Punta Abreojos & San Juanico: November 17th - 25th, 2023
I feel like there should be a tumbleweed rolling across the road in this photo.
This week, we arrive at my least favorite place in our voyage so far, Punta Abreojos. To be fair, I didn’t give it much of a chance. I only went ashore 1 time during the 4 full days that we were there. But it was damn hard to get ashore & then the waves from hell came along.
We did get to shore though. -Only due to the amazing skills of Matt! He zoomed us onto the beach following a wave! None of us got wet! Sooo impressive!
On the other hand, that was were I stopped being impressed for most of that day. Nothing was open. To be honest, it felt like a sketchy place. Maybe sketchy is the wrong word. -I didn’t feel unsafe but it seemed like a sad place. -Almost like a ghost town with buildings that looked mostly functional & people that looked like they were not really happy to be there or not really sure why we would be there.
Eventually we did come across a restaurant that was open. And let me say, we felt very lucky that it was! It was 3PM & had just opened up for the afternoon/evening. A woman, Farah, who turned out to be the owner, sat us by the window in front. She was very kind & charming.
She took our order & brought our delicious food! I should have gotten photos but I was too fascinated by her food & her story. She actually ended up sitting with us & told us how she came to live in Punta Abreojos. Her life was pretty fascinating.
However, she was closing down the restaurant. The owner of the building didn’t see eye to eye with her & it just wasn’t feasible for her to continue. Very sad but sooo lucky that we got to be there on that day.
The following day we stayed on the boat & did boat projects. It was too rough to get to shore.
The town may not be too impressive but the sunsets were!
Matt got predictions for the day & next few days. I thought, due to these predictions, it would be a good day to leave. -Even though the predictions I had looked at a few days before didn’t look feasible until Wednesday. On the other hand, he mentioned that the winds at the moment were actually 20 knots! I assumed that was just a very localized wind & that it wouldn’t be so bad once we got away from the anchorage. I was wrong & so was the forecast that came to us through the InReach. We took off & it was horrible. The waves were just too gnarly. I could barely handle steering the boat. I think the waves got up to 10 feet. Just not fun! So we turned around after 4 miles out. Very disappointed. Felt somewhat like a failure but better to be safe than sorry. Mostly glad we could agree when things just didn’t seem safe enough to keep going.
When we anchored again, the waves were so bad we couldn’t do anything besides lay out under the tarp, in the cockpit, for the afternoon. Dark came & then we went inside. We could barely eat. It was the most horrible, violent rocking ever! I can’t really even describe it. We were just rocking in every direction possible & up & down. Very hard to not get injured just moving about the cabin.
Eventually we hunkered down & braced ourselves in the v-berth & watched anything I could think of to somewhat distract ourselves. It was just awful though.
I think the winds & waves started to die down a little at 2AM. We moved to sleeping sideways in the v-berth. so as not to roll too much. I barely slept. Glad that Matt & Zephyr could handle it better than me.
We woke up in fairly calm or much calmer conditions. But the predictions looked horrible again! I went back to sleep for a while after breakfast & sure enough by 2PM everything was bad again. I kept having to remind myself that we weren’t in any real danger & at least we were alive. It wasn’t quite as miserable as the day before but it still sucked!
A little hard to capture, in a photo, the state of the wind & waves during our attempt to leave.
Trying to bear the rolliness & the wind.
On Wednesday the weather was supposed to be good by the end of the day. So Matt went to shore to get fuel & then we took off in the late afternoon. Wind was decent. 15-20 knots. We were going about 5.3 knots. Waves started out about at 5 feet but then kept getting smaller & smaller. And by the middle of the night they were barely there. We sailed on & off with just the genoa. So nice!
Fairly nice overnight motorsail into San Juanico on Thanksgiving Day! Really pretty anchorage & felt more protected than Punta Abreojos. There was only one other boat there, Watercolors. They came by to say hi. They’re a family of 6 from Ventura on a 47’ monosail. They looked like they have been having a lot of fun!
Matt rowed us to shore. It was nice for Zephyr to finally get out to run on beach. We stopped immediately for lunch at the restaurant right on the cliff overlooking the bay. It was nice to get some drinks, food & Wi-Fi & be able to keep an eye on our boat at the same time.
When Matt had left the table to use the restroom, I noticed about four, 13 year old, girls, from the US, try to steal our dinghy. -Maybe not steel our dinghy but try to take it off of the beach into the water! I’m glad I was there to see this happen & that I could get to the edge of the cliff to yell at them. They said that they were sorry & that they thought it was theirs. Really?! I didn’t see them get to the beach in a dinghy. There were no other dinghies around. And our stuff was obviously inside our dinghy. Such bad liars! At least make an effort when you lie! I was much better at it when I was their age.
Matt went ashore 2 times in the morning to get water. -Some for drinking & some to put in the water tank. We were about to take off to all go ashore but the Mexican Navy came over to our boat. They were very nice & polite. -Just wanted to check our paperwork & let us know how to get a hold of them if we needed to.
After they left, we went to shore again. We tried to go to a coffee shop. -Just to visit somewhere new & get some Wi-Fi. However, the place closed right before we got there. So we decided to walk around some & then go back to the same place for lunch again.
There were some beautiful properties there. Not much as far as retail or anything else but it looks like it might be a promising place in a few years. The houses all look fairly new & built with sustainable materials.
After just 2 days, we decided to leave San Juanico. A weather window came up for a sail down to Cabo & we didn’t want to let that pass us by.
And there you have it! We continue to make progress south! It’s a good feeling to be getting closer & closer to the tip of Baja! At this point, we’re ready to get a little bit back into the world of convenience again. -At least for a little while.
Zephyr - thinks he’s hiding from us.
Thanks for reading! Fingers crossed we will be back next week with a new blog post & video to share! Until then, wishing everyone a great start to the New Year!
***Want to make sure you never miss a blog post or video when it comes out? Just sign up for svMerSea Weekly in the form below the comment section. We promise to only bug you once a week!
