At 0330 the alarm went off. Time to leave Guaymas. Boat Dog Riley was not ready to get up and neither were we. However, with about 90 nm to go we needed to get moving to drop anchor in Bahia Concepcion across the Sea of Cortez on the Baja side before nightfall.
We had decent wind and with the motors help we made good time as we started our trip South. Guaymas and Santa Rosalia are as far North as we plan to go in the Sea of Cortez. Over 660 nm (760 miles) from where we started in Puerto Vallarta, we’ll now start working our way South, hopefully seeing some of the sights we hurried past in our short weather windows in December and January.
First stop and our destination 90 nm to the West is Bahia Concepcion, a large shallow bay on the East coast of Baja. There are a few smaller bays within Bahia that we want to stop and visit. We reached the entrance to the bay Punto Concepcion as the sun was setting. We dropped anchor and immediately put the dinghy in to take boat dog Riley to the beach.
The next morning we continued a few miles further South to a beach named Playa Santispac. Playa Santispac is in Bahia Coyote (a smaller bay in Bahia Concepcion). The beautiful sandy beach was lined with RV’s and there were a couple of palapa restaurants where we took the dinghy in. As we ate dinner and drank margaritas we inquired about the best way to get to the town of Mulege 13 miles up Mexico Highway 1. It turns out our only options were to hitchhike or beg for a ride. Kevin was perfectly willing to hitchhike but Bev managed to score us a ride while talking to some RV-ers who were going in the next day. The reason they had room in their Jeep for us was because one of their travelling friends wasn’t going because she’d been stung by a stingray that day on the same beach that we’d just dragged the dinghy up! Apparently there were hundreds of stingrays all over the shallow water near the beach because it was mating season for them. Yikes! The woman who was stung said stepping on a stingray and being stung was the most painful experience she’s ever encountered. She wasn’t aware that you have to do the “Stingray Shuffle” at these beaches. The “Stingray Shuffle” is sliding your feet through the sand and water and not lifting your feet whatsoever. Stingrays are experts at hiding as you can see in the picture above! Sometimes, all you can see are their tiny little eyes because the rest of their body is buried in the sand.
We learned that the stingrays were near the beach in the morning so we did a “Wild-Kingdom” dinghy ride to see them. There were hundreds of them at this beach. They have a superpower of burying themselves in the sand to become invisible. A short dingy ride from there was a beach that had ancient stone carvings. It was surprising it was a stone’s throw from Mexico Highway 1.
The next day we made our way to San Jaunico. We’ve been there before but only very briefly . We met friends on SV Delaware Girl (Charlie & Wendy) and did some hiking and searched for so-called Apache Tears. These are small pieces of volcanic obsidian that legend says fell from the eyes of Apache warriors being pursued by the Army in the 19th century.
Traveling 20 nm South we visited Ballandra Bay on Isla Carmen. Here we tried to take boat dog Riley for a hike and he encountered a small cactus seed ball that got tangled up in his foot fur. This required some careful work with a pocket knife and scissors to remove. The poor little guy was VERY unhappy and rested the remainder of the day on the boat. He’s back to normal now and ready for more adventures.
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