Abreojos-

Punta Abreojos is an interesting place. Famous for really two things, surf in the summer and grey whales in the winter in the nearby Laguna San Ignacio. After a eye opening entrance bypassing the hundreds of lobster pots and multiple outcroppings of rocks and shoals we made it to our anchorage. The name Abreojos comes from the spanish words “Open” and “Eyes”, meaning, open your eyes!

And for good reason. There are two anchorage’s here. One right in front of the town, situated next to the panga beach, and one further east around another point about 4 miles from town. Pretty simple row into shore with a reef protecting the landing so easy in easy out. The town is interesting, seeming not to have the same charm the I have found in every other town or village we have visited so far. I not sure if this is due to the large amount of gringos that live here in the summer or if it was just an off day but we did our business, paid our 3 bucks to use slow internet to update the blog and get weather forecasts and got back to the boat after hitting  few markets for a few thing we needed (mostly the soft drink Fresca for our cocktails).

The water here has a visibility of about 6-10 feet given the tide. The water is the warmest so far on the trip, Im guessing around 73 ish degrees. After two days in front of the town we decided to move to the second anchorage that would have better swell protection from the building swell coming form the west. This anchorage is right off a famous surf spot called ‘Razors’. This is a big reef extending the entire point and about 200 yards off the point. Visibility was better snorkeling on the reef so we decided that we wanted fresh fish for dinner. Sean and Shannon where the dive party with me in the dinghy as the fish transport. We had a good run, I caught a 4 lb Calico on the reel while Sean speared a few calico while Shannon helped to spot. In total we collected three fish and traded for some lobster, plenty for a couple of dinners.

That night we ate lobster with butter. Life gets no better. The following day Sean wanted to try the surf further around the point more towards town again. I elected us to put the outboard on and let me dinghy him out there. We then piled into the dinghy and I motored him about a 2 miles up from the point where the west swell was breaking. This place is known for south swell but that didn’t stop Sean, I left him for nearly 4 hrs and he had a blast surfing waist to head high waves. Later that day I motored back out to pick him up, our dinghy is a hard dinghy so getting into it from the water is not the easiest task, plus with the outboard on you must be extra careful not to flood or flip it. I made a tow rope and started trolling Sean back towards the boat. We really wanted to see if any great whites where in the bay with Seans sellout greatly resembles a slow injured seal.We where almost halfway there and the motor died. Our outboard is a 1983 Cruise and Carry (thanks Geoff!). It works well but for some reason when it gets hot after running for a while it will just not continue to run consistently. It will start up run for about a minute and then just die. Over and over this will happen until you leave it for about an hour. I’m going to try to get it rebuilt when we get to La Paz for cheap hopefully. So Sean started paddling back while I rowed. Safe to say he got his Cardio for the day. This anchorage is nice, much quieter with much less panga traffic. Not sure why but if you cruise Baja you will soon find that pangas will drive as close to your boat at full speed as possible. Wether you’re inside or out they do this. I can see that some want a closer look, but often these guys will slow down, the guys that blast by I can imagine are doing only one thing, seeing the mathematical equation of: Speed of Panga+ proximity to anchored boat divided by beam of anchored boat = rocking angle which is you take the square root of that you get the rate of side to side motion. 🙂 On this side of the bay it is very quiet but at night starting at around 3 am it gets very rolly with steep chop coming from the south east, must be from harder offshore blowing at that time. We have decided to leave late afternoon friday, trying to take advantage of the afternoon winds here to make it to San Juanico by saturday afternoon. Some bigger west swell will be hitting at that time, up to nine foot seas but at long durations. – Jon 12-11-14 8:54 AM

12-15-14 9:00 AM -Shannon

 Well we made it to San Juanico. We did not leave friday afternoon as we really didn’t want to sail at night and do the whole on for 4 hours, off for 4 hours and so on. Instead we woke up at 3:45 am on saturday morning, weighed anchor and set off. In the darkness we navigated pass all the sumgerged rocks and shoals that surround the area. We had to motor for the first 2 1/2 hours. Around sunup we had wind. We sailed along doing 4-5 knots. Then around 10 am, just like every other day, the wind died. It was short lived, a small breeze came back within about 15 min so we thought we would give the spinnaker another try. Here goes nothing! This time running the shoot we had zero problems. It went up easy, scooted us along around 6 knots for a long while.  We sailed with the full main and the spinnaker till the wind shifted to too much to our stern so we dropped the spinnaker and went wing on wing with the main and drifter. We have the whole wiskerpole set up down. The crew of PRISM is becoming a finely tuned machine that is getting the hang of this whole sailing thing.  The seas did pick up to the 9 foot swell and to make things even more fun, mother nature added a 4 foot wind chop that made our entrance around Punta Pequina quite a ride. While dodging hundreds of lobster trap buoys, Sean was as giddy as a school boy as we watched the surf breaking at all of the 6 different point breaks that line the whole cove.

Sean messing around with the GoPro

Look at all the fried fish

We dropped the hook with the feeling that this place is awesome, and if it were not for the hurricanes in the summer, we would probably never leave. Yesterday morning we woke up to an AMAZING view. The whole cove was calm, warm and welcomed us with a sprit we have been looking to find in these small towns. ITS ON! Sean got the boards ready and we  started to make our way to Scott, he had already brought his anchor up to come get us to motor out to the points. He towed our dinghy with Jon and I in it as we towed Sean in the water on the boards. Im sure to all the other surfers out we must have looked like the circus coming in. What a bunch of kooks we are. Boat anchored just off the 2nd point we all swam to the smaller breaks near the shore. As Sean as our teacher we were all up and attempting to surf. We were out there for hours having a blast, laughing and watching Sean and the other good surfers ride the waves with such ease.

We were all very sure to do the Baja Shuffle as we made our way though the shallows. We surfed till our arms couldn’t do it any more. Sean and Scott took his boat out to the next point in search for bigger surf as Jon and I rowed back to PRISM. When the bachelors returned we found the Sean surfed and Scott went hunting for dinner.  Fresh fish, lobster and octopus  was on the menu.  None of us had ever cooked, cleaned or have done anything with octopus before, so we spent a while reading how to and what to do with it. We ended up cutting it into bite size pieces, beating it with a hammer and then deep frying it in lard with a beer batter. We did not beat it enough as some of the pieces we could not chew as it would just play pin ball in our mouths. Another round with the hammer, then the lobster and the fish. We were all so full that the next round of octopus will have to wait till tomorrow.

We woke this morning with the high hopes to get back in the water and surf away the day again with blue skies, the sun shining and warm water. That however didn’t happen, we woke to a chill wind blowing, over cast with no sun in sight and the water.. well that was still warm but not quite inviting as if it was the day before.  Here on PRISM we are all feeling a bit stiff as we (and when I say “we”, I mean Jon and I) used muscles the day before that we have not used or have never used in a Very long time.

With the over cast day we are all planning to go ashore and check out this town and what it has to offer. We are once again in search of more booze, mixers, tortillas, and REAL BUTTER! OH man do I miss normal salted butter from the states. All they have down here is lard, and a table spread that does not even come close to what butter should taste like.

our attempt to have a brother and sister surfing photo

The group shot

Abreojos

Getting towed by scott

our one and only Xmas decoration

I have a feeling that we are going to stay here awhile. Weather permitting of corse.