Splashing the Boat in Penasco, Passage to Refugio, and Bahia de Los Angeles
Brenden’s dad, Scott, arrived in Puerto Penasco on January 30th and we began the home stretch of getting the boat finished and ready for launching our 2023 Mexico cruising season. He has had intentions of coming to join us on the boat for an extended cruise for some time. In the past, he’s spent a weekend on the boat with us back when we were back in the Pacific Northwest and has always wanted to come cruising once we reached Mexico. He retired last April, and schedules have finally aligned to allow him to join us for a month or so.
In all truth, having Scott to help us finish the bottom job on Mosaic was a key factor in being able to actually relaunch the boat this year. It was an absolutely grueling two and a half weeks, but we got her ready and launched Mosaic back into the water at Puerto Penasco on February 17th.
Leaving Puerto Penasco
It’s actually a fairly complex process to leave Puerto Penasco. You have to have a high enough tide (tidal swings here can easily be 15 feet or more) to launch the boat into the water – with our boat this cuts out up to 2 weeks from every month as even a possibility.
You also need to have a high enough tide to be able to get in or out of the shallow harbor entrance. And the timing also has to coincide with a good weather window to leave on an overnight passage of 100+ miles because there’s no good, protected anchorage any closer to Puerto Penasco.
The harbor is small in Penasco and there’s only one or two options to get a marina slip if and when you need it before or after you haul out or launch. There are many factors to take into consideration.
For us, we launched the boat on Friday, and we were able to tie up at Federico’s Marina for a night. On Saturday, we had a nice weather window to leave but we still had to make final preparations on the boat and get provisions for up to a couple weeks away from grocery stores. We were hoping to leave at about 1:00pm to have high enough tide to leave the harbor.
Plus, if we didn’t make it out on time on Saturday, we could have also left on Sunday but we would have had rougher weather for our passage to Puerto Refugio or have to sit and wait out bad weather until at least Thursday.
We got out by the skin of our teeth, leaving the harbor entrance at 3:30pm on Saturday. We had only a few feet to spare under our keel as we left and the tide was still dropping. Thankfully, we got out!
Passage to Puerto Refugio
As we left the harbor, we were greeted by dolphins feeding in the bay and we took it as a good omen. The weather predictions held true and we had a nice flat passage to Refugio, which was good because we needed the extra time to actually stow the boat and get stuff stored for passage.
Right at sunset, we were visited by a large pod of dolphins which played and frolicked around the boat for a half hour. There were probably 100 dolphins in the group and the late sunset light was really interesting and beautiful as they splashed and leapt around Mosaic. It was a great experience to be able to share with Scott on our first night out.
The dark of night was complete, with no moon whatsoever, but the hours of dark passed uneventfully- which is, of course, what you want! I was on watch from 1:00 to about 5:30 and Scott joined me at 3:00. Sometime around 4:00, we saw a single dolphin shoot through the water trailing bright bioluminescence.
Puerto Refugio – anchoring between the islands
We arrived at Refugio and dropped our anchor at noon. There was one other boat there, Phoenix Rising, another boat yard graduate that had relaunched their vessel and left a day or two before we did. As we arrived, we greeted them and exchanged quick plans. There was a big weather system predicted to come in on Tuesday. The other boat said they were planning to move to a more protected bay there in Refugio for it and we told them we were planning to head to Puerto Don Juan.
We set up our Starlink dish, hoping to be able to check the weather forecast and check in with family awaiting word back home on how our first passage went. And … our Starlink didn’t work.
Had we realized that Phoenix Rising had one, we would have asked them to let us use their internet at least to contact family that everything was going ok. We hoped that Starlink was simply not working because we were far enough off the Baja mainland that it triggered the geofence. We knew friends’ Starlinks had worked in Refugio in July, but it was possible that the usable boundaries had changed.
So, without connection, we left Refugio the next morning to get to the Village at Bay of LA to get internet access at the beachfront restaurant.
The Village at Bahia de Los Angeles
So, early Monday morning, we picked up anchor to make the 9 hour jump from Refugio to the village at BLA. We hoped that we would arrive there and Starlink would work, being well inside the boundaries for usage. Unfortunately, no such luck.
Much to our huge frustration, our Starlink seems to have some glitch or malfunction which is restricting the satellite dish from actually connecting us to the internet.
We spent an hour or so at Guillermo’s, the restaurant in BLA where we like to eat and use the internet. I found that my mom had been worried about us and had been asking on Facebook groups for sightings of us. I felt SO bad that she was so worried.
Thankfully, I was able to get ahold of her right away and let her know our situation. Brenden tried troubleshooting the Starlink and Scott reached out to Brenden’s mom to let her know we were OK, too. I also had to get in touch with my boss and coworkers because, without Starlink working, I wasn’t going to be able to work for at least the next couple of days.
We checked weather and that big wind storm coming the next day had moved forward a bit, so we would need to get up at sunrise and leave the anchorage at the village and get over to Puerto Don Juan for the storm protection. I’ll pick up there in my next blog…
Thanks for reading! ~Rachel
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