Shark! For three consecutive mornings we had a Whale Shark circling Solera at Puerto Escondido. These are big sharks with a claim to fame as the largest species of fish. This juvenile was close to twenty feet long. Adults reach sixty feet and can live over one hundred fifty years. They feed on plankton as they slowly cruise around filtering the water. The spotted markings are unmistakable as is the huge mail slot mouth. I took some pretty good pictures but they really don’t do justice to the size and beauty of this fish.
We decided to rent a car to check out the nearby town of Loreto and also drive up into the mountains to an old mission called San Javier. Turned out to be a great idea. The car was delivered to the marina and cost only a little more than a round trip taxi ride to town. Loreto is a really nice place with good restaurants, shops, and stores for provisioning. The malecon (waterfront) is adjacent to an old mission church and a shopping district in the town center. I would guess the population to be around ten thousand. Apparently there were plans to develop some resorts in the area but that has come to a screeching halt. All for the better in my opinion.
One thing I didn’t mention. After nearly a month on a sailboat and never going over seven kts, getting in a car and going sixty miles an hour is a really weird feeling. Everything is flying by so fast. I felt like, man, I’ve got to slow down! I showed Cyn the speedometer as we were driving to Loreto. It read 100... kph. She said “Feels like 100 mph to me”.
The 35 km trip up to San Javier was a pleasant surprise. We had no expectations and really didn’t know what we would see. The drive into the desert wilderness was amazing. The first fifteen km were on a new paved road up an improbable desert canyon dotted with palm filled oases. To the north is a symmetrical mountain peak at least fifteen hundred feet tall with rows of vertical rock buttresses on it‘s south face. Cyn got kind of annoyed because I was always stopping, taking pictures, looking through binoculars, and going on and on about this or that possible route up it. What can I say, once a climber always a climber.
We reached a pass at about 20 km, left the canyon and started down a long gradual slope that crossed a most brutal desert. It seemed other worldly with strange vegetation and unusual rock formations. Cyn and I could not believe anyone would build anything out here. Then, in the middle of nowhere there’s water. A small trickle of water grows to a stream then to a tiny river with a dam and small lake. Just past this is lush, green San Javier. The Mission is incredibly elaborate considering it’s location. In the mid seventeen hundreds when it was established this place may as well have been on the moon.
Back on Solera, we left Escondido and made a short trip across the channel to Isla Danzante (Dancer Island) and Honeymoon Cove. Each anchorage we go to seems to get better. This one was really cool. There is a very tight north anchorage that we started to swing through but decided “Too small for a forty footer, perfect for a 25 or 27 though“. It’s shaped like a rectangular swimming pool about 150 feet wide and 400 feet long complete with a shallow end and a deep end. The sides are 25 foot tall volcanic rock cliffs. We opted for the larger but still tight center anchorage. The water here is the clearest I’ve ever seen. I could plainly see my anchor on the bottom at 30 feet. Visibility was over fifty feet. Once anchored and settled in we took the dinghy over to the “pool” and did some snorkeling. Great hiking trails also. The pictures tell the story pretty well.
The next stop was Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen. This is a good anchorage should you need to duck out of bad weather. Great protection from everything but a blow from the west, which is rare. The trip up from Danzante was a fifteen mile motorboat ride in flat calm conditions. At least the batteries are fully charged.
Next, we went ten miles back across the channel to Isla Coronados. This was a perfect sail in every way. Ten knots of wind, all the canvas up, flat seas, wind on the beam, and just over six knots of boat speed. As we approached the island we sailed through a huge group of Pacific White Sided Dolphin. I can’t even guess how many there were. The shoal stretched out about a half mile. Several of them went out of their way to put on a show, splashing and jumping near our transom.
Isla Coronados is a volcanic cone island that reminded us of the leeward side of an island in Hawaii. Black and brown pumice rock and beautiful coarse white sand. This place gets my vote for the best beaches we’ve seen yet. Solera anchored two hundred yards out in twelve feet over a sand bottom. The shallow depth really brings out the turquoise color in the water here. There’s a trail to the top of the 928 foot volcano that I’m sure would provide spectacular view of the whole region. The problem is when you get away from the water the temperature really climbs. On the boat and at the beach it has consistently been in the mid 80’s at the hottest. Go inland even just a quarter mile and it’s in the mid 90’s. We’ll do more hiking this Fall when it will be cooler. Almost every anchorage has adjacent trails with interesting destinations.
Leaving Coronados, we’ll be making a series of passages that will set us up for the northern crossing back to San Carlos. More on that next time.
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