NORTHWEST TO SAN JUANICO AND LA RAMADA   

While writing this WEB update I was listening to the Chubasco HAM net on the radio.  I was surprised to learn today is Saturday, July 20.  I thought it was Sunday and I had been planning to take Mirador back down to Isla Coronados so that I could then go into Loreto Monday morning (I thought that was tomorrow) to check on airfares to Seattle.  Good thing they announce the day of the week at the beginning of each radio net, otherwise a lot of cruisers would be clueless.

I am still anchored in beautiful and peaceful La Ramada where there is only one other boat.  I sailed 3 miles from San Juanico to this anchorage on July 16 when the  mysterious NE swells made the San Juanico anchorage very uncomfortable.  The swells are a mystery because the wind blows pretty consistently from the SSE while the swells come in from the NE.  Most folks believe that the swells, which are worse from early AM until mid-morning, are due to the large thunderstorms that form each day over the mountains to the east of Guymas/San Carlos on the Mexican Mainland.  Those storms roll down off the mountains in the late afternoon and travel westward across the Sea of Cortez during the night.  San Juanico is only 90 miles SW of San Carlos and the storms make it over to the Baja east coast, about 40 miles north of here, about one night a week.

Anyway, the mysterious NE swells combined with the SE wind waves make for a bumpy anchorage.  It is especially uncomfortable when the SE wind keeps Mirador sitting abeam of the swells.  When than happens the boat rolls 20 degrees from side to side and also pitches up and down due to the wind waves.

La Ramada is on the NW side of the point of land that forms the NW  part of the San Juanico anchorage.  There is a 1/2 mile trail across the point that connects the two anchorages. 

The picture to the right shows the houses built on the point of land that separates San Juanico and La Ramada.  This was taken from the NW part of the San Juanico anchorage.  The La Ramada anchorage is about 3/8 of a mile past the house on top of the hill.

For some reason the NE swell does not get into the La Ramada anchorage as often as it does the San Juanico anchorage.  I guess the sharply defined point that forms the NE part of La Ramada deflects the waves better than the blunt and round land that forms the NNE part of San Juanico.

La Ramada has great clam digging in six to ten feet of water and very good spear fishing along the cliffs and rocks that form the west and NW part of the anchorage.  Last night I speared a nice big Dog Snapper (Lutjanus novemfaciatus) about 5 PM and had blackened snapper over rice for dinner at 8 PM.  One of my friends speared what turned out to be a 17 pound parrotfish the other day and was barely able to subdue it.  The fish dragged Don all over the place while he was trying to keep it from dragging the spear gun off to deep water. 

The weather has turned muggy and a little uncomfortable.  Each afternoon the cabin temperature reaches the mid-90s and the humidity hits the low 80% range.  Fortunately there is almost always a nice breeze blowing off the Sea to keep things bearable.  Every night the north and NE horizon offers a spectacular lightning show as the Mainland thunderstorms build and flow westward.  Most nights there is lightning visible about every two to five seconds, all night long.

Yesterday we experienced a meteorological phenomena that I am hard pressed to understand.  The La Ramada anchorage and, at times, the hills above the anchorage were shrouded in a light fog that came and went much of the day.  Maybe it is just because I am from the cool climes of Puget Sound, but I don't understand how fog can form when the air temperature is above 90 degrees and the land surface is too hot to touch.  

I decided to go for a run yesterday afternoon and boy did I suffer toward the end of it.  This is the first time I have run since early June when I pulled a calf muscle running in Tacoma.  The air temp was about 92, the humidity was about 85%, and there was a light breeze blowing from the NW.  I tried to run very slowly but it is all uphill from the beach.  I made it as far as the houses on top of the hill overlooking the San Juanico anchorage.  After 22 minutes I was getting chills and feeling a little light headed, despite splashing cool fresh water on my head and shoulders.  I walked for 15 minutes trying to cool off but the sun and humidity didn't allow my body to shed much heat. 

After 5 minutes of walking my heart rate, (normally 160 to 180 while running), was still above 150 beats per minute and it stayed above 140 for another 10 minutes.  In cooler conditions  it would be about 118 after five minutes of walking and it would be below 105 after 10 minutes.  I didn't begin to cool off until I had swum in the bay for five minutes.  The water about six feet below the surface is less than 72 degrees and really helped me cool off.  I guess I am going to have to start running very early in the morning.

On July 12 Mirador and I motored all 35 miles from Marquer on Isla Carmen to San Juanico.  There was not a breath of wind and it was hot. 

We anchored in the far SE corner of San Juanico in order to be close to the reefs and off shore rocks that form the SE part of the anchorage.  San Juanico is a big anchorage, about 2 miles from the NW corner to the SE corner. Ryokosha and Lady Galadriel arrived from Puerto Ballandra about 30 minutes before me. 

We dove on the rocks and cliffs, shown in the picture to the left, at Punta Mercenarios several times where we saw, and shot, a lot of interesting fish. 

I have finally eaten most of the meat that I bought in Mazatlan in mid-June, froze, and have carried around since then.  So now I must be a little more serious about hunting and gathering food from the Sea.

The rocks you see have a lot of neat caves just under the surface of the water.  Those caves were full of snapper and other fish I didn't recognize.  The trick to shooting the snapper is to hang motionless either just above or beside the cave and wait for a fish to swim out. 

My 48" Bandito  gun has about a 20 foot range so I can't shoot at close quarters when there is a rock behind or below the fish.  That means I have to be at the same level or below the fish and between it and the rocks... makes it a little more sporting.  I am still only getting a fish about one out of three shots.

 Once you get it on the spear you've got to be pretty quick to keep the darn thing from swimming back into the cave where it can get under or behind a rock.  If that happens it is pretty tough to retrieve the spear without swimming into the cave, something I do not like to do. The caves are the favorite home or resting spots for Panamic Green Moray eels which commonly reach four to five feet in this part of the Sea.   They will take a serious chomp out of your fingers when you try to recover what you think is your fish and they see as a free dinner.

I was lurking about one of the tidal pools and caves, hanging onto a rock just below the surface while watching all the Dog Snappers, King Angelfish, and Damselfish mill around when I saw something BIG out of the corner of my eye.  It was large, round and had a somewhat flat body.  It saw me turn towards it and darted into a crevice before I could identify it.  This happened several more times during the next hour.  I never did figure out what it was.

The next day I went back to the same area to get another snapper for lunch, love those fresh fish tacos,  when I again was still-hunting while hanging onto a rock.  This time the unidentified fish came around a corner of a rock very close to me.  I decided to take a quick snap shot because it was bigger than anything I had shot for a while.  Just as I started to pull the trigger on the spear gun, with the fish only about 10 feet away, I saw the bright yellowtail and realized it was a huge Yellowtail Surgeonfish (Prionurus puntatus).  That is definitely a fish I do not want to shoot.  Their meat is malodorous and tastes bad.  They also have spines along the side of their tails that act as switchblade knifes, (thus the name surgeonfish), that can inflict serious wounds on divers.  They use the spines to fight with other fish and are not something to mess around with.  This one was at least 2 feet in diameter and probably weighed eight to ten pounds.

Later that dive I shot a nice sized Leopard Grouper.  I saw the spear go clear thru the fish and figured I had a great dinner coming up.  Somehow the grouper did a couple of twists and loops and came off the spear.  That is nearly impossible to do because the barbs on the spear are hinged pieces of U shaped stainless steel that are an inch long and 1/2 inch wide.  I saw the grouper swim down to a rock crevice where I looked for five minutes but never found it.

Here is another picture of Mirador in the SE San Juanico anchorage.  You can see a little bit of the NE swell rolling in from Miradors starboard beam.  That is Punta Mercenarios in the background.

Mirador's HAM radio is getting worse. Now the remote control head that has the only dials and knobs is not working properly.   But, this morning boats 50 and 60 miles from here were hearing me pretty well on a SSB channel.  Time to get it fixed!

This will probably be the last WEB update until I get back to Tacoma sometime after July 26.