Leaving Salsipuedes in a hurry we had the rest of the afternoon to reach a good anchorage, protected from more forecast Northerlies.
The safe bet option was only a few cruising hours away, El Pescador, a large bay with plenty of anchorage room, protected to the North by a jutting cape and a separate small island to the East. Even better, a small indentation at the south end of the bay helps provide some shelter should the wind turn to the South.
El Pescador turned out to be quite a discovery for us. None of the guides have much to say about it, but it's probably one of the nicest places we've been to since arriving in Baja. None of the photos show the majesty of the site and it took me a while to understand why:
The mountains are apparently barren, with minimal vegetation, the rocks are often naked, and there are very few features that help a photograph give a sense of the enormous scale.
An instantaneous photo also seems to miss the ever changing colors. Depending on the time of day, the minimal cloud coverage, the wind and waves conditions, the light and colors change completely. A dark rock in the morning suddenly reveals itself to be red when the sun hits it right. The transparent waters reflect the bottom, so vary from dark blue to emerald green. When they are calm, the waters reflect their surroundings. The hardy vegetation greens up with the morning dew. But more than anything else, with so little to compare sizes to, the tall mountains get squished in 2 dimensions and the never ending beach seems so much shorter and narrower.
I think the very clean air has also something to do in reducing visual distances: Even far away landmarks appear near. When coming in the bay we could clearly see the other side of the sea, well over 60 miles away.
Enchanted by what we found, we decided to make the bay our temporary home for a while and settled into our normal routine at anchor, with our twice daily walks to the beach with Princess. To Di, El Pescador has the same majestic mountains arrangements as some of our favorite PNW anchorages, but without the greenery.
Like at Punta San Francisquito there were plenty of coyote tracks on the beach, so we followed them to try and understand what they were up to. Here, where their tracks mingled with bird tracks and feather imprints on the sand, they'd probably caught a bird. There, they'd probably caught Princess' scent and were investigating who this weird smelling cousin was.
Reaching the end of the beach, near a rocky outcrop, we finally saw one! A small brown coyote came into view very gingerly, took a good look at us, and started to yap. It didn't seem aggressive, more of a gentle warning that we were invaders. Princess didn't really care. We turned around slowly, not wanting to scare the coyote and kept observing it as it retreated slowly inland.
We laughed as we watched its bouncy step. Was he proud of having "scared" us away? We could imagine an his internal monologue: "I scared all 3 of them away. I'm strong!"
We explored the remnants of a few palapas and houses along the beach, all that remains of a failed eco-lodge. The houses would have been wonderful, with an incredible views, in complete isolation.
They appeared to have been well built, but abandoned at least a decade ago. I can't help to think that nowadays, with modern technology, much cheaper solar panels, desalinization and satellite internet, making such a remote place more livable must be easier than in the past. Still, the logistics of daily life must remain rather complicated.
Enfin in many ways affords us all the comforts that these houses were looking for. We produce our own electricity and water and can make almost any bay our temporary home, enjoying the same unspoiled views, the same dark and starry nights. Probably a much better solution to living in such remote and difficult places.
Humans weren't the only ones to leave this place. My chart showed an old sea lion colony, yet we had no sighting whatsoever. Actually so far, on our trip North from Loreto we haven't seen many sea lions, just a few when we came across large trawlers. I'm hoping we will eventually catch up to them and see a large colony somewhere along the coast. They're just so much fun to watch in the water.
Then life got in the way again: I managed to catch a cold. The combination of early morning walks on the beach and cold northerly winds not agreeing with my cold blooded disposition. Ever since my cancer remission, I'm just colder than before and don't do as well when temperatures drop or vary too fast.
Di very kindly took on Princess' daily walks while I stayed put on the boat, and in a few days I started to get better again. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly when considering we can never be more than 40 feet away from one another on Enfin, Di soon caught my cold too.
So it was my turn to solo Princess' walks, and Di's turn to stay put and get better.
All good things must come to an end. We still have plenty of time to cover the planned miles back down to Puerto Vallarta but since we're still heading North for a little while, we can't just stop for weeks in the same place. So many little bays and islands to explore.
I decided to move on from El Pescador, heading for Puerto Don Juan, an incredible cove more reminiscent to what we could find in British Columbia than in Baja. With a small narrow entrance, the cove opens up to a large shallow bay surrounded on all sides by rocky hills and mountains. Don Juan is known as one of the few hurricane holes in the region, so good is the protection afforded.
Despite getting both sick, El Pescador will stay in our memories as one of our favorite stops in Baja. Being here in winter also meant having it entirely to ourselves, adding to the incredible experience. Another page in our long book of great memories cruising the world on Enfin.
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