Gato Loco Sailing - The San Carlos Cruise.

Feb 26 – Mar 6,   2005

Puerto Penasco Waterfront

The Gato Loco crew is anxiously awaiting our first cruise of 2005. We are going to explore the Sonoran coast between Puerto Penasco and San Carlos near Guaymas, Sonora Mexico about 300 nautical miles south. This coast has hundreds of miles of beautiful white sand beaches which unfortunately don't provide many good anchorages. We will sail two long legs to begin the cruise before arriving near the island of Tiburon and better anchoring opportunities. Bill, Dave, Frankie and Lowell are the crew for this trip. Our plan is to depart early Sat Feb 26^th weather permitting. We do have an option to have a short trip the 1^st day by sailing to Bird Island just 24 mile south. Bahia Tepoca, our primary 1^st day destination, is reported as a good anchorage but offers little protection from the south. If we have strong southern seas we will be forced to sail overnight to Bahia Sargento north of Tiburon. Bahia Sargento offers both a north and south wind anchorage.

Tiburon is the largest island in the Sea of Cortez and is a Seri Indian reserve. The island forms a narrow channel on it’s east side that is not navigable by slower sailing vessels due to extreme rip tides so we will sail the west coast. We hope to anchor on the SE end at Dog Bay.

A visit to the sea side resort of Kino Bay should give us a break on long sailing legs. Going ashore in Kino requires calm seas since there is no port. Think calm seas for us! There is a island directly in front Kino with a fair weather anchorage.

The next leg south offers endless anchoring options in the cruising grounds north of San Carlos. We hope to arrive in San Carlos by the weekend.

Cruise plan

Day 1 – Bahia Tepoca

Day 2 – Bahia Sargento

Day 3 – Dog Bay

Day 4 – Kino Bay

Day 5 – Ensenada Los Cocina

Day 6 – San Carlos

Gato Loco will be in San Carlos until late April when we head to Baja and the Loreto Fest cruisers rally April 28th – May 1st at Puerto Escondido 20 miles south of Loreto. Partners will be visiting San Carlos March/April to enjoy the San Carlos cruising grounds..

As usual we hope to send email updates during the cruise.

Until the first update… The Gato Loco Crew