After breakfast, emptying the garbage, paying our bill at the marina and getting the cabin ready for sea, we departed Marina Santa Rosalia at about 10:00 AM, right on schedule. The planned trip for the day was to Bahia Puerto Viejo on the southern end of Isla San Marcos. The distance was 21 nautical miles and we expected to be there by about 3:00 PM.
Our favorite travel days are the ones when the wind is blowing just right (say 8-15 knots) and from just the right location (putting us anywhere from a beam reach to a broad reach) so that we can sail all the way to our destination without drama. Those conditions rarely seem to happen for us. Our second most favorite mode would be a flat calm day with absolutely no wind, forcing us to motor all the way. Any reasonable combination of the above would be our third most favorite travel conditions. Today fell squarely into our second favorite mode. The only wind we saw until about an hour before we anchored, was created by our moving through the atmosphere. Dead on the nose. No worries: hoist the main to minimize roll, set the engine to 2200 RPM, engage the autopilot and sit back and enjoy the ride.
The weather was great, especially considering it’s early February. It was t-shirt and long pants weather all the way. Our cockpit thermometer, which is generally in the shade, registered around 76 degrees. The sea was pretty smooth except for the long period swells that made being topside more enjoyable than being down below.
Like I said, about an hour before we made the turn into the bay, the north wind piped up. We were so close and about to fall under the lee of the island that it wasn’t worth rolling out the jib and, in fact, we struck the main before the wind got high enough that we’d have to point into the wind to drop it. We entered the anchorage and started looking for our spot. Pretty easy to choose since there were no other boats here. The bahia isn’t as deep (meaning from front to back, not water depth) as it appeared on our cruising guide but it’s plenty deep enough to keep us out of any wind or swell caused by north winds. The water depth dropped to 25′ quite a ways out. We kept going until we were in 15′ of water. We dropped the hook in 15′ and let out 100′ of chain, backed down hard to set the anchor and, at 2:45 PM, declared ourselves planted.
We won’t go ashore until tomorrow but from here it looks fairly interesting. Nice beach and then a road leading up over the ridge to the little gypsum mining community on the other side.
Feels great to be on the move again and it feels really great to be sitting here in a quiet little anchorage instead of a marina.
yodersafloat 
Can’t wait for the photos. You did miss themost important part though, what in the world dd you eat for lunch? 😉
Wish I could remember. Been too many meals since that day: lasagne, pizza, fish tacos, carnitas burritos, even a few times when we had (don’t tell anyone) no lunch at all.