In The Shadows Of Cerralvo: West Side

I’m relieved to leave the long remote shadows of the east flank of Isla Cerralvo. Pointed south, I feel we’ve passed a milestone; we’re headed in, not out. Instead of staring into the empty horizon of the Sea of Cortez, crouched beneath the ominous eastern escarpment looming overhead, I’m now skipping alongside a well-traveled shipping channel, toward a landscape crisscrossed with paved roads leading to bustling cities, and practically in sight of the shores of popular gringo enclaves with all the trappings of wealth and modern life.

- Scott Sadil

But as I trace the western face of Cerralvo’s narrow north end, looking for quiet anchorage beneath yet another towering wall of rock, the wind changes directions four different times, stops and starts up again, spins in swirls of tiny washboard whitecaps that suddenly leave pools of slick eddies in their wake. After lowering the anchor, I get out binoculars and stare into what looks like a miles-wide trough of raging whitecaps storming down the center of the channel. Above the mountains to the south, thunderheads fill the sky as if smoke from lightning forest fires. My Weems & Plath reads 101°F—and I’m reminded, once again, that for a sailor in big water in a small open boat, a sense of proximity to civilization means about as much as if I were sailing on the moon.

What I haven’t sorted out, not in the least, is the connection in these waters between the winds and the tides.There’s a profound coupling of these two dynamic forces on inshore tidal waters, one I’ve traced on the lower Columbia, on Magdalena Bay, now here around Cerralvo. At some level it seems obvious that tide and wind should be linked. Yet only a fool would claim tides cause wind—or vice versa. At the same time, experience has shown me, again and again, that wind and strong tidal currents often go hand in hand—and the last thing you want is to find yourself betting on one without regard for the other.