Caleta Dunas, Isla Tiburon

Monday, June 20, 2011

028-53.412 N
112-33.675 W

Ahoy from Isla Tiburon!

As you may be able to tell, BlueJacket managed to escape from Isla Estanque. You may remember we were stuck at Isla Estanque in "The Pond" due to the fact that we didn't have enough water to make it over the sand bar at the entrance to the anchorage. We tried to leave at about 06:45, but we didn't have enough light to see the very narrow channel. As a result we had to wait until almost 1 PM before we could get through the channel and even then it was close. It doesn't help that we're in the spring neap tides, which are the highest and lowest of the year. Water depth is described in term of mean low water and mean means mean (average) depth at low tide. So, with these tides the water depth was actually -2'. Not only did we have to let the depth drop about 3' to low tide, but then we had to let it come up at least 5' before we could get out. That took a while.

Then we had a rough trip over here. The winds were out of the SE and we were headed E, so that should have been an OK sail. But, we had 2.6 kts of current pushing us NW, so I had to steer 35 degrees above our course line to just keep on it. That meant turning SE and we were almost dead into the wind. That didn't work well. So we weren't sailing until I saw the oil pressure bouncing around and the engine was running hot. I put up the jib, turned down wind and used the jib to power us. Then I shut down the engine and went to explore. I found that we had sea weed in the engine intake strainer, so that solved 1 problem. I checked the oil, as I do before we move each day, and it looked fine. I fired the engine back up and saw the pressure stabilize and the temp go down, so we motor-sailed onward.

We were making very slow progress due to the currents and a much stronger wind than forecast. It was blowing 15-25 kts with most of it in the 18-24 kt range. Add our forward speed to that and you've got a lot of wind on the nose. The currents are really funky out here with tidal rips in the middle of nowhere. At one point our through the water speed was 6 kts, but our speed over ground was 2.1 kts! Luckily that didn't last for long, but the tidal rips made for very bumpy seas. We were taking waves over the bow non-stop and even had some roll over the dodger (wind shield) and into the cockpit, soaking yours truly and getting things very wet.

Thankfully the current reversed and then almost as quickly we had 2+ kts taking us down the bay, which meant that I could fall off the wind and had a good sail angle. Unfortunately that was only for the last hour or two. We finally made it into Isla Tiburon after 7 PM and then spent an hour washing down the boat.

We're in an anchorage called Caleta las Dunas which is on the SW side of Tiburon. Tiburon is the largest island in the sea of Cortez at 1,208 square miles. It's was also home to the Seri Indians, who were renown for the cannibalism. Lovely! Luckily they don't seem to be practicing that anymore, so we're enjoying a nice calm anchorage.

We do have infestations of bees looking for fresh water, so we're very careful not to use any outdoors, however the swim platform shower has a slih leak that they're attracted to, as shown by the photo to the left. However, the other morning we awoke to an intense buzzing in the cabin and I found a swarm of bees in the galley swarming over a bowl that had been left to soak overnight. Thankfully they're easily intimidated and I was able to get them out of the cabin.

We thought that we were only going to be here for 2 nights, but we ended up being here for 3. The forecasts have been completely wrong with much higher winds than expected. For example, yesterday it was supposed to have been SE @ 8-12 kts but instead it was 20-25 gusting to 32! I'll let you guess what direction we're headed. The forecast is for light NW winds tomorrow, and at that point we'll make a 78 mile jump down the coast.

-- Geoff & Sue

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For the cruiser:

We're anchored at 28-53.412N 112-33.675W in about 15' MLW over sand. Holding appears to be fine as we didn't drag at all with 25+ kts of wind. Be careful about working too close to shore as there are lots of detached rocks/reefs and it shoals fairly quickly. Protection is quite good with coverage from almost NE through W.

The beaches are only OK, with small sections of nice sand, but most of the beaches are fine stone to small rocks.

The best snorkeling that we found was just around the point which is NW of the anchorage.

Log ID: 1458