended up with in our area were winds less than 15 knots for a short time and a bunch of rain. That’s a whole lot better than the potential 40 to 50 knot winds at the centre of the storm that were originally forecast. On the plus side the decks are clean, no leaks were found, and the salt has been rinsed off anything outside.

If you have any questions or want to here about something different in the blog feel free to drop us a note in the comments section. We’re happy to answer any questions.