Puerto Escondido
Puerto Escondido is a funny place; its main claim to fame is
that from here it is easy to go somewhere else. The town of Loreto is 28
kilometres from Puerto Escondido. There are many boats here, but the majority
do not seem to move from their moorings. Needless to say, repair facilities were very meagre and a sail repair person was out of the question.
There are no docks in Puerto Escondido. There is an outside anchoring area, called "The Waiting Room", that is deep and has private mooring balls, and there is "The Ellipse" anchoring area (which is actually a circle), that is a bit closer in, better depth, is full of boats on private mooring balls, and can be quite choppy. Both places cost $1.00 per day to anchor (if you can find a spot in amongst the mooring balls). Then there is the “inner harbour”, which is protected, good depth, and has room to anchor, but it costs $20.00 per day to anchor. There is no hot water, no docks, no electricity, and no Internet access, but you are still supposed to pay the anchoring fees. The government administers the marina, but it does not have a boat to go out into the anchorage to collect the anchoring fees.
If you do stop at Puerto Escondido, say “Hello” to Kip and Mary Hill on Angelos from Vancouver Island. Kip and Mary know the history of the area and have lots of good information and advice on everything from shops in Loreto to local hikes. If you are lucky, you may be invited to join them for Happy Hour at 4 PM.
The wind was up over 20 knots from the north for a couple of days, so we stayed tied to the mooring ball. There isn’t much to do in Puerto Escondido, other than hitch a ride to Loreto, which we did, and hike into the “Steinbeck Canyon”, which we also did.
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If we can fix the leak in the sea cock then we can sail with our smaller head sail, the solent sail, and the main sail. We need to decide where to go to get the sails repaired. Do we continue north and cross the Sea of Cortez to Guaymas on the mainland. Will there be an experienced sail repair person? Or do we back track to La Paz, where we know there are experienced sail repair people? Each is over 100 nautical miles away. In either case, we need to be able to sail on a port tack without water coming into the galley.
There are no docks in Puerto Escondido. There is an outside anchoring area, called "The Waiting Room", that is deep and has private mooring balls, and there is "The Ellipse" anchoring area (which is actually a circle), that is a bit closer in, better depth, is full of boats on private mooring balls, and can be quite choppy. Both places cost $1.00 per day to anchor (if you can find a spot in amongst the mooring balls). Then there is the “inner harbour”, which is protected, good depth, and has room to anchor, but it costs $20.00 per day to anchor. There is no hot water, no docks, no electricity, and no Internet access, but you are still supposed to pay the anchoring fees. The government administers the marina, but it does not have a boat to go out into the anchorage to collect the anchoring fees.
The wind was up over 20 knots from the north for a couple of days, so we stayed tied to the mooring ball. There isn’t much to do in Puerto Escondido, other than hitch a ride to Loreto, which we did, and hike into the “Steinbeck Canyon”, which we also did.
If we can fix the leak in the sea cock then we can sail with our smaller head sail, the solent sail, and the main sail. We need to decide where to go to get the sails repaired. Do we continue north and cross the Sea of Cortez to Guaymas on the mainland. Will there be an experienced sail repair person? Or do we back track to La Paz, where we know there are experienced sail repair people? Each is over 100 nautical miles away. In either case, we need to be able to sail on a port tack without water coming into the galley.
We did some asking around and discovered that Lucy, in Guaymas,
has 10 years of experience with sail repair. So now both La Paz and Guaymas
were viable options to get the sails repaired. Since our original plan had been to
leave the boat at the boatyard in Guaymas to get various jobs done while we
went inland to explore the Copper Canyon, we decided to keep going north before
crossing to Guaymas.
Now,
re-energized with a plan, we decided to see about fixing the leaking sea cock.