San Juanico & Puerto Escondido

Solera made it to San Juanico in an eleven hour daylight passage. The trip brought us fifty four nautical miles down the Baja coast. We motored out of the eight mile entrance channel to Conception Bay then sailed as we picked up some light wind rounding Conception Point. The seas were very flat making the trip quite comfortable. Baja’s coastline is rugged and provided great scenery as we cruised along. The forecast was for east winds but as the day went on they shifted SE, too close to the direction we were headed, so we motored again. Not much wind anyway. One thing’s for sure, we didn’t want to arrive at night.



Caleta San Juanico is probably one of the top three most beautiful spots in the Sea of Cortez. You anchor in the mouth of a cove with a flat topped rock tower on one side and a jagged ridge of spires on the other. Rocky islets are all around. Throughout the bay the layered rock changes color from white to tan to yellow, orange, rusty red and brown. Interesting geology too. We found bands of crystallized gypsum in one area while hiking to a peninsula. Some of the rock formations reminded me of the Garden of the Gods.

I did some snorkeling around the spires. The water is a little chilly, around 75 degrees, but very clear. Lots of tropical fish, coral fans, sting rays, star fish and a few large fish I think were grouper. I didn’t take the spear gun but I was sizing them up like I had. One was so big I’m not sure who would have caught who had I speared him.



After a couple of days we decided to move on to Puerto Escondido (hidden port) thirty eight miles south. It’s a more developed spot with a marina, restaurant and store. Also has Internet. Sailed only about a quarter of the way with very light winds. Put the spinnaker up for awhile as we ran down the channel between the Loreto coast and Isla Carmen. Cyn was messing with me when she pointed out a sailboat following us. She said with a smile “ Look that guy’s catching us”. She knew I would start tweaking our trim to get every last knot of speed. That’s when we flew the spinnaker. We had to laugh when after seeing our chute flying, he put his up. They never caught us though



Cyn named our autopilot that afternoon. The Cal’s autopilot was called Pedro. Don’t really know why. Solera’s is named Spaz because that‘s what it does in light inconsistent wind. I think a derogatory name like Spaz might be bad luck. But, Spaz it is and spaz it does.

We had to time our arrival with slack tide because the entrance to the large inner bay at Escondido is only about a hundred feet wide. With a fast tidal flow we may be careening through out of control. We arrived close to high tide and made it in with no problems. Solera is now comfortably anchored in the bay with the impressive Sierra de la Giganta as a backdrop.