North of Loreto

I thought I was light of a few days on the post before last, I just found them in the draft bin. A bit late but just for the record….

Tuesday 18th August 2020
Around 11 we slip our mooring, and head down to the fuel dock. We had very strong winds in the night and I checked on the mooring line and the backup around 2AM to find that somehow our line to the strop had wrapped around the main buoy and had slipped down onto the barnacle encrusted chain. So with the line being taut due to the 25+ knot winds it was only a matter of time before it parted. I’m glad I had a backup line attached and I was able to attach a third line to the strop before releasing the trapped line altogether. I was a bit worried I might do something stupid and end up losing our mooring. We were just a few boat lengths upwind from Warren on his boat, but it all worked out and it was good to see the strop take the weight again. My problem was down to too much slack in the lines to the strop, in future I will make sure the strop is at the height of the mooring buoy so it can’t wrap around it.
Fueled up and with both water tanks refilled we head north for the small uninhabited island/nature reserve at Isla Coronados, just 15 miles north of Loreto. We get both sails up and have a pleasant trip. It’s a popular spot being so close and we were pleased that there was only one power boat moored there, albeit a huge Bill Gates type of vessel. We anchor in about 5 metres of water over a sandy bottom with excellent holding.
It’s baking hot so we are quick to jump in the water, which is a perfect temperature compared with Escondido. Arturo dives down to 3 metres and reports back that it’s wonderfully cool down there and I must try it. For the next hour we fool around taking turns to haul ourselves down the anchor chain decompressing on the way and trying not to breathe. I get about 3-4 metres down and I’m very pleased my ears are equalising, Arturo manages to bring some sand/shingle up from the bottom, at this point we thought we were in 5 metres of water but when we finally get back on board find we are in 8 metres. Arturo is made up to know he free dived down to 8 metres. I’m hoping to get him looking for Oyster pearls soon 😉 .
After dinner in the cockpit we sit watching the zillions of fish that are swimming around the boat making quite a racket.
We are sleeping in the cockpit and a lovely breeze builds and builds, the lightning starts and the winds finally peak around 35 knots after 2 AM. I’m normally a bit on edge in these circumstances, but the anchor is set well, we have great land cover from the wind unless it does an 180 degree turn, and the waves are very small. Also the mega yacht is a mile or more from us at the other end of the bay.

Wednesday 19th
Hurricane Genevieve is advancing towards the Baja Peninsula and will pass Cabo San Lucas today. There is a warning of flooding in the Cabo area, but it looks like it’s just going to brush the peninsula and miss us. La Paz will see some strong winds, but up here we won’t feel much. The chart below, courtesy of NOAA, shows the probability of high winds where we are as being low.

However the hurricane is spinning off lots of cloud cover our way which reduces the temperature a lot. We dinghy over to a small cove and beach at the north end of the bay and enjoy a great snorkel over a large reef. Most of the coral here looks to be dead, but a few healthy bits show up. I don’t know if the coral died a natural death, or if warming seas or some other man made action is the problem. Arturo drives the dinghy to the main beach and we notice many rocks just below the surface some distance from the shore and later a big RIB from the newly arrived mega yacht screams across the water and hits one of the rocks. I was watching it in amazement wondering if the helmsman knew the area really well or was a complete plonker. As his passengers all shrieked following two big bangs, I was expecting at least a broken prop, but no, he slowed down for a second, then got back up to full speed on a plane and continued towards the cove. My estimation of the helmsman was now firmly in the plonker category.
Back on board we dd a bit of Spanish practice, focussing on how to handle restaurants. A big red trimaran sailboat arrived, and I taught Arturo the finer points of making Pasta & Pesto, pointing out it was always going to be pretty rubbish if the Pasta wasn’t fresh and the pesto recently homemade, not to mention the perils of using a cheap Padano cheese instead of an authentic Parmesan. Still he liked it and it was filling. He ate tostadas with it which made me wonder if he might have missed some of my finer points.