Ocean Echo 1: July 2011

Dear Friends

Lower part of Baha peninsula inside the Sea of Cortez is mostly sheltered by larger Islands from Southerly swell. After Loreto the Sea opens up again and S. swell arrives promptly during the summer. It does not need much wind velocity to create short steep swell/waves. Stopping at Isla Coronado was OK, but I decided to continue for an other few hours to Bahia San Juanico. This was a beautiful place with rugged rock formations. How ever the wind was fairly strong and swell was coming into the bay to make anchoring and longer stay difficult. I really enjoyed kayaking around the large rocks and small islands.
I had a good sail to Isla San Ildefonso. North end of this Island had a good anchorage to hide from strong Southerlies over night. I have seen smaller whale shark in the morning hours circling the boat.
Bahia Conception is a largest bay at Baha peninsula. It is a shallow bay approx. 30 km - 15 nm long surrounded by desert mountains, which makes it very warm. Even sea water was little too warm for cool off swim. I have met Geary Ritchie at Playa el Burro. He does weather reports and forecasting on Sonrisa ham net every day for Baha and Pacific coast of Mexico.
I managed to hitch hike from Playa el Burro to Mulege and back. I wanted to see if there was anything new, since my last visit in this little town, which has a small river created by spring water. It is a green oasis in the desert.
Good southerly wind helped me to sail north to Isla San Marcos. Sweet Pea Cove has good protection for Southerly and some shelter for Northerly winds. It is just 20km - 10 nm to Santa Rosalia. Isla San Marcos is very interesting island with a lot of caves and arches along the shoreline. Caleta de los Arcos at Isla San Marcos has a few large caves worth visiting.
Santa Rosalia is an old town with colorful history. Copper mine and smelter are shut down presently. Old church designed by Eiffel was imported from Europe. This is a last town with provisions and general services. I am told, that there is not much to buy up North in Bahia de Los Angeles. There may not be Internet service for next few weeks/months. SSB - Ham radio becomes essential equipment up North.
I have no idea, when is going to be my future entry to this blog. I will let you know.

Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.
I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman sv. Ocean Echo 1