I left Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen at 5:45 AM bound for Caleta San Juanico. I hoped that by leaving early I would have calm wind and sea conditions because the wind and seas are often calm in the early morning and build to a peak in the late afternoon. The wind was much stronger than I expected for so early in the morning. It was blowing 15 to 18 knots, there were 1 or 2 foot wind waves, and about 70% of the sky was filled with clouds as I left Puerto Ballandra. The wind and seas got lighter as the day progressed. By the time I reached Caleta San Juanico at 11:20 AM the wind was just over 5 knots, the seas were almost flat, and it was mostly sunny so the trip was relatively quick and pleasant.
There was one powerboat in the anchorage when I arrived. Its skipper was kind enough to come by in his dinghy and point out the best places to anchor. I really appreciated his help because Caleta San Juanico is an unusually difficult anchorage. It is well protected, but there are lots of reefs, rocks, and shallows throughout the anchorage that must be avoided. Having someone with local knowledge was really helpful.
After I got the boat anchored, I inflated the dinghy to take a hike ashore. The dinghy is stored upside down in a large canvas bag that is tied on the foredeck. The foredeck is the only place the dinghy will fit. The bag is about 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 1 foot tall. It takes about 20 or 30 minutes to untie dinghy, get it out of its bag, inflate it, attach the seats and oars, and lift the dinghy from the foredeck to the water. The dinghy weighs about 100 pounds, so I lift the dinghy into the water by attaching a three point sling to the corners of the dinghy, attaching the spinnaker halyard to the sling, and using a winch on the mast to raise the halyard. It is basically a simple crane. I reverse the process to lift the dinghy out of the water and back on the foredeck when putting the dinghy away.
If I need to take the dinghy very far, I also need to deploy the outboard motor. The outboard motor is stored on the right hand side of the boat very near the stern. It weighs about 100 pounds and there is a special lifting device that is like a miniature crane mounted just in front of the location where the outboard motor is stored. I use this outboard crane in combination with a cockpit mounted winch to lift the outboard motor off of its storage bracket and down to the dinghy. Deploying the outboard and its portable plastic fuel tank takes about 15 minutes, so if I am only going a short distance in the dinghy, I prefer to row. That is what I did today.
When I rowed the dinghy ashore, I waved to two people who were camping on the beach next to their pickup truck. I then took a brief hike down the beach and got some photos of Barlavento at anchor.
When I walked back toward the dinghy, I passed the two campers on the beach and said hello. I am really glad I did so, because they were a very interesting couple from British Columbia, Canada. They live in the interior about an hour from Whistler ski resort. He is 60 years old and has worked as a bear biologist for the Canadian government for the past 30 years. We spent 2 hours or more talking about his work. It was fascinating.
He described how he tags bears for study. There is a very experienced helicopter pilot from Saskatchewan who specializes in capturing wild animals from the air. The biologist sits in the right seat of the helicopter with a tranquilizer gun or net, while the pilot flies the helicopter near the animal. The biologist drugs or snares the animal. They then land the helicopter, tag the animal, and then release the animal as quickly as possible. The biologist has tagged over 5000 animals using this technique. The work is so unique and potentially dangerous that he only trust this single pilot to work with him. He said the leading cause of death for wildlife biologists like him was helicopter and plane crashes. He knew 5 people killed in this way.
I learned that about 98% of bears die by being shot by humans. Very few bears die of natural causes or old age.
Apparently the bear biologist community is quite small. There are about 50 people worldwide that specialize in bear studies. Almost all of them belong to a single professional organization that meets in conference every other year. The meeting about 2 years ago was held in India. He explained that India is the home to more species of bears than any other country. There are eight species of bears, and four of those are present in India. He said that about 100 Indian people are killed by bears each year. Most are killed by the sloth bear which is especially aggressive when protecting its young. He explained that although 100 bear’s deaths sounded high, many more Indians are killer by tigers each year.
In the US, Canada, and Europe there are only two species of bears, namely brown bears (also called Grizzly bears) and black bears. Polar bears are a variety of brown bear that has evolved unique features but it still a brown bear and is capable of interbreeding with normal brown bears and having fertile offspring.
There is only one species of bear in South America.
It was hard tearing myself away from the discussion. There was much more we could have talked about. The couple are heading to Bahia Conception, so it is possible I will run into them again when I arrive there.
While rowing the dinghy back to Barlavento, I made a detour to thank the fellow on the powerboat for the anchoring information. He introduced himself as Barny and introduced his wife as Sandy. He is a crop dusting pilot from the Sacramento area. He explained that a lot of his income comes from planting and fertilizing rice from the air. In May of each year, the rice farmers around Sacramento hire him to drop pre-germinated rice seedlings from his airplane. They also pay him to fertilize the new rice plants. He said that the process is expensive but it permits the rice plants to reach market more quickly because they have already germinated when they are planted and this also gives them a head start on the weeds they might otherwise choke out the new rice plants. By getting the rice to market earlier, they can command a premium price and this more than repays the extra cost of planting and fertilizing from the air. They grow short grain rice in California, and most of the crop is sold is Asia and the Middle East. Long Grain rice, by contrast, is grown in Louisiana and is largely consumed here in the US.
Barny was also a computer programmer briefly. In the early eighties he bought one of the first PCs and wrote a program for record keeping and billing for crop dusting. He ended up selling the system to other crop dusters. He eventually stopped doing this because almost everyone who bought the program wanted it customized for their special needs. They then expected him to support the application for free. The hassle of supporting all of the specialized version of the program was too much, so he eventually abandoned the business. Despite this, he said that he recently ran into someone who was still using the original program.
Barny and Sandy are like the majority of cruisers I meet here on the Baja Peninsula. They have been coming here each year for many years. 26 years in their case. During the summer months when it is too hot here in Mexico, they store their boat in dry storage in either San Carlos, Guaymas, or La Paz. In late October they have their boat put back into the water and they cruise south along the east coast of the Baja Peninsula. Some take their boats over to the mainland of Mexico and visit the area between Puerta Vallarta and Manzanillo. The majority of the cruisers are at or near retirement age. Most have many friends here and some are active in shore side activities including charities for Mexican school children.
Tomorrow, I plan to leave for Bahia Conception. A strong Norther is predicted to arrive on Monday. It may last for up to a week. I need to be in a secure anchorage before it hits.
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