Puerto Escondido, Baja California Sur
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| Planned route (schematic) from Puerto Escondido to Puerto Peñasco |
We're leaving Puerto Escondido tomorrow morning to begin our journey to Puerto Peñasco where Intermezzo will be hauled out for an extended refit. It will be a singlehanded trip of about 455nm over the next 20 days or so.
I planned the route to avoid overnight passages and give myself time to enjoy stops along the way and/or wait out weather. I don't want to do any more bashing if I can avoid it. The map shows my schematic route with 10 stops between the start at Puerto Escondido and finish at Puerto Peñasco. We've stopped at some of these places in the past, but the stops north of Bahía Los Angeles are all new to me. The stops are:
- Isla Coronados (first time)
- Caleta San Juanico (2017)
- Punta Chivato (2017)
- Santa Rosalia (2015, 2017)
- Bahía San Francisquito
- Isla Partida (first time)
- Puerto Don Juan (2017)
- Puerto Refugio (first time)
- Bahía San Luis Gonzaga or Bahía Willard (first time)
- San Felipe (first time)
I'm looking forward to this trip and sailing solo. I still struggle with loneliness at times, but I've grown to enjoy solitude and sailing on my own tests and hones my skills. It seems like pretty easy going this time of year, now that the strong north winter winds are over. The tidal range in the northern Sea of Cortez can be as great as 20 feet, though. I'm curious to observe the tides' effect on currents and sea state. I'll be very careful with where I anchor and how much anchor rode I let out, too.
Intermezzo is in good shape, all cleaned up and organized after the last cruise. We're a bit light on provisions as the taxi fare to and from Loreto to get to a grocery story is over $60 USD, so I bought what I could find in the little store at the marina. I plan on more extensive re-provisioning when I get to Santa Rosalia, which has a supermarket, not great quality, but good enough.
I'll get up early tomorrow, get the boat ready and then head to the fuel dock to top off the diesel tanks. I hope to be underway by 9am, which would make our ETA at Isla Coronados around 1pm, giving me the afternoon to explore the island and do some hiking.
