Chris and I are taking our time on the outside of the Baja. We spent a week anchored in front of the tiny village of Bahia Magdalena, where we took some time getting to know the locals. Not a whole lot goes on there. These people live a very marginal life with houses made of clapboard and subsisting on whatever fish they catch during the day. It sounds utopian, but it’s not, the environment is a harsh one with a cold North Pacific wind sweeping across a bleak, desert landscape. Since leaving Cabo San Lucas, both of us have been fitted out head to toe in our ‘foulies’ and we’ve had to put socks and shoes on (Gosh, what we put up with!). While we’re complaining about having to wear socks, the people who live here have to face huge seas, and a cold, often gale force wind, in an open 25-foot panga with an 80-horse power outboard motor. I find that amazing.

From our anchorage in front of the village, we could see the striking profile of a building partially built out of sun-bleached whalebones. A quick look through the binoculars showed a cantina sign. Excited, we hopped into our dinghy to check it out, only to find out that they didn’t have any supplies. More than likely they couldn’t afford the inventory. We found out later that the cantina is only open during the busy whale-watching season.

Magdalena Bay is famous for its grey whale population. Hundreds of California Grey whales arrive every winter to breed and rear their calves before migrating back up to Alaska. Because it’s June, the whales had already fled up north. While I love seeing the whales, when you’re in a small boat and you see creatures gliding past that are significantly larger than you, it gives you pause, wondering if they dive at the right moment should we happen to cross paths in the dark of the night. The ‘Lonely Planet’ guide says that this is one of the places where you can pet the whales, and that they are ‘receptive to it’. I can’t comment on whether that is true or not. But I do wonder how one knows if a whale likes to be petted?

It’s pretty amazing that we’re anchored in a remote village like that, yet we can still surf the Internet. We bought a portable modem or ‘Banda Ancha’ a few months back that allows you to surf over the cell-phone network and it’s been great. Sometimes I can get the net when we’re coasting along about 5 miles off the shore.

Besides spying on the locals, our week in Mag. Bay was also spent trying to find fuel and checking the weather to determine a good time to make the move 240 miles to Turtle Bay. When we finally managed to scrounge up some fuel from one of the fishermen, and we saw the weather moderating slightly, we moved the boat 30 miles up the coast and anchored in Santa Maria where we met two other boats also waiting for a weather window. Finally the wind looked calm enough, for at least two days in a row, with 10 to 15 knots most of the time and then 20 knots in the late afternoons, all three boats decided to make a run for it. We rounded Cabo Lazaro during the morning and as expected, there were some large waves, churned up seas and about 30 knots of wind. We kept going thinking that these conditions would eventually moderate once we were clear of the cape. Wrong again. The waves were pretty large at eight to ten feet, and with the Padma bashing into them, we were only making about 2 knots, sometimes less.

From where we were, the village of San Juanico was due north in the centre of the bight and the best part was that we could actually sail to it. Closed hauled with a double reefed main and a single reefed Genoa, we managed a respectable 5.5 knots all the way into the anchorage. In the end, this was a much better plan, as we saved fuel sailing here and while a longer route, it still cut 80 miles off of our journey to Turtle Bay, leaving us 163 miles for the remainder of this leg.

There are several other anchorages along the way to Turtle Bay, and instead of trying to do it all in one go, we’ve decided to take the less taxing route and to point hop, breaking the journey into day or single overnight passages. It’s tough going upwind, there’s no doubt about it. Whoever said that ‘one doesn’t get to Ensenada, one earns it is definitely correct.

Our next challenge is to round Punta Abreojos, another one of those nasty capes, but for the moment, we are hanging out in town of San Juanico. We were expecting another bleak, impoverished fishing village, but to our surprise, it’s pretty nice here. Because it’s a somewhat popular surf spot, there are restaurants, cantinas and groceries. A vast contrast to where we’d just come from.

P.S. I’ve added a position report. You can see where we are under the ‘Donde Esta Padma’ link.