If you’ve been following the updates on our PredictWind tracker that Noj has been making using the IridiumGo, you’d have seen the story of our decision to anchor in Puerto Los Gatos using the guidance of the latest edition of the Bansmers’ Sea of Cortez guide as well as their Blue Lattitude charts and the Google and Bing maps we have loaded in OpenCPN courtesy of The Chart Locker.

We ended up having some southeast swell hitting us all evening in the anchorage. The good thing was that the swell was mostly coming from the direction of the wind so it wasn’t rolling us side-to-side, just some wild hobby-horsing. Which is a bit more bearable. We decided to stick it out and not go around the corner to an anchorage that might have more protection from the wind and swell because we really wanted to go onshore to hike the beautiful geology in the morning.

The persistence paid off. The wind/swell died off a little before midnight and we both slept well after that. We got up early and dinghied to shore to go hike the geology and had a very easy dinghy landing. The bay has two lobes – the geology at the north end was the most striking and we landed our dinghy just north of the pink sandstone formation that separates the two lobes. We briefly explored the sandstone in the middle and read a sign about fishing protections in the area then walked along the sand, gravel and shell beach to the northern end and its amazing wind and water-swept sandstone hills.

We eagerly hiked up the sandstone both over smooth surfaces and up the valleys where the rock had previously crumbled and washed in the rare rains of the area. As we got further up into the hill we could see the previously trodden trail up to the top of the formation at the north end of the bay. The formations varied from striated, to smooth, to lacy. We took on the hiking with gusto as it was a welcome change from scrambling over boulders in the well-marked but crazy hike at Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida (post and pictures for Islas Espiritu Santo and Partida coming soon). We even found some smooth areas to lie down and do our Pilates core mat exercises (which we hadn’t done in some time because the grill on the back deck of our boat is in the way and I hadn’t taken the time to do it when the water was calm enough to do it on the SUP board at Partida… instead I went snorkeling).

We also walked a ways along the dirt road into the desert. The road apparently will hook you up to the highway at some point and there was a large covered camping area there at the end of the road near the beach. There were so many interesting desert plants and of course many huge cacti.

Now for the sensitive types, I’d recommend not clicking through this slide gallery. We did not get a picture of the puma but the first evidence we had was several dead pelicans on the beach. We were wondering if they just got old and died near here and washed up or whether there was something else going on. We’d read that a puma used to live in the area. We soon saw the kitty prints on the beach, clearly not dog or jackrabbit. Then, after we’d gone up the hill and come back down, I noticed that near some of the dead pelicans I could see very fresh kitty prints, claw scratches and signs of struggle on the beach. The second picture in this slide show is an example of that with the pelican carcass. The third picture is a bit blurry but was the best I could do to get a good pic of the turkey vultures that were soaring around as they rested out on the low tip of the sandstone at the north end of the bay. I’m sure they appreciate the puma’s work. The low sandstone areas also housed some tide pools. If you have a chance to anchor at Puerto Los Gatos (or take a horse camping tour out there as we saw evidence some folks do) you really should. Our only regret was we hadn’t been doing our various muscle strengthening exercises and his back became sore and my knees were super swollen. My knees improved quickly and I’m fine now but for a couple days they hurt every time I hit them against something on the boat, which is like all the time given the stability of the boat and the close quarters.