Each time we go back down to Baja, we try to sail Escape one more island to the north so we keep exploring a bit farther north each time. Even so, exploring is a lot slower activity than I first thought because, you don't just want to go sailing by and take a picture—like many people do at Yellowstone National Park—you want to go ashore at as many of the attractive bays as you can and find out what there is to see there. On this expedition, my wife Elaine and youngest daughter Heather, decided to go with me, Jay, and our dog Séamus to explore the next island north, Isla San José. My older daughter Joey, her husband Mark, and my three grandsons, Andrew, Mason, and Kolson had just come out to visit us for an early Christmas but they had already gone home so we left the day after Christmas and headed back down to Baja to check out Isla San José. Here are pictures of the three grandsons before we headed off to Baja. We were all in good spirits having just had a great Christmas so Elaine and
Heather piled into the back seat of our Dodge Ram truck ready for the long drive down to the bottom of the Baja Peninsula. Here they are sharing the space with Séamus. The plan was to share the driving so none of us had to drive too long at a stretch and we planned to stop along the way to check
things out and to let Séamus stretch his legs. We were making good time and were almost to the Mexican border when I heard a loud bang and the unmistakable sound of air escaping from our right rear tire each time it went around. I got over to the side of the road as soon as I could and parked near an overpass while I got out to inspect the damage. Sure enough, the right rear tire had hit something and it had a big hole right in the middle of the tread. Jay got on his cell phone and discovered that there was a Big O Tires shop right off the freeway at the next exit, so I jacked up the truck, put on the spare tire and headed for Big O. Here's Jay, Heather, and Séamus waiting at Big O while we got the tire fixed. It took us about an hour before we were back on the road and by the time we got through customs at the border it was already late in the
afternoon. The blowout had put us a bit behind schedule so we didn't make as many stops as we had planned. We wanted to make it to at least the half-way point before we stopped for the night. It was almost midnight when we pulled into the small town of Cataveña, which is the town near where Jay and I had sat along the road for two days with a seized up wheel bearing on our previous expedition. Elaine decided to pass on the opportunity to camp out along the road to experience what it was like to be stranded along the road in the remotest part of Baja, so we got a room at the Mission Hotel there in Cataveña. Jay and Séamus slept in the truck while Elaine, Heather and I got a room in the hotel. Here's Jay the next morning—obviously well rested and a few pictures of the Mission Hotel. For being out in the absolute middle of nowhere, it is a really nice hotel. We had a good breakfast at the hotel before leaving and since we were in Cataviña, we
decided to stop by and say hello to Poncho, who
is the mechanic who helped Jay and me fix the wheel bearing on the trip before. Poncho was glad to see us but I think he also was glad that we weren't having any mechanical problems on this trip. Here's a picture of Poncho's garage, and the only gas
station, i.e., some five gallon cans stacked up along the road. I had plenty of diesel in our tanks so I decided not to contaminate it with any fuel from the cans along the road. I'm sure, however, that if you were about out of gas and knew it was 150 km to the next town of Guerrero Negro, you'd be very happy to see these guys selling fuel along the road. We
had the pleasure of stopping in Guerro Negro at the Agricultural Inspection Point, shown in the picture to the right. We didn't have anything to declare, but we still had to pay 20 Pesos for them to spray the underside of our truck. I'm not sure what they were worried about, I didn't see any agriculture for the next 150 miles. Here is a shot of what the terrain looks like between Cataviña and Guerrero Negro. This is truely one of the most desolate parts of Baja, but Cataviña is one of the staging areas for the Baja 1000, and my son Chris said there are some fairly popular rock climbing sites near Cataviña. 
We stopped in Santa Rosalia for lunch. Santa Rosalia is on the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula and Guerrero Negro is on the western side so you get to cross from one side of Baja to the other a couple of times before you get to the bottom of it. Santa Rosalia is a pleasant little town right beside the ocean with a fairly large dock and several restaurants right along the road. Jay and I had eaten at this one on our way north the time before so we stopped there again because it had pretty good food and it was easy to get in and out of. The restaurant has this cool thatched roof (see picture below) and Jay, Heather, and
Elaine got a table inside while I locked up the truck and made sure we didn't have anything left exposed in the bed of the truck. Jay decided to have this fantastic looking seafood soup cooked in a stone bowl and I thought of getting the same thing, but decided I'd get something with the only two words I recognized—bacon and shrimp—so I got the bacon wrapped shrimp thinking I could probably get a taste of Jay's soup anyway. Elaine and Heather got something else, but apparently it wasn't worthy of a picture because I didn't get one of whatever they ate. We got to Marina Cortez in La Paz around 7 PM and we quickly settled onto the
I didn't get one of whatever they ate. We got to Marina Cortez in La Paz around 7 PM and we quickly settled onto the boat. It was great to be able to walk around again and to not have to drive. The next morning, 28 December 2013, Elaine and Heather headed out to explore La Paz while Jay and I got to work on some of the projects we had to complete on the boat before we could head out to explore Isla San José. Here I am on the boat as seen through Elaine's camera lens as they head for the Malecón, the walkway along the beach—kind of like a board walk in many seaside towns. The Malecón is really nice with lots of shops and restaurants along the way as well as a good view of the marina and the night clubs near the marina. Here are a few of the things they took pictures of as they strolled along the Malecón. There are many
statues along the Malecón, but two of my favorites are the Meremaid with the porpoise and the old man with a dream
of some day going to sea in his homemade little boat. It's not thatdifferent from our own dreams except
we have a bigger boat. Last, but not least, Elaine and Heather found the cathedral in La Paz where they could attend mass the next
morning. The cathedral still had most of the diecorations in it from Christmas and they were still getting ready for new years celebrations all over town. Here is a picture of one of the Christmas Trees that were decorated along the Malecón.On the 29th, Elaine and Heather continued to explore La Paz while I got started on one of the modifications to Escape that Roni had sent me. The Mast Foils are in two parts, a top part and a bottom part that are assembled together over the round carbon fiber mast while it is still on the ground. The two pieces overlap by a few inches and they were originally assembled with screws all around to hold them together. Because the mast foils flex quite a bit while sailing, the screws tended to come loose and fall out. To fix that problem, Roni fabricated two carbon fiber strips that go around the mast foil at the joint. To install them, I had to go up the mast and cement the strips in place by putting epoxy along the bottom mast foil piece and then placing the carbon fiber strip so it was glued to the bottom mast foil piece and overlapped with the top mast foil piece. Here I am half
way up the mast taping the strip in place and then putting a bead of epoxy underneath it so I can cement it in place. Once the front mast was done, we had to do the same thing on the aft mast. Séamus let us know he was ready to get in the water by modeling his new life vest. He is a good swimmer, but he has no body fat so when he can't swim any farther, he sinks. With this vest he stays afloat and can
around the marina all the time because there are
many many fish under the docks. This colorful gentleman was on a boat several slips down from us. He and several other families bought their boat together and they shared it. At the time there were three or four college girls from the families on board and they weresailing around the Sea of Cortez.
Bright and early on New Years Day, we were
ready to sail out of Marina Cortez and start exploring the Islands. Since Elaine and Heather hadn't seen Isla Espíritu Santo,
we decided to stop at a couple of the best anchorages on that island and let them get the feel of
exploring before we headed farther north to Isla San José. We sailed out of Marina Cortez on New Years Day about 0830 under calm winds and smooth seas so leaving the dock was easy and uneventful. We motored out of the channel and immediately had 8 - 12 kt winds, but because they were coming from the direction we needed to sail in order to get to Bahía San Gabriel, we had to sail pretty far out into the Sea of Cortez to get a decent apparent wind angle (AWA). Then we made a dog leg back in to Bahía San Gabriel on Isla Espíritu Santo. Here are a couple of pictures of Heather and
Elaine taking turns consoling Séamus as we make our way out of the channel and into the Sea of Cortez. We steered into Bahia Gabriel which is a big bay with a long sandy beach on the southwestern tip of Isle Espíritu Santo about 3:30 PM and anchored in about ten feet of water. Here's a picture of me steering Escape into the bay and a movie of the bay as it looked where we anchored can be seen on You Tube at: http://youtu.be/tLgugHq2fOg. As soon as we were anchored Jay took Séamus ashore on the Stand
up Paddle Board (SUP) and I took Elaine and Heather ashore in the dinghy. We hadn't been ashore long when Séamus caught a fish. I think the fish was sick or wounded already or Séamus couldn't have caught him, but you need to see this movie to believe it. It's on You Tube at: http://youtu.be/vCIWgSVXVLM. Everyone had such a good time and we arrived so late in the day that we decided to spend an extra day at Bahia San Gabriel. We went ashore right after breakfast before it got too hot and spent the whole morning swimming or fooling around on the beach. Here's a picture of Jay and Séamus on the SUP. Séamus just loves it and as soon as you get
close enough to shore that he can reach the bottom or thinks he can reach the bottom, he jumps off. He's a strong swimmer now and once he swam all the way from shore out to the boat which is close to a half a mile, with Jay paddling beside him. I put a movie on You Tube of Elaine swimming so you can see how clear the water is and how shallow it is. You can see it at:http://youtu.be/ZYI-rmw3cHM. After everyone had a chance to swim and go ashore, we came back to the boat and Jay made this fantastic salad with his home made Caeser Salad Dressing.
After lunch we hung around the boat reading or talking, mostly just staying out of the sun. Later in the afternoon we went out again. Here's a picture of Jay out on the SUP just as the sun was going down (see below) and a picture of the anchorage with the moon already up in the sky (below and left). I'd like to make these pictures bigger so you can see the detail, but there are so many that I have to keep them small in order to tell the story and fit them in. The thing to do is to go on these adventures yourselves once you've seen these posts. 
We departed Bahia San Gabriel about 0830 on 3 Jan and sailed out into the Sea of Cortez about 10 or 12 miles in order to make progress northward along Isla Espíritu Santo. The winds were from the NNE which was exactly the direction we needed to go so we had to tack back and forth several times to get about eight miles north to our next anchorage called Ensenada el Cardonal. Once we were out of the bay at Bahia San Gabriel, Heather assumed her customary position at the dining table with her coloring book (see right). The winds varied from around 11 knots to 20 knots towards the end of the sail and the waves were 3' to 4' high. I posted this movie of us sailing north along the western shore of Isle Espíritu Santo so you could see how it was in a relatively gentle breeze:
http://youtu.be/WVAt6p2LPtg. We arrived at Ensenada el Cardonal around 1430 and anchored close to the NE shore. I posted another movie of a portion of the sail north towards Ensenada el Cardonal at: http://youtu.be/n3_WTLMhyU4. Ensenada el Cardonal is an old extinct volcano cone and the southeastern wall has collapsed so the wind comes through that gap really fast. Last time Jay and I anchored here the boat swung a lot so we put on a bridal this time. Here's a picture of Jay and Séamus
keeping an eye out for rocks or other obstacles as we sail into Ensenada el Cardonal. A movie of our entry into the bay can be seen at: http://youtu.be/xX6BcCosYKo.
We departed Ensenada el Cardonal on 4 Jan 2014 under calm conditions right after breakfast. The winds were light from the WSW so we had the wind slightly behind us. We sailed at a deep reach most of the way at about 6 knots with winds only about 7 to 8 knots so it was a comfortable ride. Heather took a position out on the front deck by the trampoline (see below) and Elaine settled in on the bench in the forward cockpit to
catch up on her log (below right). Jay took the time to snuggle with Séamus since Séamus had really been neglected so far on this trip (yeah right—I don't want you to think that Séamus is spoiled.)
About two miles south of Isla San Francisco, the winds died to about 4 knots so we put up the screecher and pulled in the foresail. At about one mile from the island we ran out of wind all together and motored in to the bay. Heather kept a lookout with the binoculars (see pic below) as we came into the bay at Isle San Francisco. I posted a movie of our entry into the bay at http://youtu.be/M7FfNijlfS8. We anchored in 13.5 feet of water on the south end of the bay just inside the hook. After anchoring, Jay went ashore
with Séamus on the SUP and I tookHeather and Elaine ashore on the dinghy. Later we met a fellow cruiser named Bruce who traded us half a large Dorado fish for half of the naan bread Jay cooked up the day before.
Here's a picture of me with the Dorado. Jay filleted the part of the fish we got and put the backbone on the back deck for Séamus to chew
on (see pic two below). Once we were ashore, I hiked up a trail that went up on the ridge shown in the picture below right that Heather is looking at through the binoculars. From that vantage point I was able to get the picture of the whole bay with Escape in it. now you can see why so many people want to anchor at Isle San Francisco. It's a perfect
little bay with
good protection all around with
nice beaches
to boot. We puttered around the beaches and on
the
hiking trails the rest of the afternoon and then settled in for a really nice relaxing night's sleep with almost no waves and a gentle
breeze to cool things down to good sleeping weather. The next morning as we were finishing breakfast and Jay was returning from shore with Séamus on the SUP, we saw several puffer fish right off the back deck. I quickly grabbed my camera and got these pictures of what looked to be "smiling" puffer fish. It was so pleasant and scenic in this cove at Isla San Francisco that we stayed for an extra hour or two in order to troubleshoot issues with the SSB radio and radar. The radar was not coming on and we have been unable to send SSB e-mails for two days. 
Sometimes its just that we don't have good geometry with the SSB radio or the time of day is not right. Propagation statistics even between the same transmitting and receiving stations differ a lot with the time of day. Fortunately, we have a program on the computer to predict when the best times are, but in this case we weren't transmitting even in the best predicted time windows. Restarting the computer and Parallels (the program we use to run Windows programs natively on our Mac) solved the radar issue—good old Microsoft, but we still hadn't solved the
SSB problem. I checked out all of the wires and ground connections, but it still didn't transmit. The tuner was changing frequencies as we tuned the radio, but it didn't connect. This meant that the connections between the radio and the tuner were working, but for some reason we weren't getting the signal out over the antenna. By 10 AM we decided to give up on the SSB for now and head on up the coast. Since there was no wind when we left Isla San Francisco we motored all the way to the village of San Evaristo which was only about six miles northwest across the channel between Isle San José on the eastern shore of the Baja Peninsula.
Evaristo is a small fishing village on the main Baja Peninsula and since we were motoring, there wasn't much to do during the first part of the trip so Jay took advantage of the time to snuggle with Séamus (right). Heather picked a comfortable spot in the forward cockpit (below left). On the way out of the bay we saw our new friend Bruce, the guy who traded us the fish, sailing out. Here's a picture of his boat (below right). The winds came up quite strong about three miles before we got to San Evaristo, blowing about 17 knots, but dead on the nose so we just kept motoring. We went ashore in the dinghy and bought a dozen
eggs from a local family with chickens. Everything else was closed because it was Sunday. The electronic map of this area is off from the GPS coordinates by up to one nautical mile so it's best to navigate here during the daytime. The maps in the cruising guide appear to be very accurate so we use that whenever we can. Here's a video of the cove at Punta San Evaristo so you can see what the bay looks like: http://youtu.be/MMZwfHehd5E. I actually took this video on the morning of the 6th of Jan and incorrectly refer to the nearby island as San Juan, but it's really San José. A slip of the tongue. Where we went ashore is just around the
tip of land on the port side of the boat. Here are three pictures of our landing. The first picture shows the car port in front of the house. Both have thatched roofs that look like they work pretty well. As we pulled up to the beach, their oldest son, Armando, came out to greet us and to take our painter line and pull us ashore. I'd say he was about 12 years old and he spoke some English. We needed eggs and wheat flour so Elaine hopped out, started waving her arms and telling Armando what we needed. Eventually, she figured out that Armando didn't know what we wanted so she said huevos, the Spanish word 
for eggs. He immediately picked up on that and indicated he had some of those. He led us up to the car port where his whole family was assembled and were listening to the radio in their pickup truck. They were very friendly and introduced themselves as Antonio (the father), Rosalia (the mother), Armando who we had already met, and David (the younger brother). Here's a picture of the whole family posed with Elaine and Heather. After we bartered for a dozen eggs, Armando took us out back and proudly showed us his chicken pen (below right).
We departed San Evaristo around 0830 on the 7th under brisk winds and clear skies. We went east across the channel to Punta Salina hoping again to go ashore and explore the old desalination plant and then south to go on the dinghy through the mangroves on the southern tip of Isla San José. Unfortunately, the winds and waves were still
too high to go ashore, plus we needed to sail 30 miles to the south to our next anchorage so we decided to weigh anchor right after we dropped it and set up the bridal at Punta Salina. We had northerly winds so we sailed wing on wing for a while to the south. Around noon the winds abated to only around 8 knots so we put up the screecher and sailed wing on wing with the screecher and the foresail (pic at right) . Elaine took the opportunity to update her log book (below right) and Heather decided to practice the knots I've been trying to teach her (photo left). We got a good picture of Isla San Francisco as we passed by (below left). In that picture you can see the scenic bay where we were anchored on the right side of the picture. Around 1400, the winds shifted more from the SE so
we took down the screecher and sailed on a port broad reach with the foresail and the mizzen sail. Jay and Heather just chilled out as we made good progress toward our destination in Bahia San Gabriel (below right). About a mile out from Bahia San Gabriel, the wind died all together so we motored in with just the foresail and motors. Jay and Séamus went ashore on the SUP and I took the dinghy ashore.
Everyone else stayed on Escape because it was almost sundown by the time we were anchored and had everything squared away. This time we anchored on the south side of Bahia San Gabriel in about ten feet of water. On the waydown, I worked on the water maker because it was only producing about half the quantity of fresh water it usually does. It has two pumps, an A and a B pump. The "A" motor runs, but does not seem to pump any water so we can only make about 10 gph. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, except it was not producing as much water as it usually does. The next day, the 8th of Jan, we stayed in Bahia San Gabriel because it had great beaches and clear water, but
so many bushes that he'd go behind one or two and I couldn't see him any more. Anyway, here's
a picture of one of the giant cacti that we saw along the trail and a look at how thick the brush was (right) and the picture on the left is a shot of the trail, such as it was, looking back towards the boat which can be seen as a small speck in the distance. Later that day, Elaine tried to catch up on her reading (below) while I worked for another hour on the water maker to
We finished the cleaning and defrosting of the refrigerator and freezer the next day and set out for home early on the 12th of January. We wanted to stop in Loreto on the way north because Father Joe, one of the priests at our church, St. Paschals Baylon in Thousand Oaks, had gone to the mission there to start filming a documentary on Father Junipero Serra. Fr. Junipero Serra was a priest in the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church (1713-1784) who was a driving force in the Spanich conquest and colonization of what is now the State of California. As we drove north, we were careful to note any places that we might want to visit with the boat on future trips down to Baja. One such place is shown here behind Heather and Elaine. We took this from a pull out in the road just south of Loreto. It just looks fantastic for exploring. We finally arrived in Loreto around noon and headed straight to the Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto (Mission of Our Lady of Loreto). The mission was originally founded in 1697 by the Jesuits and then taken over by the Franciscans in 1768 when the Jesuits were expelled. The Mission is open to the public and has a nice museum showing some of the life as it existed at that time. Here's a picture of the mission and some of the artifacts we saw there. It was quite interesting to me to see how the people lived and how they were able to improvise in those early years. Some of their contraptions were pretty |
| Tree Trunk in Shape of Cross |
 |
| Wooden Vice |
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| Sugar Cane Crusher and Vats to Boil the Sap |
out of the museum so we found this restaurant called the Papagaya Cantando or the Parrot Bar and Grill (pic below right). It looked good and the owner was friendly so we went in. Séamus was really thirsty and the owner liked him so Séamus got to drink from the fountain. The rest of us had a beer or water in a glass. We spent about an hour at the
Parrot Bar and Grill and then headed north again. Our goal was to reach the Mission Hotel in Cataviña tonight and then get the rest of the way home to Thousand Oaks, CA on the 13th. Everything worked out as planned and we had another restful night in the hotel, while Jay and Séamus guarded our stuff in the truck. It was a cold night so Séamus got a blanket and got to wear one of Jay's beanies to keep his head warm. The rest of the way home was uneventful and we were really glad to be back in the good old USA. That's the end of this adventure. In the next episode, I'll take you north to the next island in the Sea of Cortez, Isla Carmen, Isla Danzante, and Honeymoon Cove. 
