Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

October 29-30, 2022   At 07:00, on October 29th, with just enough morning light to navigate through the lobster trap buoys, we headed out of Bahia Asuncion.   We did not want to leave, we could have easily spent a few more days in this lovey little town exploring the area, but with only two days of wind forecasted before three days of calm, we wanted to get to our next anchorage.     Once again we trolled our fishing lines during daylight hours, and although we had quite a bit of excitement on the first day, we did not manage to keep any of them on the line.   We definitely need more practice landing fish onto the deck of our sailboat while travelling at around six knots.   It sure isn’t as easy as from a low-deck powerboat that can easily be put into neutral or even reversed.     One of our strikes would have been a really nice-sized fish, not too big, and not too small.   Jason fought it for fifteen minutes and it would have been reall...

October 28, 2022   Bahia Asuncion was a beautiful anchorage, relatively calm with only small rollers, and we anchored out from the small town.   As we were entering the anchorage we were radioed by one of the locals, and later he launched his little tender and came out to welcome us.   He was the owner of the only local sailboat in town, and he was a very nice guy.   He had been to Vancouver, Canada before and spoke fairly good English.   He told us about the town, where to get groceries, where to land our tender, where to get fuel, etc.   If we had needed water or lots of fuel, he would have been happy to bring such out to us in his panga.     He told us a little about his work, which was as a lobster fisherman during the lobster season, and a diver for conch at other times.   We asked him if we could buy a lobster or two, but he explained to us that all of their lobster were shipped over to Asia.   The lobster get packed in ice, a...

October 25-27, 2022   Although we could have happily spent at least another few days exploring the area of San Quintin, on October 25th at around noon, just as the wind was starting to pick up, we pulled up our anchor and headed out.    Once we were out of the shallow areas we put out our fishing lines and hoped for better luck.   Soon, it seemed that our luck had indeed changed and we got our first bite.   Unfortunately it got away, but it was not long after that that we had another one.   This time Jason fought it to the boat, and I was able to net it.   It was a beautiful Pacific Bonito, what lovely colours!   And, to add to the delight, the fillets from it were quite large (thick and wide) for the size of fish.   It was our first time catching and dealing with a fish on board our sailboat while actually under sail, and having the fish-cleaning station at the back of the boat was perfect.     After catching that fish we had ...

October 24, 2022   The morning after anchoring in the bay at San Quintin, we were eager to go exploring.   So, after doing some chores on board, including making water and inflating our kayaks, we grabbed our lunch and water, and headed out.   We paddled towards shore, and then followed the shoreline, just outside of the point break, and headed towards the entrance to where the estuary met the shore, about three nautical miles away.   As we entered a shallower depth area, and also with the ever-changing tide, we had to keep a constant eye on where the waves up ahead of us were beginning to crest, and we made sure to stay outside of this line.   Making our way in through the breakers we managed to find and navigate a safe line towards the far shore where we landed on a beautiful stretch of sand.   Actually, the entire bay was simply one beautiful beach.   We carried our kayaks up the sand to a safe distance from the tide, and then ...

October 22, 2022   At 08:15 we started our engine at the Ensenada Cruiseport Village Marina and untied our dock lines.   It was time to start heading further South.     The only place that sold fuel at a dock in Ensenada was the Coral Marina, which was outside of the city harbour and about three nautical miles along the edge of the bay.   By 09:45 we were topped up with both diesel and gasoline, and we headed out of Bahia De Todos Santos, and by 11:50 we were sailing south!    Although we towed our fishing lines for all of the daylight hours, our bad luck of fishing in Mexico followed us and we had no action.   Thankfully we had left Ensenada with a freezer full of food.     Although it was nice having the distant glow from little towns off of our starboard side through the night, sailing at night close to land presented a lot of hazards that needed to be watched out for.   Many fishing boats did not show up on AIS, and it was ...

October 20, 2022    Ever since the fog had cleared on our first day in Ensenada, we had noticed an area on the edge of town that had sharp cliffs overlooking the city, and we talked about hiking up it.   So, on one lovely sunny day, when the visibility was good, we packed extra water and headed out.   We walked along the Malecon, which is the pedestrian walkway along the harbour, to the far side of town.   From there we cut up alongside of a road that seemed to lead in the right general direction, and which also slowly went upwards.   We could have followed another road up to the top, as there were houses up on the ridge, and then cut across the ridge to the uninhabited hilltop that we wanted to explore, but we decided to see if we could make our own way up the front slope.   We found a good area where we could cut away from the road and onto the hillside.   From there we easily meandered our way up the side of the hill, and once at the top of the...

October 18, 2022    The first time that we went out fishing from Ensenada we were so excited at the prospect of catching some new types of fish, and we were optimistic that we would come home with enough fish for dinner and some for the freezer.   We headed out in Kiki and we planed the 9 nautical miles out over the rolling swells to the islands of Isla Todos Santos.   On the way out we saw a pod of dolphins, and many little pipers that were picking up bugs from the surface of the water.   It was a beautiful, calm morning with only the gentle, rolling swells disturbing the surface.     We chose to start fishing around the rocks off of the southern tip of the two islands.   While we floated and fished we watched some locals in two different panga-style boats.   One of the boats was in behind the reefs, but right in among the rocks, seemingly fishing for small fish, perhaps for bait.   The other boat had traps, and ther...