Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Playa La Bonanza on Espiritu Santo to Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida

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Sunrise on Wednesday, November 30, 2022

We were sad to leave Playa de Bonanza before we’d done any exploring, but it was uncomfortable and we needed to move on. We pulled up anchor at 0815 and headed north to Isla Partida.

In good news, Eric and Keith were both feeling better. In bad news, Christi now felt like she was fighting a cold. 

For two-and-a-half hours, the ride was a bit bumpy due to head seas. But it smoothed out pretty quickly once we rounded the northern tip of the island and turned southwest, with the wind and waves. 

Half of a mile north of Isla Partida’s tip was a tiny island called Los Islotes, which was a world-famous sea lion rookery. Sea Lions can sometimes be aggressive creatures, but we’re told that at this spot, the sea lions were friendly and would allow people to swim with them. Only licensed tour operators were allowed to go to Los Islotes. We didn’t see too many sea lions, but we could hear them barking as we passed by.

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Playa Pichilingue to Playa La Bonanza on Isla Espiritu Santo

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Ferry heading into the terminal at sunrise on Monday, November 28

This morning, we got Kosmos ready for sea and lifted anchor at 1000. It was a two hour ride to Playa La Bonanza, located on the east side of Isla Espiritu Santo.

The anchorage was a stunning perfect crescent with sparkling white sand against a backdrop of hills. Looking towards the north end of the anchorage.

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Playa Pichilingue, Day 6

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On Sunday morning (November 27), we made one more run to the grocery store in La Paz. The tide was not as high as it had been yesterday, but it was still high.

After we were done shopping, we had a little time to kill before the car was due back, so we went to Playa Tecolote, a popular beach at the northern tip of the peninsula. Like the rest of the peninsula, the scenery from the dive was mostly vacant land, mostly hilly desert with glimpses of the shoreline, including several estuaries.

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Playa Pichilingue, Day 5

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Sunrise on Saturday, November 26. Very demur compared to some of the dramatic sunrises we’ve seen here in Baja.

We were shocked to find that today the tide was significantly higher than it had been yesterday. Yesterday, we’d tied up in front of the big restaurant. That wasn’t an option today since the big restaurant was flooded.

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Playa Pichilingue, Day 4

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Sunrise on Friday (November 25). It was still super windy and the port captain for Bahia de La Paz was still not allowing boats to leave. In this photo, you can actually see the swell. Since this anchorage was protected from the wind, this was “wrap around” swell. Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable morning aboard Kosmos.

One of the things that Eric had bought at the boat store on Wednesday was bigger swivels for the paravanes. Eric had realized that the working load on the flopper stoppers swivels weren’t high enough and needed to be upgraded. Before deploying the flopper stoppers, Eric removed the swivels from the paravanes and put them on the flopper stoppers (the swivels that were on the paravanes were significantly larger than the ones that had been on the flopper stoppers). He’ll put the newly purchased swivels on the paravanes another day.

When we went to shore today, the tide was even higher than it had been on Wednesday.

On our way into town, we stopped by Marina Costa Baja’s marina office. The marina office, fuel dock and boat yard were disconnected from the rest of the marina/hotel complex. It had a separate entrance about a mile north of the entrance to the marina/hotel. To get from the fuel dock to the hotel/marina, one had to walk on the a dirt road that paralleled the highway or take a dinghy.

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