Here is a photo of the area we went snorkeling in on Saturday. We were in the small, shallow strait between Isla Carmen and the tiny rock island. The anchorage is just to the right (south) of where this photo ends.

On Sunday morning, it rained again. The rain didn’t last as long as it had yesterday, but it rained harder, so Kosmos got a good wash down. Undeterred by the heavy rain, the Erics went for a hike onshore.

They literally watched the flora and fauna come to life with the rain – flowers blooming and bugs and lizards coming out of hiding. 

Unfortunately, while they were onshore, the swells picked up significantly. When they finished their hike, they had a little trouble launching Sprezzatura Eric’s rigid-inflatable dinghy to get back to the boats. Sprezzatura left for another anchorage shortly after the hike.

Our sailing dinghy doesn’t do well in the big swells at the beach, so we were stuck aboard Kosmos for most of the day. Between the heavy rocking and the heat, we were all lethargic and didn’t do much beyond going for a swim. In the early evening, the seas started to calm down, so we went to shore and enjoyed terra firma for a while. Shortly after, Keith went to Whirlwind to watch a movie.

We’d been frustrated that the flopper stoppers weren’t doing much to dampen the roll. It wasn’t until the evening that it occurred to Eric that there may be a problem. When he checked the first flopper stopper, he realized one of the flopper stopper wasn’t there! It had somehow fallen off the chain! The other flopper stopper was still there, but was tangled up, and thus not able to effectively stop the roll. Eric adjusted it, and it did help dampen the roll.

When we picked Keith up from Whirlwind, we told them about our lost flopper stopper and that we needed to retrieve it in the morning. The children immediately volunteered their family’s services to help us retrieve the lost fish. 

On Monday morning, the sea was calm and clear. Eric quickly located the flopper stopper, and the kids and Maurisa hovered over the spot. Once the fish was located, Eric put on his SCUBA gear, ready to dive down with a line. The plan was to attach the line to the plate then pull it up. Before Eric was even in the water, the 11-year old had managed to free-dive down to 29 feet and attach the line to the plate! The Whirlwinds had the flopper stopped pulled up before Eric even made it over to the spot.  

Since he had the gear on, Eric dove down and checked the other flopper stopper to make sure all was ok. Then we all snorkeled around the cliffs near our boats. The snorkeling was even better than we had seen the other day; possibly thanks to better water clarity. We can’t believe how many fish we saw! 

After lunch, Eric determined that the ring that attaches the flopper stopper plate to the chain had broken. He replaced it with a heavy duty shackle and re-deployed it, and preemptively cut the other ring off and replaced that one as well. Christi donned the SNUBA gear and worked on the bottom. Later, the Whirlwind folks came over and the kids played. 

On Tuesday morning, we awoke to more heavy rocking. We made a snap decision to move to a calmer anchorage sooner than later. We quickly got Kosmos ready for sea and pulled up anchor at 0930. Whirlwind pulled out right behind us, though they were going to a different destination. We pulled into Isla Coronados at noon. This is another place where the charts were way off; we were thankful that the cruising guide had accurate information. We anchored in front of a lovely sand beach filled with small speedboats. 

We had neglected to mention that Isla Carmen is part of the Baja regional park system, and so is Isla Coronados. While we were at Isla Carmen, every day there had been a speed boat or two that came in with tourists. It appeared some of the boats would leave the tourists onshore for a few hours, then come back and pick them up. Isla de Coronados is 6 miles northeast of Loreto and only 2 miles from the closest point on the Baja peninsula. Since it is much closer than Isla Carmen, it has more tourists.

Much to our dismay, this anchorage was just as rocky as V Cove had been. Eric put out the flopper stoppers, which helped, but it was still rolly. Eric was baffled about where the waves were coming from when this anchorage was so sheltered from the prevailing conditions. It didn’t take long to figure out that it was the speedboats creating waves as they were constantly coming and going.

We went to shore in the evening after it cooled off. Our first stop was the beach we were anchored in front of.

There was a hiking trail. We followed it for a bit before turning around and heading back to the beach. The land mass behind us is the Baja Peninsula.

We took the dinghy over to another beach at the tip of the island.

We headed back to Kosmos as the sun went down behind the mountains of Baja.