About 2100 hours, I stuck my head out of the aft companionway and just said "Wow." Overhead a full moon and a sky full of stars cast a silvery light on the ocean, a couple of other sailboats, and the barren hills on three sides of us. Other than a couple of anchor lights, no other lights were visible and the scene was really dramatic. The next morning I sat in the center cockpit of our chartered Morgan 41 Out Islander ketch and watched the sea life. Pelicans were noisily diving into the water all around. A school of fish kept boiling to the surface, undoubtedly chased up by a larger hungry fish down below. One scene almost looked like a cartoon. A small fish came rocketing to the surface and jumped about six feet through the air, pursued by a much larger fish maybe a half second behind him. I imagine it wasn't real funny for the little fish though. Porpoises, seals, frigate birds, noisy gulls. You get the picture. We were in an anchorage called El Cardonal on Isla Partida about 25 miles north of La Paz, B.C.S. Mexico in the Sea of Cortez. After a couple of days we moved on to Isla San Francisco, about 20 miles further north which was even better (please see the picture)--dramatic rock formations, lots of cactus, great snorkeling on reefs with coral and beautifully colored fish. Temperatures in the high seventies and bright sunshine in clear blue skies. One morning in mid November after about twelve successive days of rain and temps in the 40's at our home on Orcas Island, WA, I read an ad in Cruising World over breakfast for a charter available in La Paz. Before the day was out we had plane reservations and booked the boat for a week between Christmas and New Years. We'd been thinking about taking our Hunter 37.5 down the West Coast for a winter cruise in Mexico and Central America, and this would be a good way to check it out. I'd also always wanted to sail a ketch and never had (please see separate posting on reaction to the boat). So off we went. Mexico cruising is different. It was our first time sailing down there. Charts? Well there are some hand drawn "kind of" charts and the cruising guides inidicate that what charts there are can be off as much as a mile and a half from what your gps will tell you. They overcome this by publishing their gps readings from the anchorages. We navigated by inputting their coordinates into our hand held gps, using the "kind of" charts, and keeping our eyes very wide open. Weather forecasts? There are apparently Spanish language forecasts broadcast in the morning by the Port Captains, but they are alleged to be of questionable accuracy. Also our Spanish is not up to interpreting these. We brought along our electronic barometer which displays a 48 hour history. Friends who are cruising in La Paz loaned us their single sideband radio on which we could pick up the Amigo Net forecast twice a day. A Brit named Don on Summer Breeze up in Oxnard, CA who is an amateur meteorologist gave a twice daily analysis of the West Coast Mexican weather which proved quite accurate while we were there. The La Paz scene was quite different from the uninhabited islands I described earlier. La Paz is a modern city of about 150,000. The harbor is full of gringo boaters, most of whom migrated down from the US and Canadian west coasts for the winter. It's a very friendly and supportive cruising group, and the city has everything a cruiser might need. We really enjoyed the trip, but asked ourselves if we liked it well enough to expend the effort to sail down a challenging West Coast. The answer is no. We determined we really prefer the cool conditions of the Pacific North West and like islands with trees instead of cactus. But we've just been back for a couple of days and the sun is shining here. Maybe after twelve more days of rain, we'll be ready to head south again . . . Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust H37.5
