Ensenada Grande (Isla Espíritu Santo) - BCS, Mexico

Ensenada Grande is by far my favorite anchorage on Isla Espíritu Santo, its a beautiful wide bay of bays, each with their own treats for visitors. Ashore there is a wonderful hike onto the plateau, and in the water there is awesome snorkeling.

There are three bays in Ensenada Grande, the northerly bay provides excellent protection from the prevailing northerly winds, the north wall blocks the swell, and snugging up to the beach provides excellent overall protection, and affords a nice view out of the bay, and a small, but average beach to go ashore on.

The middle bay has a beautiful white sandy beach, and is perfect in calmish conditions. From here there is a trail going up into the arroyo although it doesnt go far. You'll see a lot of panga tours stopping here for lunch. It's a nice place to swim, its the easiest anchorage if it's dark, and you can still dinghy around the bay as needed.

The southern bay is the most popular, and provides some northerly protection, excellent southerly protection, and has the most going on. Unless the wind is howling out of the north this is our preferred spot.

From here you can snorkel along the north wall, which is usually full of sea life. Ashore from the large beach there is a great hike up onto the plateau which affords a view of the middle of Isla Partida as well as overlooking the eastern shore. You can scramble up the various hills for a more rewarding view too.

From the south shore there's a short scramble up to the top of the hill with a cross on it for a nice view out over the bay.

By default we anchor in the south anchorage unless the swell is bad, in which case we typically choose the north side.

In the south anchorage we anchor in 15-25 ft, either along the south wall, you can tuck a little bit into the notch, it's usually busy here so we just slot in where we can. If the south wall is full, then you can go to the north side further in towards the beach, it gets shallowish quite far out so keep an eye on your depth, and there are some shallow patches out from the sides of the bays, these are clearly visible in daytime.

On the north side we anchor in 20ft just off the beach, or if its too busy, we'll anchor along the north wall. The wind funnels through the arroyo, so its generally better to be closer to the beach.

In the central bay bay we anchor in 15-30ft - we tend to anchor here if its dark and we suspect a lot of unlit boats, or if we are just spending the night before bugging out in the morning its an easy spot to find at 4am when your brain is fuzzy.