Caleta San Juanico

On May 15th, we left Isla Coronados and sailed north about 20 miles to Caleta San Juanico, a popular anchorage that is well-known among cruisers. On the shore of the wide, pretty bay is a tree that has become a kind of cruisers' shrine. Every boat that stops at San Juanico leaves a small notice of its passing on or near the tree. We saw notices from a number of boats we know, including Old Moon and the other Sabbatical. It is said that every boat that travels in the Sea of Cortez eventually stops in this anchorage.



Most of the notices are made of local materials, including sea shells that are found in great profusion on the beaches, and Apache Tears, which are shiny, black obsidian rocks that occur naturally here. We made a small notice on a shell and left it next to one from the other Sabbatical.

We stayed six days in San Juanico. I spent most of that time working on an article that I am co-writing with two Swiss collaborators. I received a draft from them over a Telcel Broadband link while sailing north past Loreto. I managed to revise the manuscript and send it back to them when we passed Loreto heading south on our return trip. Academic projects progress quickly when one has uninterrupted time.

But it wasn't all work. By taking apart the carburator and cleaning the needle valve, I managed to get the outboard motor working again. This allowed us to go out trolling at sunset. We only managed to catch one small reef fish, but it was very pretty.

While I was writing, Claudia spent a lot of time kayaking and snorkeling in the bay. She also collected some nice sea shells and some Apache Tears.

On May 18, for most of the day, we were the only boat in the bay. But it wasn't long before a number of other boats arrived, including our friends Liberty and Black Dragon. On May 20th there were ten boats here and the crew of Black Dragon arranged a beach party with a bonfire at sunset. We met a lot of interesting people, including Don and Linda from Iron Rose (based in San Diego), Irwin and J on Winsome, and Craig and Bruce on the catamaran Gato Go. It was a lively group.

We had one small scare while here. Just before the beach party, I was sitting in the cockpit, reading an article, when I heard the sound of pouring water inside the boat. I asked Claudia if she was running water in the sink. When she said she wasn't, I became alarmed. Investigation revealed that the drain pipe under our galley sinks had broken below the water line and sea water was pouring into the boat. We closed the sea cock, pumped out our bilge, and made repairs to the pipes. It was lucky we were aboard to catch this problem when it occurred. Although I had not noticed it before, some of the pipes under the sink are not marine grade fittings. They are household variety plastic pipes that are not suitable for a below-water-line application. Someone at some point had done a shoddy repair job on the sink. I plan to replace it all with proper marine-grade hoses as soon as possible. In the meantime, we'll close the sea cock whenever we leave the boat.

This marks our farthest venture north into the Sea of Cortez. From here we are turning around and heading south again, back to La Paz, where we will load Sabbatical on a YachtPath freighter for transport to British Columbia.