Bahia Tortuga
~ February 16-23, 2019 ~
We had an awesome time exploring San Benitos, and could have easily stayed a week there, but with bigger weather coming in, we wanted to get to Turtle Bay.
We left in the late afternoon and sailed overnight aiming to arrive in Turtle Bay during the daylight. We’ve found that the charts aren’t always the most accurate, so we always aim to arrive in daylight. The overnight sail was pretty great - autopilot was working well and we both had time for good naps. Later in the night though, the wind did pick up along with seas - we went from 15 knots and flat to 25 knots and 6 foot seas. Unfortunately, we were going faster than we had planned for, and were going to arrive before daylight. We hove-to for about an hour outside of Bahia Tortuga to wait for the daylight to come through. I did not enjoy it at all. The waves were side on, and not small and I felt so sick. I sat in the cockpit while Paul rested and then as daylight broke, we had a nice sail into Bahia Tortuga. We dropped the hook around 7am, had a huge breakfast and we both fell asleep at the table.
Turtle Bay is very protected - it has a small entrance but a nice wide flat bay, it’s one of very few all weather anchorages between Ensenada and Cabo.
The last week had been jam packed with fun - hiking, sailing, exploring, plus the anchorages were all rolly enough that I don’t think we were getting the best sleep. So Bahia Tortuga was planned as a rest stop.
As it turned out, we didn’t leave the boat the first 3 days we were in Turtle Bay!
The wind was strong, but the water was flat, the dingy outboard performance was questionable.
Paul setup the outboard in a bucket in the cockpit, tied it to the pedestal and proceeded to try and get it run at idle, eventually deciding that a high idle and starting in gear would have to suffice.
With this work done we finally did make it to shore - it was quite the trip. We got the outboard started, pushed off from Royal Venture, then she died. We could barely paddle hard enough to make the 10 feet back to the boat. Then we got her started and finally landed on shore. I was desperately trying to find a phone/internet connection above 2G to do some work, so we walked all over trying to find anything with internet.
One guy showed us where to go, an internet cafe. But they wouldn’t let me use my own computer, so I couldn’t connect to my office. Our new friend wouldn’t leave our side now, he wanted to help us with everything and was not getting the hint that we wanted him to leave. Or he didn’t care. He sat right next to us the full hour we were online. We finally shook him, and decided that we’d probably leave Turtle Bay if we couldn’t find any internet for me to work on.
We were headed back to the boat, and all of a sudden a little yappy dog comes out of nowhere barking like crazy. Next there are 2 other big dogs - mean looking dogs with a mean bark. We crossed the street to get away, but Paul got nipped. It didn’t break the skin, but it was a scary situation and there was very little we could have done at the time if they bit harder or didn’t leave us alone. We decided from now on, we’d carry something for defense from the dogs - mace or some sort of pepper spray. So that was our first trip to land in Turtle Bay and we did not enjoy it.
Things improved quickly though - we met a couple on a trimaran on the way back and they told us we could find wifi at Maria’s. So we went back to shore, Maria’s was closed. Our new friend was waiting for us on shore - he claimed to be the harbour master and wanted to watch our dinghy for us. There were 3 other sailboats at anchor - and all were arriving on shore at the same time. So we all chatted and strolled through town together.
There were 2 of these trucks which we had seen whilst we were waiting to go ashore. They were driving out to the fishing boats loaded with all sorts of supplies and provisions presumably for other fishing villages along the coast . They were super cool to se up close.
When we got back to the dinghies, Maria’s was open and the wifi was good enough for me to work!
So we decided to stay in Turtle Bay for a few more days
We got one of our new solar panel set up temporarily to test it out - it’s working great! Paul worked on our power issues - adding the solar panel in so we could remove it temporarily when we were sailing, chasing down why the alternator has been chewing through belts, and improving the old wiring setup to various systems and what was causing us to lose nearly a volt before the power was distributed through the boat systems. I’ve been able to stay on top of my work.
Tortuga Bay was a good anchorage but for us just a place to catch up on some projects.
Next stop - the whale sanctuary near Punta Abreojos, we are looking forward to this one way more.