On Wednesday morning, Eric was woken up at 0400 by some noise. He went up to check to see if all was okay, and found that we were in the middle of a quite a bit of wind and the boat had moved a lot. There was also an occasional bolt of lightning, but no thunder. In the summer, it is not uncommon for windstorms to hit the Sea of Cortez between 0300 and 0500.
On the wind gauge you can see the wind picked up speed from almost zero knots to over 20 knots in 45 minutes. Christi and Keith awoke not long after Eric did. On VHF radio Eric heard a call out to boats in the anchorage saying that it looked like one of the sailboats was dragging. Eric responded, but the sailboat that was possibly dragging did not. Eric blew a portable air horn 5 times towards the sailboats, but the other sailboat boat nearby said the wind was too loud and could not hear it. Eric turned on the radar and monitored not only our boat, but all the boats in the anchorage for dragging. Fortunately after the initial movement from the wind, no one dragged. This picture is blurry, but it shows how much and how fast we moved when the wind kicked in. Usually it is small movements around a spot after we anchor, this was a big continuous move as the wind really picked up.
The winds calmed down at dawn, but the swell caused by the winds persisted for most of the day. The swells were exacerbated by the pangas (little fishing boats) speeding past us with the tourists. We met the person on the boat who Eric talked to. He was glad we were able to monitor the boats with our radar. His name was Nick, and we decided the next day we would go do the hike up the volcano together.
We decided to check out the beach at the south of the bay, but the swells were too large for us to safely land. We went back to the little beach at the north end of the bay, which was sheltered from the swell. We tried to snorkel, but the water clarity wasn’t good. We suspect that the swell was stirring up the water. We went back to the middle beach to play along the shore. Here are Keith and Eric in transit.
Fortunately, there was an area sheltered by rocks that was safe for landing. As we were leaving, the park ranger told us we were not supposed to beach our dinghy, that we were supposed to have set an anchor in the water near the shore. Now we know for next time!
Between getting up so early, the rocking and the heat, we were all feeling very lethargic for the rest of the day.
On Thursday morning, the anchorage was finally everything we had hoped: flat calm, with water so clear that we could see the bottom. Here is the sunrise.
On the way into shore, we saw a pod of rays. We’ve seen rays a few times now here in the Sea of Cortez, but this is the biggest pod we’ve seen, and the first time we’ve managed to snap photos (we did not get a good shot of the whole pod). The person reflected in the water is Nick, who was on his paddleboard, and there is a reflection of a bird flying overhead.
Eric and Nick went for a hike to the top of the volcano. It was quite difficult due to it being an almost vertical climb with loose shale rock, making it hard to get a foothold.
Christi and Keith joined them for the first part of the trail, but turned back once it started to get hilly.
Instead, Christi and Keith followed another trail to the other side of the island.
Loreto is visible on the land mass across the way.
Walking back to the dinghy
When they were done with their walk, they played at the beach until the men returned from the volcano. We all felt like we’d gotten too much sun, so we stayed inside for the rest of the day. We feel guilty that we missed out on snorkeling in the clear water.
Here is a shot of the lights of Loreto under the moon, taken from Kosmos shortly after sunset
