|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: "Espiritu Santo to Agua Verde, Northbound" |
| 3 | +excerpt: "Remote anchorages, mostly to ourselves" |
| 4 | +date: 2025-08-25 |
| 5 | + |
| 6 | +header: |
| 7 | + overlay_image: /assets/images/sailing-blog/sup-in-caleta-partida.jpg |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +--- |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +# Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida |
| 12 | +This pairing of islands used to be one island. |
| 13 | +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. |
| 14 | +It's a pretty spot. |
| 15 | +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. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +At high tide, we were able to ride in the dinghy and shoot the gap between the two islands. |
| 20 | +The east side of Espiritu Santo has a couple of sea caves that we got to check out. |
| 21 | +One of them was large enough that I took the dinghy up into it, a new experience for us. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +Approaching the cave. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +<video style="max-width:100%;" controls> |
| 26 | + <source src="https://res.cloudinary.com/stevenbitner-com/video/upload/v1758135894/20250815_131746_gdghx5.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> |
| 27 | + Your browser does not support the video tag. |
| 28 | +</video> |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +Inside. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +<video style="max-width:100%;" controls> |
| 33 | + <source src="https://res.cloudinary.com/stevenbitner-com/video/upload/v1758135933/20250815_131902_fnzyph.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> |
| 34 | + Your browser does not support the video tag. |
| 35 | +</video> |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +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. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +# Isla San Francisco |
| 43 | +Our next stop was Isla San Francisco. |
| 44 | +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. |
| 45 | +This island has a pretty cool ridgeline hike that we did, before enjoying one of the most peaceful swims we have had to date. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +We hiked in our swimsuits and then swam at the beach before heading home. |
| 50 | +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. |
| 51 | +It was nice spending a little peaceful time with our kids, since four people on a hot boat with no AC is rarely peaceful. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +We met a family that was chartering in the bay and they invited us over for drinks later that evening. |
| 54 | +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. |
| 55 | +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. |
| 56 | +It felt weird, but we took it and have eaten most of it by now. |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +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. |
| 59 | +Our plan was to visit a mangrove lagoon and cactus forest at the southern end of Isla San José. |
| 60 | +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. |
| 61 | +John Steinbeck even wrote about how horrible they are at that spot in his book _The Log From the Sea of Cortez_. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +So the plan was to get there, go see the things and then leave well ahead of sunset, before the no-seeums arrived. |
| 64 | +Buuuuut, on the approach to the anchorage, we started getting swarmed by bees. |
| 65 | +We were over 1/2 mile from shore and making 5-6 knots and had 20-30 bees aboard. |
| 66 | +As such, we decided to turn around and not go to the island after all. |
| 67 | +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. |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +# San Evaristo |
| 70 | +So we went for a few days over to the nearby fishing village of San Evaristo. |
| 71 | +It was our first visit to a village like this, and it was nice. |
| 72 | +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. |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +We are cruising in the off-season, so some stores and restaurants are not open this time of year, which kind of sucks. |
| 77 | +The benefit though is that every place we go, outside of charter range of La Paz, we get the anchorage to ourselves. |
| 78 | +These places we go normally have 5-20 boats, but we are it right now, so it is really special. |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +The town had a cute church and school and people from nearby sections of coastline come over in fishing pangas for these community resources. |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +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. |
| 87 | +I swear I took a family photo, but I must not have because I don't have one now. |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | + |
| 91 | +# Los Gatos |
| 92 | +As a boat with two cats aboard, we couldn't skip a place named Los Gatos. |
| 93 | +The real reason though was the see the stunning red rocks of that part of the coast. |
| 94 | +It did not disappoint. |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +The beach was covered with unique striated rocks, and the massive, rocky hills were quite the sight. |
| 101 | +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. |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | + |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +# Agua Verde |
| 106 | +Our next stop was Agua Verde. |
| 107 | +It is sort of the unofficial northern end of the La Paz cruising ground. |
| 108 | +There are a few palapa restaurants on shore, hiking (or running), and even a small mini mart for supplies. |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | + |
| 111 | + |
| 112 | +The running provided some cool views back over our bay as well as into the next bay. |
| 113 | +Nice hills begged to be conquered, and the footing was reasonable, so I got a few nice runs in here. |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | + |
| 116 | + |
| 117 | +And since we love eating out, we took advantage of the food ashore a few times during our stay. |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | + |
| 120 | + |
| 121 | +We went for a family hike to a nearby oasis and some caves along the beach. |
| 122 | +The oasis (the agua verde) was pretty cool and was surrounded by cattle, pigs and other animals. |
| 123 | +The 1-2 mile stretch of beach between the oasis and the caves turned out to be very, very rocky. |
| 124 | +We were hiking in flip-flops since we (I) thought it would be a nice sandy beach walk. |
| 125 | +So, that sucked. |
| 126 | +It was pretty though, except for the washed up dead sea lion (not pictured) and we were all exhausted after a nice walk. |
| 127 | + |
| 128 | + |
| 129 | + |
| 130 | +The only other thing about Agua Verde that needs mention is the pug. |
| 131 | +We doted on the random pug that strolled the beach looking for love. |
| 132 | +One time it followed us back tot eh dinghy and the thought of dog-napping it definitely crept into my head. |
| 133 | +But ultimately, we had to leave the sweet pug and sleepy town behind as we continue pushing further north. |
| 134 | + |
| 135 | + |
| 136 | + |
0 commit comments