On Cruising in Mexico

I’d like write here about the many and varied pleasures of cruising the Sea of Cortez along the southern half of Baja California.  This is not to minimize the merits of cruising the mainland; with more and larger cities, it’s way more “civilized” and it’s warmer and thus it attracts the lion’s share of the cruising fleet during the winter months.  It’s the “feel” of Baja that I love; its rugged isolation, cooler winter climate, and uncrowded anchorages remind me in no small part of summer in Alaska – without, of course, glaciers or forests but also without mosquitoes, days or weeks of rain, and those vicious no-see-ums!

Many consider the 200 odd nautical mile section of lower Baja California that borders the Sea of Cortez, roughly from La Paz to Mulege or Santa Rosalia, to be one of the world’s premier cruising grounds.  There are over 50 distinct anchorages, many of them isolated and almost-wild with miles of untrammeled beaches.  If you’re cruising Baja during the winter, you may have one of these spectacular spots all to yourself or, at most, share them with only a few other cruisers or an occasional shrimp trawler (especially around Aqua Verde and, if so, dingy on over and pick up a kilo or two of the freshest possible shrimp to go with the local goat cheese you bought at the village store).

Yet even with all this splendid isolation, medical care, internet access and haul out facilities for maintenance and repair are readily available at La Paz and Puerto Escondido (near Loreto), provisioning and more limited support available at Mulege and Santa Rosalia, and basic supplies at several small fishing villages along the coast.

Many folks leave their boats in Mexico during the heat of the summer and return year after year in the fall.  Some, like us aboard Daydreamer, are lucky enough to be retired and spend the entire season here.  Others are budding blue-water cruisers who view Mexico as a good stepping stone and training ground before heading off into the big blue.  (That had been our original plan as well but we found we liked Mexico so much it took 5 years before we could break free.  It also worked well in helping us stay close to ageing parents.)   Still others are “commuter cruisers”, people that continue to work but are able to arrange some significant time off, maybe a month or two or even a few weeks at a time several times over the course of the season.  We’re all drawn by the scenery and the climate and the low cost of cruising down here.

THE VIEW FROM THE COCKPIT

Baja California’s land forms can be stunning as the mountainous spine that runs the length of the peninsula crowds the coastline.  The Sierra de la Giganta range, for example, lies immediately to the west of Puerto Escondido and rises almost vertically to the mid 5000 feet in elevation.  We’re not talking gently-rounded hills here as these mountains are extremely rugged, multi-layered in grey and pink and vermillion,  jagged and deeply-cut by arroyos as you can see in the picture to the right.

Indeed, Baja’s sometimes-violent geologic past is often immediately apparent, as features that would be covered by vegetation in much of the world are completely exposed, trimmed but not obscured by saguaro cactus and desert scrub and occasional palm trees.  You can see obsidian outcropping at Punta Pulpito, conglomerate formations at Caleta San Juanico that must have resulted from incredibly fast-running and long-lasting floods as they’re made up of well-sorted boulders 6 feet or more in diameter, and you can anchor in the flooded remnant of a volcanic caldera at Caleta Partida.  There are also fine examples of less catastrophic, more gradual geologic processes such as the lovely, peach-colored cross-bedded sandstone around Los Gatos and, most wonderfully, huge boulders and rounded outcroppings at Ensenada Grande that, through erosion and weathering, appear to be draped with lace-edged sandstone tablecloths. 

Animal life can be pretty spectacular too, both above and below the water.  Every anchorage seems to have been assigned an osprey or two and it’s an amazing thing to watch a flock of 50 or 60 boobies simultaneously wheeling and turning and diving together into a school of fish.  In the evening, pelicans glide smoothly along in line, motionless, with their wing tips an inch or less above the water then, in turn, make a few wing flaps and return to the glide.  Below, hundreds of tiny red-eyed grebes crowd together then dive simultaneously only to pop back to the surface at random then gather back together and dive again.

A lot goes on in the water too, what with myriads of fish and whales and whale sharks, but my favorite memory is of porpoise.  We were anchored near the mouth of Bahia Conception one night and I was listening to the BBC on the short wave radio in an effort to find out what was going on in the world when I heard heavy breathing off in the distance.  A large pod of porpoise were heading into the bay with a late night snack in mind.  Phosphorescence was strong in the water and I could see dim clouds of light where fish were nervously schooling up, then a stream of light as an individual porpoise zoomed through the ball of fish, and a flash as the fish tried to get away. At one point I was standing in the stern and noticed a bunch of small fish milling about in a phosphorescent bait ball about 10 feet forward of the stern on the port side.  Then I saw two porpoise to starboard slowly moving toward the stern, then quickly around the rudder and into the bait ball, which exploded with fish fleeing in every direction.  Underwater fireworks!

There’s even entertainment to be found at the air/water interface when small rays leap into the air, continuing to flap their wings as if attempting to get fully airborne, only to fall back with a “splat” when aerodynamic reality sets in.

CLIMATE

It’s January 3, 2011 as I write this and we’re lying on a mooring in Puerto Escondido, just a little south of Loreto, Baja California, Mexico.  It’s a lovely, sunny day here with a light breeze out of the east.  It was 54°F in the cabin this morning, cool enough for good sleeping under a couple of blankets and long sleeves and pants when we first get up but by early afternoon it had warmed up to the mid-70’s and we’re down to shorts and T-shirts.  It’s not always like this -- a “norther” blowing in can result in high temperatures dropping by 10°F or so but they usually only last a day or three -- but this is a fairly typical day in Baja California from around the middle of December to late January.  Of course, it gets warmer as you move south.

Sunny days are almost a given; so far during this winter’s cruise, we’ve had one day of light rain, one day with some light mist, 1 ½ days with (very rare) fog, and overcast maybe 20-25% of the time.  (The pic on the left was taken at Caleta San Juanico on Dec 23, 2010)

While I relish the cool nights and mild days of winter in Baja, the gradual warming as spring approaches is a nice change too, as blankets get pulled from berths, sweat pants and long-sleeved shirts get put away, and we pay more attention to where shade and a cold beer can be found.  The water warms up enough for swimming by mid-April and the cruising fleet is sailing over from the mainland so there are more boats around and a good chance of meeting up with friends from anchorages past.

INEXPENSIVE (or, at least, reasonable)

Perhaps best of all, it’s easy and, with a couple of exceptions, inexpensive to cruise here.

You’ll need a 6 month tourist visa (about $50) and, unless just passing through, you’ll need to temporarily import your boat.  This is a relatively painless experience wherein payment of a one-time fee of a little under $60 lets you leave your boat in Mexican waters for ten years with no additional permitting required.  There are no ad valorem or property taxes to pay nor are there any “sales/use” taxes levied (equivalent to a sales tax, viz. Washington State).  You might even save enough on taxes to pay for a couple of round-trip flights every year; Alaska Airlines (i.e. Horizon) has regularly scheduled flights from Los Angeles to both Loreto and La Paz (@ roughly $500 round trip).

If you prefer to drive and bring along a bunch of boat stuff, it’s about a 2 day drive from San Diego to La Paz or a day and half (or one really long day) to Loreto along a fairly good 2 lane highway.  Or you could drive 8 hours from Phoenix to Guaymas over high quality 4 lane toll roads and take a ferry to Santa Rosalia, followed by a 2 hour drive to Loreto or 7 hours to La Paz.  (Since we’re land-based in Arizona, we dry store Daydreamer in Guaymas, driving down in one day and taking 12 to 15 hours to make the crossing to Baja.)

Marinas in Mexico aren’t cheap, at least not during the cruising season, and some marinas, especially around Cabo San Lucas, are ridiculously off-the-charts.  However, food and supplies and services are inexpensive everywhere in Mexico and anchoring is free … or at least very low cost if you’re anchored within an area that is controlled by a port authority. (Note that the islands near Loreto and La Paz are National Parks or wildlife preserves and you may be asked to pay a nominal fee to anchor there; collection is made at irregular intervals by rangers that visit the anchorages or you can buy an annual permit, though these can sometimes be hard to find.)

Some marina time is nice when living aboard but it’s not necessary to leave a boat year-round at a high priced marina.  Looking at the posted rate schedule at the facility at Puerto Escondido, it appears that Daydreamer could be based in Baja by storing her for 6 months on the hard stand here for about $2500 plus a bit under $500 for haul and launch with a 50 ton travel lift.  Moorings run a bit under $400 per month, so it’s conceivable that we could “commuter cruise” for, say, 2 four-week periods and see total mooring and hard stand charges of under $5000 per year.  As for some actual numbers, our storage costs in Guaymas for 2010 were just under $4200, including 7 months of hard-stand and almost 1 month of marina time both before and after the hard stand period (in part, for decommissioning and recommissioning).  Not too bad especially considering that we had some medical problems that extended our hard stand and marina time by almost a month each.

Contrast this with keeping Daydreamer in, say, Southern California.  I understand that marina fees can run $900 per month or more and property taxes might be in excess of $1000 per year.  The limited opportunities to anchor there out means more marina time and the fees that need to be paid to stay at many of the cruising destinations (e.g. Catalina) and more expensive haulout, hardstand, and labor costs can add up quickly.  You can run the numbers yourself but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see annual mooring & maintenance costs in SoCal at least two to three times higher than they are in Mexico. 

Consider further that The Moorings in La Paz charges $5K to $6K per week to bareboat charter a +/- 50 ft boat.  Now, you might not charter a 50 ft boat for just a couple of people for a week, more likely something on the order of a 36 to 40 footer, which charters for about $3.5K to $4K per week.  But no matter how you cut it, it seems to me that if you can afford to have a boat, you'll find some of the most cost-effective cruising to be in Mexico, even if you only use it for a limited time.

SAFETY

We’re frequently asked about concerns regarding our safety when we talk with friends and acquaintances in the States.  The broad-brush answer is that we, along with the rest of the yachties here in Mexico, don't worry about our safety very much.

To fine-tune that a bit, after talking with a number of locals and in discussions amongst cruisers, it’s pretty clear that the violence in Mexico that has received so much news coverage is drug-related.  If you don’t do drugs and stay away from the drug trade, you should be fine.  That said, we do try to be situationally aware and not spent any more time than necessary when crossing the border.

BOTTOM LINE

November to June in Mexico: Way More Fun! Better Weather! Lower Cost!

MORE INFO

The best simple primer on cruising Mexico that I know of can be found at www.baja-haha.com/Guide/ and I encourage you to have a look.  The best recent cruising guide is Sea of Cortez, A Cruiser’s Guidebook, by Breeding and Bansmer (ISBN: 978-0-9800901-0-9); it’s a very fine piece of work and loaded with detailed charts, photos, and explanatory text and should be available at most chandleries and nautical book stores.  I also recommend reading Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez, for while much has changed over the years, much has remained the same and Steinbeck’s descriptive and narrative abilities still bring it all home.