After sailing off anchor at Isla Coronados, we sailed north up the Baja coast for about 23 miles. We had plans to meet back up with SV Captain Musick, SV Nike, SV Meraki, SV Foreigner, SV Auryn and others at San Juanico, though we ended up in the La Ramada anchorage.
We especially needed to keep tabs on Captain Musick because they had Starlink internet and were graciously allowing us to bum it off of them for me to continue working my ~3 days per week that I needed. Internet, aside from the newly offered Starlink, is hard to come by up in the northern Sea of Cortez.
The kid boat fleet had recently gathered in V-Cove for a week and then broken up for a few days. Some had pushed on north right away. We had gone to explore Coronados (which had already been visited by everybody else). And a couple boats, including Captain Musick, had gone back west briefly to re-provision at the town of Loreto. We were all planning to meet again at San Juanico on Sunday evening.
However, after our day-long sail to San Juanico, we arrived and found a nearly-empty anchorage. We should have found at least a couple of our buddy boats in there. However, there was a smidge of SE swell rolling into the main San Juanico anchorage, so we thought that maybe the boats we were hoping to find were just around the corner in La Ramada. We were right!
Just about an extra 30-minutes up the coast, really just around the bend, we found Nike, Foreigner, and Meraki, along with a couple others. We picked a spot and dropped the anchor and were immediately invited to the beach for a beach fire cookout.
We LOVED La Ramada Anchorage at San Juanico!
Our week in La Ramada was heaven on earth. We spent about a week here and loved every second of it. I was able to work when I needed to, thanks to Captain Musick’s Starlink satellite internet. The kids (and adults) had friends at hand for playing and entertainment. The anchorage regularly looked like a zoo of kids from one boat or another paddleboarding, dinghying, or straight up swimming from boat to boat to hang out. They spent hours playing on the beach and inside each-others’ boats. Nearly every night we would gather on the beach for cruiser socializing.
One night, Dorothy on SV Nike even put together a beach birthday party to celebrate a couple birthdays. Her daughter, Isla, and our daughter, Kali, both had birthdays coming soon. We weren’t sure where we’d be at that point, or which boats would still be around, so Dorothy was super kind to include Kali. She made sure both girls felt special.
We did lots of swimming and snorkeling in the anchorage. Adam, from Captain Musick, and others, were really successful with their spear fishing. One day, after a successful hunt, Ingrid make up FRESH yellow tail sushi and shared with every boat in the anchorage. It was beyond amazing.
One day, while I stayed on the boat to get some work done, Brenden and the kids joined a group to hike to the nearby farm where we had heard we might be able to buy some fresh produce. Unfortunately, the produce was pretty sold out/picked over so we didn’t get much there. But the farmer offered mule rides to the beach and Kali was very excited for the chance!
The Fluidity of the Fleet
As the week wound to a close, everybody started to think further ahead to what would be next. Our friends on SV Foreigner would be branching off and heading across the sea toward summer storage at San Carlos. Their son, Wes, is a really great kid and had become good friends with Evan. We definitely hope to see them again!
A couple other boats were planning to head back south soon to ride out the summer hurricane season in Banderas Bay. There was talk of them leaving from La Ramada, though they ended up waiting and moving to the next anchorage with the group.
It’s interesting to follow the many different family and social dynamics of a floating community like this. There’s constant talk of the weather, who’s planning what, and when to leave, etc. Thankfully, other than Foreigner splitting off, the rest of the group still stuck together and would meet up again at the next anchorage.
