Bahia Concepcion - Playa Santispac - Mar. 23-30

INTREPID II arrived in Playa Santispac in time to view the continuing arrival of RVs, tenters, camper trucks lining up on the beach for the upcoming Semana Santa - Holy Week - leading up to Easter celebrations.  The event seems more Spring Break than a religious observation for these vacation goers.  The sandy beach was gradually covered up here and at El Burro Cove with hardly any space available by the end of the week.  A quiet anchorage this was not - but the music was loud only this first night, as someone must have advised the folks with the huge speakers to keep the noise down.  The remaining evenings were much quieter during our stay.

Bahia Concepcion has over 50 miles of beaches 

Gathering spot at Playa Santispac - Ana's

Wednesday morning (March 24th), we lowered our dinghy into the water, outboard on and off to explore. The landing is very shallow in front of Ana's restaurant and you have to wade in and pull it for some distance at times.  Ana's is closed Wednesdays but Russ, the owner, came out to welcome us and share some local information, including that it should be easy to hitch rides into nearby Mulege. The town is 20 miles to the north and it seems buses are not a viable option.  

We took a long walk towards the SE end of the beach and met up with the SV Galatea folks who had also arrived the day before.  The road ends at a shell beach which looks back to the entrance into Bahia Concepcion - very turquoise, very shallow and at that time, still showing some left over chop. We found some very colourful shells, a very large one and only one (a tent olive type) which we kept for our small collection - better to enjoy them in their natural setting.   

A shell to admire

Setting out again in the dinghy to get to deeper water, one of the wheels basically popped off;  it seems the lock washer must have broken off.  Add yet another project to the Captain's list.  As the wind wasn't too strong yet, we set off to explore El Burro Cove a few miles to the SW and the home of Sonrisa Net weather guru, Geary Ritchie.  We eventually found our way there and said hi to MV The Dark Side folks, who had zipped by us on the way up to anchor in El Burro Cove.  Geary was just leaving his palapa as we landed and headed into Mulege  We briefly introduced ourselves and thanked him for all his efforts everyday to deliver weather info on the ham net.  He volunteers to get up at "zero dark thirty" to check countless weather sites and make his amateur assessment, then conveys that information in a most enjoyable manner to all the Sonrisa ham net listeners at 07:45 am. 

Bertha's Restaurant at El Burro Cove

On down the beach we rambled to "Bertha's Restaurant" for a treat of fish tacos, with one eye and one ear on the wind, as it was increasing.  The dinghy ride back to INTREPID II was 35 minutes long and very wet as the north winds blow right down the bay and into the coves.  The day was sunny though and provided us a chance to explore a portion of the large bay.  Later, we returned to Ana's to check out their dinner offerings and met up with the Keetya I crew for a "BCA fleet debriefing".  Our first full day at this intriguing bahia had been a good one!

Punta Pulpito and Bahia Concepcion - Mar. 21 & 22

INTREPID II left Caleta San Juanico mid-day on Monday, March 22nd for a 2 hour run up to Punta Pulpito to break up the trip to Bahia Concepcion the following day.  We passed a few boats and then a fishing vessel trolling up and down the waters.  It was difficult to see what it was doing until it passed diagonally in front of us later on and the outstretched arms became visible.

Fishing boat kept us guessing

Cloudy but impressive skies

At one point, off our port side, we spotted a long, narrow back fluke as a humpback  (Megaptera novaeangliae) flipped over to dive and later saw its high, powerful blows further south as it surfaced behind us.  This image, courtesy of earthwatch.org, provides a sense of the power and energy of this baleen whale.


Nearing Punta Pulpita we followed a sailboat in, sharing the anchorage with another Canadian boat, SV Relax.  Our visit was a chat via the vhf radio as neither of us were going to put dinghies in the water for the overnight stay.  It would be an early start tomorrow.  We had heard on the Sonrisa net to watch for the International Space Station passing overhead that night.  There it was right on schedule, arcing overhead in the black night sky.  A further treat was a huge ring around the almost full moon.

This is a stark anchorage, whose sandy beach had been washed away in a hurricane, so very difficult to land and go ashore.  The massive headland or "pulpit' has an obvious vein of obsidian  running through the rock.

Stark Punta Pulpito

March 22 at 6:45 am INTREPID II headed out, following aft of our overnight neighbours with a second boat in the distance that had come out of San Juanico very early.  Two hours later we were passed by the MV The Dark Side, who make much better time than us sail boaters. We had a good chat on the radio as they went by.  The wind was on the nose for all of us, with 11- 12 knots true. The day was hot, the seas quite rolly for a time, with the odd spray finding its way back to the dodger.  By 13:30 we were starting to make the turn to port around Point Concepcion and Kelly had the radar on to assist in picking out the rocky bits.  Now as we headed westward, the seas were on our starboard beam and we rolled some more.  But now we could roll out the jib and quickly were making some progress.  As we turned south into Bahia Concepcion we were suddenly enjoying a 7 knot run under the jib, with 18 knots true from the north - making up for lost time!

Checking with our friends on Keetya I who were already anchored nearby, we decided to anchor in Playa Santispac, which appeared to have the best north wind protection and the least fetch.  We anchored in 30 feet at:  26 degrees 45.l729 N and 111 degrees 53.122 W after almost 9 hours at sea and prepared to relax for a few days.