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Volume 86
October 5-8
Este Ton, Isla Angel La Guarda

Este Ton (29*09.69’N; 113*19.86’W) is a perfect little one-boat anchorage on the SW coast of Isla Angel La Guarda…as long as the winds aren’t from the south! We nipped into Este Ton after an all-day sail down the coast from Puerto Refugio. Our mood was a little melancholic, like the end-of-summer-vacation blues. This is foolish, of course, as we live on vacation! Still, there is something about turning back, retracing ground we have covered, that, coupled with the rapidly shortening days, made tearing ourselves away from Puerto Refugio especially hard.

Este Ton was the perfect tonic. Despite being nearly fifty miles long, Isla Angel La Guarda as very few anchorages along its rugged steep coasts. Coming from the North, if you didn’t know it was there, it would be easy to miss Este Ton entirely. We entered between lines of semi-submerged rock into a sweet little basin alternating between gravel beach and rocky bluffs. There were literally thousands of pelicans. Like Refugio, the colors were awesome.

The above lat/long is where you want to drop the hook. Precisely. What looks like the middle to arriving boats is invariably right on top of the only rock in the anchorage! We, like friends before us, learned the hard way.

We spent three nights here, biding our time to rendezvous with the vegie delivery in Bahia Los Angeles. We never needed to launch the dinghy as the rocky points were an easy swim away (the anchorage is that small!!) The water temperature, however, had made a sharp drop, and on our first afternoon foray we nearly froze! That was a night for the first spaghetti dinner we’d had all summer, not to mention a whole bottle of Chianti! The next morning was much better, and with full sun at least seemed warmer. Don had a very successful day despite being stuck with only the pole spear. Necessity, I guess, is the mother of skill-building!

It also was a nice kayak area, and I had a number of good bird sightings, including a huge great blue heron, osprey, and a tiny little Horned Grebe (my first Grebe), here for the winter from northern Canada. Grebes are little duck-like creatures with a fluffy bouyancy and a bright red eye, looking like some bath toy in this rugged environment!

From here, after the vegie run tomorrow, we start back southward along the same Baja Coast we covered pretty thoroughly on the way up. With the winds gradually being more and more northerly, we may get to check out a few different anchorages that were exposed during the summer southerlies. When and if we do, we’ll let you hear about them, but for now, the website will go into semi-hibernation until we reach Mazatlan mid November!