Riding Out El Norte In San Evaristo

(December 6 – 9, 2017)  San Evaristo is a tiny fishing village of not more than a few dozen families.  Where only a handful of very modest homes dot the beach, and center field at the baseball stadium is the only place you can get a cell signal, it’s the last place you’d expect to find a decent restaurant.  Nevertheless, Lupe has made a living feeding those who travel roads less traveled at his beachside restaurant, Lupe & Maggie Mae’s Restaurant.

We beached the dinghy right in front of the restaurant, and headed in.  The sun was getting low, and we were hungry and tired from our trying afternoon attempt to beat up the channel in an El Norte.  It was a losing battle, and because discretion is the better part of valor, we counted it as a win.  Unfortunately, the weather reports had the northerly blowing through for the next three days, and that was exactly the amount of time we had to get to Loreto to pick up our guest.

But, back at Lupe’s restaurant, we decided not to worry about that for the time being.  There was nothing we could do to move further north today, and a warm meal would do us all good.  We walked up to where we thought the restaurant was, and discovered a group of off-road bikers sitting some out front, and some out back, enjoying their beers.  They greeted us warmly, and so did Lupe.  Out in front, on the beach side of the restaurant, the windscreens had been lowered and tied all around the veranda.  The 25-knot northerly was kicking sand and debris up at the restaurant, but inside the screens, we were protected.  

We initially took a seat on the patio, but even with the windscreens, the evening was chilly.  So, after a few minutes we decided to move to the lone inside table.  The bikers had moved around to the patio out back, sheltered from the wind by the small restaurant structure.  We learned that they took a biking trip down Baja each year together, and Lupe’s was one of their favorite stops.

The reality of dining in Baja is that restaurants often run out.  They run out of food, or supplies… but never tequila.  Particularly when a group of hungry bikers comes through.  So, when we asked Lupe what was available, he unapologetically explained that he had quesadillas, shrimp, and shrimp quesadillas.  We ordered one of each, and sat down at our table to relax, and warm up a bit.  

After serving us and the bikers, Lupe had a few minutes to chat.  He didn’t speak English, and Rich didn’t speak Spanish, but language has never stopped Rich from striking up a conversation.  Rich started asking Lupe about his menu, which was posted on the wall.  With much gesturing, Lupe explained that he typically had a large menu that included fish, beef, and chicken.  But, he wouldn’t have beef and chicken until later in the week, when he made his weekly run into La Paz.  And what about fish?  He looked at Rich like he was crazy, and gestured across the bay, saying, “mañana!”  His meaning was clear: He’d have plenty of fish tomorrow, because the bay was full of them – the village fishers just had to go get them in the morning.

It was dark before we made our way back to the boat.  The ride back was windy and cold, but the real El Norte hadn’t even blown in yet.  We tucked everyone in, and set our the navigation apps on our phones to record our track as we blew back and forth on the anchor all night.  It was a good thing, too, because around 2AM, the real El Norte arrived.  The wind tore across the deck, and I felt the boat swinging wildly as I laid in bed.  And every time I was certain we broke loose, I’d check my phone – no, we just started swinging back the other way.  It was a 160-foot wide arc we were making on our anchor.

As the wind continued to build, so did my anxiety about everything we’d left on deck.  It kept me awake for nearly an hour until I watched my fear play out.  I laid on my back, staring up at the sky through the v-berth hatches.  I could see the lifelines from where I laid, including the spinnaker and the inflatable kayak lashed to them, one on each side.  I felt and heard the gust as it hit us, and it pushed for several seconds when the kayak flew loose, sending the aft end into the sky.

I sprang out of bed, through the cabin, up the companionway, and scrambled out to the bow.  It was cold, but I didn’t notice – I was focused on the kayak.  Luckily, it was still there. The aft line had broken loose, but the bow line held fast to the cleat on the bow of Mobert.  I watched as another gust came up, and tried to take the kayak, causing the bow line to grab the kayak handle so hard it nearly ripped.  Rich appeared next to me as I wrestled the kayak top-down onto the deck.  Twenty minutes later, the kayak was secured by several dock lines criss-crossing its overturned bottom.  There was no way for the wind to catch it now.

But there were still several other items at risk that we had to protect from the wind.  The girls’ boogie boards riding in the dinghy had to be lashed down.  The dinghy’s tie to the boat was doubled, and then tripled.  We piled up cockpit cushions on the cabin roof, inside the protected dodger.  Clothing that had been drenched during our wild ride in the channel and hung out to dry was brought into the cabin, and one of the bathrooms turned into a wet locker.  It was dark, and we were tired, but energized by the fear of losing loose items, we soon had everything outside secured.  We slept lightly that night, constantly checking the track on our phones, certain almost constantly that the anchor had just broken loose. But, it held, and we swung broadly on it as gusts over 40, and sustained winds over 30, pounded all night long.

The next morning the wind continued to rage.  Although our little bay was very protected from the violent swell in the channel, the spray was too much to go anywhere in the dinghy, and we simply weren’t in the mood for a soaking wet ride.  I tried to do some work outside, but it was just a bit too chilly to sit out there comfortably, so we stayed inside.  

It was a bit of a fabulous vacation from our vacation-life, really.  It was the first time we had to just relax. We didn’t have boat projects to work on, or work, and so we just hunkered down and relaxed that day and the next.  Mostly, the girls and I played Minecraft.  Morgan constantly ran to her room to retrieve Minecraft books so we could try building structures and contraptions she’d only read about.  By the end of those two days, we had quite an empire going.

The wind blew just as steady and hard at night as it did during the days.  But, after that first night, we slept better, now more confident than ever that there wasn’t a gust in the world that could dislodge that anchor.  We were each up a few times each night, checking the tracks on our phones, but nothing noteworthy ever appeared.  Just that long, wide arc, steadily darkening with each swing.

Each day, we checked the weather.  We tried to figure out how we were going to meet our guest in Loreto, still more than 100 miles to the north.  That first morning, we thought we might be able to make it if we left the next day, Friday; stopped in Agua Verde on Friday night; and then pulled into Loreto late Saturday to meet her.  But, as the wind continued to blow, it became clear that wouldn’t work.  So, we tried to find ways we could make the trip from San Evaristo to Loreto in a single day.  Even with a helpful southerly blowing, though, the distance was simply too far; and impossible against a northerly.  So, by the second day, Friday, we had to find other options.  The weather forecast indicated that even Saturday – pickup day – the winds would be too strong to travel north, so getting our guest a hotel for a night wasn’t an option.  No, meeting her in La Paz, to the south, was the only option.  Even if the wind was still howling, making our way south with it was doable.

So, without a cell signal or usable internet, Rich used our Garmin InReach to text our guest and help her coordinate a tourist bus from Loreto to La Paz.  It was a four-hour ride, which meant we could see her in La Paz by Saturday afternoon.  This was the second time we’d need to contact the outside world without any means other than satellite, and the unlimited texting on the InReach saved us.

So, the third day – pickup day – arrived, and the El Norte had partially blown itself out.  The winds were still over twenty knots, and the channel looked more like a washing machine than a sea, but the arc we traced on the charts had grown slightly smaller, and we were confident heading out.  So, that morning, we picked up the anchor and headed out into the channel.  It was a bumpy ride, and a swift sail, with the main put away and the jib reefed to almost nothing, but we made good time as we headed back to La Paz.

During all this, the girls had been so focused on Minecraft that they hadn’t paid much attention to our schedule.  They knew we were trying to make it to Loreto, and so they were minimally surprised when we began our trip back to La Paz.  When we’d almost arrived, they asked why.  “I thought you didn’t like La Paz?” they asked me.  True, but we had a surprise for them.  And it was supposed to be delivered to Loreto, but because of the El Norte, we had to redirect it to La Paz, and pick it up there.  We expected the surprise to arrive that afternoon.  I never told them their surprise was a person.

The girls’ interest was piqued.  Suddenly, they cared exactly where we were going, and how quickly we’d get there.   But what was this magical surprise?