Punta Bonanza to Isla Isabella

With only a short half day sail to Punta Bonanza which is a open bay anchorage off one of the southern most islands in the Sea of Cortez, Isla Espiritu Santo, we arrived mid afternoon to our anchorage. Since we needed a good jumping off point for leaving La Paz and best wind angle run to the mainland, we decided this island would be the best. The hard part was choosing which side of the island to visit, east or west. As I shared in my last post on La Paz, the weather was warm during the day and then cold at night, as typical of desert climates in Baja. Additionally, we were not sure if the famed Coroumels, afternoon to late evening winds that pick up around La Paz, sometimes whipping up to 25 knots if not higher for much of the evening, making some anchorages dangerous. There were some pretty strong winds in La Paz that we felt in the evening—on one particular night they were cold and strong enough that they drove us inside the boat and an early evening—Party Pooper winds. So, without much knowledge of recently good anchorage spots, we decided on Punta Bonanza—it is a big, open bay which looked to have protection from notherlies and hopefully wasn’t exposed too bad to Coroumels, should they occur. I wont spend to much time here, but I will share disappointingly this anchorage wasn’t the greatest and our time spent “exploring” the Sea of Cortez can be summed up pretty quickly. We came at the wrong time of year and didn’t have the time dedicated to visit and adventure. I know, I know, this is probably a big disappointment to some as The Sea of Cortez is know for being gorgeous; teaming with crazy cool birds, sea creatures, beautiful beaches, emerald green seas and warm hot sun. Well, we didn’t get any of this. Again, and to not wrongly portray the Sea of Cortez as I can see the allure and how it could be beautiful and exotic and just “heaven on earth.” Simply put we didn’t plan for a Sea of Cortez trip, which within itself could be anywhere from a few weeks long to a few years long, neither of which we timed/planned for, despite our best efforts to “check out” No joke though, we have heard NUMEROUS stories of people cruising to Mexico and four years later, they got “stuck” and are still exploring new places in “The Sea.” Additionally, we are just outside of the warm weather in The Sea. Being spoiled brats from Southern California and enjoying almost near perfect warm weather for about 8 months out of the year, we weren’t too keen on staying in cold weather and having to wear our foulies during the day and wishing for UGGs at night. This, and coupled with Baja also having very similar climate and surroundings (desert) to SoCal, we wanted to get to tropical-lush and untamed palm tree beaches, hot and humid weather—you know, to feel like we actually traveled to a “new place.” Punta Bonanza was super windy and cold. Our night spent here was inside, out of the cold and BOAT whipping around on our anchor all night. Not the most comfortable and we were anxious to get going the following morning. Maybe another time, another trip? Consolation, the sea was a crazy, cool bright green color and very pretty to look at, if not for the angry seas and white caps all around us. Jay planned our route this time, angled with best winds and hopefully a straight shot, on same tack down, taking us right to Isla Isabella, a tiny island just off San Blas and mainland Mexico. This small island is usually skipped by most cruisers, as books shared there was iffy anchorage with a very rocky bottom and the sound of grinding chain and anchor against the rocky bottom typically resulting in fouled anchors. BUT well worth it for the exploratory and gambling type cruisers as this island is a bird sanctuary, with beautiful cliffs and caves. Nat Geo and Jacques Cousteau featured this island on TV specials as a “wonderland of unspoiled nature” Clearly we are gamblers and are slightly brain dead in terms of recollecting past rock versus anchor experiences as we were both gunghoe on seeing this island! Thankfully we didn’t win any Darwinian awards by choosing to anchor here. It was just as beautiful and bird Grand Central Station as we had hoped. The passage took us 292nm and about 50+ hours to make. We had GREAT and I mean great winds the whole time. Seas were pretty ugly the first day, about 4-8 foot swells with short, maybe 3-5 seconds between sets, so we both took sea sickness aids to help with the rocking and rolling of the boat. With wind and seas about 120 off our port, it wasn’t too bad with the swells and short sets and besides we were cooking with Crisco All Organic Coconut Oil and cruising along, averaging about 6-6.5 knots the whole way (truth be bragged about we actually got BOAT up to her highest speed yet of a 9.9knots! Damn Skippy!!) Also thankfully, this was a largely uneventful passage. Despite having accomplished previously long passages of 200+ nm sails, I am still wary and nervous getting ready for them. I think it's the unpredictability of them that unnerves me. The seas and Mother Nature, you have to respect. Weather reports or forecasting isn’t without fault….that's what they are...forecasts. And you don’t truly know what conditions will be like until you are actually out and in the thick of it, so to speak. Plus, night watch sucks. Ok, I’ll admit that they are getting easier, and there are moments that are pretty cool and a great time to think and reflect (actually most all times getting from one place to another on the boat is time to think and reflect.) I have done entirely too much thinking and reflecting in these past two months, I am becoming Buddha in my levels of thinking-ness and reflecting-ness. Which seem very zen-like, but actually are usually riddled with rehashing totally awkward moments in my teenage/youth years or pondering how things got their names, like who names stuff? Who gets that authority? Or even greater imponderables such as “why is a raven like a writing desk?” and “do fish have best friend like humans do?” and “when did domesticated chores of folding laundry and wearing pants become mainstream practice?” You know, the typical stuff that happens when you let your mind wander aimlessly and tackle life’s greater mysteries. So I have gotten better and have now upgraded my time to include, whitening my teeth, painting my nails and listening to “Learn Spanish” audio tapes my awesome sis got us (Muchas gracias Beans!!) And this is also where every single person reading this blog, groans and then silently begs, no pleas with Jay to take over this blog STAT….I’m DONE! don’t worry back to the real stuff, like sailing, fixing things and fishing, especially lots of fish pictures. Ok, I’ll deliver:

Better yet, you all can have a good laugh at me catching this giant monster of the sea, and me, bitching and complaining the whole time.

Context: Second day of passage, seas have calmed considerably and Jay knows I had a crap night sleep so to distract me he suggests we, meaning me, sport fish, just fish for fun and throw back whatever we catch. Hilarious, right? To defend myself, its not that I wasn’t into fishing, I actually do enjoy fishing, a lot. Offshore fishing is way fun (and truth be told I almost won the pot once for biggest catch one of the few times we went out near home on day tour boats. Yep, little me versus about 30+ fisherman, I can hold my own!) But, this beast of a sea demon was yanking hard—and quite honestly I was convinced he was going to pull me into the sea with him, regardless of being tethered onto the boat with my jackline. That and I was running on about 3 hours of sleep and no strength what so ever to engage in a epic tug-of-war with Rover McFishFace. In the end, it was a win win for both of us. We spent one night and half a day at Isla Isabella. Truly was a beautiful island, teaming with birds and gorgeous cliffs

We took off around 10am heading our last 43nm miles to San Blas. Despite all the warnings and hearing the terrible sound of our chain grinding against the rocks all night, we got off without a problem or hooked anchor from our anchorage. Glory!! With warm winds to our backs we continued onward to Mainland Mexico!! — Last Passage Distance: 292.3nm (Punta Bonanza to Isla Isabella) Cumulative Distance to Date: 1,452.5 nm Days since last donating to Posideon: 2 Items donated: Sleeping bag. Yes, I seem to be donating a heck of a lot of items to Poseidon, which Jay has kindly pointed out. My theory is that the sea will take care of you as long as you keep making alms payments (read: this is my nice justification for all the crap I lose overboard, because I am a klutz to the nth degree) So! while on night watch first night of our passage to mainland Mexico, I got up to check something on the other side of the cockpit (as per usual it was the moon rising but every night it tricks me into thinking a huge tanker is coming straight at us…nope, just the moon doing its moon things) I swear I only left the sleeping bag for a moment—turned around and it was gone. (Wind was whipping that night and it was our lightweight sleeping bag.) Anyway, I think it was a suicide mission, but who knows?! I’m hoping my donation binge is over for a bit—we are starting to getting into nicer stuff—Posideon is getting greedy and all be damned if he tries to take my 3lb bag of tortilla chips!