Agua Verde to Isla San Francisco

Near Agua Verde

After our last day at Agua Verde which consisted of moving our book reading from below deck to out in the cockpit where the sun had finally decided to come out and the winds had settled down a bit, we pulled up our anchor on Monday morning and headed towards Isla San Francisco.

This was a good weather window for sailing to someplace else to tuck in for the next set of Northerlies that were coming on Wednesday and Thursday. Big ones! The wind/weather forecast was for 25- 30 knot winds gusting to 50 knots and the waves would be 10’at 6 seconds apart. So we definitely were NOT going to sail on those days! We are still trying to get to La Paz eventually we just have to dodge the weather periodically.

So as we lifted the anchor and sailed out of Agua Verde, we enjoyed some light winds, put up both sails, and also turned on the motor. The winds weren’t quite strong enough to go it alone.  But it was very pleasant out and we had no problems!

Nine hours later we arrived and anchored at Isla San Francisco. This is one of my favorite anchorages. The water is a beautiful crystal clear aqua color and the sand on the beach is snowy white. It is not inhabited and it’s nice place for swimming, snorkeling and hiking.  

S/V Aurora 

Just after anchoring here, I looked around at the other boats in the bay. One boat that caught my eye in particular was a Cal 25 that was about 50 yards away. On this boat was a salty looking sailor slightly bent over walking around the top sides of his boat maybe involved in some sort of project. As I watched him he started to look familiar to me. And all of the sudden it hit me that I knew him and I ran back to the cockpit and told Rick that I thought this was Lazr (a past beau of my sister Jennifer and close friend of the family and also someone we used to talk about sailing with. We also knew that he spent 6 months out of the year in the La Paz area and we had been trying to hook up with for the last five years but were never able to get a hold of him when we were in the area). It was like finding “Waldo”. I got out the binoculars to get a closer look and sure enough it was Lazr!! I told Rick that it was indeed him. Rick questioned me, “are you sure?” And I replied, “YES!!” Next thing I did was run to the bow of the boat and shouted as loud as I possibly could (could have woken the dead) LAaaaaaaaaZRrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He looked up from what he was doing and calmly said, “hey!” Soon after, he put his dinghy in the water, mounted the motor and zipped over to our boat. I couldn’t believe my eyes, we were finally seeing Lazr…and by accident!  He tied up his dinghy to our handrail port side with one hand while holding a beer in the other and a cigarette resting on his bottom lip. He climbed aboard and we visited for a short while. All of us beaming at one another in disbelief. During our visit,  all of a sudden he jumped up and said that he had to go fishing but said that he would be back later. So off he went in his dinghy with his live bait in his ice chest which also served as a seat, and a hand line with a big hook on it, ready to catch a big one!  

Lazr fishing

Let me take a minute to tell you about Lazr. First of all, he is the epitome of the Old Man and the Sea. He is a  70ish year old man approximately 6’5”, very lean but strong. He has a white mustache and medium length beard, a little scruffy around the edges, and white hair that you can only see wisps of under his fleece snug fitting cap that has some stiching on the front that is no longer readible.  His clothes consist of an oversized sweatshirt and loose fitting camouflage cargo shorts ...both well worn. For shoes he wears tall rubber boots that look to be a few sizes to big. His face is deeply tan and just above his apple cheeks are these deep set piercing blue eyes the color of the Sea. His voice is deep and serious which quickly turns into a laugh accompanied by a cough when he’s telling a story or reminiscing of times past.  His boat is rigged perfectly for him, nothing fancy just purposeful. Like I mentioned it’s a 25’ Cal..perfect boat for a single handed sailor! It has no life lines which scares me to see. In the stern of the cockpit sits an executive office type faux leather chair with arm rests strapped on top of a plastic square crate (the captains chair). Next to it is his ice chest, then several loose lines, fishing poles, a bucket and a stern anchor which hangs on a hard stainless steel rail behind his seat. He has two motors mounted on the stern of his boat. One is the boats outboard motor (5 horse power), the other is a 2 horse power motor for his dinghy. When he is under way his dinghy sits on the cabin top right side up, which stores his anchor and a 55 gallon plastic drum (which usually floats behind his boat when he is at anchor to keep his live bait in).  When he first starts off sailing, he goes to the bow of the boat to raise his headsail, then he makes his way to the center of the boat and raises his mainsail. The procedure  looks like he’s doing the waltz on a tightwire all the while wearing loosely fitting rubber boots (graceful yet any missed step could be fatal).    And when he anchors…this is really something…he takes the anchor out of the dinghy with one arm and then catapults it out into the water, then he goes back to the cockpit and gases the motor hard in reverse. And Bam!…the anchor is set!  He has a routine each day when he is out on the hook. He fishes from his boat in the evening  for bait using a light that draws the smaller fish in and first thing in the morning he fishes out on his dinghy, using the live bait he caught the night before, skipping breakfast all but a cup of heavily creamed coffee which comes with him. In the afternoon, he reads, has a bite to eat and either takes a siesta or just relaxes in his chair listening to Renaissance music. 

Lazr just setting sail on our way to Isla Ballena

Well Lazr did return just before dark holding up a big Dorado! We were ecstatic! Noticing our delight in his catch, he went back to his boat, cleaned and filleted the fish and brought it back in a large ziplock bag. We told him to come back tomorrow for dinner….fresh Dorado! It didn’t take him long to agree. 

Next morning, January 1st, 2019 we just relaxed and puttered around on the boat. I actually had a bout of Vertigo which kept me down for a few hours. Interesting having Vertigo on a boat…it’s hard to decipher which is from the motion of the boat and which is the Vertigo. Together it’s not the best feeling….sort of a combination of feeling dizzy and seasick at the same time. Yuk. But I managed to come around after drinking tons of water, Gatorade and eating half of a banana, and was able to put together a delicious meal to accompany the Dorado. Lazr came promptly at 5 and we enjoyed our meal and visiting. Lazr had lots of great stories and adventures to share! At the end of the night we discussed our plans of staying on ‘till Friday when the sailing would be good. When we told Lazr of the weather forecast (big winds and high seas) his comment was something about taking the ‘express to La Paz’, with a smile on his face. Rick looked over at me like….yea…it’s going to be fun, hoping I would give my blessing to go in such crazy conditions. I started to state my case pointing out that the seas were going to be high and the winds crazy. His response was, well it’ll be behind us so that’s ok!  I said I’d think about it in the morning after checking the weather again (we were getting our weather from our friend Peter on our InReach which operates on Satellite).