Posted by After leaving San Juanico we turned north once again to get into the northern sea to prepare ourselves for any potential active weather from the south. Hurricane season officially starts in a month and our plan is to stay in the Bay of LA (Bahia de Los Angeles) and tough out the summer. Our biggest stop on the way there is Bahia Concepcion so that’s where we head. On the way north we noticed larger than normal dolphin-like dorsal fins in the distance. We turned course to go check it out. As we got closer it was clear that they definitely weren’t dolphins, it almost looked like they were possibly small orca. We’ve heard other cruisers say they’d seen false killer whales so that is what we thought we were headed towards. As we got closer we could see 3 distinct dorsal fins – these were orca (killer whales) it was 3 females, 2 small adults and a juvenile. As we sailed along with them I looked back and saw 2 large, much straighter dorsal fins headed our way in our wake… and they were coming fast. As they approached the boat they dove and went under us and came out the other side of the boat. It was 2 males and they were clearly checking us out. Being from the Pacific Northwest we’ve seen orcas a lot. So much so that the kids rarely even get excited about them. There was something different about this. Maybe it was the fact that the orcas seemed interested in us (that hasn’t ever happened back in the PNW). Maybe it was their size. They seemed smaller. But then again maybe it’s that we’re now used to seeing the larger species of whales (I should add that killer whales are actually a dolphin and not a “whale” – though they’re all cetaceans. Victoria might proof read this and would want that made clear to anyone that doesn’t already know). Maybe it was a touch of nostalgia for a species that we identify being from our home. Whatever it was we all left the experience feeling happy, almost giddy.
Bahia Concepcion is just south of the village of Mulege and the northern most anchorage has cell service. We spent a few days there catching up with online stuff and noticing that the weather had seemed to take a turn for the warmer. After getting all caught up we explored a little deeper in the bay. There are about 5 main anchorages and we were excited to find the perfect one. The Hwy (mex 1?) runs right along the water so there are quite a few vacation homes looking out over the anchorages. We checked every single one and didn’t ever feel like it was the perfect place to anchor. At this point Mexico is still locked down due to Covid. People are asked to stay home, if they do leave their home for essential purposes it should be 1 family member, they were asked to not engage in recreation activities. And here we are on our “yacht” looking for a good place to swim and beach to run on. There’s no way we were going to anchor off a populated area and do that. So we found a small fairly isolated anchorage with the bahia to settle down for a few days. This bay had a small sunken sailboat snorkel site so we loaded into the dinghy to go explore. Victoria and Alexander had a blast snorkeling over this sunken boat despite the murkiest water that we had seen in nearly 6 months. Later on in the day we took the dinghy to a small island just outside of the bay the bay in which Samadhi was anchored. This beautiful little island had a perfect crescent white sand beach with beautiful turquoise water. We snorkeled off the rocky cliffs of the island and then made our way ashore to walk along the beach. We found that the locals use this island as a pet cemetery as there were many marked grave sites for pets. The cemetery was neatly marked with a shell path leading to each of the many burial sites. Some of the graves had sweet little notes about their beloved pet. We decided that Bahia Concepcion was too close to civilization for our liking so the next day we continued our trip north.
Santa Rosalia is a small former mining town. Due to the covid situation many small towns do not welcome visitors from the sea so we decided to arrive early in the morning, get our groceries and move out quickly. Santa Rosalia has a very small marina tucked inside a man made cove. Samadhi is too big to go into the marina so we anchored off the town for a quick run in for fresh vegetables. As soon as Ashley had the anchor down the kids and I loaded my bike into the dinghy. Ashley and the kids masked up and drove me into town. They pulled ashore, dropped me off and quickly made their way back to Samadhi. I rode through the streets in search of a market or grocery store. I soon found two young men off loading their farm truck into a small village square. I asked them if they would see me some veggies as they were setting up or did they want we to come back when they were done. They were happy to stop and look through their stocks for what I was looking for. They were so kind and helpful. Their English was only slightly better than my Spanish but we figured it out. They had everything on my list so I radioed Ashley to come meet me at the drop off point. I stopped by an ice cream store that was opening for the day to bring back a treat for Victoria and Alexander. I bought three extras and brought them back to my farm buddies. They were pleasantly surprised. I told them I would look them up next year when we will hopefully get to stop and explore this beautiful little town. When we got all of our supplies back to the boat we lifted the anchor and got underway, again heading north.
Sailing Samadhi 
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