6. Bahía Tortugas (Turtle Bay)
Bahía Tortugas, the Turtle Bay, was our first and only long stop after leaving Cabo San Lucas on our way up north-west to the USA. We covered the distance of about 800 kilometers in approximately five and a half days. We had already made to shorter stops before: We anchored for one night each in the Santa María Bay and south of the headland Punta Abreojos. As wind conditions were not the best and captain Brian had to arrange a couple of other things like participating in a conference call, we stayed for almost four days within this cove.
This gave us sufficient time to not only fill up again with some groceries and diesel but also to explore nearly every part of the small fishing village and do a lot of snorkeling. The community of Bahía Tortugas consists of super friendly people who all tried to help us. Furthermore we did a little photo shooting of Brian and me sailing whilst Pat was surrounding us in the tender.
In Turtle Bay I had my first snorkeling experience in the Pacific and therefore water which was way colder than everyway in the Sea of Cortez or the East Cape. So the wetsuit I brought from San Diego to Santa Rosalía ultimately paid off. In comparison to the tropical coloured fish I had seen before, these waters offered a very different form of agua culture. The dominating colour was green thanks to numerous plants like seaweed and kelp. Plenty of orange Garibaldi fish were surrounding me whilst I made my way through the underwater forests. I furthermore spotted some lobsters which were hiding underneath the seaweed. Thanks to the swell everything was in a constant state of flux, the motion of the seagrass floating back and forth revealed and hid fish and other marine life.
