Friday, April 18, 2014

Puerto Escondito

Bahia Agua Verde-Honeymoon Cove-Puerto Escondito

25 deg 30' 52.5" N 111 deg 03' 45.2"W
25 deg 49' 04.0" N 111 deg 18' 54.5"W

Engine hours 80.0-87.3
Mostly sunny
Calm seas
Wind out of the N-NE

We were awakened this am (6:30) by the rumbling of an engine and sounds of anchoring.  Sure enough, a motor vessel pulled in right next to us...even though the entire anchorage was basically free.  Harumph!

I did my very first check in with the Sonrisa Net this am.  It went pretty well.  :-). You have to have your ham license to participate, and Mike and I both got the technician level licenses, so it was time.  We just hadn't had a good copy on the net until now.

We started off the day with 11-12 knots of wind and were off to a nice heading to HC.  All of a sudden, thr fishing rod went crazy!  We had a fish!  I headed up wind and Mike pulled him in.  Right at the last second, we saw a huge splash and the line felt light again.  He kept reeling and we saw a brown shark swim up to the boat with only a head left on the luer.  He (the shark) ate our fish for breakfast.  Harumph!  Mike thinks it was a wahoo.  That would have been good eating!



The winds died and we had to resort to motor sailing.

We headed to Honeymoon Cove, which was beautiful, but Mike wasn't comfortable with the anchorages, so we left and headed to Puerto Escondito.

Outside Puerto Escondito











Coming into the marina



We anchored just before 5 and paddled in to check in with the officina.  Restaurante Porto Bella was our dinner destination with cheeseburgers as our post sail fare.  


















After loving on a 6 week old lab puppy that was abandoned on the road, we paddled back to Pangaea.

Time for a shower!

First Mate Kate

Day 2



We spent today catching up on emails and taxes over at the marina after a long paddle over.  We also arranged for a rental car for tomorrow morning to explore Loreto. That actually took two hours.  Exasperated, we went back over to Porto Bella for some pizza. We paddled back to the boat and changed into hiking clothes to hike the canyon.  I didn't think it was a great idea to start this at 2:30, as it was in the heat of the day, we had only two water bottles, and three miles into the hike we were just getting to the trailhead.  Thus, i suggested that we consider this a recon trip and return another day when we could start earlier.  Mike begrudgingly agreed.  At least we burned off some of our pizza.

We paddled back to the boat and ate the rest of our pizza for dinner.


Little houses on the way to the trailhead

Buzzards hoping for dinner



Trailhead









Mountain View

A good day!  Thankful for that!


Day 3
Mike decided to blow up the dinghy so we wouldn't have to leave our paddle boards at the dinghy dock over night.  We left the motor on Pangaea and rowed over. 

We got in our rental car by 11:15 and were off to explore Loreto.  There was construction on the highway to Loreto and we had a 20-minute wait.

When we got to Loreto, we found our hotel, parked nearby and were able to check into our room in our very quaint hotel La Posada de las flores.

It was a really windy day on the Sea, and walking around was a bit chilly.  We found a local restaurant on the malecon called Los Mandiles where we had the best lunch!  They had traditional Loreto-style fare, and we opted for the enmolades con planatano macha.  Basically, mashed plantains in a corn tortilla pan fried with mole.  The mole was so good we bought some for cooking.

We returned to the hotel for a nap (Mike) and a massage (Katie) and showered for dinner.

We walked across the zocolo to 1697 Restaurant for a nice dinner.  We met two gentlemen (Brian and partner) who lived part time in Loreto and part time in Sausilito.  We chatted about Loreto and sailing.  He told us how to get to Dali, my favorite gourmet food store (that closed in La Paz over the holidays).

Thankful for a beautiful day.

First Mate Kate

Day 4

We awoke early to pack and enjoyed a quaint breakfast atop the hotel terrace overlooking the city center.

From there I was on a mission to find Dali for some decent additions to our provisioning and another grocery store for the rest.  Mission accomplished!  Unfortunately, the fresh produce was not so fresh, so we didn't get as many vegetables as I wanted.  We did find Joy dish soap!

We made it back to Puerto Escondito and got the car checked back in.  That took a while.  We loaded up the groceries into the dinghy and began our trek back to Pangaea, which seemed miles away with a 15+ knot wind out of the direction we were heading.  There was probably 1' swell in the anchorage!  Luckily some kindhearted Mexican driving a larger dinghy took pity on us and gave us a tow back to the boat.

A rare dinghy showing

We decided to take advantage of the laundry facilities, so headed back to the marina in the dinghy, this time with a motor.  :-). The pepperoni pizza at Porto Bella called our names again as we waited for the laundry to finish.









Tonight we enjoyed one of the most spectacular, red sky and sea sunsets.  I got some great shots of it and us to share.

Fire in the sky reflected on the water

















Thankful for today!

First Mate Kate

Captain Mike and First Mate Kate









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