Topolobampo Isla Santa Maria
We left Mazatlan knowing that we should have a light NW wind for our 2 nights passage to Topolobampo. We motored Wednesday morning on a flat sea. Just after noon the wind picked up and we started to sail on a nice tack, right on track. But soon the wind increased to ~12kt, turned right in our nose and lifted short waves. Courageous, we continued beating against the wind, waves and current until dark. We were doing 4.5kt on the water, which means about 2kts on the ground towards our goal…
We started the engine around 8pm and did not stop it until the following night: 32 hours non-stop pounding in the waves (a record for us). During all this time the wind continued to be right in the nose, and stronger than predicted. Finally, during the second night the wind slowed down a little bit and turned more westerly. So at 4am we raised all our sails and continued this way until inside the Topolobampo entrance, around 4pm on Friday. Again we had to tack against the wind from 11am until entering the channel, but we were not in a hurry to arrive because of the tide. This also allowed us to catch 3 sierras in these shallow waters (we did not put the line after the third one since it was already enough)!
After the first section of the channel (4.5nm), we turned left rather than right and went one more mile to the north to anchor behind Isla Santa Maria (the Rains guide gives a correct GPS point for this spot). We are alone here in this completely different setting than last time close to the town.
This morning we took a long walk in the incredible sand dunes composing Santa Maria. This is a really beautiful place and you feel very remote (you will have to wait that we get an internet connection to get pictures) although we are only 6nm from Topolobampo . There are some fishermen sheds on the beach and several donkeys: we are wondering where they find fresh water… We collected a lot of sand-dollars on the sea side and are ready to continue our progression north tomorrow.