Bahia Los Frailes

We departed Cabo at the first light more than ready to get out of the cluster. The seas were about 1-2 feet with small wind waves. The wind was off the nose at 12-15kts. We had been waiting for the weather system to clear and believed this was the last of the big blow and rough seas. As we headed north the seas built and wind pushed up to 24kts. It was right on the nose and radio reports from vessels ahead indicated no relief any time soon. We reefed down the main and motor sailed changing tack by 10-15 degrees. This helped to stabilize the boat and kept us on course and on time. The conditions would have allowed us to sail except we had to make Los Frailes before nightfall. The 45 nm passage was uncomfortable to say the least. The up side was the arrival in Los Frailes by around 4PM, entering a beautiful anchorage with pristine waters and cooler temps. Los Frailes is interesting because there is a very deep undersea canyon which runs right up the middle of the bay. Apparently a few years ago the sand along the canyon rim had developed an overhang. The overhang reached a point that it could not be supported. An undersea avalanche occurred which took a large portion of the shoreline as well as the shelf along the canyon edge. We decided to hang out there for an extra day to decompress from the Cabo experience. Our time was well spent swimming, snorkeling and taking a dinghy adventure to shore. Paul opted to don his snorkel gear and snorkel to shore at one point. He reported lots of fish sightings on the nearby reef and grossly under estimating how far shore really was from the boat. By the second day at Los Frailes we started to see more of the Haha fleet coming in. Many of them had opted to wait another day before a Cabo departure. Some had gone in to San Jose del Cabo marina to wait out the weather.