Hello from Harmonica in Santa Rosalia. We are at a turning point in our voyage since we are as far north as we will go in the Sea of Cortez. The winter "northers" have been blowing cold air and dust on board for 10 days and it is time to return towards La Paz so that we can fly to Calgary for Christmas. Flying "home" could mean either direction since Harmonica has become home in every sense to us.
Our last letter finished at the fishing village of Aqua Verde, from which we spent 3 days sailing north to San Juanito. This was our favourite bay on the trip. As we sailed in on the tail end of the first winter "norther" we found two other sailing vessels moored and both were canadian. A thrill! We saw quite a lot of Jan & Wolf Berg from Theresa II starting with Wolf's lessons in harpoon fishing & diving for clams, and then eating the resulting grouper together. This sheltered bay is 1.5 miles wide but has no settlement in it. Jan decided where the fishing village should be located, but the opportunity was missed and the only land-based activity is at a new smart house which has just been built (rumour was that it was owned by a spanish football star). Sea kayakers camped on the beach as they past through in groups of 1 to 15. Otherwise there were just the anchored sailing boats and the volcanic desert rising steeply to about 500 ft.
We measured 25 knots of wind in the ancorage over the last 2 days there, and when the winds eased again we headed north for Punta Pulpito (a volcanic remnant deserving of a fine sermon if there were any congregation), Punta Chivato (where retired americans Jim & Mary invited us into their magnificent house for drinks) and hence to Santa Rosalia. We declined the invitation to the Punta Chivato Yacht Club dinner, and made the 20 miles in good time as the "sea breeze effect" made the wind veer and allowed us to arrive in 2 long tacks not far away from the straight line.
The SSB radio has many cruisers' nets at which times news of friends and general information can be past. The most highly organised is the Chubasco net which broadcasts an excellent amateur weather forcast at 8.30 every morning. We found ourselves relaying a synopsis of this forcast by VHF radio to a smaller boat "Jollymon". We use ours also for email, to pick up the BBC World service for news, and for weather FAX maps from NOAA in the USA.
Santa Rosalia is a mining town developed by a french syndicate which discovered copper here in 1866. There are little steam engines all over town; the mine's smelters, power house, and machine shops stand derelict at the head of the dock; and most of the tools and equipment are left as museum pieces. The mine was closed about 15 years ago, but the community is still active, and the architecture includes spreading wooden homes from the french era. There is a steel church designed by Eifel, bought, and shipped out from France. The harbour is artificially built from blocks of ?slag? from the smelters. This is a dusty & windy place, but fascinating. Beer and deisel are close to the same price. On our walks around the town we found a sad lack of interest in repairing roads or collecting litter, but several smart school buildings, medical clinic & hospital. This is a "Port of Entry" with immigration and port captains offices so we had to go through the formalities of checking in with 3 different departments (and might have left tomorrow if today were not a holiday & parade day preventing us from checking out again). The marina holds 10 boats, and the 3 american couples & ourselves living onboard all got together last night on the imaculate 40 ft catamaran which Guy & Deorah built themselves.
We planned to see some prehistoric cave paintings which we had read about from a previous cruiser. They are in the central sierra and accessible only by mule or foot and a permit & guide are required by the government dept. INAH. The larger area of Vizcaino which includes the bays where the grey whales come to breed, salt pans, deserts & volcanos has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. Nobody seemed able to arrange anything from Santa Rosalia so the 2 of us packed a few clothes & our light sleeping bags, and headed inland on the 5 am bus to San Ignacio where INAH is. The bus was punctual and clean, and dropped us before dawn beside the sign which read "San Ignacio 3km". We were looking for the "trailer park" where the guides for the caves were supposed to be. All we found in there was a sleepy attendant & a poor cup of coffee, but it did help to get the blood moving. San Ignacio has natural springs and is built among date palms around an 18th century spanish mission. It was also a check point for the Baja 2000 road race which we learnt after a dune-buggy roared past us in the dawn.
Transport over the 30km of steep dirt road from the peninsula highway into the starting point of San Fransisco was the hardest arrangement to make, but Jan met Cliff, a retired american meteorologist who lives beside the central square who generously offered to take us in his suburban after his paying guests had left with the the Baja 2000. We discovered that we were going to have to feed ourselves and our guide for 3 days, so we spent a pleasant day shopping for food, a tarpauline & local quilt. We wandered over the desert of the surrounding lava flows, through the palm groves by the river, and sat under the trees in Cliff's garden reading books about the cave paintings, geology & ecology of Vizcaino. San Francisco was a collection of half a dozen small homes surrounding a school building in a saddle at a little less than 2000 metres. The area averages 3 inches of rain per year, but it had rained last month and the desert trees and cactus were green & flowering. Goats with bells roamed the hillside and volcanos shaped the horizon. It was one of those times in life when we felt totally in other people's hands: we were quickly introduced to our guide, Alfonso, who later told us that he was 15. Our small packs were loaded onto donkeys which, on command, started trotting away faster than we could walk, and Alfonso spoke no english. For 3 hours we followed the donkeys and Alfonso on his mule through another ranch, smaller than San Francisco, and down about 1000 ft into the spectacular canyon of Santa Theresa. The animals were unshod and seemd to grip the sloping rocks as well as our running shoes. At times we were happy not to be riding! The Ranch itself at Santa Theresa nestled by some palm trees (indicating water) at the bottom and consisted of two small buildings with palm roofs surrounded by a citrus grove and goat pens. There is one extended family living there, and various members left early each morning to take the goats out to graze. Alfonso stopped just past this ranch in a flat spot 50ft across and announced that we would camp there for 2 nights and walk to the caves. It was much better than it looked at first sight. Jan worked her magic and created home on our tarpauline on the dusty ground but even she was tested when Alfonso mimed with clarity that he would eat at the ranch because cheese made him sick. This was uncharacteristic since he was generally patient and congenial, but I think he was used to groups with more supplies & equipment. A tin of corned beef was found and the evening was saved. The nights were cold and clear except for high "pineapple express" cloud whistling across in the jet stream, which was unusually far south. We northerners can be scared of taking a leak in the middle of a dark night knowing that the camp is surrounded by cactus plants! One advantage of not having a tent over us was the sighting of a shooting star that was close enough to appear as a bright green flash that left a white tail visible for a minute or two. The second morning there was frost on top of us when we woke. The caves: yes they were most impressive but the adventure would have been worthwhile without them. They are dated to be 300 to 10,000 years old, and the original indians would not tell the spanish missionaries anything about their significance either because they did not know or for fear that the paintings might be destroyed as idols. We saw 3 caves with hunting scenes and pictures of men, deer, sea lion, rabbits & birds in red, yellow and black. Somehow we returned by truck, foot & bus, and 24 hours later we had time-warped back into Harmonica & were sharing cocktails in Guy & Deborah's catamaran at the dock.
Email note: We shall not be picking up sailmail after 18th December so please use not (both reach us when we are on the boat). Also please don't copy our original text back as that takes a lot of air time and battery power!
Paper mail note: We have rented the house at Cayuga Dr. so our address is now:
203 3500 Varsity Dr NW
Calgary
AB
Canada T2L 1Y3
(Telephone has not changed)