Bahia San Francisquito

Monday, June 13, 2011

028-26.226 N
112-52.768 W

Ahoy from Bahia San Francisquito, BCN!

We're now located in bay named San Francisquito in the Northern section of Baja California, and thus the BCN designation. And we're now on Pacific time, but since the actual clock time doesn't matter much to us, I think that we're just going to stay on Mountain time so that we don't have to go and reset the clocks...

We got stuck in Santa Rosalia for an extra day due to me breaking a tooth on Friday night...Bad timing on my part. Luckily I was able to find a dentist who could implement a temporary fix until either I get home or we get to the mainland. On Sunday morning we got a sunrise start on our 78 nautical mile trek here. We were headed NW and the forecast SE winds were actually NW winds until later in the day when they finally switched. Thankfully we actually got to do some sailing, some motor sailing and of course motoring.

The tides were supposed to have been favorable for most of the trip, but somehow or another we ended up with the currents against us for virtually the entire trip! And we had really funky swells that made the trip very rolly and choppy. Not fun on a 12 hour passage.

What was fun was the amount of sea life that we saw. One thing that we've never seen before was big pods of Pilot Whales moving through the area. Multiple times we ran into pods of 10-30 them and sometimes they went right past the boat! These aren't big whales as I think that they grow to a maximum of 26', but they're big enough to notice!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we through out a hook and caught a good sized Mahi Mahi/Dorado on the way over. Believe me, fishing is not a skill that we claim any knowledge of, but we landed it just fine and it'll be dinner tonight. Yum!

We finally got in at around 6:30 and anchored. I was hot and wanted to jump in the water, so I dropped the dinghy so that we could get on and off the boat easily. Then I stuck my toe in the water and was shocked at the water temp. I checked it with a thermometer and found that it was 64F! That's a 10+ degree change from further south, and was too cold to hop into. And it's too cold for me to dive with the wet suit that I have. Bummer!

Another boat that had left Santa Rosalia before we did, but goes much more slowly, pulled in about 2 hours after we did. When they did it looked like they were racing a fog bank, as we could clearly see them as they came in, but by the time that they dropped their anchor, they had disappeared into the fog, and based upon AIS, they were only 400' away. Thankfully the fog disappeared and the rest of the evening was clear.

During the night we were awakened several times by the breathing sounds of Pilot Whales as they cruised through the bay looking for food. That was a really cool thing to listen to. The next day we explored the bay including a resort/RV park that's located in a small nearby bay. While this is a nice place with pretty white sand beaches and desert with wind sculpted sandstone cliffs, I can't see spending a lot of time here.

Tomorrow we're headed 34 miles further N to an area known as las Animas. This is a very good time to be there as the winds on the Pacific outside are relaxed which translates to mild weather inside. This area can be VERY windy when the winds blow outside. So, we'll take advantage of this.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

Main anchorage: Good holding on WSW end of bay, but swell from SE caused us to move to anchorage outside of slot anchorage. Very nice pure white, soft sand beach to walk on. You can work you way back into sandstone cliffs in arayo. Quite interesting and good views of bay from there.

Note that Shawn & Heather indicate that the point is a dive site. I checked it out (64F and too cold to dive), and only found depths of about 17' quite a distance from the cliffs. Probably a good snorkel site, but questionable dive site. Watch for current.

SSE anchorage E of Cala San Francisquito: Holding questionable. Feels like sand over rock. Anchor pulled for a good distance before catching. At night we could hear chain sliding over rock.

Cala San Francisquito: Slot bay to the S of main bay. Anchor in 7 to 9 feet over sand. Enter via center of channel and then keep to E side. Depth looks good up to 1/2 to 2/3 of the way back.

Log ID: 1454