ON THE ROAD TO LA PAZ

Mirador arrived at the "virtual marina" in La Paz on Monday afternoon, November 10. That is a little sooner than I planned to be here because I was chased out of Isla San Francisco by killer noseeums and I destroyed all the tires and tubes on my mountain bike. Since I couldn't explore on the bike as planned and I couldn't spend any time in the beautiful Hook anchorage on Isla San Francisco I decided to make two longish day trips to get me to La Paz ahead of schedule.

I went for an interesting mountain bike ride while in Playa Burro.

Here I am on top of a ridge about 3 miles NE of Play Burro. This is looking SE toward the southern end of Concepcion Bay with Playa Burro off to the right of the two small islands in the center right of the picture.

The ride up here was along the ridge extending to the right from below my left hand.

Naturally my tires picked up several thorns along the way so both tires were almost flat by the time I got back to the beach just after sunset.

I left Playa de Burro at 5:50 AM November 5 and suffered through a moderately uncomfortable 56 mile motor trip to San Juanico.

There was no wind as I motored 10 miles NE out of Concepcion Bay. It was also cold, I had to wear jeans and a sweatshirt in the 68° cloudy morning air. Once around Punta Concepcion and on course for San Juanico, 46 miles to the SE, I found 10 to 14 knots of wind from dead astern of Mirador. The four-foot seas were confused and fairly irregular. Twelve knots of wind is not enough to keep the sails full while headed straight downwind in lumpy conditions. I tried wing and wing with the main held forward and down by the "big red rubber band" and the genoa out on a pole on the opposite side. The boat would move at about five-knots with that setup but the main would back wind every 30 seconds or so as a big wave rolled under Mirador and she accelerated down the wave which moved the apparent wind forward. Then the main would fill again from astern with a big bang and jolt to the rig.

I then tried the genoa alone after dropping the main but that just made the genoa backwind and shake the rig on the bigger waves.

I put the genoa out three more times during the trip but was never able to keep it full without flogging. So the motor ran almost the entire trip.

Even more annoying was catching four or five biggish skipjacks which put up a good fight but offer no real food value. A 10 pound skipjack takes about five to 10 minutes of heavy hauling to retrieve. All they do is make me thirsty. I tried changing lures several times but just kept catching skipjacks.

San Juanico was uneventful except for another mountain bike ride that destroyed yet another tire. There used to be a decent dirt road from San Juanico out to the main highway about 15 miles to the west. Hurricanes Ignacio and Marty dumped a total of 30" of rain on the area between August 27 and September 22 which destroyed much of the road. I decided to ride my bike west on the road remnants and found that my light weight Pacific Northwest mud tires were not up to the slashing and gouging they suffered while pounding through the washouts and dry stream beds. By the time I returned to Mirador from the nine mile ride the inner tube on the rear tire was sticking thru the sidewalls in three different spots. At least I didn't have to walk back.

Friday, November 7 I left San Juanico at 6:45 AM hoping to sail to Agua Verde, 56 miles to the southeast. The first part of the trip was a nice close reach in 10 to 15 knots of wind coming right off shore so the seas were flat and sailing was fast. The wind died just as I was beginning to worry about sailing thru the mile wide channel between Isla Coronados and the Baja Peninsula. That was fortunate because it allowed me to motor with just the main up without feeling like I had wimped-out by choosing not to sail the channel.

There is an underwater reef that extends SW from Isla Coronados and is only 10 feet deep 1/2 mile off the island. The 28 foot deep channel is close to the Peninsula side but there are rocks extending out from that shore also so the actual safe sailing channel is about 500 yards wide. There are no navigational aids that mark the reef, the rocks, or any part of the channel. Such is sailing in the Sea of Cortez.

Once south of that channel the wind shifted to the NNW as it came around the 1000' hill on Isla Coronados. I set the genoa on a pole to port and the main to starboard and away we went at 5 knots in 12 knots true, almost dead downwind again. That is nice sailing, 85 degrees, hot sun, not a cloud in the sky, a cooling north wind and NO SKIPJACK!

I did, however, catch a very nice five pound Dorado which is about the tastiest of the Sea of Cortez fish. I had fish tacos for lunch and blackened Dorado for dinner two days in a row.

The wind died as I passed thru the channel between Isla Carmen and Isla Danzante and never came back so Mirador motored the last 20 miles to Agua Verde.

On Saturday I tried one more time to go for a fun ride on the mountain bike. Before I could ride I had to patch seven thorn holes in the tubes and had to put the heavy duty street tires on the wheels since the side walls on the knobby tires had been destroyed in San Juanico. The picture above was taken about four miles NW of Agua Verde on what used to be the main road that runs 25 miles out to Mexican Hiway 1. The picture is looking NW across one of the small bays that dot the coast. This was taken at the high point of my ride. I turned around once atop this ridge because the road dropped back to the Sea of Cortez shore just behind me and the only way back to Mirador would have been back up and over this ridge.

This ride turned out to be much less fun than I had planned on. About 1000 people live in the village of Agua Verde and there used to be a good road across the mountains and up to Hiway 1 which crosses the mountains at about 3000'. Much of the road just doesn't exist any longer and there are several stretches of over 1/4 mile that are now a river bed full of boulders, loose sand, and small rocks, not to mention the odd dead cow. Where I could find the road it was often filled with deep ruts or covered with loose sand and small rocks. There were only one or two stretches where I could actually pedal with any speed for more than a 1/4 mile.

And, even in those conditions I got thorns in the tires and had two flats by the time I got back to Mirador. So much for desert bicycling until I get tougher tires, tire liners, and tubes.

But the scenery is wonderful. Here is a view from the highest ridge I rode over. This is looking SE back toward the Agua Verde anchorage which is behind the highest peak in the center of the picture with the diagonal red band running upward to the right.

The entrance to the Agua Verde anchorage is around the back of the point that sticks out to the left. There is a low sand bar that connects the center hill with the left most point. The sandbar and point protects the anchorage from the prevailing NW to NE winds in the fall and winter.

The village of Agua Verde is famous for the large wheels of goat cheese they make on a regular basis. So, I guess, it's not surprising to see lots of goats around the anchorage.

These are three of about 20 that were on the rock cliffs directly above Mirador. I anchored about 20 yards from the cliff base and had to look upward to see these animals.

Mirador and I sailed out of Agua Verde about 7:30 AM on Sunday the 9th of November with the intent of going into San Evaristo where I might try another bike ride along the mountain road that heads back to La Paz.

However the sailing was so nice I just kept right on going past Evaristo and ended up in The Hook on Isla San Francisco, about 48 miles SE of Agua Verde.

The first 20 miles out of Agua Verde was a nice downwind sail in 12 knots and three foot seas. I was able to keep just the genoa full while poled out. I guess the sail did not backwind as it had several days earlier because the seas were very smooth and even and Mirador did not surge down them.

The wind died for a couple hours in the middle of the day but then came back very nicely from the NNW as I entered the San Jose Channel. I again poled out the genoa but left the main flaked on the boom. As the wind increased to about 20 knotsTrue Mirador cruised along at 5.7 to 6.1 knots with an apparent wind angle of about 130°. The waves did built to five or six feet but with that much true wind the apparent wind stays behind the sail no matter how much Mirador surges down the waves.

Mirador was still doing 6 knots directly toward The Hook anchorage, another 10 miles downwind, as I approached where I had to turn hard to port to enter San Evaristo. Since it was only about 3 PM and I had three more hours of daylight Mirador and I decided to sail on down to Isla San Francisco.

When I arrived there I found only two boats in the normally busy anchorage. That should have been a hint for me that something was amiss. I anchored in 18 feet of crystal clear water about 100 yards off the beach. The north wind continued to blow at about 10 or 12 knots all evening as I sat in the cockpit eating a grilled hamburger and freshly made french fries while saluting the rising full moon with a cold Pacifico beer.

Ah - cruising doesn't get any better than that.

I stayed up reading until about 11:30 PM with the intent of sleeping in and then going snorkeling in the perfectly clear water. I woke up with a start at 3:30 AM and realized I was scratching my legs but itched all over. I turned on the overhead reading light and saw lots of tiny little flying critters then I heard them busy about my ears. Yikes - noseeums and they were biting ferociously. Any bit of exposed skin was quickly assaulted by dozens of the little nippers.

I had been warned that when the wind died at The Hook the anchorage quickly became untenable because of the bugs. I have never been bothered by bugs so I just pulled a sheet over my head and tried to go back to sleep. By 4:30 AM I was in a state of near panic. Every inch of my body itched, I had bugs in my ears and nose, and all I could hear was bugs.

I threw on some clothes, made a cup of coffee, and then bolted for the bow where I tried to raise the anchor while swatting futilely at bugs I couldn't see. And they bite, and they bite, and the bites itch. How to scratch, swat, and raise the chain with only two hands?

Mirador was on her way and out of the anchorage by 4:45 AM but unfortunately about a million noseeums came along for the ride. The little buggers were still biting me around noon but then the afternoon Bahia de La Paz northerly blew them all out of the boat.

By 2:30 on Monday afternoon Mirador was again anchored in Marina Santa Cruz and the bugs were gone.

I'll be here until November 25 when I fly back to Tacoma. I'll write more about the planned repairs on Mirador but it's now dinner time and I'm off to Super Burro where I can stuff my self with delicious tacos and burritos for $3.00 and I can bring my own beer.