Finally, after 5 days of strong north wind in the Sea of Cortez, on December 13th we picked up our anchor in Bahia San Juanico and motored a few hours down the coast to reach Puerto Escondido.
With a very short weather window between northers, we decided to settle in for a week in Escondido on a mooring ball while the north wind blew again.
There were many reasons that we decided to wait out the next norther in Escondido instead of continuing south right away and anchoring in Aqua Verde or San Evaristo for the norther. We could have made it as far as Evaristo for the next big norther coming in, but had just heard reports of some cruisers being harassed by the locals in the anchorage there and decided that we didn’t want to end up pinned down in that bay by weather if the locals were not in a welcoming mood.
I was keeping in touch with a new friend, Jen, on a boat named Dream Reach that were making their way north to the La Paz area from Cabo San Lucas, having just come down the west coast of the US this season. There seemed to be a big influx of kid boats to the area from this year’s newcomers to the Sea.
When we arrived in Puerto Escondido, we had to accept the fact that we weren’t likely to make it to our La Cruz destination by Christmas like we had hoped. Instead, while in Escondido and watching the weather patterns developing, we decided to give ourselves a little breathing room. We opted to allow ourselves to slow down and planned Christmas in the La Paz area with Dream Reach and their gaggle of kid boats at Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida.
So, we settled into marina life on the more-affordable option at Puerto Escondido – their mooring balls. Remember, if you’re visiting Puerto Escondido – they heavily favor longer stays. If you will be staying for more than 2 nights, you probably should consider paying to stay for a whole week because you’ll spend about the same amount.
We hit up the marina’s restaurant several times during our stay in December – their wood-fired pizzas are still the best we’ve found in Mexico. And, we spent many days holed up in the air-conditioned Captain’s Lounge doing school and work in the comfortable space.
If we were going to keep a boat stationary in Mexico long-term, I would probably keep it at Puerto Escondido. It’s such a nice place and a great cruising ground in the local region.
We also arranged a rental car through the marina and drove up into the hills above the town of Loreto to check out the San Javier Mission. We’ve seen this before and it is always a fun drive with great scenery and impressive historic mission building at the end.
Can you spot the exposed honeycomb of the beehive up on the tower in the picture above? And the puppy that stole our hearts in one of the little shops in San Javier. Then, we headed back down the mountain to the town of Loreto to do a bit of provisioning in preparation for a week or two offgrid in the islands around La Paz for Christmas.
We stayed in Puerto Escondido until Tuesday the 19th when we slipped our lines off the mooring ball we’d called home for a bit, and turned south once more. More on that, next time.