Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida

This pairing of islands used to be one island. The volcano about 2/3 of the way up the island collapsed and now the caldera makes for a nice anchorage in the gap between the two islands. It’s a pretty spot. In the evening, the winds from the west pick up keeping the temperatures down and in the morning it is very tranquil and perfect for SUP boarding.

At high tide, we were able to ride in the dinghy and shoot the gap between the two islands. The east side of Espiritu Santo has a couple of sea caves that we got to check out. One of them was large enough that I took the dinghy up into it, a new experience for us.

Approaching the cave.

Inside.

The anchorage gave us a nice calm day for a trip to the beach as well as some swimming back at the boat to beat the heat.

Isla San Francisco

Our next stop was Isla San Francisco. Everything around here is a super short hop, and only takes a few hours to get to, which makes for easy days on the water. This island has a pretty cool ridgeline hike that we did, before enjoying one of the most peaceful swims we have had to date.

We hiked in our swimsuits and then swam at the beach before heading home. The water was so flat and calm that we all just floated on the water on our backs holding hands in a big family circle for a while. It was nice spending a little peaceful time with our kids, since four people on a hot boat with no AC is rarely peaceful.

We met a family that was chartering in the bay and they invited us over for drinks later that evening. It’s unusual for a cruiser to interact with charter people, unless it is to get their insurance info after the charter smashes into them, but we did, and they were super nice people. When we left at the end of the night, they sent us away with a bunch of cans of tuna and corn because they had to return the boat in 1-2 days and had bought way more than they needed. It felt weird, but we took it and have eaten most of it by now.

The no-seeums were a bit bad, Fira got nearly 100 bites in the couple of days we were there, so we decided to leave. Our plan was to visit a mangrove lagoon and cactus forest at the southern end of Isla San José. The guidebook and every review of the anchorage made it very clear that we would not be able to stay overnight because the no-seeums are absolutely unbearable. John Steinbeck even wrote about how horrible they are at that spot in his book The Log From the Sea of Cortez.

So the plan was to get there, go see the things and then leave well ahead of sunset, before the no-seeums arrived. Buuuuut, on the approach to the anchorage, we started getting swarmed by bees. We were over 1/2 mile from shore and making 5-6 knots and had 20-30 bees aboard. As such, we decided to turn around and not go to the island after all. If we had stopped, we would have had hundreds or more and we weren’t that interested in seeing our 100th mangrove lagoon, or cactus.

San Evaristo

So we went for a few days over to the nearby fishing village of San Evaristo. It was our first visit to a village like this, and it was nice. There is an area of salt flats north of the anchorage that was on a nearly perfect grid, so I’m guessing it is still in operation.

We are cruising in the off-season, so some stores and restaurants are not open this time of year, which kind of sucks. The benefit though is that every place we go, outside of charter range of La Paz, we get the anchorage to ourselves. These places we go normally have 5-20 boats, but we are it right now, so it is really special.

The town had a cute church and school and people from nearby sections of coastline come over in fishing pangas for these community resources.

The running here was decent and on top of the hill leaving town there is a huge statue of a fisherman and cool view into the anchorage, so we all walked up to see it. I swear I took a family photo, but I must not have because I don’t have one now.

Los Gatos

As a boat with two cats aboard, we couldn’t skip a place named Los Gatos. The real reason though was the see the stunning red rocks of that part of the coast. It did not disappoint.

The beach was covered with unique striated rocks, and the massive, rocky hills were quite the sight. Although we were glad we stopped, the anchorage was very rolly which made for a crummy night of sleep so we continued on the next day.

Agua Verde

Our next stop was Agua Verde. It is sort of the unofficial northern end of the La Paz cruising ground. There are a few palapa restaurants on shore, hiking (or running), and even a small mini mart for supplies.

The running provided some cool views back over our bay as well as into the next bay. Nice hills begged to be conquered, and the footing was reasonable, so I got a few nice runs in here.

And since we love eating out, we took advantage of the food ashore a few times during our stay.

We went for a family hike to a nearby oasis and some caves along the beach. The oasis (the agua verde) was pretty cool and was surrounded by cattle, pigs and other animals. The 1-2 mile stretch of beach between the oasis and the caves turned out to be very, very rocky. We were hiking in flip-flops since we (I) thought it would be a nice sandy beach walk. So, that sucked. It was pretty though, except for the washed up dead sea lion (not pictured) and we were all exhausted after a nice walk.

The only other thing about Agua Verde that needs mention is the pug. We doted on the random pug that strolled the beach looking for love. One time it followed us back tot eh dinghy and the thought of dog-napping it definitely crept into my head. But ultimately, we had to leave the sweet pug and sleepy town behind as we continue pushing further north.