Onward to Bahia Santa Maria

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 really neat to get to see what it was because it had a very different fighting style than both the Bonito and the Mahi Mahi.  It dove, and it stayed deep, whereas the Bonito and Mahi Mahi always seem to fight close to the surface.  Just as the angle of the line was getting close to the boat and the fish was probably only about 40 feet away, however, it took off again, and this time it got off.  Another mystery fish.  

We had our first double header (a fish on each of our lines at the same time) on our sailboat, which added a whole different level of excitement, but unfortunately we lost them both.   

The next morning dawned a new day, and we were hopeful that it would be the end of our unlucky streak of being unable to land the fish on our boat.  As we were fishing Jason just happened to be looking out behind the boat when he exclaimed for me to look.  I did not get to see what he had seen, however, as seconds later we had a fish on the line, but he had gotten to see a whole school of brightly coloured Mahi Mahi porpoising out of the swells behind us on a perpendicular course, such that he had seen them all side to.  It must have been a massive school of them as they were much further back than our lures and yet we had instant action. 

We managed to land one of these beautiful fish on board, our second Mahi Mahi of the trip.  It was a great way to start the day.  

In the mid-afternoon of our first day sailing down from Bahia Asuncion we had spotted, off to our starboard side, a buoy with a stick sticking up and a red flag on it.  We worried that this might mark either a net or long line, but with no other buoys in sight we carried on thinking that perhaps it was simply adrift and alone.  About an hour later we spotted three buoys off to our starboard side, then nothing once again.  Another hour after that we spotted another marker, once again off to our starboard side with a flag, although this time it was yellow.  We began to wonder if in fact there had been something strung out between these two end markers which had luckily all been roughly parallel to our course and off to our starboard side rather than in front of us. 

Just after sunset, as dark was rapidly approaching we spotted another marker with a red flag.  Oh no, we thought, what terrible timing, just as its getting dark.  Then, in the fading light we started to spot a line of buoys strung out from the red flag marker.  We were under sail, down wind, but we veered off to port and away from the line of buoys.  

As night fell we were left sailing towards land and unable to spot any more buoys in the darkness.  It was not a pleasant feeling or a relaxing way to start the night.  We decided to sail three nautical miles and then turn back onto our original course, and hope.  Luckily the rest of the night passed uneventfully except for spotting several small Panga boats with our radar that were not lit at all.  Night watches off the coast of Mexico are definitely not relaxing.   

Sunrise that next morning was at 07:39 and although at first the early morning sun added no warmth at all to the already warm night, within 20 minutes it began to get hot.  Everyone had told us that between Turtle Bay and Mag Bay, sailing south down the Baja coast, we would notice both the air and water temperature increase, and indeed we did.  This was the dawn of a beautiful day.  Here we were, on the 30th of October, sailing along on the open Pacific wearing less clothing and with more of our enclosure opened up to the wind than we had ever cruised with in Canada.  Sailing along through the most beautiful, turquoise blue water and in such warm conditions was what we had always dreamed of.  It was perfect!   

Also on that day we saw our first frigatebirds (yes, it is all one word) of the trip, what I am sure was a turtle, although we saw it for only a second, and one of the strangest looking sights ever.  At first when we spotted them jumping in the distance we thought it must be dolphins, but as we got a bit closer it was clearly not dolphins.  What was it that was leaping 4-6 feet out of the water?  As we got closer it was obvious that it was a type of ray, about 1.5 - 2 feet wide, and jumping and flipping through the air.  They looked quite odd, as they were not graceful above water.  They would jump and then flap their wings, or do a flip, before belly flopping with a splash back into the water.  It was very peculiar to see, but upon minimal research apparently this is a common behaviour for certain types of rays.  It sure was neat to see, and it made us smile and laugh.    

On Sunday, October 30th we pulled into the anchorage of Bahia Santa Maria and were anchored by 17:45.