S.V. INTREPID II: Towards Caleta San Juanico

An early day with 40 nm to go. We carried out our regular check in with the Sonrisa Ham net at 07:30 as a vessel "underway" to let folks know we were moving on again and listened to Geary's weather report. What's new in the Sea? It seems those north westerlies are moving in sooner than anticipated, so we will bypass Islas Coronados , going for Caleta San Juanico. That should be a sail of 8 hours more or less.

San Juanico is located in notch by Punta San Basilio on this chartlet (centre and one third from top)

Once underway, Kelly spotted a high, strong plume of spray early on. Possibly a Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), as some were still in the area and then a long string of dolphins heading south but they didn't stop to chat. It is challenging to determine what we are viewing at times, but the photo and image below give you a bit of a sense of the size of this amazing animal. This baleen whale can reach 30 metres (98 feet) and weigh up to 180 tonnes - the largest living animal.

Blue whale as far as we could tell

image courtesy of cetus.uscd.edu

As we continued on our journey we had light swell, rippled seas, a sunny sky and no clouds. Off Punta Lobos we encountered confused seas and more swell and some current as we were on a falling tide. There must have been good fishing on a bank to our starboard side as we passed Islas Coronado to the west - pangas and small fishing boats were moving here and there as we passed by.

It seemed a good time to start up the water maker. We also considered with the light winds if it would be worth raising the spinnaker. It might give us 1 knot extra and not really worth the effort. Finally there was enough wind to roll out the jib and motor sail. The wind came from aft, SE, just enough to keep the sail full and INTREPID II doing 5.9 - 6 knots.

Caleta San Juanico - distinctive spires

We arrived in the anchorage of Caleta San Juanico around 14:00 (2 pm). Only the "second best spots" remained. They seemed not quite as well protected, but provided lots of swinging room and there was some SE wind protection if needed across the bay. We counted nine boats around us and anchored in 21 feet, just as the winds picked up from the SE! An hour later they shifted to the NE and blew for an hour - variety - just what we needed! Kelly put out our trusty flopper-stopper which made the night fairly restful as it smoothed out the side to side rolling.

We stayed at anchor until Monday, March 22nd. That gave us a chance to meet new cruising folk on the beach, visit with some on their boats (hola Mood Indigo!) and put our hand-crafted burgee on the Cruisers' Shrine (tree), next to the lovely and creative sign left by the Whiteshell II folks. This area has good walks, fossils in the sandstone and obsidian beads known as "Apache Tears". We had fun exploring, looking and taking pictures. A good place to spend some time, and then move on.