We’re currently in Mazatlan on the Mexican main coast. We have been here about a week so I figured it was high time I updated everyone on our little adventure :-)
When last I updated the blog we were just leaving Puerto Escondido to return to La Paz. Here’s one last picture I forgot to include in the last post, it’s a shot of the Mission in Loreto, established in 1697. It was the original in a whole string of missions going up the Baja and California coasts, ending in San Francisco Ca. I couldn’t tell what part of it was original and unfortunately the adjoining museum was closed (on a Monday?). We had a nice walk around downtown Loreto though.
We left Escondido on 12/29 for Puerto Los Gatos, an easy day sail. About a week earlier we had stopped at Los Gatos on the way north and it was a nice quiet anchorage, what a difference a week makes! We had an uncomfortable side to side roll that caused everything to threaten to go flying and made sleep difficult. We got up early and headed for San Evaristo. We had heard there was a strong north wind coming and Evaristo looked like it would be a good spot to sit out weather. We were in Evaristo three days, on the night of the first and throughout the second the wind howled overhead at 25 to 30 knots (about 29 to 35 mph) but we were very snug behind a big hill and hardly felt a thing. We could look out at the channel and see lots of white caps and were glad we had ducked into here.
After a few days the wind calmed down (though the seas were still lumpy) so we decided to press on. There were some spectacular geological striations in the cliffs along the channel (the pictures do not do justice to all the different colors of reds, pinks, tans and greens):
We sailed south to Ensenada Grande where we were the only boat in a lovely calm bay with a nice sandy beach. The beach inspired us to find our golf clubs and play in the giant sand trap! Here we are in a rousing golf game at the four starfish rated course of Ensenada Grande. This is truly a links style arrangement with much of the natural landscape intact. It is a fairly short layout, about 400 yards for the first three holes and really only requires a couple of wedges (52,56,60) and a putter. Carts are required to remain at anchor, though kayaks are allowed for dealing with water hazards (snorkels recommended), and there are few amenities compared to most U.S. clubs. We’ve heard rumors of a new resort being added, but doubt the island infrastructure will be able to support the traffic anytime soon, until then it will remain a special place to play.
Here’s Carolynn lining up on the first shot:
Here’s Tom:
Here’s the first hole, a bit of a misnomer as, according to the signage there are no bathroom stops on this course:
The second hole had a little water hazard:
A few of the locals didn’t quite make it:
A final shot of our secret golf course :-)
We returned to La Paz for a few days of provisioning and boat work before starting the trip to Mazatlan. It was starting to get rather chilly, one morning I saw one of the marina security guards dressed in a parka, a wool knit cap, heavy boots and heavy gloves! He looked ready to face a blizzard (it’s not really that cold).
We decided to take several stops to get a little closer to Mazatlan before we made the jump across the sea so we went to Bahia San Gabriel the first night then back down the Baja peninsula to Bahia De Los Muertos before jumping to Mazatlan. This would make it only a 190 nautical mile trip which we could do as a single overnighter (as opposed to 250 nm and probably a two night trip from La Paz).
We left Muertos at first light and had a smooth quick motor sail across the sea and got into Marina Mazatlan early the next day. What a difference 190 nm makes! Baja was dry and chilly; Mazatlan is warm and tropical with plants and flowers blooming everywhere. One day we took the kayaks up the estuary through the El Cid resort ($$$) and spotted a whole bunch of Iguanas perched next to the water, some as long as 5 feet:
As well as lots of fancy houses:
In Mazatlan the main drag along the beach is set up for the cruise ships but the rest of the city feels like Mexico, the people are friendly. They have little taxis here that have no windows or doors built on old VW chassis, they call them pulmonias (literally pneumonias). The other transportation option is the bus system which is very effective at getting almost anywhere for 6 pesos (old bus) or 9 pesos (new bus w/air). We plan on staying in Mazatlan for a few more days then start working our way further south.
Hasta luego
Carolynn & Tom
