Bahia San Francisquito to Puerto Don Juan

Sunday August 28 — Almost every day, Eric spends time obsessively checking the weather forecasts, poring over the cruising guides, and seeking advice on where to take Kosmos next. One of the most wonderful things about the Sea of Cortez is that it is loaded with anchorages. The problem is that most of the anchorages only protect from wind/swell from one or two directions, and in the summer, the wind shifts directions frequently. So, an anchorage may be great for the winds predicted during day, but will be terrible at night once the wind changes direction. It’s been tricky to find suitable anchorages for the weather predicted. What complicates matters it that the weather forecasts haven’t always been accurate. 

After the very rough time in Bahia San Francisquito, Eric decided to bypass many beautiful, but questionable, anchorages and head directly to an all-weather anchorage called Puerto Don Juan, seven miles east of Bahia Los Angeles. It was an eight-hour ride from San Francisquito. 

We are pleased to report that the ride was smooth. The wind was behind us and the seas were relatively calm. We had a couple of stowaways, who made a huge mess when they sat on the boat deck by the dinghy. Can anyone identify these birds? There were tons of them in Bahia San Francisquito. 

We arrived at about 1800. Here is a shot of the bay taken as we were approaching.

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Bahia San Francisquito, Days 3 – 5

Sunrise Friday morning (August 26)

When we were on Isla Coronados, we’d noticed that someone had put a bucket of water on the shore. Tons of bees swarmed the bucket, but there were no bees anywhere else. One of the things we’d liked about Isla Coronados was the lack of bees bothering us onboard. 

On Friday morning, we tried an experiment. We left a couple of small containers of water onshore to see if the bees would stay onshore if they had water. We also went for a walk to check out the little cave that was visible from the shore. 

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Santa Rosalia to Bahia San Francisquito

On Wednesday (August 24), the alarm went off at 0500 am. We got up Kosmos ready to go. We untied at 0600, before the first light of dawn. When we were already sweating at 0515 am, we knew it was going to be an especially hot day. Here is Santa Rosalia in the early light of dawn and the sunrise. We couldn’t believe how bright the crescent moon was!

It was an uncomfortable 13.5 hour run to Bahia San Francisquito. The seas were somewhat confused and the waves surprisingly large. We rate the run “very rough” seas by Sea of Cortez standards, but “not bad” by Pacific standards. Quite honestly, the seas conditions were what we typically went out in in San Diego, but we’ve become spoiled by the smooth seas we’ve had lately here in the Sea of Cortez. 

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Santa Rosalia days 6 – 8

Here is the sunrise on Sunday (August 21).

Sunday was oppressively hot again. Eric got a very early start on the dive compressor. He reassembled the third stage. Sadly, the compressor still didn’t work. He took off the final pressure safety valve and cleaned it. It looks like this may be the part that is broken, but he doesn’t have a spare. He gave up on the project and put the compressor back into its mount, along with all the gear stored in around it. He was frustrated that he again put so much effort into the repair for nothing. There was another boat with the same compressor that left a couple day ago, and he is hoping to perhaps find them and try swapping in the part to verify it is the problem.

We wound up spending the day holed up on the boat, enjoying the A/C. Brett came over and the boys played. Christi and Eric did a few chores. In the evening, Eric went to the pool for social hour while the kids and Christi stayed at Kosmos.

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