Bahia Magdalena: November 25th - December 1st, 2023

Coming into Magdalena Bay.

Hi Everyone! Yes! In today’s blog we continue to inch closer to the tip of Baja California! Unfortunately, I’m a little under the weather, as I type this, scrambling to get it out on time. So please excuse any typos or things that don’t make sense. 😃 You can point them out in the comments below & I will try to answer anything that may have confused you. Anyway, let’s get on with the story.

On Saturday afternoon, Matt got 4 vats of water filled during 2 runs to shore. Then we left San Juanico. About an hour into our departure, Harriet, our auto-pilot, decided to act up & stopped doing her proper job. So Matt had to work on her for a while. Thankfully he was able to get her back on track after some surgery.

It was another long overnighter sail. We were off to Bahia Santa Maria. It was uneventful & fairly calm. -This is always good!

Harriet undergoes surgery.

We made it to Santa Maria Bay in the late morning. And it started to rain. So the day was spent inside MerSea cleaning up & fixing whatever needed to be fixed. There wasn’t much at the bay so we were going to leave & sail to Man of War Cove the next day. It’s inside of the more protected Bahia Magdalena.

Moonset & sunrise at same time!

We left a little after 8AM for Man of War Cove inside Bahia Magdalena. It took us much longer to get to our destination due to the current coming against us right after getting into the bay.

It was a fairly pretty bay. We anchored fairly close to the shore. Matt got the dinghy out & then we went to a restaurant, as far as I know the only restaurant, in the bay. The food was pretty delicious. And the view was awesome. -We could keep an eye on our boat while eating.

Scenes from our way to Man of War Cove. -Including Matt restoring Harriet back to her position.

Approaching Man of War Cove.

Man of War Cove.

The day after reaching Man of War Cove, we saw that it was going to be a fairly pleasant day. So we decided to get up to San Carlos to get more diesel. This is a crazy process. It’s super shallow. Actually, it’s basically an estuary. The nice thing is that the buoys, put up to direct you what path to stay on so you don’t run aground, are very well taken care of & in great working order. We were going against the current though so this made just going about 10 miles feel like it was 20.

Annoyingly, there are no good anchor options in the San Carlos area. The tides switch tremendously. We basically saw a woman walking on water in the area that was designated for anchoring. Err. So we anchored on the other side of the channel. Although it felt like we were in the middle of the channel. Thankfully, it’s not a well used waterway so larger boats are fairly infrequent there.

We decided that we would just stay for the night & figure out what to do in the morning. However, while we were deciding this, the anchor rode made the decision to wrap around the keel. Matt had to spend over an hour of fixing this & then putting out a second anchor. Needless to say, he did not sleep most of the night & I didn’t sleep well either.

Sunrise in Man of War Cove

Matt’s fishing line keeps getting twisted & gnarled.

Approaching San Carlos.

We woke up to a much calmer morning & were surprised by a panga, full of fisherman, offering to sell us a few different sea creatures. Matt chose the lobsters, which were small, so he purchased 7 of them. They looked fresh & they didn’t smell. Therefore they hopefully were edible. I can’t exactly remember what they cost but I do remember that it was a good deal. Matt paid them in pesos & galettas, or cookies, which they asked for specifically. There’s nothing more adorable than a bunch of fishermen asking for cookies at 8:30AM in the morning!

There’s lobsters in our galley! And then there were lobsters for breakfast!

We really needed to leave San Carlos. There was no way we wanted to spend one more night there. So we took off & were going to leave without getting fuel but Matt changed his mind & became determined to be able to dock somewhere & go into town, quickly to pick up some diesel.

A guy answered Matt’s VHF call & instructed us to go to the dock where the huge boats tie up to. I won’t go into details but it wasn’t exactly a dock made to fit our tiny boat. We all made it work though. Matt even encountered a guy who offered to fill up our water containers for a good price!

We hurriedly went into town. I say hurriedly because we only paid for about 2 hours to keep our boat at the dock & it turned out that the place to get fuel was much farther away than we thought.

When we returned to the boat, the tide had lowered; I mis-calculated this, & now our boat was further below the dock than it had been before. Matt had to set up a climbing system so we could all safely lower ourselves & items to MerSea. Never a dull moment!

Poor MerSea! She was basically banging into the wall of the dock. There was such a strong current/tide that it was really hard to pull away & I managed to seriously tweak our barbecue grill when departing. And not sure, but either the banging against the dock or pulling our boat away from the dock, bent our stanchion. -The one we recently replaced! Like I said, never a dull moment!

Prince Zephyr & his man-servant, Daddy-Matt.

The mile high boat dock! Not good for boats that are half a mile high or less!

Luckily we did finally make it back to Man of War Cove as night was coming in. Not the easiest to anchor in but we managed it.

Around 5AM we woke up to, or actually Matt woke up to, a loud boom! And then, I woke up to Matt being a little distressed. He saw that our dinghy lines had broken off from the boat & that our dinghy was floating away!

He had me shine a flashlight on the dinghy so that we wouldn’t lose its path in the darkness. However, during this time he noticed that a backstay had broken! Don’t worry though there wasn’t a 3rd catastrophe happening. Just the 2. So that was good.

He sent out a call for help, I remind you that this was at 5AM, to other cruisers or pangas that might be up & if they saw a random floating dinghy to give us a call on the VHF.

Amazingly, a panga was out & about that was going to take people out to see some whales. And it stopped by to ask if they could help. They went off & then came back & said that they had seen a dinghy. They wanted to know if they could take Matt over to it on shore so that he could make sure it was ours. Only about 5 - 10 minutes later did they come back with Matt & our dinghy! So amazing!

And the miracles didn’t stop there. An hour or so later, a guy came by & said hello & introduced himself. His name was Gord & he said he would help us. So he came back with some tools & parts & help Matt fix the backstay!

Waking up to more fun!

Matt coming back with the dinghy & our panga & a bunch of new friends!

Broken backstay.

Fixed backstay. -Thanks Gord, from Dream Reach!

We have been truly blown away on this voyage! There are human angels everywhere! -Or are they human? We’ve been so lucky at the generosity & help that has come our way. Everything seems to have a happy solution that comes into place along with a new friend or a meaningful encounter. Not sure what we’ve done to earn these blessings but we hope we can pass on the love to others that are in need!

“I’ll have a shot of tequilia & a taco. My designated driver, here, will have a glass of milk.”

Thanks for reading! And for watching the YouTube videos! Not sure what will be in store for next week. We actually got our Starlink but will have to see how well it works in deserted anchorages. -Which we will be in next week. Here’s hoping that we can connect with you again next Wednesday!