Bay of LA, Isla Tiburon bound.
April 22nd Tuesday afternoon Bay of LA
Setting the anchor in front of beach today gets lots of attention with 20kts gusts coming off the beach. Usually this is a sunset event but the weather system that Villa reported is in full force. The plan, get our provision have some dinner and sail out to Don Juan anchorage 8 miles east. Don Juan is one of the Sea of Cortez hurricane holes with total protections and an opportunity for a good night rest after the awesome day of heavy sailing we’ve had.
Divide and conquer, Dave & Terry hitch a ride for fuel. Ellen, Deb and I off to the Mercado and internet café. Well here’s the problem… Went into our usual internet place. Started to upload blogs and suddenly it stopped and refuse to upload??? It’s pretty important to let love ones know we made it through the most treacherous day of leg 1. After collecting supplies and dinner I called Frankie, who would be the most worried, and posted on Gato Loco Sailing Adventures on Facebook that we were having problems sending blogs an were safe in Bay of LA.
During dinner ashore wind gusts continued to increase making us anxious to get to the boat and run for Dan Juan. Arriving at the boat we see a power boat fetching 2 runaway small boats and I notice Gato Loco had drug anchor 100’ before she hooked something that was holding solid. Yep..Bay of LA providing it usual challenges.
5:30.. We haul anchor and head east. No need of sails with 20 – 25kts of wind behind us.
Motoring into the Don Juan anchorage there’s already 3 boats anchored presumably all hiding from the winds that are expected to increase through the night. As you can tell the weather has staged a perfect sunset to tell war stories from our day full of adventure. In the sunset photo we’re all swing north with south winds which is strange since we road west winds all the way to the anchorage. Before long through we had big gust coming over the spit to the west and we faced west most of the night. Windy but still very restful with Don Juan’s protection.
Wednesday April 23 – Our first day to sleep in.
The anchorage is quiet after the weather system has passed. 8:30 we decide we need to make Isla Tiburon today so we can make San Carlos Friday night. We have a few options but our late start only the SW corner anchorages are guaranteed to be reachable before dark. We will just have to see how conditions treat us as we make our second crossing back to the Sonoran side of the Sea.
10 AM – Whale Channel is doing us a big favor with wind coming down the channel from the NW allowing us to run the screacher and motor sail at 7 – 8kts fetching the south end of Angle island quickly.
12 – We’re now blanketed by Angel Island and seas are settling.
Moving clear of Angel, NW winds slowly increased giving us a good motor crossing with a highlight of dolphins and whales. Punta Willard on the SW corner of Tiburon will be an easy reach with these conditions so we heading for Dog Bay on the SE corner of Tiburon where we will have internet in the anchorage. That gives a little chance to catch up with updates.
As we approached the SW corner of Isla Tiburon Deb and I spotted the first whale. There were probably 10 that migrated past us as we’re heading to the SE corner of the island.
Life is good. We made the narrow Monument Pass with an hour to spare before sunset, Our second Sea crossing in 3 
days with favorable conditions. Right.. Roca de Faca on the south side of Monument Pass.
Dave’s cooking cooking steaks tonight and the hearts cards game is getting more interesting each night. Arriving in Dog Bay the sun has already set behind Tiburon. Another sailboat (Georgie B) is already anchored. Anchor down and it’s cocktail time..
Until the next Update.