Places We’ve Been: Isla San Francisco (East Anchorage)

April, 2020- La Paz Mexico.  Covid had swept the world while we were out cruising.  We had first heard of it just two weeks earlier while anchored in the Old Harbor in Mazatlan.  We had pandemic provisioned and headed across the Sea of Cortez to ride out the end of the world and be close to a good hurricane hole.  But Baja for the spring and summer of 2020 was always part of our plan, so this was no great deviation for us.  After a safe crossing and weathering a blistering norther in Muertos for 6 days, we were pretty happy to find a slip and friendly faces in La Paz.  We stayed for nearly two weeks, deep provisioned and then made plans to head north up the Sea of Cortez to hang out around the Loreto area.  We decided to buddy boat with our friends on Lady Midnight, a Formosa 51 (leaky teaky).  We made good time, passing Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida (which were supposedly shut down) as we headed straight to Isla San Francisco.  It’s a 44 mile run, which I don’t think we would have done if the islands were open, we would have broken up the trip and stayed in Caleta Partida a few days, but things were all rumor and conjecture so we tried to do what the Mexican Government was asking to the best of our knowledge.

[I think it’s wise to mention at this point in the post that this info should NOT be used for navigational purposes or for exact reference.  I am not a map maker, topographer or even a really great sailor.  Ok, read on.]

During the run from La Paz to Isla San Francisco, both our buddy boat and I spotted wind coming in during the night from a different direction than usual, which would put us on a lee shore if we anchored in the usual “cresent shaped main bay” on the west side of the island.  That bay is labeled waypoint “BCS201” in the Shawn and Heather guidebook, “Sea of Cortez, a Cruisers Guidebook” by Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer.  It’s pretty much the gold standard for cruising Baja and the west coast of Mexico.

Instead, we headed to the anchorage on the east side of the island, labeled BCS202 in the Shawn and Heather book.  Arriving in late afternoon, we were fortunate that really high winds were not up yet (in fact there wasn’t enough wind to even run our big jib) and some wind is blocked by the very low saddle between the west and east anchorages (read: nearly no wind protection from the island land mass if the winds come from the west to the east/or vice versa…which is why we had chosen this anchorage).  I say chosen very loosely, because in reality we had chosen to follow Lady Midnight as we really didn’t know much about weather guessing so early in our cruising career.  We arrived in the anchorage at about 430 in the afternoon and anchored in 35 feet of water with nearly 160 feet of chain out.  The anchorage is marked in the Shawn and Heather book but there’s no information in the book about anchoring there, but we were able to bring up topography about the anchorage on our MFD charts.  We did our usual “back down/set” on the anchor and got a decent hook, but it was too murky to dive it.

That night we did get wind from the west to the east, meaning that because we were in the east anchorage we were not getting pushed toward a lee shore, but the wind did confuse the waves so they came into the anchorage and made for an rocky night.  We heard lots of chatter on the morning net about how bad the anchorage on the other side was, so we made a good decision to try the east anchorage for the specific winds we knew were coming in.  The next morning, the anchorage continued to get more and more rough, so we pulled our hooks and headed around the island on a 3-mile run to the west anchorage.  Once there, we anchored once, didn’t like it and moved to the far left side of the wide bay.  Once there, we anchored a second time over 27 feet of sand in crystal clear water and found good holding.

Here’s more info: 

Ease of anchoring:  We anchored in 35 feet of water over rock (we think) but still felt we had decent holding.  We put out our usual 150-200 feet of chain.   

Noise at anchor:  None.

Provisioning:  None.

Cellular reception at anchor: None.

Wifi in the anchorage:  None.

Water Clarity:  Water was clean but not clear. 

Protection:  Some protection from the North and West.  Little protection from the South and East- both wind and swells.  Very likely to have wrap-around swells from the north.  

Bugs:  None. 

Beach:  None, rocky shoreline. 

Would We Go Back:  Not unless we needed to. 

Our family (with two kids, a Great Dane and eventually a cruising kitty) spent four years on our cruising sailboat living in Mexico and Central America while we traveled and took life slowly.  We live on land now, but still travel and write about travel with kids.

Here’s the last story I published about one of the anchorages in the same area:

Places We’ve Been: Playa la Bonanza- (Isla Espíritu Santo, Baja Mexico) 

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