I’m back in Liverpool now after a wonderful time up in the middle of the Sea or Cortez. The plan is to return next January, if I haven’t fallen in love with Merseyside so much I can’t tear myself away. I will probably book my tickets soon 😉
I left Agua verde after a lovely rest and headed north to Loretto, I anchored off a stunning island at the Coronados. From here I would head north until the final destination, the boatyard, was opposite just a hundred or so miles across the sea.
I had over two weeks to get to the boatyard, and at any point I could just sail across the sea and be there within two days at most. Consequently I was able to take a very relaxed approach to what might be my last few weeks sailing on my own boat.
18th March leave Loreto
I slowly made my way up the coast towards Santa Rosalia, heading roughly NW hugging the Baja Californian coast. This part of Mexico is mostly desert, lots of cacti. The whole of BCS (Baja California Sur) has been lightly populated due to the lack of water and also there’s not a lot in the way of trees and so it was difficult to build accommodation. A lot of Gringos from the North, Americans and Canadians travel here, these ‘Snowbirds’ have created communities in remote beach locations along the route, and these beautiful locations are often full of RV’s and shacks thrown up over the years. Some have developed into small villages and annoyingly claim the beach in front of their properties. This is illegal, but rarely challenged.
Above you can see the very well protected bay called Bahia Conception. One day I would like to explore this more. but for now I used it to rest for a few days while waiting for some wind to take me the last few miles north.
As you can see below, there is a fog in the distance, last time I visited this bay the fog was dense.
Just inside the bay is a lovely safe and protected calm spot to kill time in. While here many dolphins visited and I got to do a little kayaking, exploring abandoned fishing huts on the beach.
26th March Santa Rosalita
The next and final leg on this side of the sea took me a few hours north to Punta Chivato, a very smart development on the beach with a small runway behind the beachfront properties. For a long time the only way to get to this part of the world was to travel hundreds of miles over dirt tracks through dessert and very rough mountain terrain. So until the highway was built in 1973, a lot of locations were out of reach to most gringos, except for the likes of John Wayne and a lot of Hollywood stars, who would fly here in small planes and go marlin fishing. If you look on google earth there are many small runways located close to the more popular bays.
From Punto Chivato, it was a short hop to Santa Rosalita, I love this whacky town. I wrote a lot about it on my last visit, but this time I had time to wander a bit more and had some lovely chats with some locals and learned a bit more about the mining from a young girl selling crystals and other interesting stones in the town square.
The church designed by Gustave Eiffel still stands and it was easter so I got to see lots of activity there.
I’ve taken an interest in steam engines lately, mostly due to watching their rebuild on one of the youtube channels I like, Vintage Machinery and it was fun applying my knowledge to the 3 engines dotted around town
A very French town.
The marina would often be cloaked in fog as the sun set each night.
The church as it was when constructed
The old marina was washed away by a hurricane many years ago, now the fishing boats have moved in. The vertical poles are all that remain of the marina.
An interesting aspect of this harbour is that the walls, as you can see above, are made of blocks of slag from the copper processing plants here. Some say that the harbour is like a big faraday cage, meaning no radio waves can get in or out. That’s not true, but I expect it will have some effect on radio and magnetic waves,
So March came to a close and it was time to cross the sea to Guaymas and start preparing for the haulout. It’s a short overnight passage, but despite the wind being low, the waves height was a little high, but most worrying was the wave period of 2-3 seconds, that meant a wave would push into the bow every 2 to 3 seconds, normally I like it to be more like 8 seconds. I watched the fishing boats head out and they were being bounced around a lot. I thought about holding on for a few days, but the forecast was no better for the next week so I just left, around lunchtime, with the aim of arriving early the next morning.
The passage was uneventful in the end, we were bouncing around a bit to start with, but after a few hours the wave period increased and really it was never an issue.
I think my deteriorating memory has the effect that I forget how competent the boat is, and I forget how we have sailed through far worse conditions without any issue. Still I don’t mind erring on the safe side.
On arriving at Guaymas, I had planned to go straight into the marina and start stripping the boat down, but realised I didnt need the marina, I was well stocked and could strip the sails of at anchor and have a swim and kayak, so I dropped the hook just outside the harbour in a little cove at the back of Isla Paraja, (Bird Island)
31st March, Bird island
I spent a few days just relaxing in the bay and stripping the sails off the boat and preparing for haulout in a week.
3rd April Marina
So I called up the Marina and they told me they had a space, the only one, so I was lucky. There were a ton of boats at anchor outside the marina, all about to haulout or had just launched from Gabriel’s yard, which is tucked away in a bay within the bay that’s within the Guaymas bay. It’s totally safe in here from bad weather, but also very shallow.
I had 3 days in the marina, I took advantage of having a high pressure hose pipe on the dock and gave the boat a good clean, filled up the water tanks and did some more haulout prep like winterising the outboard motor.
I like the town of Guaymas, however the old historic centre of the port is very run down, new malls with costco/walmart/home depot etc have sprung up on the outskirts and that seems to be where the more modern developments are happening. However the old town has a lot of charm still.
The haulout day arrived. I was a little nervous, but had a time booked for 15:00, it’s 10 minutes from the marina to the haulout, and 3pm was chosen because the tide would be high enough to get into the travel lift channel.
I arrived and could see no activity at the dock, the travel lift was at the other end of the yard and I wondered if they had forgotten me.
The boat was in 2.2 metres of water and needs about 1.9 to float, so I had about 1ft (1/3rd metre) below the keel, not great and I was trying to keep my place lined up with the channel, but struggling as there was a good wind blowing and I realised that I was going to be blown onto the port side of the dock when I went in and I had my fenders on the other side. I spent 15 minutes chugging back and forth, there are sandbanks either side of the narrow channel leading to the dock, so it was a little tense. Eventually I saw a jeep arrive at the dock, 5 guys jumped out and took up positions on either side of the haulout dock. Then I heard the travel lift fire up and watched it start to head down to the dock.
I decided to swap the fenders to the port side, but as I ran forward to pull them up, the wind blew me towards the shallows, and I heard the yard workers shouting and waving at me telling me I was about to go aground.
One thing I will say for this boat and prop, when you throw it into astern and give it some welly, you really feel the power of the max-prop, and it’s always stopped me just in time.
So I gave up on the fenders and just plowed on towards the lift. I must say, the guys there did a great job of getting my lines. I had fore, mid, and stern lines set up port and starboard, line were grabbed/hooked and very quickly I was secured and the lift moved in.
6th April Haulout
I had already undone the headsail stays and had a quick release shackle on the Yankee furler stay. The stay gets in the way of the cross member at the top of the lift. Once the lift is in place a halyard is taken from the top of the mast and thrown over the lift and reatached to the bowsprit to support the mast as it bounces along on it’s trip to the yard.
I first moved to the work yard for a night so that I could do the final prep easily and sleep onboard. After that the boat gets moved again into the field where you cannot stay on your boat, or in fact do much with your boat. Next year I will probably move it back to the work yard and be prepared to spend many weeks bringing her backup to spec.
I notice there’s a silly craze about protein going around. Seeing the writing on this lorry, and the state of the tanks, had me wondering.
I put the boat to bed, almost everything got bagged up in bin bags, all hatches were opened, fridge drained and cleaned etc etc.
The boat will be safe here from strong winds and earthquakes, however a good hurricane coming through will wreck the boat so fingers crossed we get lucky again.
Once the deck was cleared and everything stowed, I called a taxi to take me to the Tufesa coach station in Guaymas.
Next stop was the airport at Hermosilla, I managed to work it so I got the evening flight into Mexico City which worked out well. In Mexico City a 15 minute uber ride got me to a lovely apartment I had booked for a few days at the top of a skyscraper in Roma Norte, a trendy area in the centre of town.
Arturo had moved to the city as his girlfriend Katia had been assigned to a nursing post there by the goverment for a month or so. So we arranged to meet up in town and look around.
I took Arturo to a market near the Apartment, I think I know my way around CDMX (Cuidad [city] de Mexico) better than him.
A great market, the closest to La Boqueria in Barcelona I have seen in Mexico.
Walking around Roma Norte and it’s neighbouring district of Condesa I saw so many gorgeous buildings, set in very leafy broad avenues. Very much like Paris and Barcelona. I mentioned to Arturo that I’d love to live here, but he scoffed, he doesn’t like the fact it’s full of rich people. Funnily enough on my return to the UK I read about large protests in Mexico City about the amount of gringos moving into Roma Norte and Condesa and buying up the properties and often renting them out as AirBnb. This makes life harder for locals and is a common complaint around the world. I think Barclona took action to protect the locals and local hotels, and Mexico may follow suit.
The second day there, I went to visit Arturo in his office. Now first of all I had previously sent him pictures of my office back in Liverpool.
Arturo has moved into the Central library in the City for his Uni course he is taking.
This is a famous library, and quite stunning to visit, I walked every floor up to the roof before I found Arturo, and was immediately launched into helping some stranger Arturo had found who had locked himself out of his MS Windows account, Arturo had found him and promised he would have an expert on hand shortly who would solve his problem. I didn’t, I have no clue how windows works these days, I’m very much a Mac person now.
I finally got around to learning the mass transit systems in CDMX, it’s really good and very cheap.
After a few days I packed up and headed over to the airport for my trip back to Machester (via Amsterdam).
I couldn’t believe it when I got onto a busy KLM flight and despite the fact the plane was almost full, I had four empty seats in a row all to myself. Once we took off , I quickly made the 4 seats into a nice long bed and settled down to a decent sleep on the way back. This flight is really easy if you have a bed.
So now I’m back in Liverpool enjoying being home with Kathy again, regular trips to Marks and Sparks for fresh ciabattas each day, and plenty of cold winds and rain to remind me what I’m missing.
I feel confident now I will be back at the boat at the end of the year. I plan to stay here for Christmas, then head back. Probably taking a AirBnb near the boat, hiring a car, and just spending time MIGA, that’s ‘making it great again’.
Talking of which, November is the time when I might get an inkling of what the future holds north of the Border and if we can risk sailing North again.
Paul Collister 17th May 2026