Places We’ve Been: Playa Coyote and Bahia Santo Domingo, Bahia Conception- BCS Mexico

Let’s get this out of the way first:  Use this post for information or entertainment only, please do not use this post for navigation.

One night in Bahia Santispac was enough to convince us that it was really hot.  So we took off for Playa Coyote but it was like spring break on Miami Beach.  We lasted about two hours.  So we upped anchor and headed out to Bahia Santo Domingo….where we found cooling winds and cell phone signal.

Getting up in the morning, it registered quite well that Playa Santispac was hot, the water not great and we wanted to explore more.  So at 0900 we upped anchor and took off for Playa Coyote, arriving around 1000.  We dropped anchor in 20 feet of clearish water off the beach and sat back watching the masses of humanity on the beach.  The scene reminded me of a spring break movie.  There was little wind and lots of heat.  With little breeze, the teak decks heated quickly and we baked.  So we voted for a swim, but we were back on the boat quickly after people from the beach started to swim, float and kayak close to Tulum.  Since we were still in the height of Covid, this wasn’t something we had reckoned with….and I wasn’t comfortable with the crowds.  Gone are the simple beaches of my youth.  Now these same beaches have old palapas, stores with cold drinks and cervesa and old ramshackle RV’s.  Not our scene.  So around 3pm we decided to raise the anchor again and take off for Bahia Santo Domingo.  This isn’t really a true bay, but it’s along the outside finger of Conception (very hard to get to by land), has nice white sandy beaches, a breeze, cell service and had a congregation of cruising boats already there.

We would stay here for four days, getting a real intro to how cruising boats were treating the pandemic.  We had known a few of the boats with kids from winter in La Cruz (on the mainland) but this ground of boats was about as careful as us for social gathering or hanging out at all.  We understood, but had to explain this to the kids.

Our stay here over these four days would be eventful in several ways.  We did eventually sort of hang out with several of the boats w/kids on the beach…while we socially distanced but at least we were able to get off the boat and talk to other cruisers.  This would also be the anchorage where Quincy (our Great Dane) would fall into the water for the first…and last time.  She survived fine and swam back to our swim ladder to crawl back into the boat, but the experience would teach us numerous lessons.  She really wanted to get to shore out of the heat (she would spend time wading in the shallow water to cool off) and we needed to always pay much more attention to her when boarding the dinghy.   This was also the anchorage where we experienced our first (but not last) true katabatic wind.  If we had been further south near La Paz, we might be able to call it a chubasco….but it was a true katabatic wind coming from the east to the west, funneling through the terrain features of the Bahia Conception outer land mass.  This event started strong and ended suddenly, in the middle of the night with NO warning.  I would guess the winds were in excess of 40 mph very suddenly- sustaining these speeds for about 20 minutes.  Then as suddenly as the wind came on…..it died away.  The good news is that our smaller lighter Spade Anchor (77 pounds) held with no problem, even when my snubber ripped itself up and all 150 feet of my chain went straight taunt….snubber in ruins and no way to get a second one on the chain quickly.  I did manage to get a second snubber on the chain, but it was not terribly effective.  Needless to say….Tulum didn’t drag but we had a hell of a wakeup call and some interesting 1/2 hour of high wind in the middle of the night.  A week later on the docks in Escondido, I would swap out the lighter Spade for my (110 pound) Manson Supreme.  It would stay on Tulum until we sold her in Panama.

These four days were also significant because they altered the course of our cruising journey.  Earlier in the year (just before Covid struck) we had been given a rig inspection by Jamie Gifford of S/V Totem.  Jamie is a cruising sailmaker/rigger (eventually he would spec and help us order every new sail on Tulum) who came to the boat and did a preliminary rig inspection.  His inspection showed that Tulum needed new standing rigging….soon.  So between February and October of 2020, we babied Tulum and didn’t always run her sails/rigging hard, because we knew we needed new rigging.  This influenced our decision sitting in Bahia Santo Domingo as to whether we wanted to head north to Bay of LA or just hang out in places we knew close to Escondido until we could get into La Paz in Sept/Oct for a complete re-rig.  Bay of LA is a significant distance north up the Baja Peninsula by slow sailboat and it’s remote.  If we had a rig problem there, it would have been tough to deal with.  We didn’t go further north to Bay of LA and we did get into La Paz in Sept/Oct for a completely new standing rigging job.  Another story that I have already published, with a million photos….here’s the link to that rigging ordeal.

We made the right decision not to continue to go further north that season, but I still regret not getting up to Bay of LA to see it and check out the summer whale sharks.  It’s always been a place I would like to get back to, just to check out the whole area, be hot and know that I’ve explored it by boat.  I strongly want another chance to go back and try to get up there again.

Here’s more info:

Ease of anchoring:  We anchored over a sand in about 30 feet of water.  It was clear enough for me to dive the anchor and see it.

Noise at anchor:  None but the reggae coming off the back of the boat at cocktail hour.  

Provisioning:  None

Cellular reception at anchor:  Yes.

Wifi in the anchorage:  None

Water Clarity:  Yes, when the water was still I could see bottom and was able to dive the anchor in the afternoon. 

Protection:  Some protection but winds tend to funnel through because of Conception’s geography.  This was one of two places we were hit with a midnight chubasco/catabatic wind.  And, there is potential for swell to come around the point from Conception into the anchorage.  

Bugs:  No.  

Beach:  Yes, white sand beach.   

Would We Go Back:  I would not go back to Conception proper but I might go back to Bahia Santo Domingo.    

Please remember these are just my viewpoints and won’t apply to all cruisers….so my writing is of course very subjective.  I would not change our time in Conception but I also would not want to repeat it.  Things change, places change and we were there in the midst of the pandemic, basically hiding from people and trying to just get by.  Take my writings with a grain of salt always.

Some may not realize the significance of our decision to skip heading north to Bay of LA and stay in the vicinity of Escondido and Loreto until we could get into La Paz in September or October to get the rig done.  We strive to be candid enough to show you how real and sometimes stressful cruising can be.  This was one of those moments. 

Here’s our stories of getting the rig fixed in La Paz, Mexico:

Stage-1, Tulum’s Refit- Haul Out In La Paz, MX

Stage-2, Tulum’s Refit- New Chainplates

Stage-1.5, Tulum’s Refit- Side Projects

Stage-3, Tulum’s Refit- All New Standing Rigging in La Paz, Mx

And here’s some of the more recent stories I’ve posted about other anchorages in Baja:

Places We’ve Been: Playa Santispac, Bahia Conception- BCS Mexico

Places We’ve Been: La Ramada…AKA “Nudie Cove”

Places We’ve Been: San Juanico & “The “Farm”

Places We’ve Been: Painted Cliffs On Isla Carmen In BCS, Mexico