I Sail Away

I awoke early, and took a long morning. I would either be sailing 40Nm to Bahia Asuncion, or stopping along the way at Bahia San Hipolito if the conditions were really big. That gave me a little time to enjoy the morning.

Right around the boat, a pod of dolphins were playing or feeding–regardless, they came right up to the boat and said Hi. In the meantime, I made a nice breakfast and some coffee and lingered over it while doing a little writing. It was a great morning.

Leaving Punta Abreojos is a bit tricky. There are two underwater knolls that under the right conditions can cause breaking waves out of seemingly open ocean. So, where you normally steer a wide course around the point and the breaking waves on shore, you need to steer close to the shore in this instance. Just outside of the breaking waves, and inside of the knolls. Needless to say, I hand-steered, poked my way through the main anchorage close to town, around the point and up the North side of the anchorage.

Last night, I was unable to see the town, but as I motored past it today, it looked cute. Larger than a village–with some amenities. A restaurant, a Pemex gas station, and the police station were all visible from the water. On the point, there was a small lighthouse.

On the way North, you stick along the inside track of the land following the 5-fathom depth curve. On the left, after 3 – 4 Nm up the coast, there is actually an outcropping of rocks–Roca de Ballena. It is named because it looks like open ocean because at high tide, you can barely see the rocks at all–maybe a foot or so out of the water. When a wave hits it . . . you can see what looks like a water spout of a whale.

After I passed that (and before the shoal of the Lagoon entrance ahead), I headed away from land and out to sea. Not long after I left the protection of the land, the wind built quickly to 25 – 30 knots. It is a familiar pattern of weather around here: calm at night, 5 – 10 knots in the morning and building, and by 1 or 2pm–blowing like stink–25 – 30 knots. Fortunately, Bahia San Hipolito was pretty close.

The town of Bahia San Hipolito was really small–there were only a few fishing pangas and perhaps three dozen houses–all built into the lee side of the small bluff. It looked pretty impoverished–but, the sun was setting and I was glad to be off the ocean and at anchor–even though it was still blowing 25 knots at anchor . . . .

Location:
26°58.984’N
113&deg58.466′ W

Got up early, pulled the anchor and set off for Punta Abreojos. Abreojos translates to “open eyes” because there are lots of hidden underwater nasties to catch, grab and sink your boat. The word is to NEVER make an entrance of this harbor at night or in poor visibility.

Marishanna and I made pretty good time on the way, and the breeze was relatively light–starting at 15 – 20 knots and freshening to about 25 knots–a typical day of summer sailing in San Francisco.

After eating all of the sushi from the last tuna, I decided to fish a little more. After 45 minutes with the cedar plug out on the line, I caught another Blue Fin Tuna–this time about 8 pounds.

As the afternoon progressed, the winds built to 25 knots of steady wind and the seas built to 1.5 – 2 meters–but the frequency increased to every 2 seconds. It was rough going, and I was happy to finally pull into Punta Abreojos. Because of the underwater hazards and I was rapidly losing sunlight, I approached the anchorage from the far Eastern side of the bay–well clear of the hazards.

I found a nice place to anchor in about 25 feet of water right around dusk, and watched the moon rise as I cooked dinner. Another really awesome day!

Location:
26°45.598′ N
113°30.820′ W