ARCHIPIÉLAGO DE
REVILLAGIGEDOS
The Revillagigedos (ray-VEE-ya-hee-hay-dose) Islands, which
were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, are a remote
archipelago about 300 miles west of Mexico ’s mainland and about 250 miles
south of Cabo San Lucas. These islands
have held an allure for us ever since we heard fabulous stories from other
cruisers of its prodigious collection of diverse marine life. One cruiser told us of swimming with giant
manta rays who would circle their boat, waiting for them to get into the water
and then allow them to hold on to their ‘heads’ and take them for rides. The manta rays seemed to be aware of how the
cruisers were equipped: If they had on
scuba gear, the mantas would take them deep, however, if the cruisers had only
donned snorkel gear, the mantas would stay near the surface and allow their
‘passengers’ to get air frequently. According
to these cruisers, the manta rays would return them to their boat when the ride
was over. We had no reason to believe
this was a fabricated story and we withheld our opinion that it’s inappropriate
to touch wild sea life. But the marine
life notwithstanding, the appeal of uninhabited islands far from any shore was
a strong enough calling which we could not ignore.
South end of Isla San Benedicto
The four islands, Clarion, San Benedicto, Roca Partida and
Socorro, are Mexican and since they’re also a carefully guarded marine reserve,
special permission must be obtained before venturing there. We knew of dive boats in San Diego , our home town, that would make the
900-mile passage and, once on a visit home, we contacted several to see if they
could shed some light on how to go about gaining permission to visit. Though they seemed willing to help, their descriptions
of the permit process were discouraging.
It wasn’t until we returned to the large cruising community of Banderas Bay La Paz , promising, among other things, to not
fish or go ashore, and wait for their reply, granting permission. Wait.
Make follow up phone calls.
Wait. More phone calls. Wait.
Then, miraculously, the email appears, which allows you to sail west to
another unknown destination.
Isla San Benedicto at sunset
The weather off Mexico ’s
western Riviera had been unusually benign and
we waited until there was wind forecast before we left Banderas Bay
Not more than eight feet down
Isla San Benedicto rises straight up out of a very deep
ocean and about a mile offshore it’s still over 2,000 feet deep. The island itself is a moonscape devoid of
any vegetation, a solid mound of volcanic ash, with thousands of valleys carved
down its gray, 2.5-mile length. We dropped
our anchor in what had been described to us as an acceptable anchorage but
after a minute, we pulled it up and went looking for something with less swell
action. On the south end of the island
is another anchorage and it was obviously preferred as there were two other
boats there, the 105-foot, Undersea
Hunter, clearly a dive boat and the 236-foot, Rocinante, an elegant, gleaming megayacht. Unfortunately, Rocinante was anchored right where our friends had told us to drop
our hook and with their size, they took up a large percentage of the anchorage
(their beam is equal to Rutea’s length). We pulled in as close as we felt comfortable
but when we dropped our anchor it landed on rock. By this time it was getting late in the day
and finding another anchorage was nearly impossible. We tried reanchoring but again could only
find rock. I donned my snorkel gear and
went to look but with the late afternoon sun and the rock being the exact same
color of our anchor and chain, I couldn’t determine if we were precariously
anchored or not. If the anchor didn’t
hold, the worst that would happen is we would drift harmlessly out to sea. If the anchor became jammed in the rock, it
was only 30 feet down to free it. We
spent a calm night there, both of us sleeping deeply for many hours.
West coast of Isla
Socorro
The morning was clear, calm and we made preparations to
leave for Isla Socorro, about 35 miles to the south. With the thousands of anchor retrievals that
Ruthie and I have done, our procedure is pretty routine. I’m on the bow, she’s at the helm and we
communicate effectively with hand signals, eliminating the need for shouting
which can sometimes be interpreted as anger.
Even though we have anchored in some difficult places, the anchor has
always come up albeit sometimes requiring some coaxing from a combination of
pressure with the windlass and the force of the boat in either forward or
reverse or both. Except this time. Despite our best efforts, the anchor refused
to budge and the horrendous jerking that was being applied to both the anchor
and the windlass was painful to me.
Rutea anchored inside of Punta Tosca
Okay, this leaves us the option of me diving down to try to
free the anchor, which I have never had to do.
Whereas I know people who can easily free dive to 80 feet or more below
the surface, I’m good to about 8 feet and even there only for a short
time. Free diving to 30 feet and
wrestling a 66-pound anchor is impossible for me. On board, we do keep a complete scuba set and
when we were in Panama ,
I had sent our scuba tank out to be hydro-tested and filled – now I was
grateful that I had done so. I hadn’t
used any of the equipment since we were in Namibia many years ago and then it
was a very shallow dive to free a friend’s anchor.
Ruthie and Eliza
Ruthie and I started to pull the equipment together. I got the scuba tank and weight belt out of
the lazarette while Ruthie searched for the Buoyancy Control Device (the
flack-jacket-look-alike that holds the scuba tank and provides buoyancy to
float a diver on the surface, over coming the sinking effects of the lead
weights) and the dive regulator, which connects the scuba tank to the diver’s
mouth. We had everything ready to go
except the absolutely-necessary regulator.
I was on the aft deck and was talking to Ruthie who was in the aft
cabin, tearing everything apart, desperately looking for the octopus-like
regulator. The 2-foot by 2-foot hatch
was propped open with a piece of slim teak trim as the friction hinges had worn
out years before. I was poking my head
down the hatch, trying to offer Ruthie ‘encouragement’ and ‘advice’ on where
else the elusive regulator might be.
Inadvertently, I knocked the teak trim supporting the hatch out of place
and the hatch dropped quickly, hitting the back of my head, forcing my lower
lip to smack sharply against the hatch dog.
My lip burst open and blood spurted down my chin like a river. Great.
Now I still have to dive into the waters that are known to be frequented
by sharks with a bleeding lip.
Clarion angelfish Holacanthus
clarionensis
After literally tearing the entire boat apart, we finally
found the hidden regulator (it wasn’t where our inventory book said it was
supposed to be) and we lowered the dinghy as it makes an easier place to get in
and out of the water with dive gear on.
With the scuba tank attached to the BCD, I pressed the inflate button
and the BCD filled with air – until I heard a ‘pop’ and the BCD quickly
deflated. No matter how much air I
forced into the BCD, it wouldn’t hold any pressure. Frantic, I poured over the little-used BCD,
looking for a hole that might have formed during any one of our long passages
but couldn’t find any. As a last resort,
I took apart the pressure relief valve and found that it had stuck open. A quick wipe with my finger across the
sealing surface, I reassembled it and it then held pressure. Whew!
That could have been a show-stopper.
Then I loaded sixteen pounds of weights onto my weight belt and slipped
into the water, no wetsuit necessary. I
floated like a cork, even with my BCD deflated.
Frustrated and unwilling to go back to the boat to load more weights, I
forced my way down the anchor chain to where the anchor lay jammed against the
rocks.
Silky Shark Carcharhinus
falciformis
Once on the bottom, I could see that the anchor was wedged
between two large rocks but it didn’t seem impossible to free it. I had taken a length of ½” line with me to
rig as a trip line but I didn’t need it.
As I got in position to lift the anchor, my hands briefly slipped
off. Now, I started to float upwards
quickly as my weight belt was too light.
Frantically, I swam towards the anchor chain so I could arrest my upward
trajectory. Going quickly from 30 feet
to the surface probably wouldn’t have been bad but my training told me to avoid
it at all costs. I forced my way back
down to the anchor, muscled it out of its crevice and using the anchor chain,
controlled my ascent to the surface, where Ruthie was ready with her foot on
the windlass up switch, waiting for my go-ahead signal.
Humpback cow with her breaching
calf
With our anchor properly secured in its home on the bow
roller, we pointed Rutea south
towards Isla Socorro, the largest of the four islands. The wind filled in to about 25 knots out of
the north and we had a good, fast sail, covering the 35 miles in about 5
hours. Isla Socorro looks nothing like
its sibling to the north as it’s covered with green hills and steep black rock
cliff faces. We left Roca O’Neal to port
and made our way around the end of Punta Tosca, entering the relatively calm
water where two boats lay at anchor. Friends of ours had given us specific
coordinates of where to anchor and promised that we would find a sand bottom
with good holding, despite it being almost 90 feet deep. We honed in on the waypoint and I lowered the
anchor only to find more rock. We upped
the anchor and tried a slightly different location. More rock.
I retrieved the anchor again and Ruthie had a VHF radio conversation
with Eliza on the Fraser 41, Serafina,
who suggested that if we anchor right behind them, we’re likely to find
sand. Her husband, Ted, said that he had
dove from their boat to shore and it was sand almost the entire way. Our third time was a charm – I paid out almost
all of Rutea’s 350’ of 3/8” high-test
chain - and even though we would have liked to be further in towards the cliffs
with hopefully more protection, we were comfortable enough although it was no
where near idyllic ‘mill pond’ conditions.
We invited Ted and Liza over for sundowners and discovered that they
hail from Eugene , Oregon
Needlefish found on deck
During my morning tour of the deck I found an unfortunate
flying fish that met its demise after landing on our deck. Without much thought, I tossed it overboard
and within about 5 seconds, an 8-foot long silky shark came up and ate it. The shark was soon joined by a friend and the
two circled around Rutea for hours. After our morning chores were completed, we
hailed Ted and Liza on the VHF to see if their offer to show us some snorkeling
sites was still good. They were up for
it and we dinghied over to them in the early afternoon where Eliza joined us in
our dinghy and Ted put his dive gear in their dinghy. We motored a short distance to a corner
formed by the sheer rock cliffs, dropped the hook and slipped into the
remarkably clear water. Ted took off on
a dive by himself but Ruthie, Eliza and I just snorkeled in a small area,
delighted with the amount of sea life we could see.
Pakia Tea arriving
Several days passed and we developed a routine: Coffee and the single-side band nets first
thing in the morning, chores, snorkel in the early afternoon and sundowners in
the early evening. Various dive boats
would come and go, none spending the night.
On one of our snorkeling excursions, we took our respective dinghies to
the far east side of the bay, just for a change of pace. As we approached, a humpback cow and her calf
appeared about 100 feet in front of us and despite her gentle movements, her
mammoth size was intimidating. We stopped
our forward movement but left our outboards running, hoping that the noise they
generated would keep her apprised of our location. Once she and her calf sounded, we continued
to make our way east but we spotted a giant manta ray just a few seconds later
and Ted slipped in the water with his camera, intending to get some up close
and personal shots of the remarkably graceful swimmer. The ray eluded Ted but it did go back by the
dinghy where Eliza was waiting and with a powerful whip of one of its wings, gave
her a generous salt water shower. Eliza
was quite surprised and I laughed much too loudly to be polite. I stifled my laughter quickly, though, as I
saw a large shark approach our dinghy.
“Shark!” I said quickly and Eliza got Ted’s attention (who was still in
the water) and she pressed both her hands together on top of her head,
apparently the symbol of a shark in the water.
Ted, nonplussed, made no hurry to get back to his dinghy.
 |
Piece of resin spreader used to repair cracked fin |
With Ted back in his dinghy, we continued towards our
intended snorkeling spot and were discussing whether to anchor the dinghies or
just tow them as we snorkeled. In the
brief time we were talking about it, three large silky sharks showed up and
began milling around the two dinks.
Theoretically, silkies are unlikely to be aggressive towards humans but
when you get a group of them together, one can egg on another and then another
can join in on the fun and before you know it, they’ve gotten out of control. Collectively, none of us were interested in
snorkeling around three large silkies and we made our way back across the bay
to our standby snorkeling location where we felt more comfortable.
 |
| Tom, Sonja and Keanu on Pakia Tea |
We had been in touch with our good friends aboard the
44-foot Wharrem cat, Pakia Tea, by
email and we were delighted once they rounded Punta Tosca and anchored just
ahead of us. This was to be our fourth
rendezvous with them since we had met originally in the Maldives in the Indian
Ocean and we always enjoy their company, especially that of 6-year old Keanu. Sonja, Keanu’s mother, has a long list of
skills and accomplishments that includes being a marine biologist, a recorded
classical singer and a terrific chef so Ruthie and I didn’t hesitate when she
invited us over for coffee and cake just shortly after they had the anchor
down. It was great to be back aboard Pakia Tea again and brought back
pleasant memories of playing dominoes on their massive dining table that sits
in between the two hulls on warm nights anchored off of some remote atoll in
the Maldives .
Bahia Frailes , Baja California
We had been keeping a close eye on the weather and had
intended to sail back to Banderas Bay but when we saw a forecast with two days of light
winds, it gave us the idea of motoring due north to Baja California . The bay at Cabo San Lucas was closest at
about 250 miles but it’s not one of our favorite places so we set a course for
Bahia Frailes, of which we have fond memories, which was almost 300 miles
away. We expected that we’d have to
motor the entire way but if we had sailed back to Banderas Bay Baja California . The engine came back on and in the flat calm
conditions Ruthie and I made ourselves busy by wiping the boat down, cleaning
the salt off of her and making her more presentable. It turned out to be a silly thing to do
because once we rounded Punta Gorda, the wind filled in from the north at 27
knots and soon Rutea was pounding into
steep, close-together waves. Even with
the engine running at three-quarters throttle, sometimes we were down to just
two knots of speed and it took us almost eight hours to cover the last 20
miles. The good news was that Bahia
Frailes offered excellent protection and with the moon almost full, we were
able to furl the main and drop the anchor without turning on the deck lights.
