Checking in at La Ramada

Sunbeams burst forth at La Ramada sunrise

After pulling anchor at Isla Coronados, we sailed north towards our destination of La Ramada.

Dolphins swam and danced before Espiritu's bow wake

Captain Chris, happy to be at sea

We spent several days anchored at the small bay of La Ramada. It's kind of like the hotel except there's no food, no cable, no room service, and no noisy neighbors keeping you up at night. 

And, unlike the Ramada Hotel, dropping the hook in La Ramada is absolutely FREE. :-) 

La Ramada is about halfway between Loreto and Bahia Concepcion

Pretty, isn't it?

We spent several days anchored at this isolated, desolate place with our friends aboard s/v Trovita and s/v Neeltcke. It was lovely -- however, after almost two weeks away from Loreto and a grocery store of any kind, our veggie hammock looked like this:

Yep. That's one sad little onion where two weeks previous there had 

been a great bounty of papayas, bananas, avocados, mangos, etc. Yikes. 

Thank God we had our watermaker, at least! When one finds oneself in an isolated, harsh environment with nothing but canned food, one realizes that all that is really important is fresh water, and of course, COFFEE (which we have plenty of).  

But there are no serious reefs for spearfishing in La Ramada. And we were almost out of bread, tortillas and eggs as well as fresh produce.

We had heard stories from other cruisers that there was a farm somewhere inland that might sell us some produce if we were nice. This mythical "farm" -- if it even existed -- was said to be about a mile's walk up the dusty dirt road into the desert. 

A farm, in the middle of the desert?

We were doubtful, but we were also down to just one onion. 

"A day without fun is a day that eats shit." -- Hunter. S. Thompson

My point is, it's up to us to find the fun in even the simplest of our daily activities. That's one of the things I love the most about cruising. You could say that we were trapped in the hot desert without fresh food and now we had to trudge up a long dirt road in hopes of getting scraps from some farm that may or may not even be there?

Or, you could say: 

Well, it's a beautiful day for a hike. We've never been here before (in fact, few humans ever have or ever will be), so we may as well make an adventure of it and go exploring! Sounds like FUN! 

We packed up several bottles of water, slathered on the sunscreen and headed into the desert. 

The dirt road to the mythical farm in the middle of the desert

After walking for about a half an hour, we heard some ominous growling sounds coming from under a bush.  Curious as to what type of mammal would be able to survive in such harsh conditions, I slowly approached the source of the scary animal noises.

WHAAA? What in the hell is that? A wolverine?

Chris begged me to keep my distance, which I did -- not based on his appearance (cute and cuddly) but by the scary, growling sounds it was making.

I found out later it was the Baja version of an American Badger.

As this photo from the Arizona Independent shows, 

they are not to be messed with. 

Also, look at those claws!

After a few minutes observing (at a safe distance -- don't worry, Dad!) our new, violent 

little friend in the wild, we continued on up the dirt road deeper into the desert. 

Gringos trudge through the desert on what might quite possibly be the dirt road to nowhere. 

It was beautiful, though. The desert is growing on me. 

After about an hour we came to a fork in the road. We turned right and hoped for the best.

And suddenly, we were there! The farm in the desert was real, 

and it had a name: Rancho Escondido!

You've never seen a woman so happy to have 3 tomatoes, 

one cucumber and one garlic!

But wait -- there's more!

He also had a tropical, desert island, palapa style chicken coop, and sold 

us a dozen fresh eggs for about $1.50 U.S. 

Rancher Jose took us on a tour of his little place. There was a large, clean palapa 

with several lovingly maintained saddles

I spent several minutes giving this beautifully groomed horse a good scratch. See the outhouse in the distance? I walked towards it to do my business, but as I came close I heard ominous growling noises coming from the bush next to the outhouse. 

I'm fairly certain it was our friend the badger who had followed us to the ranch. I never saw him, but despite my serious need to relieve myself, the badger won out and I let him be. 

I guess he deemed himself Lord of the (outhouse) Manor. 

"Stay away from my outhouse..." the badger 

wheezed and sneered ominously...

Okee dokee. It's all yours, dude. It's not as if we're surrounded by miles and miles of empty desert where I can take care of business in perfect peace and harmony...

We made it back to Espiritu safe and sound with our bounty from Rancho Escondido. I'd call that a very good day.

In other news, after weeks of Chris valiantly attempting to keep him alive, we can now make the announcement:

My Kindle is dead.

 (courtesy of Alan Dapre)

So, like the word addict I am, I've been feverishly shoring up and storing up

 actual books from exchanges all over Baja. 

My favorites remain biographies, autobiographies and memoirs. 

Me reading a Jacques Cousteau bio

Being of the female persuasion, my absolute favorites are memoirs and biographies of great women. But when the average cruiser book exchange is 75% Tom Clancy, James Patterson and Jackie Collins,  my favorite genre is slim pickings indeed.

I was so desperate for female biographies that I even 

read -- cover to cover -- "The story of Justin Beiber's Mom." 

Yes. Boredom and desperation will do that to a person.

I love it when fellow cruisers insist that they only read the classics. It's only Dostoyevsky, Chaucer and Dickens for them. Well. It's not that I don't believe them, exactly...

...well, OK, I'll say it. I don't believe them. 

But it's not only the autobiography of Justin Beiber's mom for me. I, too, recently read a classic.

Yes, I read Hamlet from cover to cover.

OK, OK, it was the abridged-comic book-graphic novel Hamlet. 

But still.

Better the abridged-comic book-graphic novel Hamlet than none at all.

At least now I know what people are talking about when they say that

 Rozencranz and Gildenstern are dead. 

We're currently at the marina in Santa Rosalia doing minor boat repairs. All is well!

Good luck with things up there in the U.S. We leave the country for a few short months and almost immediately things start falling apart in our beloved home country. 

We, and the world -- are watching. 

Let's keep it smart and sane up there. Please.   

Loreto and Isla Coronados

Loreto rests at the shore of the Sea of Cortez

We spent 3 sweets weeks sailing between Loreto and the surrounding islands 

which compose Loreto National Park. 

Welcome to Loreto! 

The map shows the town of Loreto, Isla Coronados and Isla Carmen. 

We are currently anchored at El Burro Cove in Bahia Concepcion.

The Catholic church here is 300 years old

The Blue Anchor, our favorite internet place in Loreto

The Sea of Cortez ruins sailors.

There, I said it.

When Chris and I were sailing the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, wave heights of 5-15 feet were pretty much all in a days work. Expected. But here in the Sea of Cortez, it's so protected that a typical swell size is one foot. A scary day might mean swells of 3-5 feet. 

It's that flat calm.

The water surface can be so benign in the Sea of Cortez that we actually motored 6 miles across open ocean between Loreto and Isla Coronados with our sunshades up and WITH OUR DINGHY HANGING ON THE SIDE OF THE BOAT. 

You landlubbers won't get the relevance of this. But in the regular ocean, be it Pacific or Atlantic -- the above motoring scenario, well, it simply isn't done. 

We enjoyed several days at calm and beautiful Isla Coronados

One day I went for a long swim across the bay at Isla Coronados. Halfway through my swim,  mother and child humpback whales surfaced about 30 feet away. 

My first instinct was to panic. 

Yikes! There are two gigantic whales only 30 feet away! 

But after a few deep breaths, I settled down and just tried to exude calm (Generally speaking, flailing and freaking out around wildlife is not a good idea). They surfaced again and then calmly headed towards the open ocean.

Wow. Pretty cool.

Later that night, while relaxing in the cockpit and watching the full moon rise over the mountains, we heard an explosion from the direction of the mainland. 

"What in the hell was that?" we asked each other.

A moment later, we heard another explosion emanating from the direction of the mainland. The sound bounced ominously off of the mountains, across the water and out of the pitch blackness.

We sat silently, listening through the darkness.

We heard the sound again, but this time it was preceded by a large and loud exhaling sound, and then, the gigantic explosion.

The whales! It was humpbacks breaching -- diving deep and then hurtling through the ocean surface and smashing down again. They were so large, and it was so loud, each breach sounded exactly like dynamite exploding in the mountains.

Again and again, we listened to the sound of whale after whale breaching,. There must have been at least 3 of them. 

We were anchored only a couple of hundred feet away.

The ocean between the mainland in the distance and Isla Coronados is where the humpback whales breached over and over again under the cloak of darkness

The next morning, we popped over to Loreto again.

Loreto brick and palm

Loreto has an adorable ficus walkway that goes right through the center of town

Mountain peaks soar behind the city

With the palm trees and the towering mountains, Loreto has almost a South Pacific feel

We watched a game of the NBA finals at gringo sports bar Augie's 

with John and Julie of s/v Myla

After provisioning at the Ley's supermarket in Loreto and downloading all of our favorite podcasts, it was time to head north again -- away from civilization and into the wildness once more.

We actually caught some good wind and enjoyed a refreshing sail.

Chris set the auto pilot and rode Espiritu like a bucking bronco

That's it for now. We're currently anchored in Playa Burro in Bahia Concepcion with several other sailboats awaiting the big annual gringo July 4th fireworks show local expat Geary puts on every year. All is well.

What are your July 4th plans? Let me know!   @lizthatgirl@gmail.com

Around Loreto

Espiritu anchored with friends at Isla Coronados 

The city of Loreto on the southeast coast of Baja Mexico is the center of culture and activity in the area. Fortunately there are several beautiful bays and islands in the immediate vicinity, so we've been checking them out.

Our first stop on this leg of our adventure was Agua Verde, south of Loreto. 

The beautiful bay and anchorage of Agua Verde

Don of Windcharmer and Chris marvel at the beauty

Espiritu, Windcharmer and Trovita went ashore to explore the tiny village.

Cows roam free on the beach

Little pink house

In tiny Mexican villages like this one, families turn one room of their home into a small market (or "tienda"). There were 3 home/tiendas in the village, selling a small selection of groceries and produce  out of their living room.

This bedroom, with children happily playing, opened 

directly into the "market" (AKA their living room)

Lisa and the goats, which roam freely through the village

So, not only are there cows, chickens and goats mooing, clucking and baaaaa-ing their 

way up and down the dusty streets of Agua Verde, there are also pigs and...

Turkeys! They've got the run of the place. 

Now that's what I call "free range."

Little blue church

There's a beautiful reef here, and it will always be known as the 

spot of my first spearfishing kill.

I was by myself when I bagged him (Chris was ashore exploring with the guys). I couldn't bring myself to take a selfie with the 2 pound wavyline grunt.

My first kill -- pupils fixed and dilated

I'm not a killer. I'm a gentle person, I hope. I don't like violence. But I do eat meat. And eating fish is necessary to stay alive in the isolated Sea of Cortez. So I knew I had to step up to the plate. 

Still, I wasn't looking forward to my first spear kill. Yes, I was proud and happy after the spear pierced the target, as I'd been working on my technique for weeks and had experienced dozens of misses.

But it's strange and sobering to see a living thing die painfully in front of you, at your own hand.

And yes, the fresh fish dinner went down good later on that night, bathed in butter and lime.

I suppose the trick is to never take the kill for granted -- to eat every morsel with gratitude and to show respect for the life so suddenly taken.

"Today is a good day to die." -- Chief Crazy Horse 

Next stop: Bahia Candeleros, a few miles north.

We got some internet at the beautiful resort on the beach at Candeleros

Desert views

We walked 2 miles on a dirt road to the village of Ligui.

Even though the village is super-small, there was still a teensy-weensy Catholic church.

church doors

We went inside, where a Jesus statue unlike any I've seen in Latin America greeted us.

Jesus loves bowling?

I know THIS Jesus loves bowling, but the original?

Actually, upon closer inspection I'm assuming that is our beloved Planet Earth that Jesus is holding, not a bowling ball. It's the fact that there are no landmasses and it's completely covered in water that threw me. 

Maybe Jesus is warning us about climate change in the little Ligui statue?

This little rowboat near the beach was named "Rosebud." Maybe it's from 

Charles Foster Kane's little known "Sea of Cortez" period? 

Flowers in the middle of the desert!

After a couple of days at Candoleros, we sailed north again.

We passed gorgeous mountains and rock formations as we sailed north

Next stop: Puerto Escondido.

We gassed up and did some shopping at the small Puerto Escondido tienda

You can anchor or grab a mooring here (both the same price -- $17US), and it's the place to be in a hurricane due to the excellent protection. But except for the tienda, laundry and internet, there's really nothing here. So we moved north.

Next stop: the Loreto waterfront

Since the conditions were calm, we anchored overnight here with several other boats 

and provisioned at the Ley Supermarket.

The town of Loreto is 400 years old 

From Loreto, we sailed only 6 miles north to our next destination: Isla Coronados.

Espiritu and several other boats settled in amidst the volcanic beauty of Isla Coronados

Tricia of Interabang leads us ashore on the 

lovingly maintained trail

Wood path to beach

View from the top. Chris looks down at the fleet, thinking "How did we get here?"

Happy 

Red kayaks

Dinghy and seagull

We spent a lovely afternoon with our old friends Derek and Tricia aboard Interabang. They're mentoring us regarding the ins 'n' outs of Baja Rummy -- a complicated, multi-deck card game of which mastery is sort of a prerequisite to be welcomed into the Sea of Cortez cruising community. 

What? You don't play Baja Rummy? Yes! Yes, we do!!!!

We're unclear whether it is legal or not to spearfish in these National Park islands around Loreto. We do know the fish counts in general are down -- way down -- so there are limits to commercial fishing for sure. Some say spearfishing here is OK as long as you have a license (which we all do), and other's say it's no longer allowed. Chris and I chose to simply enjoy the beauty and wait until we get farther north to spearfish again.

But some buddy boats here did hit the reefs...

The boys on family boats Cielo Grande and Shonigan speared several fish, 

and brought us a still wiggling grouper as a gift!

Wow.  Well, we of course accepted with gratitude, and we're still 

dining on her (him?) as of this writing. 

Speaking of s/v Shonigan, their  spirited and adorable 13 year old daughter 

Nina showed me her "room" aboard.

Teenager Nina's "room" aboard (AKA the v-berth)

So that's it for now. We're meeting new friends every day as we continue to sail north along southeastern Baja. More later! Hasta luego!