San Juanico

 We awoke at around 7am, when the sun starts to heat the boat up, and waited for the wind to build so we could sail across to Isla Coronado. Sure enough, like clockwork the winds came up at around 11am and we set sail across the strait to the extinct volcano. With winds of up to 15 knots on the beam and flat seas we made good time exceeding 7.5 knots at times, a delight.

We scouted out the anchorage and decided that it was not a place we wanted to stay for a few days as we had to anchor quite a way offshore and it provided little protection from northerlies and looked a bit barren so we continued on to San Juanico bay which looked far more promising from the write up in the guide book.

We arrived at about 4pm and anchored between two islands in the northern part of the bay. We anchored in only about 12 feet, leaving only about 6 feet below us, less than I like. As the evening breeze from the land picked up we swung around. I watched the depth gauge stay steady. At around 2am I head a small unnatural knock which sounded like the rudder hitting something so I checked the depth again and we had fallen a bit with the tide but still had 5 feet below the keel. Again the knock sounded again so I assumed there must be a rock near the rudder so we upped anchor in the darkness and moved out into deeper water for a peaceful night’s sleep.

San Juanico is a wonderful bay with lots of room for many boats, not that there were many here. We saw two other boats in the south anchorage. The bay has some great long sandy beaches, hiking trails and interesting rock formations and sea life and we spent 4 days exploring the area, hiking and watching the manta rays leap out of the water belly flopping as they land. Katya found a seam of Gypsum crystal and some interesting mud hills with the finest mud ever. Katya and I set about covering ourselves in the marvelous slimy goo which instantly dried into a hard cake. No cucumber eye patches though.

Whilst finishing a great book at 2am one evening I heard some frequent splashing outside. We had seen many schools of manta rays cruising the bay and leaping out of the water but they normally stopped after sunset. I went on deck and watched in amazement as areas of the sea lit up as the manta rays swam through the phosphorescence. I watched the show for about an hour and when a school came close to the boat you could make out the outline of each manta ray looking like some ghostly apparition gliding through the night. It was both spooky and exhilarating.