Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

  November 21, 2024     From Aqua Verde we travelled south to the anchorage of San Evaristo.   We had planned our arrival with being there for protection from a north wind-blow that was forecasted, and although it was a decent anchorage with a small fishing village on the neighbouring beach, it was only the strong winds that kept us there.   We went over to the beach one day and walked the length of the beach past the pangas that were at anchor and tied to shore.   Panga is the name for the style of boat that is used widely by locals and fishermen in Mexico.     We enjoyed tacos at a small restaurant and made use of their internet.   Here we discovered that out Starlink was to be delivered to the marina in La Paz that same day.   We had been planning to take our time from here to La Paz, but we did not want to make the marina hold our package for us.   Marina de La Paz does the cruising community a huge service by...

November 18, 2024    The next day we kayaked ashore to the beach of the anchorage and went on a hike to a cave that we had heard about.   We hiked up and over the closest hill and through the grazing grounds for goats.   Down in the next valley we passed an old cemetery, and then we came out into a very lush growth of palm trees.   Having come down over the rocky, dusty, cactus-filled hill, this lush stand of palm trees was very surprising.   We followed the unmarked trails, some being animal trails, and others having human prints, through the beautiful area of palm trees and out to the start of a long beach.   We walked along the beach to the far end, and then searched around to find the trail up to the caves.   We thought that we had found the trail, and we could see the cave, but the trail was too steep and loose to take Falcon up, so Jason scrambled up by himself.   Once he got part way up, he discovered the actual trail and followed it b...

November 17, 2024    Our next anchorage further south was Agua Verde.    We had stopped here on our way North in the spring of 2023, but we had only stayed the night, and had not had a chance to explore.   This time we were here for some westerly winds, and although they were not overly strong because of the lay of the land there were some very strong gusts that whipped around from multiple directions creating some interesting dynamics.    During this, we decided to kayak to the next beach over from the bay that we were anchored in, to where there was a small fishing community with a small store and a couple of beach restaurants.   Although it was not dangerous in any way, it was a lot of work getting back home, and in retrospect not worth the trip.   On our paddle over to the village the wind was behind us getting us easily out of our bay, but then it was also funnelling out of the next bay so that we had to fight the gusts to get into shore...

November 16, 2024   We took Kiki (our tender) to one of the beaches on Isla Coronados that was a particularly picture perfect beach.   Pure white sand stretches out into crystal clear blue water giving the appearance of white fading to turquoise and then out into a darker shade of blue as the water gets deeper.   It is a protected and shallow bay and the water was beautifully warm.   We set up our shade structure, but aside from sitting down to eat lunch, we did not make use of it as we spent the rest of the time in the water.   We all had a wonderful time soaking up the sand, the warm water, and the beautiful beach.   That evening a local freediver on a kayak pulled up to our boat.   He had been diving for scallops and asked if we would like to buy some.   We bought a kilogram of the largest scallops that I have ever seen and had a delicious feast for dinner that night.  

November 15, 2024     We had a nice time at the Isla Coronado anchorage; we had calm, lovely weather and got to enjoy some really good beach time, as well as a hike.   The island has an old volcano cone on it and we did part of the hike, which is part of the Bahia de Loreto National Park.    We made our way through the sand-dune lowlands, then up into the rocky midlands, and finally up and along the boulder-ridden slopes below the mountain itself.   We did not go up to the summit because Jason was having to carry Falcon the whole time and since we do not have a proper hiking backpack it was not the easiest for loose footing and steep climbing.   We did get a beautiful view, and at the same time, we were very happy to get back to the beach to swim for the afternoon, as it had been a windless morning and a hot hike.

November 14, 2024   One morning at San Juanico we powered on our Starlink and checked the weather, and the forecast for a week ahead was for NW winds up to 47 knots.   That day we gave some thought as to where would be a good place to be for that strong blow, but when we went to check the forecast again that evening, our Starlink dish no longer worked.   We made the decision to move, two days later, into an area that had cell service so that we could contact Starlink to address our issue, and more importantly, so that we would be able to keep an eye on the forecasted strong winds.   We moved further south to the anchorage of Isla Coronados, near Loreto.   On our sail southwards we had a pod of dolphins come and swim with us.   They stayed close to the boat for over half an hour, and we got to see them swimming through the swells behind us, jumping beside us, and porpoising in front of us.   It was fun to see them so active arou...

November 10, 2024   When the weather was right we made our way further south to the beautiful anchorage of San Juanico. With five large sandy beaches separated by cool rock formations, a high steep-sided muffin-top island, and another island with cool rock pillars and formations, San Juanico was a very picturesque area, and we would have happily stayed there for longer than we did had the weather forecast been better.   We very much enjoyed the days that we had there, and every day we had a picnic packed and were out for a day of exploring.   Jason did some productive spearfishing/snorkelling, we spent a lot of time at some of the different beaches, and we also did a cool hike.    We hiked across to an outer beach and had a picnic, and then on our way back we took a side trail up one of the hills and got a beautiful view down over the anchorage.   One of the beaches that we went to while at San Juanico had an area of sand dunes up f...