Continuing on with Wednesday, February 22 — We decided to anchor near the only village in the bay. We’re unclear on whether the name of the village is Bahia Tortugas or if it is Puerto San Bartolome — we’ve seen both. There were three sailboats and three trawler-style fishing boats already anchored there, though one of the trawlers looked to be abandoned.

At about 0730, we made our first attempt to anchor. Unfortunately, the anchor didn’t set. When we brought the anchor back up, we saw that it was covered in seaweed. We moved to a different spot. The anchor didn’t set a second time, either. We moved locations again. Fortunately, three times was a charm and the anchor did set. We saw quite a few dolphins while we were anchoring.

Unfortunately, the anchorage was rolly and uncomfortable. The first thing that Eric did was get both flopper stoppers down. That helped reduce the discomfort. Eric called some of the other sailboats in the anchorage with both the VHF radio and the hand held radio to test how the VHF was performing. The VHF seems to be transmitting okay, but not receiving all that well.

After we ate breakfast, both Eric and Christi took naps. We’re always tired after passages because of the broken sleep schedule, but Eric was especially exhausted. Between the uncomfortable seas, the anxiety about being close to shore, and the various issues that had popped up, he had gotten very little sleep.

At noon, a guy named Enrique came by in a panga. He offered to sell us fuel (there was no marine fuel station in town), and was surprised that we didn’t need any. Since Bahia Tortuga was the halfway point between Cabo and Ensenada, most boats stopped here to re-fuel on their way up and down, and Enrique would bring it out to the boats in jerry cans. Enrique then let us know that he also offered a taxi service to shore. We told him that we’d take him up on that, and asked him to come back in an hour so that we could shower and get ready to go. We were pretty excited about the taxi service. We were anxious to get to dry land and we did not feel like dealing with the dinghy at that moment.   

The wooden staircase that led up to the pier was dilapidated and kind of scary looking.

We scrambled up the steps, where we were greeted by a gentleman who told us that his name was Jesus and that he was Enrique’s uncle. He ushered us into a small office and tried to sell us jewelry made of abalone shells.

We were in no mood to deal with a tout. We told him that we were hungry and that we’d stop by on our way back to Kosmos. He told us there was only one restaurant in town and offered to escort us there. The pier wasn’t in much better shape than the stairs were.

At the end of the pier was a locked gate that was easily by-passed. On the land bordering the pier were a cluster of crumbling buildings within a fenced off area.

Jesus told us that this used to be a seafood processing plant. It was clear to us that the pier had been part of the plant, and that when the plant had closed down, the locals had overtaken the pier. 

Jesus escorted us over to the corner of the property and we followed him out a hole cut into the fence. This let us out onto a paved road that we later realized was the main drag in town. We made our first left onto a dirt road and walked a few short blocks to Restaurant Moroco.

On the way, we passed a small park area and a strange assortment of buildings; strange even by Mexican standards. In Mexico, it was common to see mansions next to shacks and buildings that appeared to be perpetually under construction, but here the contrast was even more stark. The cross streets were all dirt roads. From the lack of greenery, it was clear that this town normally got very little rain.

Inside the restaurant, almost every inch of wall space was covered in framed photographs that had personal sentimental meaning to the owners. Jesus told us that the reason there was a photo of John Wayne was because he had visited their town many times, and that John Wayne had been friends with Jesus’s father.

Over lunch, we had a good chat with Jesus. Jesus was a nice guy whose income clearly depended on tourism. He was eagerly trying to evaluate our needs so that he could get paid to meet our needs for us. We think that he was disappointed that we really didn’t have any needs. His English wasn’t good and our Spanish wasn’t good, so we couldn’t have as in depth of a conversation about the town as we would have liked to. Christi was land sick while in the restaurant. 

After lunch, we were too tired to explore the town, so we went back to Kosmos for the night. Of course, we did buy a couple of cool shell necklaces before Enrique took us back. 

Enrique picked us up from a different ladder than he had dropped us off at, and that ladder was even scarier. It was metal, with no secure hand holds near the bottom. But we made it into his panga okay.

Needless to say, we had a quiet night and went to bed early. Here was the sunset.