For the first time since early February we are moving on, it’s time to head north and start our adventures in the Sea of Cortez. This is really our focus for the season and we have enjoyed waiting out the cool temps and heavy “El Norte” (the north/northerly) winds that develop in the sea when a system passes over California and the four corners region. We’ve all heard about the record weather California has had this season and as such the El Norte events in the sea have been frequent and close together. We’ve read Baja fishing reports that say this has been the coldest, windiest winter ever for the area. We expect more northers this time of year as the season comes to an end and this weather will have more of an influence on our anchorages in the sea, when we move and if we do.
We left Banderas Bay for Mazatlan. The wind angle wasn’t ideal for sailing north west to Baja from Punta Mita and getting up to Mazatlan gives us a better chance of a nice reach across the southern end of Sea of Cortez to Los Frailes or Bahia Los Muertos on the east side of Baja Sur. We stopped at Matanchen to break up the trip and were happy to see six other sail boats all anchored very close despite the large bay; possibly due to events here earlier this year. We stopped only to make dinner and sleep, we didn’t leave the boat and pulled anchor shortly after waking to keep moving.
A few miles off San Blas we saw a large group of dolphins circling, they appeared to be feeding. As we passed by, part of the group broke away and started swimming over to us. Soon after, a steady stream of playful dolphins bounded towards Solitude leaping out of the water creating a trail about a quarter to a half mile long. There had to be hundreds of dolphins. They swam along side Solitude and followed behind us for 30 minutes before they disappeared. It was incredible. We have video that we are not able to post here but have included a few photos of dolphins swimming near the bow as well as stills we were able to capture from the video.
After six hours we pulled in at Isla Isabel, there were only two boats and that gave us a better chance of finding a spot to set the hook in this difficult anchorage. In 18-20 knots of wind, we attempted to anchor five times, circling around a small, sandy shelf before it drops 40’ to a rocky bottom . We dropped the anchor twice, once on rock and once on an area that appeared to be sand but the anchor would not set; indicating there was rock underneath a thin layer of sand. The location of the two boats made things more challenging as they did not choose positions that welcomed other vessels, making any newcomer forced to squeeze in between them or slightly forward leaving a sketchy swing too close to either of their bows and the rock monolith to the north. If we were able to set anchor, we wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the boat to explore the island with any of the available options so we chose to move on to Mazatlan.
The winds up to Mazatlan were a bit heavier than forecast, we had 18-20 knots and well past sunset. We actually put on our foul weather gear to help keep dry from the ocean spray and dewy night. When we arrived just offshore of Mazatlan the fog was thick. On our radar there were boats within 1/4 mile of us that that we could not see through the fog. We anchored off Isla Venado for three hours waiting for the fog to lift before making our way into the narrow, shallow channel leading to the marina that is often crowded with dredging equipment. When we finally got in around noon we pulled into our old slip from last summer and were welcomed by sailors we knew. We checked in and had hot showers immediately, a great onshore meal at El Pargo y La Vaca and crashed out on a very still, stable bed. Night night!
With some help from our slip neighbor we hoisted Jim up the mast for a rig inspection while in the marina and all looks good. We chatted with several cruisers and saw more boats we know come up from Banderas Bay. We’re planning to be here only a few days before a weather window opens to cross over to Baja. We saw a large halo around the sun on our third day, we believe this indicates the weather will be changing and we know another northern is on its way within 24 hours. It looks like several cruisers are ready to go once this passes.
SV Solitude 