Asunto
Our life afloat on a boat
Sailing Trips
Sailing, sailing, sailing That’s why we live the life we do, so that we can untie the lines and explore the world in our own backyard. From Sept 2015-October 2016 we sailed with a 2 year old and a baby from Vancouver to Mexico, across to Hawaii, across to Alaska and then down, Read More
Dec 20-21: We didn’t have great weather for our stay at Ilsa San Fransisco. It was chilly and damp and even rained a bit. There was a lovely looking hike up the ridge, but Kyber had torn a hunk of skin off the pad of his foot, and he could walk anywhere. Feeling sorry for him we passed on the hike.
Passing time
Kolby went spear fishing off the northern point while Fynn and I paddled around the rocks. The visibility has been poor, so we mostly watched the crabs scurry along the shore and played with a scoop and a bucket in the water. Kolby was still fishing when she got cold, so we paddled back to the boat. Of course Fynn decided she wanted to try to paddle which was ridiculous. Despite her claims of being cold, when we did finally reach the boat she jumped in and practiced her swimming (life jacket on) back and forth from the ladder to the paddle board – a distance of maybe 4 feet but she sure thought she was the bees knees.
Beachcombers paradise at Ilsa San Fransisco
We pushed off from Isla San Fransisco and it’s lovely half-moon sand bay on a sunny windy morning. After battening down the boat inside we rounded the corner in to full on gale. The winds were blowing steady at 27 knots, gusting to over 30. The seas are stacked on top of each other, easily six feet high. In short it was an uncomfortable ride. The first 20 minutes is always the worse. You leave the calm of the harbour and are affronted by the tenacity of the wind. It messy messy and uncontrollable. The motor is load, the waves are loud, the boat seems to protest. Even pulling out the sails feels messy. A shackle on the main sheet bent itself out of shape, so now I am driving the boat to keep her in irons, Kolby is replacing the shackle and Fynn is crying on the top of the stairs. Luckily she is old enough now to stay where I have asked her, but hearing her cry is distressing. I want to turn around and head back to the safety of the harbour. The whole situation feels distressing. But then the shackle is repaired and I fall off of the wind. Asunto heals over and harnesses the wind, controls it. The uncontrollable feels tamed. Over the next the hours we short tack up the channel, covering 7 nautical miles in 2 and a half hours. We drop anchor in the tiny fishing village of San Evaristo and pick up the pieces that are strewn around the cabin – a sign of hard to passage.
Later a second boat dropped anchor and we met up with them at the little restaurant just off the beach. They had bashed into the wind, running their engine and making only 3 knots of headway. The same trip had taken them three hours. Two other boats had turned back into Isla San Fransisco- the conditions being too much. But as Kolby and I later reflected – you really just have to get through those first 20 minutes of discomfort- pull out the sails and let the boat do her job.
We went even sure that our depth sounder was working – we hadn’t got a depth reading in ages.
The guide book (Sea of Cortez by Shawn and Heather) marked the coordinated of the seamounts 2 miles for the location on the chart. Who do we trust? The chart or the written coordinates? Where would you go first?
It was getting late and the wind was picking up.
We really didn’t think this dive, known for attracting hammerhead sharks and giant mantas, was going to happen.
We headed for the mounts as marked on the chart first – nothing. No depth reading at all. Happily for us the reader pinged 30 feet, a random read that let us know it was working, but didn’t indicated real depth.
So we headed for the coordinates marked in the book. At this point we were certain that we wouldn’t find the seamounts. Suddenly as we approached the coordinates, Kolby started getting depth readings – 300 feet, 200 hundred feet, 100 feet, 50 feet. We quickly dropped the anchor on the 50 foot mark and Kolby got ready to jump in. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere -land visible, but mostly a haze on the horizon.
The current was strong- Kolby needed a line tied to the bow to get from the midship to the anchor chain. He planned to go down the anchor chain and only let go at the bottom if the current eased. The surface current was so strong that Asunto remained at 90 degrees despite the 13 knots winds.
Up top, Fynn and I passed the time. I clean up and we jammed to some music. I distracted myself from thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I did horizon checks to make sure he hadn’t come up of the anchor. When I head Kolby’s bubbles bouncing off the hull I new he was ascending and started to get ready – Floating line off the stern incase he missed the boat in the current, paddle board in the water so that he could climb on it then onto the deck, halyard ready to hoist the rig onto the deck.
Down below the current was a strong as at the surface. Kolby followed the chain to the anchor and was pleased to find it tucked into the rocks behind a wall. He was able to swim in the lee of the current back and forth along the wall. Not surprisingly the biggest thing he saw was a fish. Likely the current was too strong for much else.
We hauled anchor from our sea mounts just before 5 pm and headed for Isla San Fransisco in the dusk, Christmas lights on and Christmas tunes on the stereo.
The day started out in the Bahia Grande on Isle Partida. Fynn woke up at 6 am and I was amazed to hear… nothing. For the first time in the last 5 day the winds, which had been blowing steady at 20 knots, had shut off. I was so happy to hear this silence that I didn’t mind that I was sleepy from Fynn’s 2am party, so when she curled back in bed with Kolby for a sleep-in I took my coffee outside and did my morning yoga on deck. Bliss.
We then headed to shore to check out the ‘maintained’ trail to the other side of the island. The trail follows a natural ravine and is well marked with signposts, instructing the hiker to continue straight, or bear left or right. The scenery is deceptive. On first glance you see red rock and big boulders that have tumbled free from their beds over the millennia. The scale of things is tricky – small things may appear bigger than they are and a rock that appeared small from a distance towers over you as you approach. But then as you settle into the scene the color shifts from red to green, and suddenly the desert started to look more green then red, then like a mirage it shifts back to red. Is the scene red or green? Like one of those mind tricks the question is impossible to answer. Look at it one way and it’s green, shift your gaze and it’s red.
While the birds circled overhead we made our way up the ravine, scampering over rocks and boulders, enjoying the coolness of the shady slopes. Kyber would race up the embankments, chasing after a hare that was gone long before he even saw it. We made it about 1.8 km before Fynn was done being carried in the backpack and ready to do some walking of her own. So we turned around and she climbed, walked and was carried back to the beach.
Climbing with Daddy
Family photo attempt
The sun was shining so we jumped into the water from the transom. Fynn has started to like swimming with her lifejacket by herself and was paddling around with me. Kolby went off in search for the fillet knife that was dropped overboard last night, which he could quickly find in the calm waters. After cleaning the barnacles that had grown along the hull from our week in La Paz, we were off to visit the sea lions on Los Islotes.
Los Islotes is a slab of rock off the top of Isla Partida which is home to a sea lion rookery. Visitors have been coming here for ages to swim with the curious pups and snorkel along the reef. The rock is almost completely white from too much bird shit and too little rain, so you can imagine the smell. Anyway. luckily you get used to this as the sea lion pups were incredible. Fynn and I headed over on the paddle board, and the pups certainly found this interesting, as they were more accustomed to seeing swimmers. Right away we had 10 pups poking their hears out to take a look, and diving under the board to investigate. Some of the braver ones chomped on the paddle, just so check it out. The pups were about 4 feet long, so biggish, but not scary like the bulls. When the 2,000 lb daddy gets in the water, then you want to give it a wide berth. In the water the pups would show off to you, diving under and spinning all around you, sometime leaping clear out of the water. They clearly enjoyed the human intrusion to their underwater world. Eventually the pups tired of us and headed out for a shore break and Kolby headed out to snorkel the reef. Fynn and I paddled around for a bit when I had the idea that the pups might like to play with the line tied to the paddle board, so I dumped it into the water. But how to get them into the water again? By chance we ended up drifting quite close to shore and boy did that do the trick. Suddenly the sea was full of pups and it didn’t take them long before they found the rope. Next thing I new I was getting towed around the bay by a team of sea lions! Not that we made excellent progress as they didn’t always agree on the direction of travel, but when they did we would whizz across the water. It was fantastically fun and the highlight of my time with the pups. Fynn’s favourite though was when one bold little guy came right up to us. First he nuzzled my leg and foot, and finding this to his liking, he chomped a bit on the paddle board. Also approving of this, he lept out of the water and landed on the board right in front of Fynn! He paused just a moment before plunging into the sea. Fynn thought this was just the greatest and wanted more pups to join her on the board, but none did. Shivering but happy we headed home.
Our destination for the night was Isla San Fransisco, and between here and there was El Bajo, 3 sea mounds where divers can see hammerhead sharks and giant manta. Well write that down and there is no way Kolby will pass that up. But this post is getting long and it is well past cruisers midnight, so that adventure will have to wait to be recorded another day.
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