Galapagos Man? Is that you?

I’m not sure how to say this, but we are still in Bahia Magdalena. After my last post I know alert readers will be assuming that this is because of all the beautiful rocks. This time, though, your astute understanding is misplaced. Let me tell you a little story.

Two days ago Michael and I went ashore for an afternoon ramble up the beach and along a trail. We hoped to find an interesting arroyo to explore but the main goal was just getting off the boat and stretching the legs. When we are out exploring we are always on the lookout for signs of death in the desert. It’s not morbid or anything. It’s just that life and death seem a little easy come, easy go here in the desert. We are always finding interesting things that used to be alive. Birds, fish, the occasional sea turtle shell and sea mammals. We approach these things and marvel at the bones and how the desert takes care of any disgusting bits right quick. Everything in the desert feels like it could either be dead at any moment or could kill you. Even the plants take offense to being walked by, some of them actually jumping on you with their many spines. Why we enjoy this is sometimes beyond my comprehension.

Animal skull for your consideration.

As always, I was on my guard for anything that didn’t seem to fit the pattern around it. This is my brain being in a meditative state as I walk along, always on the alert for something interesting. Yes, it’s usually a rock. But not always. My brain began to spin a story on its own, as brains will do when unattended and given little to do. The story went like this: what would happen if we found a dead body out here? To whom would we report that? Would we leave it by itself while we went for help? What would be the Spanish phrases we would use to report such an awful find?  What would the appropriate authority be? How would we contact them? Would they believe us?

To be clear, I was not being morbid and I cannot give you a reason why my mind went to this storyline. I wasn’t worried about anything at all. It just..appeared, as it were..in my head. I scolded myself for allowing such a dark fantasy to unfold but then noted that it really wasn’t anything more than a curiosity, probably caused by all the dead animals we had seen. I put it aside and looked at rocks.

The lovely Crested Caracara. Probably getting ready to kill.  Maybe another day we’ll get a better photo of one. He wasn’t too pleased with us getting closer.

The next day I had to work for a couple of hours. We had planned to leave Mag Bay after my workday was over. It would be one of those dreadful overnights that mean no one will get any rest. I had even made a pot of chili for the passage. But I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t ready to leave, although I could not necessarily put my finger on why. It would be easy to blame my love of beach rocks for this, but that wouldn’t really be true this time. I have enough samples from this area and, as beaches go, the one we were anchored at was not all that intriguing. Some nice porphyries. But other than that, nothing much.  Still, I just didn’t feel ready. Plus the winds were truly howling and while I would rather sail than motor, I knew the seas would be pretty uncomfortable on what would be a dead downwind run. Getting the dinghy and outboard stowed might even be downright dangerous with the amount of wave action happening in the anchorage, which was on the south part of the bay. Apparently Mike wasn’t in that much of a hurry either because he quickly agreed that putting the dinghy up on deck in about 24 knots of wind didn’t sound like good entertainment. So we agreed on one more beach walk and we’d leave the next day. Winds would be fine for sailing, but not quite as boisterous. We went ashore.

Uphill to the desert floor.

We climbed up to the desert floor from the beach and walked around. There was nothing much of interest. So we walked a ways down to the beach level maybe 15 -20 feet below. I noted that the hillside was full of shells, although in this case there were only two varieties: old abalone shells and some sort of clam. I wondered if it might be an old shell midden, especially as the hill was fairly soft sand rather than the rock hard sandstone of the Pacific side of the island. We found a piece of dead sea turtle, then the shell of another one half buried in the sand. Really, I was just meandering with very little direction. The rocks were only mildly interesting at that point.

Deciding to walk further down the beach, I stopped to take a look at something I could see poking out of the sand about two thirds of the way from the beach level to the desert floor. It looked like a piece of turtle shell, and there were other bones around it. I couldn’t tell if they were fossilized, or what kind of animal they came from but because we had just seen turtle remains, that was my thought.

I saw a number of long narrow bones in a bunch sticking up from the sand, like so many drinking straws stored in a tall glass,  and gave one a little tug. Just the slight movement caused a big shifting of the sand holding them upright and they tumbled to the ledge like pick-up sticks. Hmmm, They looked like ribs. Were turtle ribs like that? My eye went to the curved piece of bone on its side in the sand that had caught my eye before. It looked like this was part of the turtle shell. I gave this a little tug. Really, not hard. I just wanted to see if it would move easily. It did. Strangely easily.

The thing suddenly gave way and something rolled off the ledge and onto the beach at my feet. It was truly surprising that such small movements had caused such a big response. It was like the thing threw itself off the ledge. I reached down and turned the thing over.

Yep.

You’d think that words wouldn’t be adequate to describe the shock that was seeing a human skull staring up at me from the sand. And you’d be right. I gave some sort of strangled squeak and yelled out, “Mike! That’s a human being! That’s a human being!”, taking a big step back.  Mike reached out for my arm, but neither he nor I can say why. He said he couldn’t really see the thing from the angle he was looking at and thought he needed more data, although how “That’s a human being” is not enough data is hard for me to fathom. We were both just shocked. First off I noted what nice teeth it had. Shock will do strange things to the mind.  We both took a few breaths as we stared at the blank eye sockets, trying to make sense of this thing. Not. A turtle. After all.

Not feeling happy about leaving it apart from its brethren up on the ledge, I used the pick end of my rock hammer to gently lift it up and replace it. Not exactly where it rolled from, I later realized. But at least with the rest of the bones. Putting the pointy end of my hammer through the eye socket, I felt nothing. Just this blank necessity to get it back up onto the ledge. I can still see the thing in my mind’s eye hooked on the pointy end of my hammer, I’ll never look at that hammer the same way again. Some moments get frozen in time, and that will be one of them.

Turns out what had rolled off the ledge was only the front part of the skull. Just the face. Which completely confuses me. Don’t things need to be round in order to roll?  I believe the bone I had pulled on was part of the back of the skull, which makes me feel mildly ill. I think about those ribs tumbling apart and how strange that was and STILL I DIDN’T SEE THESE AS POSSIBLY HUMAN BONES BECAUSE WHO WOULD THINK SUCH A THING? When I go back through photos I took,  I think to myself that of course they look human. And they look larger than I remember.  But at the time, it literally never occurred to me that we would find human bones in the desert. I guess from now on it will. But I do feel badly that I may have obscured important evidence through sheer ignorance. Where’s a nice sea turtle skeleton that no one cares about when you need one?

“Oh my god! I have the oddest sense of deja vú”, I said to Mike. Like it was surreal the feeling. We have all had those feelings, like we have been somewhere before when we know we haven’t, or we have had a conversation before when it’s the first time, actually. Scientists explain this in terms of how the brain records those things. But that’s only part of the picture and it’s sad to be so reductionist about human experience. I tried to put my finger on the feeling, Was it a dream I had? No, And certainly I had never found a human skeleton before. But then I recalled my little mind worm of a story the day before and it did send a number of chills down my spine. Mr. Galapagos Man? Was that you? Did you want to be found?

No longer interested in exploring, we returned to the boat to plot our next move. I felt unaccountably sad, troubled even, about leaving the skeleton on the beach now that he had been found. This had been a human being. And, naturally, the bones had been there a long time. But still, I felt oddly as though I were somehow responsible for them; like there was some expectation of protection of them laid upon me by forces beyond my reckoning. I realize it’s silly in the light of day, but that was the feeling anyhow and it’s still there. I was hoping that if we could go show someone where he lay, I would feel finished with this chapter, this episode of the travels. But I’ll have to find another way.

Here’s a different and more cheerful beach with no skeletons.  And some mighty fine rocks. 

After contacting our friend Curt Brownlow (retired Coast Guard so he pretty much knows everything about happenings on the sea and also I credit him for the title of this post) we followed his suggestion to call the United States Embassy in Cabo San Lucas. They were so sorry we had experienced this (well, there’s no reason to be sorry. It’s not like we suffered a trauma) and suggested that we go to the Navy Base in Bahia Almejas, just a few miles away. We should report it there and they would know which other authorities to tell.

Linblad Expeditions had one of the National Geographic labeled ships in the area and we tried to contact them via radio. No luck. I thought commercial ships were supposed to have a manned radio but apparently not. This was two strikes for the cruise ships, which we had also tried to hail for a radio check last week. They may have been too far away yesterday, but today we tried to hail another one which was easily within range. Nope. Our hope was that they had some kind of hotline to the Navy base since they operate their cruises in Magdalena Bay all the time, leaving out of Puerto San Carlos. No one would answer the radio on the base, so maybe they had a phone number. BTW, they are leasing the National Geographic moniker, not actually sponsored by National Geographic.

Nothing doing with radio contact, we pulled anchor this morning and left Galapagos Man by himself on the beach, much to my internal distress. I totally wish we had been able to contact someone without leaving the anchorage. That way I would have seen with my own eyes that people had found the bones and would do right by them. But it was not to be. Anchoring in an area marked with an actual anchor on our charts, an area that is listed as an actual known anchorage in both guidebooks (along with comments about friendly Navy personnel who might give permission to go ashore), we called the base on the radio. We called and called and called. Channel 16. Nope. Channel 22. Nope. 11?12?Nope and nope. Try 16 again, double nope.  Honestly, getting people to answer a damn VHS radio in these parts is extremely frustrating.  But we figured since they were military, they already knew we were there and knew who we were.

The two communicators.

We were at least partly right as we watched a launch head in our direction. Waving them to the boat with all the friendly ‘Yes! Please approach us so we may speak to you!’ sign language we could muster , we watched as they circled us completely before pulling alongside. One man spoke fairly decent English, for which I was grateful. He began by saying this was a restricted area but I found myself cutting him off to tell him that we were there to report that we had found an ‘escueleto humano en la play en Isla Magdalena sur!’. (A human skeleton on the beach of the south part of Magdalena Island)  If only I’d had a camera for his expression! “You found a body???”.  No, no, señor, uno escueleto. No body. A skeleton of a human.  He confirmed our meaning a couple of times. Now, I speak muy poquito Español, but I do know how to use Google translate. When I say ‘escueleto’ I mean skeleton.

Out came the radio to communicate this to his commander. (So. Their radio DOES work. In fact, they did hear us calling them on the base. They just chose not to answer. We think they sent the launch because this one seaman speaks English.) After a long back and forth with many questions and an opportunity to show photos of the find and then airdrop them to an iphone for the commander to view, it was decided that they needed to board our boat to inspect it. Well then, welcome aboard, seaman. Come on down.

At this point they wanted our travel papers and we took that opportunity to not be able to find them, even though they are always in the same place: a blue notebook in a certain location. I think the stress was catching up with us as neither of us could think clearly. Mike finally found the damned notebook exactly where it was supposed to be. They photographed everything in the notebook and then photographed the salon of our vessel. Fine. Too bad it was messy but that’s what you get when you drop in unannounced to visit people who have been at anchor for many weeks and only wish to do the right thing by the skeleton on the beach. The fellas felt badly about intruding but honestly, we didn’t care much.

It was a wild hope that they would take us back to the beach with them and allow us to show them where to look. I would have liked to say goodbye to the bones that used to be a person and that somehow chose me to find them. But my hopes were dashed when the young radio man asked if we had GPS coordinates for the location of the skeleton and Mike confirmed that we did. Now, I would absolutely have lied to the guy and said so sorry we don’t have coordinates, alas, to force them to let us go with them and show them ourlselves. But Mike isn’t the liar I am and he cannot lie with a straight face. I blame his mother.  Also Mike is ex-military, so there’s that.  Good lord, my husband, who is supposed to be on my side in these things,  actually showed the seaman on our Navionics chart plotter where he had made some kind of little icon to indicate where we found Galapagos Man. The trouble is that I am also ‘ex-military’ in that I grew up in the military and that’s how I learned the necessity of a good lie. It’s pretty much the only way to survive a military childhood. Regardless, the commander sent a launch to find Mr. Galapagos without the nosy Americans who find dead skeletons on their beach and cause all kinds of trouble and probably paperwork as well. I watched them go, filled with unaccountable sadness and maybe a little rage.

After they left, the port commander’s office radioed us and confirmed all the information about us and our boat, just to be sure. Then they told us we could not anchor there for the night and we would have to leave. I mean, thankfully it was only 2 miles up to Puerto Alcatraz. Against the 18 knots of wind and with those 18 knots against the outgoing current. All I have to say is this: those cruise books are outdated. I cannot even imagine asking to go ashore there, something both books referenced. Things change and so if you are heading down Baja way, do not expect to be warmly welcomed by the Navy in Almejas Bay. Even if you are there to report a dead countryman,

Now we are waiting to know whether anyone will bother to tell us what will happen to Galapagos Man. Is he old? How old? Is he from the indigenous people who lived here eons ago? Or is he more recent?  He doesn’t seem that old, but how do I know? Do we know how he died? Was this an intentional burial? Are there more people buried there? Were those shell middens we saw? We had hoped that when the launch returned from investigating they would stop by our boat and let us know they found him. But they didn’t.

After over an hour of searching, I finally found an email address for the commander at that base. I emailed him and requested information and a contact where we could follow up. Maybe he will get the email and reply, or maybe my email will enter the black hole that exists for my emails when I do things like email Mexican marinas using their own contact forms. They disappear, never to be seen or replied to. Or maybe he’ll ignore me like he did our radio calls. I’m pretty sure it’s the language barrier that gave him pause, and this I understand. I’ll give him a couple of days before going to Plan B.

Plan B is to contact a researcher I found on line, one who works for the Mexican government, if I can find an email address for her. Curt recommended we get a port captain to call the navy base at our next stop, so we can try that if we can communicate with them easily. Always a little luck of the draw, that.

Not human bones. Sea lion clavicles and spine.

We were supposed to leave two days ago. Then this happened and now we have missed our wind window. Tomorrow looks like it will be a motor boat ride. The seas will be extra sloppy with so little wind since it’s blowing like stink tonight. It’s not like we are really in a hurry, but we also feel overdue for leaving. We’ll wait and see what things look like in the morning.  But if we don’t go, maybe we’ll go anchor over by  Galapagos Man again so we can say goodbye, even though it’s actually quite a long way to go. I’m pretty sure he’s still there. Waiting for people to do right by him.

Edited: I have removed a number of photos to help protect the location of these remains.

S/V Galapagos, standing by and ANSWERING THE DAMN RADIO, on channel 16/22

 

Ancient Lands

 

It’s been HOW LONG since I posted to this blog? While I freely admit that I have always had a rather sketchy relationship with time, out here on the wild seas the weeks absolutely fly by without much notice. The last time I checked in on the blog, we had just been planning to cross the Vizcaíno Bay to Isla Cedros. This we did, and it was a great crossing.  We caught a Bonito. We threw him back. I don’t like Bonito and am waiting for a Dorado. The seas have, overall, been way too big to go fishing via sailboat. But maybe soon.

Truly a beautiful place, Isla Cedros.

Isla Cedros is now my favorite place in this world. In case you are wondering why, it’s probably not because of anything you’d think likely. It isn’t the beauty of the scenery, or the isolation from crowded anchorages. It’s not even the access to a town, which we never visited.  No, to be completely frank, it’s because of the rocks. This is an ancient land with many big geological events forming its landscape over eons of time. And it has the rocks to prove it.

Yes, I know I have posted about rocks before and I refuse to apologize or make excuses. My family knows all too well that I will go a very long way and go to a lot of trouble, not to mention carrying an extremely heavy backpack, in order to bring home interesting rocks. My parents, long did they suffer, endured my childhood whereby I was always trying to carry more rocks than the military would allow in a housing allowance. Beginning at the tender age of 2 years when I collected my first specimen (a piece of road tar encrusted with gravel that I believe I still possess) I have loved, admired, and, yes, collected rocks and minerals. I have… a lot of them at this point.  Many. Many rocks. I might even know the names of some of them.

I am happiest right here at the top of a ridge. In fact, I may be filled with glee in this photo taken by my long-suffering husband of many years. I probably have a fossil in view. Rarely do I post a photo of myself but I want to remember this day after all the bruises are gone.

As a child, I wanted nothing more than a rock house with rock furniture. My father asked if I would also eat rocks for breakfast. I said yes. Recently I saw an advertisement for house built into the side of a hill and the home was actually made from a cave. I am enchanted. It’s all I ever dreamed of. Somehow, I was born this way and at this point in my life I fully embrace it (not that this attitude is new) and make zero apologies for bringing tens of pounds of rocks onto my very vessel, weighing it down unmercifully. Sure, ‘tens of pounds’ is a dramatic understatement. I don’t care. What’s an extra 2-300 pounds when it comes to love? I refuse to post a photo of the cockpit after one of my collecting expeditions. People would start asking questions they have zero business asking.

I don’t know if I have mentioned this at all, but there is nothing my family can do to show their love for me better than to give me a gift that is rock related. In the past year alone I have received a rock tumbler,  a new rock hammer (see above photo), and two awesome field guides to rocks and minerals.  The hammer replaces the one my father bought me when I turned 16, the year he took me hunting for rocks in Maine. That one is too old for me to wield now because I’m afraid I will break it and it’s a relic that reminds me that my parents, too, loved me and understood (or at least supported?) my passion. Actually, now that I think about it, nothing says ‘I love you’ more fully than a gift that supports someone’s passion, even when you don’t understand or share it with them. I have also received a folding shovel from Michael, about as thoughtful a gift as I can imagine. I use it all the time; a dead useful item for stabilizing an aging body as we make our way down steep, rocky terrain and down into arroyos where the most interesting specimens can be found. There may be bruises, there may be soreness, but these things will heal so fast when the heart is glad.

The Eye of God rock. A huge sandstone rock that will surely fall at the next slight earth tremor. We climbed above it, hoping to get a closer view,  and ended up on a plateau.

On the plateau, the ground was littered with volcanic rocks. Literally some of them looked like they had been molten lava  just the day before even though they had been laying there for thousands, if not millions, of years. Each rock could tell a story of heat, pressure, and release from the earth. Good thing those same rocks did not litter the side of the hill we climbed. They were quite sharp!

Anyway, due either to good fortune or to the Gods of Rocks and Minerals being on my side, we anchored off the east coast of Isla Cedros not in a marked anchorage, but in an area that turned out to be exactly where several different geological formations overlay each other. What good fortune!  I could not have been more ecstatic. All of the major rock groups were represented: igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary. They were all there. Hills of gypsum encrusted with  great sheets of crystal forms sparkled in the sun. Huge agates rolled under my feet on the beach. (I KNOW, RIGHT? They were everywhere!)  Where the gypsum hills and a different sandstone formation came together we found the fossils of ancient sea life, including huge oyster shells. They were pink! Joy bubbles up just thinking about it! The very idea of standing on an ancient sea bed, literally millions of years old! It boggles the mind.

Such a big concretion. I wonder what’s inside. Probably a totally cool fossil or two. Unfortunately this concretion was about the size of a large kitchen sink.

We spent several days anchored there exploring, then moved to anchor further south when the winds from the north picked up. The more southern location sported the same blue schist that Catalina Island is known for, as well as volcanic rocks like tuff.  There were a very few small sandstone rocks that reminded me a lot of the ones we saw at Goat Bay on Catalina Island; the ones that looked like they were painted by design.  We stayed at that location for a day, climbing up to the top of a ridge to walk an ancient plateau littered with sharp volcanic debris.  When the wind died down we went back up to the first anchorage because there was a wide alluvial plain we needed to explore for some easy hiking and the fossil beds were still calling my name for a more vertically challenging adventure.

See what I mean? This sandstone pebble is so out of place. It was found way up from the beach among other rocks. Where was I, even? Catalina Island?

That Blue Schist! It’s so gorgeous.

Just more stunning landscapes on Isla Cedros in the alluvial plain.

After maybe 8 glorious days on Isla Cedros we decided we could not, after all, live there and did a two night passage down to Magdalena Bay where we currently sit until winds fill in again, which they are currently doing. And, of course, the best thing so far about this place is the rocks. I’ll have to do a separate post with a ton of photos of the beautiful boulders along the trail across to the Pacific side of Isla Magdalena.

The two day passage from Isla Cedros to Magdalena Bay was trying. We had enough wind to sail, thankfully, but the seas were plenty sloppy and big and almost directly behind us. We rolled around tiresomely while making way, tweaking our heading back and forth to maintain some sense of equilibrium. Approaching Cabo San Lazaro on the outside of the bay the seas got even bigger so I just stopped looking at them. I mean, what is one to do? No sense staring at the waves waiting for them to break over the stern. Either they will, or they won’t. They didn’t.  We scooted into Bahia Santa Maria to stop for the night and get some rest after the two night passage with no sleep between us to speak of. Enjoy some photos from the passage:

Our first sighting of Bird on Turtle action. Probably a bit blurry. We were moving fast and I had little time to grab this photo.

The ever graceful Black Footed Albatross.

Classic whale tail.

If you’ve read between the lines you’ll see we are not in a hurry. That’s beause we have had to put off our Pacific Crossing until next season. There are a lot of reasons for this, but over all it just isn’t our time. We were feeling rushed and not ready. We also don’t really think the boat is ready. There are a number of tweaks we need to make to the sailing systems, as well as some healthcare issues that we’d like completed before we go. Let’s just say that small things add up and so we will be in Mexico for now. At first we felt pretty down hearted about it. But on the other hand, we are relieved to have made the conscious decision to wait, even if it means we are risking not being able to go at all.

Honestly, we are having a lot of fun in Mexico and I would be sad to not be able to explore these rock strewn hills, which I missed doing the first time around. We are not sure exactly where we will land after Magdalena Bay. We’ll see what the weather decides for us. Meanwhile, the rocks sing to me of their presence and I hear them and answer the call.

This glorious color! The red is a lichen.

One more, with the mother ship in the distance.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on 16 and 22 and hoping every cruiser keeps their radio on.

 

Small Hopes

We’ve been cruising down the outside of the Baja via Vizcaíno Bay; a stretch of water whose reputation precedes it. Local winds higher than predicted? Check. Local winds lower than predicted? Check. Seas rougher than we thought they would be? Double check. Anchorages that offer little protection from the prevailing NW winds and seas? Not so fast.

While this stretch of coast is also known as the coast of ‘little hopes’; referencing the many small bites in the land that can barely be referenced as ‘anchorages’, our experience has been that, at least during this trip, we have found not only good holding, but also mostly a good night’s sleep. The only thing small about the hopes along this coastline have been the hopes that we would ever get to go to shore and explore the myriads of beautiful beaches and their accompanying rock formations. Those hopes were small because the rompientes, a Spanish word which means breaking surf, was muy grande in each and every anchorage. I mean, we know we are on the coast of the wild ocean but at some point we hoped for at least a large enough rock along the shore that we could scoot behind to land Sea Pony, our trusty True Kit dinghy.

View from the boat. San Carlos anchorage. Beach landing, anyone? Hard pass.

After reaching Isla San Jeronimo and being turned away from shore by the workers on the island, who explained that the island was protected and we could not land and walk around (Huge disappointment. Not small.) I found myself becoming hopeful for a miracle of beach combing at each additional stop, only for my hopes and dreams to be dashed expertly by the desire to stay alive for one more day. It’s not that the dinghy cannot handle a surf landing. It’s that I probably can’t, at least not with a heavy engine on the back of the little boat. If the water were only 10 degrees warmer I would willingly swim to shore and feel safer. But out here where we are literally the only cruising boat and we have no one to help us if we get ourselves in trouble; we just can’t risk it. Even for interesting rocks.

So this begs the question: how did we find ourselves here on this wild coast and not doing the route most people take, which is an overnight sail to Isla Cedros from points north, skipping this entire area altogether?  I’d like to say it’s because the Galapagos crew likes a challenge. Or that following the guide book is just not our style. I mean, last time we sailed down here, we skipped this part altogether by diverting to Isla Guadeloupe in search of more elephant seals. Alas. The real answer is much more mundane than that. It began with what can only be termed complacency. Every sailor knows that complacency is the enemy. And yet we all get used to living this way and even old salts like us forget to ask ourselves ‘What are we overlooking today? What decisions could we be making that would make our lives easier, not harder?”. One small decision. And then the rest kind of falls into place.

Unforgiving, but so beautiful.

That decision we made was, by default, to hoist the dinghy up behind the boat on its davits and tie it securely. After all, we are ‘coastal cruising’, right? We are not doing any offshore passages. If you were to ask us, “Team Galapagos, would you ever, in your wildest dreams consider towing a dinghy on an offshore passage, or even leaving it on the davits on the stern of the boat?” we would have been absolutely insulted by the question. The implications of that question would have had a profound effect on our feelings of self esteem; that you thought we were somehow stupid or prone to just in general being yahoos. And yet, here we are. Feeling like chumps.

The winds at Isla San Jeronimo were light on the morning in question. We left with a blue sky and a song in our hearts, having decided to do the dreaded overnight to Isla Cedros, dinghy hanging smartly on the back of the boat. I was not excited about this upcoming passage because I hate overnights of a single night. They drag on, the moon was a crescent so it wouldn’t shed much light, and no one gets sleep. The next day feels a lot like jet lag.

We never even got to go ashore here. Isla San Jeronimo. So disappointed.

But we were committed as we set a course for well outside the horrible, terrible, very bad and dangerous Sacramento Reef, completely ignoring the fact that this passage was, by definition, an offshore passage across 55 miles or so of open water. By the time the island was behind us, the winds had begun to be reasonable for sailing and we put out the headsail, going downwind at a nice clip. All was well until the following seas got bigger. And then even bigger. And experienced offshore sailors know what we began to fear. They intuitively understand the locked-jawed look my dear husband was sporting right about then.

That’s right. Looking behind us as wave after wave bore down on our unprotected and vulnerable Sea Pony, we saw the bottom of her inflatable tubes begin to skim the water as swells rose up underneath her. Our stress levels began to rise. My teeth began to clinch. At that point we knew: we had made a critical error. We had been in ‘default’ mode and things were absolutely no bueno. If the dinghy took a breaking wave, it could be ripped off the davits. It could, at the very least, cause damage to the dinghy and to Galapagos. Even the sailing wasn’t fun as the waves had started breaking behind us and the interval between waves was short.

Mr. Handsome at Isla San Jeronimo

Even on a good day, it would have been a challenge to sail in those conditions in the direction we were going. The old fun/suck ratio began to swing alarmingly into the ‘this sucks’ realm. We absolutely live to check the weather and usually what we see on the ground, as it were, jives with the forecasts. Somehow, though, this caught us off guard. Were the waves supposed to be this steep? Was the interval supposed to be this short? As a rule we would whip out our phones or the tablet and check the weather again, but what is the use?  Here we were. I imagine that the sea floor topography in this area makes predicting things like wave patterns more challenging. This direction we were heading was going to cause all kinds of grief.

So we stopped going in that direction. Checking the chart I saw that one of our ‘bailout locations’ was available to us.  Since we were past the reef, we could turn to port, get the wind and swells on our aft quarter instead of right behind us, and find anchorage and peace of mind around Punta San Carlos. Now, to be fair to us, we generally have multiple plans so that if something happens we have a backup idea of what to do. Setting this different course allowed the boat to sail better and more comfortably, which relieved some stress. The seas were still of concern but we were sailing fast enough to just barely stay ahead of the breaking waves (and only every few sets did they break on this trajectory) and as long as I didn’t keep my eyes glued to the dinghy I could contain my anxiety about it.  We saw winds as high as 30 knots but, of course, Galapagos loves that. It’s just her owners who prefer tamer conditions. The anchorage was about 10 miles away, so it would take a little over an hour to get there.

Rounding the low point at the head of the San Carlos anchorage, there were sighs of relief all around as we furled in the headsail and motored slowly into the shallower water to drop the hook, well in the lee of the land. We found 10 feet of water under the keel and dropped 100 feet of chain, plus an extra 30 feet with the anchor snubber, just for good measure. Based on the reviews of the anchorage Michael had read, and the guidebooks we had, we didn’t expect to have the peaceful night that awaited us.

Feeling happy to be out of those conditions.

Honestly, I’m not sure what people expect in an anchorage off this coast in order for it to be given some kind of a gold star in the guidebooks. “Small hope”, indeed. It’s the Pacific freaking ocean. Yes, there will be swells. Sometimes pretty big ones. There might even be wind, especially in the afternoon! It’s possible that you will have some rolling of the boat overnight, so it’s ok to expect that. Considering that we came into this anchorage running from winds gusting to 30 knots and following seas big enough they were cresting way too close for comfort, I’m not sure how much worse it needs to be for this to be considered a great anchorage. All I know is that Michael’s worry about whether we were going to be ‘disappointed’ in this anchorage turned pretty fast to a real sense of relief as the anchor bit deep into the sand,  we deployed the trusty Magma swell reducer, and then settled in for a peaceful night’s sleep.

The following day we put the dinghy in the water and drove around for a bit, hoping for a safe landing somewhere but it was not to be. And a good thing, too. Even if we had been able to land safely, I doubt we would have been able to get off the shore again until the winds died down at night. Just say ‘no thanks’ to crashing surf. Back at the big boat,  dinghy tied down on the deck, I decided I like it this way. It makes a great place to ride the bow.  Can’t say we don’t learn from our mistakes.

My new ride.

In all we have stopped at three anchorages along this coast of small hopes. Punta Blanca offered excellent holding and beautiful scenery in exchange for some rolling around. The swells can be big, so anchor well out from shore and put out a lot of chain. Currently sitting in Santa Rosalillita, I think this is the worst of the three. The marked anchorage is close to the town, but we found that the swells and breaking waves were too sporty for comfort there, especially since the water was fairly shallow. We found it to be better in about 30 feet of water, at the SE edge of town, close to where the camper vans park. Out here the swells can ride under us and it’s quite comfortable even though the boat rises and falls remarkably, adding sometimes 6 feet to the depth here.  (I am reminded of the anchorage is Isla San Benedicto, well offshore from mainland Mexico, where the swells added 15 feet to our depth each time we rode up and over one. These are not quite that bad.) We’re also far enough,, about half a mile,  from the thundering surf that it doesn’t ramp up our nervous systems hearing that constant roar.

This is our setup for the swell reducer. It hangs off the end of the boom and we use a preventer to pull the boom out from the hull. We can get it set up in less than 10 minutes.Wish we had two of them.

Do plan to enter these anchorages with plenty of daylight on your side. Not only are most of the charts for this area way off, sometimes dangerously so, but fishermen leave floats in the bays and good luck seeing them, even in broad daylight. At night you would be at their mercy.

And speaking of fishing floats, if you decide to follow in our wake, a reminder that fishermen do frequent these waters close in to shore, and, just like the crab pots back in our home waters, you’ll find floats marking the spots where traps or even long lines have been left behind.  And just like back home, it’s not the floats that you FIND that cause a problem. It’s the ones you don’t find, usually because either you are not looking, or because they are black and blend in with the sea in a strangely uncanny way (Black? Really?? Why??), or because they are actually just underneath the surface of the water and you can’t see them until they find your hull. And that’s how we picked up this bad boy in about 120 feet of water, on our way out to deeper parts.

A slimy heavy line. Yuck. We got really lucky with how this turned out.

It was unfortunate that we happened to be motoring at the time. But Michael was instantly at the helm and throwing the engine in neutral. The sound of something scraping the underside of your hull is straight up a sickening sound. There was almost no wind, but there are always swells around here. With no dinghy on the back of the boat (yay, we’re smart again!) we could clearly see that now we were trailing a line. That’s not really something anyone wants to see. Was it just caught? Was it wrapped? Would Michael have to get in the water? Because that is a dangerous proposition out here. And yes, it would have to be Michael because this maneuver would require strength I just do not have. The water is cold, and we have a big steel swim step that rises and falls with the swells. You do not want to be underneath that thing when it comes down. Whatever we could do to keep him out of the water would be the best thing. Still, he put on the offshore life vest (in case he fell), tethered himself to the pad eye on the back of the boat (installed for exactly this scenario), and stepped onto the swim step, wrapping a leg around the ladder for stability.

I handed him the boat hook, hoping he could hook the offending line and pull it up. Through a massive show of manly strength where in I swear I saw weasels rip his very flesh, he got the slimy thing up and I held it with the hook while he managed to get it around a hard point on the boat to keep it from sliding back into the water. All without losing a limb or even a finger, although he did get a few dunkings in the cold ocean. Handy knife at the ready he cut the offending line free of whatever evil it was attached to and it receded into the deep like a kraken.

This magazine cover is a favorite.

In the past, when we have been unlucky enough to grab something on the prop, we have been able to get it off by putting the engine in reverse in short bursts. Would it work this time? It did! Two very quick bursts of engine reverse and Michael was able to pull the line free. No harm, no foul. No pun intended. (Those of you who have room for a line cutter on your shaft should consider yourselves lucky. We have zero room for anything like that but sure wish we did.)

Crisis averted this time, we made a hard right and scurried out to deeper water instead of using the more gradual approach we had been on. Spooked, I stood watch on the bow.

The sun’s going down over the anchorage. Hoping for an easy passage to Isla Cedros tomorrow. We’ll probably be there a few days waiting for the big low north of us to stop throwing huge swells our way. Maybe we can even go ashore. I have a small hope.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on Channels 16 and 22, even though there’s no one else out here to talk to.

First fish of the season and we threw him back. This is either a Bonito or a Black Skip Jack, but either way, we do not care for them.