Fast passage to Agua Verde

Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico

Reversing the course we took coming north last year, today we traveled south some 22 miles to Bahia Agua Verde.

This was one of our quickest trips in a long time. We started out from Puerto Escondido around 9:15 AM and motor-sailed, with our double-reefed mainsail hoisted, in extremely light winds for the first two hours, maintaining a speed of around 6 knots. For the first hour, the wind was coming from the SE at around 2 to 3 knots, then as we passed Punto Candeleros, it switched and started coming from the north, still at no more than 3 or 4 knots - not enough for us to bother trying to sail in this boat.

At around 11:30 the winds shifted to the south and freshened to between 8 to 10 knots. Off went the engine and out came the Genoa. We sailed close-hauled on a SE heading at between 5.5 and 7.2 knots - really fast for this old boat. When we were less than 5 miles from Bahia Agua Verde, the winds decreased and shifted to come from the NW, allowing us to ghost right into the anchorage at around 2.5 to 3 knots on a broad reach. I thought about trying to anchor under sail alone but chickened out about a 1/2 mile out. We had the anchor down by 2:20 in the afternoon. Total time was 5 hours, exactly half of that under sail.

Bahia Agua Verde has three main anchorages, two to the south and one to the north. I originally thought we would try the north anchorage as we had not been there before and it might be better protected from the predicted NW winds, but there were 7 boats already crowded in there. In addition, there were 3 boats anchored in front of the village. Our favorite spot, a small cove where we spent our time last year, was totally vacant, so that is where we ended up. We are quite exposed to the north but the winds are very light and there does not seem to be any swell right now. As I am typing this, around 5PM, the wind has died right off and it is beautiful and calm and one other boat has come in, so we are not alone any more - maybe there will be some other late arrivals.

Tomorrow we will continue south...

{GMST}25|30.82|N|111|3.75|W|Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico|Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico{GEND}