We rounded the large impressive point called Punta Colonet. This point is flat topped with vertical cliffs dropping down to the ocean. At the bottom is a talus pile of broken rock with no place to even think about landing on. This goes on for miles as the point slowly curves to the east. There was one arroyo that cut through this cliff, but it was very narrow and ended in a rough rocky beach so we could not stay there. Charles had been reading the glowing reports about the calm anchorage and mild beaches behind this point, as reported in the cruising guides. The anchorage might be good but when the cliffs ended all we found was a long strip of wind-swept gravel beach. We really didn’t want to land anywhere here so we kept paddling.
The day was supposed to be a short one but we ended up paddling an additional three miles past the “safe harbor” before we arrived at Punta Colonet. This point had some nice looking surfing, a south facing cobble beach with one channel cleared to sand even at low tide, and a Hostel up on the bluff. We landed and started setting up camp. We talked to a couple of locals who said they loved coming to this place. We didn’t appreciate it as much as they did. The Hostel has a string of disgusting pit toilets that none of us wanted to use, despite the cute names painted on the outside of each one. Since the Hostel owner’s dogs came down and shit all over the beach we figured we would rather join the dogs than risk the toilets. We tip-toed past the Hostel to avoid paying a camping fee and stayed on the rocky public beach below it.
I called my brother Paul on the Satellite phone for another weather report. We should expect calm seas and wind no worse than what we had already seen. But in seven days something big was brewing in the north Pacific and it would be sending waves down here. We figured we would be off the water by then, so we slept easily about the weather.