Gresham Family Exodus

April 25 – May 22, 2013

We arrived at Ensenada Grande at night under a full moon to find Star Passage and three other kid boats (Sweet Dreams, Northern Passage, and Fluenta) already at anchor in the bay.  Ensenada Grande is an anchorage on Isla Partida that we had previously been to, and while we were mostly on our own before, now these boats would become our companions for the next two months as we made our way North towards Loreto.

Tim and I are both pretty independent thinkers, but we deliberately adopted a follower’s mentality on this leg of our voyage, because our priority was having other kids around for the boys to play with.  As it turns out, all four of these other kid boats would not be staying in Mexico for the summer but would be returning home for the hottest months, as most cruisers do.  So, we decided we would just go wherever they went since we would have time after they left to return to any anchorage we had our eye on that we felt like we missed.  We also acknowledged to ourselves that we didn’t know anyone very well yet, so insisting they follow us around might not win us any friends.  Speaking for myself, this was pretty hard.  I like what I like and I know what I want and I want to do what I want.  But trying to curb my bossiness and keep my opinions to myself was actually only hard on the surface.  When I really thought about it, it really didn’t matter where we went, so below the surface, deep down, it was all good.  Around this time we kept hearing of another kid boat, called Lady Carolina, who has two boys and who would also be staying in the Sea of Cortez for the summer.  What great news that we wouldn’t have the only kids in the Sea!   So, throughout the journey of the kid boat flotilla, we kept our radio ears out for Lady Carolina (hint:  this is foreshadowing).

Our initiation into the kid boat community was a day trip out to Los Islotes (the third time for us!) to swim with the Sea Lions with all 20 people aboard Exodus.  Another cruiser on a catamaran had once told us that having a cat means your boat is always the social gathering spot.  We thought we found this true in the beginning, but it did seem to even out in the end, with lots of beach gatherings mixed in for good measure.  What a great time we had that day.  I was so glad we offered to take Exodus because it provided a closeness that we wouldn’t have gotten if we had taken multiple boats, and the kids got to spend the entire day together.  That evening we had a beach potluck with endless games of capture the flag, and I’m pretty sure some of the dads joined in the game playing as well.  As for myself, I found a comfortable spot on a blanket with a glass of wine (crappy Chilean wine, but I digress).

We stayed at Ensenada Grande just a couple days before departing for Isla San Francisco.  With two other boats we made a dive pitstop at an underwater peak called El Bajo.  Jim on Sweet Dreams was very generous and loaned Tim scuba equipment, so he was able to dive too.  The other boats anchored in about 60 ft. of water on rocky terrain, but I opted to just drop Tim off and drift around until he was ready for a pickup.  Turns out they spent a lot of time diving checking the anchors, with my favorite quote being, “we anchored so we could dive then we dove to check our anchors.”  I used the time drifting along to finally learn how to set waypoints and routes in our electronic chart plotter.

When the dive was complete, we caught up with the other boats at the Southern anchorage on Isla San Francisco.  What a breathtaking bay!  Just to emphasize, this is the bay that’s on the cover of the Sea of Cortez cruisers’ guidebook, and it lived up to the hype.  It was a large, crescent-shaped, white sand beach that I had been looking forward to running on since I first saw the pictures in the guidebook, but unfortunately, because of shells and rocks, it turned out to not be so great for running, regardless of its beauty.   Also unfortunately, the weather gods were not with us, and a coromuel picked up that night and we had a bit of a rocky, rolly, night at anchor.  When I got up the next morning and checked weather again, I decided to propose to Tim, when he got up, that we move around to a North facing anchorage.  There was a narrow strip of the island, easy to walk across, between the anchorages, so even if the other kid boats stayed put, we wouldn’t be too far off.  I wasn’t the only one with that thought.  Star Passage raised anchor and we all soon followed.  We had a nice time at the North facing anchorage where the kids collected agates and we had a potluck and bonfire on the beach in the evening.  It was also at this anchorage that Alex first skurfed and Brenden first paddle boarded.  We did stay one more night in yet a third anchorage at the very North of Isla San Francisco where the kids searched for seashells and we had a nice birthday celebration for Max of Fluenta.

Our next stop was the pretty much forgettable anchorage of San Evaristo.  Tim may not think it was quite forgettable, though, because this was where his spear fishing adventures began.  Peter (aka Don Pedro) on Star Passage loaned Tim a pole spear (aka Hawaiian sling) and the rest is history.  A couple months later and we have 2 pole spears and a spear gun of our own on board and all 3 Gresham boys participate in the hunt.

After San Evaristo we stopped at the beautiful red rock anchorage of Puerto Los Gatos.   A lovely spot but not very well protected and billed as a “fair weather anchorage” in the guidebook.   Here Tim and I bucked our follower’s mentality just a bit and moved to the very southern nook in the bay since we were expecting winds out of the south, but we still got a fair amount of wrap around swell.  One of the other boats joined us while the other 3 stayed put and took more swell, but nose on (for information, nose on swell is more comfortable than side swell).  Someone said it was like a catamaran commercial watching the anchor lights of our two boats sway in the swell.  We still had a lot of fun at this anchorage, though.  There was a nice beach for running and skim boarding and lots of good hiking around the red rocks.

Next we headed for Agua Verde, but first there was a day stop at Bahia Amortajada on Isla San Jose, and we took a dinghy ride through a mangrove lagoon.  It did not live up to expectations for wildlife viewing (I think we saw a single bird) but we had a great time exploring, dinghy racing, and building rock towers.

Agua Verde had it all:  Great spear fishing at Roca Solitaria, a nice fishing village with a few tiendas (small stores), hiking, snorkeling, a great beach for playing, and, of course, goats.  We enjoyed a group night out at a restaurant, and I use the term “restaurant” loosely.  There was no menu, you just got served what they cooked, and you had to walk over to the store for your own beers.  But it was a much welcome night with no cooking or dishes.  It was in Agua Verde that the flotilla started breaking up, but we would come together a couple more times before the permanent breakup would occur.  Northern Passage left a day or so before everyone else because they needed to get some internet connectivity (we had pretty much been without it since we left La Paz).  We also left on our own to enjoy some family time at a day stop just North of Agua Verde at Punta El Carrizalita where the guidebook mentioned hot springs.   It was a lovely little cove where we enjoyed snorkeling and soaking.  This is also where the boys rediscovered “diaper.”  Those who made Catalina trips with us might remember that “diaper” is where the boys wear their life vests upside down (like diapers) and float around sitting up.  It’s funny how no internet or TV makes everything else a lot more fun.

We joined the rest of the kid boats in Bahia Candeleros, which is a pretty big bay with a pretty big resort on its shore.  Since it was Mother’s day we went ahead and purchased day passes to the resort and spent ALL day sitting by the pool eating and drinking.   I was literally so sick from being so full I was actually contemplating purging to make the pain go away.  Star Passage joined us at the resort for the day, so the boys had other kids to play with in the pool and we enjoyed some good company for dinner.  Next stop was Juncalito where all the kid boats were together again and we enjoyed a nice evening of drinks and snacks on Northern Passage.

At this point we decided we needed to make a stop in Puerto Escondido to take care of some of the not so fun aspects of cruising (boat maintenance, laundry, etc.).  We tried to get in and out of Puerto Escondido as quickly as we could since there was a fee to anchor there and it just isn’t quite as nice of a place to be compared with the anchorages we were growing accustomed to.  We were there only one night before catching up with the other kid boats at Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, where the water was comparatively warm and there were lots of bees.  The boys spent a lot of time dinghy skurfing and I spent a lot of time in the water.  We stayed an additional night after the other kid boats left because we had just rushed in from Puerto Escondido and weren’t quite ready to move on.  We were glad we stayed because a couple on a power boat organized a beach happy hour the next evening, so we met some new people, including another ex-Northrop Grumman employee who used to work in El Segundo.

When we left Puerto Ballandra we made a day stop at Loreto for some major provisioning.  Loreto does not have any sort of bay or harbor, so there is just roadstead anchoring.  Since it’s totally exposed from every direction except West, it’s not typically used as an overnight anchorage except in the very calmest of weather.  We anchored Exodus and headed into town where we purchased a directional antenna for wifi, found a nice tortilleria for fresh tortillas, and loaded up our packs at the grocery store.   We also passed by the Mission, and learned that it was the very first one of all the California Missions.  Since it was fairly late and I was tired, as we raised anchor I did the cruising equivalent of ordering pizza out and just took a pack of hot dogs out of the freezer and conceded we would just have hot dogs for dinner.  Turns out to be fortuitous, because when we made radio contact with the other kid boats as we were approaching Isla Coronados we found out the plan for the evening was a hot dog cookout on the beach.  I hadn’t put all the groceries away by the time we got there, so of course, my typical way of thinking is I need to stay and take care of this while they go to the cookout and I’ll kayak over when I’m done.  Tim’s response was something like, “no, you will leave this here and come eat and drink and socialize and relax with everyone else.”  What great advice.  (Though I admit that when we got back to the boat I couldn’t go to bed until it was all put away.)  Isla Coronados marked the last time all five kid boats were together as we said our final good-bye to Northern Passage the next day.  The rest of us would also go our separate ways but would meet up again in different combinations.  We would eventually say good-bye to Star Passage in Agua Verde and Sweet Dreams and Fluenta back at Isla Coronados a couple weeks later.