Day 17 - Puerto Los Gatos

Bahia San Marte

Today we made the 12 mile passage from Bahia Santa Marte to Puerto Los Gatos ("The Cats") pretty well as planned.
We went ashore at Santa Marte for a 90 minute walk in the morning and managed to climb to a verdant plateau from where we enjoyed good views and of course see birds. At 11.45 AM we weighed anchor and bid our farewells to Ed aboard his steel sloop "Viento Suave", who had been so helpful with his suggestions to get closer to the rocks both in this bay and in Isla San Francisco to gain greater protection. Ed was moving north so we did not expect to see him again.

San Marcial Reef from plateau above Bahia San Marte.

Soon after motoring out of the bay we rolled out the jib on the starboard side and proceeded SSE with an apparent wind of 10 knots from the north, making 4 knots. There was more swell than we had expected from the port quarter but nevertheless the wind was fair, the seas were following, the sky was blue and sunny, and the sailing was splendid. I happened to be at the helm when I saw the a plume of mist drifting near the shore and I alerted Brenda to the possibility of whales. Indeed there were whales spouting, and Brenda thought that there might be three of them. They were headed north and we managed to see their bodies as they rolled back down after their latest breaths. Brenda had just stepped into the cabin when I saw dolphins crossing our bow, and possibly swimming under the boat. She came back out and we saw a very large one swim very close past the right side of the boat, and not long after that we were treated to another big one leaping completely out of the water, flying through the air horizontally, then belly flopping back onto the water.
During our 4-hour sail we did not see any other boat anywhere, and we discussed how there must be very few areas of the world where one can sail from island to island in a sailing paradise without seeing another boat, and not be hassled by officialdom or monetary charges wherever the wind takes one.

Puerto Los Gatos

At 2.45 PM we motored into the bay, careful to stay at latitude 25N18.1 in order to avoid the reefs at the ends of both arms of the bay. To our surprise we found that we had the bay all to ourselves and dropped anchor at 3 PM in 3.7 meters of water tucked in the NE corner of the haven 150 meters from the beach. As we gain experience we get better at snuggling up as close as possible for protection. Our position was 25N18.192, 110W56.763.
Our plan was to relax for the rest of the afternoon, enjoy another stew for dinner, then watch a movie.
We plan to spend another full day here at Los Gatos, enjoying the landscape at our leisure.
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