Across to the Baja

It is a 70nm crossing from the Guaymas area to Santa Rosalia on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez.  A little too far for Kialoa to make the crossing during the daylight hours that we get.  So we left Bahia San Pedro and Searover II (who had a guest and would be crossing the sea at a later date)  at 4 pm and prepared for Jays first overnight crossing.  One of the preparations was throwing the fishing lure in the water.  I have been throwing that thing in the water for a year ......almost everytime we were underway.  I never caught a fish.  Jay threw it in the water and had a fish within 20 minutes!  Fish for dinner!
The remainder of the crossing was uneventful and we spent quite a bit of it motoring along in lumpy seas, with an early morning arrival at Santa Rosalia.

Jay and his fish, you can still see land behind us....

Santa Rosalia is an interesting town, essentially built by a French mining company in the 1800s, it retains its mining town feel.  The copper close to the town has been extracted but there are still mining operations going on nearby.

Old wooden buildings, some of which are just barely hanging
in there

Inside of a church, designed by Eiffel, displayed at a world
fair in France and then purchased by the Boleo mining company
 shipped to Santa Rosalia and reassembled, so the story goes.

A portion of the old Smelter building, slowly being reclaimed
by the forces of nature.

We spent several days in Santa Rosalia.  Long enough to get the US election results.  We did not hear any cheering on the dock that night.

There were some american boats that had been drowning their dismay and were not feeling their best the next morning. 

From Santa Rosalia we started heading south with a stop at Isla San Marcos, Punta Chivato and then into Bahia Concepcion.  Jay was keen to see whale sharks and we had talked to one boat that had seen them in the last week.

We were not disappointed!  There were two of them in the same bay where I had seen them last spring.  And we nearly hit one as we were entering the bay.  Luckily it was off to the side but it was a near thing.

The view from a fish camp at Isla San Marcos

Beautiful sailing weather from Punta Chivato
to Bahia Concepcion

Whale shark!  This one was feeding in the bay where we anchored
Its not a very big one!

The chart plotter logs 5000 miles

On leaving Bahia Concepcion the chart plotter turned over 5000 nautical miles.  That felt like an occasion!  We managed to keep the boat at 5 knots and steer 5 degrees as well to keep it all symmetrical.

Shortly after that we caught two fish!  An auspicious day.

It was a fairly long and boisterous downwind sail to Punta Pulpito.  Kialoa was moving really well with a reef in the main and only a little foresail.  What a great boat! Jay was having a fun time even though we had to hand steer the whole trip.  The wind vane was not behaving well and waves were a bit overwhelming for the tiller pilot.

We arrived in Punta Pulpito in the late afternoon and had a happy meet up with some friends from last year.  The crew of Second Safari came over for fish tacos.  We needed help eating up the fish as my little cooler had packed it in.  No more cold beer on Kialoa, that was a sad day!  

Punta Pulpito is a fairly spectacular chunk of rock sticking up from the sea and with its steep drops and rocky base it made for some great snorkeling and fun hiking.

A compass rose?  Ancient cairn or newer pile? There are
cleared camp sites at the top of Punta Pulpito that look like they
have not been used for many many years.  

Early morning at Punta Pulpito