We are headed around the South end of Isla San Francisco and the sun is shining brightly. The wind is gentle as it catches our sails and we elegantly slip through the water. We hear a loud blow off our starboard side and we quickly look to catch the slow decent of an extremely large whale very lightest color of grey we have ever seen. The way it moved and graceful dove. We could appreciate the size by how long it took to dive. But the color had us mesmerized. Had we just witnessed a blue whale? We can only speculate. But the movement, the long continuous dive and never seeing it resurface made us wonder if we had.
It was a short hop over to Cabeza de Machudo (head of long hair). The interesting name referring to the legend of a Yaqui Indian Mechudo (nicknamed after his long bushy obsidian colored hair) who was an exceptional free diver arguable the best of the skilled Yaqui was sent back by his Spanish “boss” into building seas to pick the pearl of the largest oyster from the depths far greater than he had ever dove before. He dove and dove all the time the seas were building. They began looking for him but abandoned him to get everyone else to safety. The next morning the divers were sent to look for him. After diving all day they found him off this point, floating in the calm water his long obsidian hair drifting all around him. His fingers firmly clamped between the lips of the large oyster. A sad demise to such and exceptional human.
Hoping for a good nights sleep we motor on in to find our spot tucked way in. Keeping in mind the West winds we should have we opt to position for that and stay a little ways away from the southern end where there seemed to be a camp of kayakers that we didn’t want to disturb. After all we only planned to be there over night. Looking back we probably would have been better off where we were on San Francisco but the low lying land between the east anchorage and the west had us spooked.
It was a pretty anchorage with white sand beach the cliffs over hanging the southern end were spectacular with the setting sun shining softly on them. The winds are calm with a slight gentle swell that barely moved the boat. The faint smell of the kayakers campfire drifting through the air. The breeze is coming from the south but surely it will shift the weather said it would. We go to bed looking forward to the sweet dreams we were about to have.
We were in bed no longer then a hour when we felt the wind pick up. It shifted but not in the way forecasted. Oh I hope it switches or there will be no sweet dreams. Long story short the wind quickly built and we violently rolled from right to left and bucked up and down until we couldn’t take it any more. At midnight we decided we needed to do something. Either a stern anchor to hold us into the swell or leave. We opt for the stern anchor and we fired up the diesel. With the wind howling and the waves crashing and in our sleepy impatient state we tried and tried to get the stern where we needed to drop the anchor revving the motor once twice then this awful noise began coming through the air. Had we blown something in the motor?
It took us another second to realize we had woke all the packs of coyotes that live on the Baja. Sorry Kayakers!!
We gave up. The stern anchor would not catch and we admit defeat and retire to our beds to lie flat in the rolling rodeo. That was all we could do. During this time is when we started discussing what happened. Why didn’t we listen to our gut and stay put in the anchorage we were at? Maybe there is more to the weather than just the computed guess as to what was going to happen to what is actually happing? Maybe we should trust our selves a little more. Swinging thee pendulum from thinking we know everything to we don’t know anything and then back to the middle where we do know and considering the knowledge out there we find a middle ground of clearer decision making. As the sun begins to rise we pull anchor and head out of the bay toward our next anchorage. This time with more balanced information. Let’s hope it works!