San Diego to Bahia Tortuga.  410 miles.

We finally got away from the dock. After the Portland project that I was working on got a 3 month stay, I cleared up things as much as possible and headed to the plane for the last trip to San Diego. Following a last meeting with a client in San Diego, I was officially retired (at least for now). We spent 3 hectic days trying to stow all the goodies that Catharine had driven down to San Diego in the old Mercedes station wagon we had bought just for that purpose. When I arrived at the boat I thought it couldn’t be possible to stow everything. We still have a dive bag full of scuba gear sitting on the floor behind the table in the main salon. I also received a last minute file box full of work for the next few months as time allows; this box is opened but stuffed in the quarter berth right now. It’s amazing how the transformation takes place from apparent utter chaos to all of a sudden you look around and only one or two items are left. This took two days in our case. We were helped in this task by Wayne Beatty, our friend from Vancouver BC who would be joining us for this leg of the trip, making for a great 3 hours on – 6 hours off watch schedule.

We pulled away from the dock about 1600 hrs on Sunday in front of what turned out to be some pretty rotten weather up North. We had good winds leaving the harbor from the NW at 20+ knots. We were making great time, then we left the shelter of Pt Loma and ran into very confused seas in the shallow waters between Pt Loma and the Mexican border about 9 miles away. We thought it would flatten off as we headed into deeper waters, but it didn’t. I think it was one of the roughest nights I have spent at sea. The waves and swell came from every direction, but the wind stayed steady at 20+ so we could at least punch through it, hence the rough ride. These sea conditions lasted all night and through the next day. As we got further down the coast the second night the seas had moderated but the wind had come up. That night we saw wind speeds to 40+kn and we were all wrapped up in our foulies and even long underwear.  We did expect colder nights but the days continued cold as well, daytime temps never rose above 60F.

At the beginning of the 2^nd full day at sea we realized we would probably not quite make it to Bahia Tortuga before nightfall, and as we have a rule on board not to sail into small bays at night, we decided to change course and head for the lee of Isla Cedros. It as actually only about 5 miles shorter to get to the North end of the Island than it would have been to get into Tortuga. But as we arrived behind Cedros at 1800 hrs and dark, I felt we had made the right decision. It certainly was as far as getting rest was concerned. We made 4 passes up and down the island in next to no wind and totally flat seas. Daylight broke; we were all totally refreshed from a night of quiet sailing and proceeded down to Bahia Tortuga about 15 miles further south. We entered the bay at about midday, after dodging lobster pot buoys that were thick enough that our decision not to enter at night was further justified. Actually it was 1300 hrs as we had forgotten to change our watches to Mountain Central time. We cleaned up the boat, showered and joined a bunch of other cruisers at Carlos’s Restaurant just on top of the sandy beach. It was our first time to try our very basic Spanish, and celebrate “going foreign” at last. Enjoyed a great lunch of burritos, tostadas and beer for $21. A walk around the town later revealed a fishing town that is struggling to survive after closing of the cannery a while back, it’s a long way from the highway to this little town so they don’t see much tourism, all income is from fishing and the cruisers that come through. They still have a great bakery though and we bought goodies to have with a nice relaxing cup of tea back at the boat.

The one person who appreciated the first stop more than anyone else was Rosie our JRT. This passage was the first she had really had in the ocean, she had spent her first three summers on the boat with us on the Columbia River and very rarely had she felt rough conditions and even then only for short periods. This last 2 days had been horrible even for us. She was totally confused by the whole affair and spent most of the time tucked in behind one of us in a sea berth. The boat boys on the shore had a great laugh at Catharine’s expenses as she stopped to did the old ”stoop and scoop” behind Rosie. Cath’s big problem then was where to drop the bag as there didn’t seam to be any place in particular to put garbage. So she went out behind a sand dune and buried it. Regardless old habits die hard and we’ll continue to clean up after the little darlin’.

We had another great night’s sleep, even when the wind picked up during the night from a totally different direction. The holding in the bay is great, we use a 45lb CQR backed by 240’ of 5/16HT chain and 200’of 5/8” fastened to the end of that. We were anchored in 20’ on a 4:1 scope with a 20’ snubber and set solid in the course sand bottom. One totally unexpected pleasure of our stop in Bahia Tortuga was meeting an old friend from Vancouver. Jay Smith and companion Susan had left San Diego on “Indra” the day before us and as we walked up to the restaurant Jay came out and stuck his smiling face in mine. We didn’t get much time to catch up then, but spent some time in Cabo catching up. We also met another Canadian boat we had last seen in Avalon, Jim and Janine from  “Quaesta” out of Vancouver.

Bahia Tortuga to Bahia Santa Maria.  248 miles.

We left bright and early on the next part of this trip down the outside of Baha. Well 1000 hours isn’t exactly the crack of dawn but by the time we had stowed the dinghy below etc, we had managed to burn 3 hours time. When we finally got out of the bay the wind was up again and we got 18-25kn from the NE, as our course was 150 magnetic we were on a great beam to broad reach. We ran until dark with a partially furled #2 genoa and a full main, by nightfall we had reefed the main. By 0500 hours the next morning we had run out of wind, it was less than 8 knots and with the lumpy seas of the previous days winds we could not keep the sails set. So on went the “Tokyo Topsail” and we motored slowly while running the water maker until the wind came back up at dawn. I mentioned earlier that the nights were very black. We were at the end of an old moon, so there was no light from it, but what we did have was very clear skies and the best star shows I can remember. The planets (still haven’t figured out which ones) were so bright they cast beams on the water as they started to rise in the heavens. Something else we would like to find out is what meteor shower we were exposed to for the last 4 nights; we had meteors coming in every 15 to 30 seconds - some of them very large leaving trails behind as they burnt up. One came so close to our immediate area that it actually lit the sails up as it burnt out. So if any one out there can tell us what we saw we’d appreciate it. This was all visible while in the area of 26N, 113W.

By 0930 hours the wind had risen again to 18kn from the NE so we were sailing again, the wind lasted until midnight and we had a great sail that day interspersed with moments of excitement as we landed 2 tuna. The first was a 6 lb Bonita and the next (Catharine’s fish) was a 10 lb Yellow fin. Do these fish have dark blood!! Within 2 minutes of being onboard the cockpit looked like a slaughterhouse. These fish are best if “bled” before cleaning so the process is to lean them in the corner of the cockpit, nose in the grating and open up the main vessels in the backbone, gravity and a certain amount of muscle spasm does the rest. Luckily I had watched the fishermen in Coos Bay clean tuna so I was able to fillet both fish without having to get in the body cavity and clean them out. The commercial guys actually skin the fish very quickly and then cut 4 long quadrants of fish out. You are left with the head, tail and stomach all still attached and ready to heave back to sea. We cut out 2 really nice pieces of the Bonita and got them right up to the plates in the freezer and about 1 hour later enjoyed fresh sashimi, prepared by our imported sushi chef!!

When the wind dropped at midnight we started to motor for Bahia Santa Maria. We had decided to go in this bay at night as the entrance is about 7 miles wide, and we had a recent GPS waypoint for the anchorage. It was an easy entry, although anyone tempted to go in at night while sticking close to the land would get a shock. The dark loom of the land was visible in the night sky, what was not is the long flat isthmus that extends from the foot of the hills and invisible at the water level. It showed up well on radar however. We anchored in the bay about ¼ mile from the waypoint we had as we felt like we were already on the beach, as it turned out we were at least ½ mile from shore but still in 25’ with the same great holding as Tortuga. The rest of the fleet that had been up in Tortuga came in during the next 8hrs. We spent another peaceful day sleeping, cleaning up and generally just relaxing, we were finally somewhere were the temp was warming up, the day time temp got to 75 F and Catharine threatened to go for a swim as the sea temp was 72 F. She never did get in the water, mainly because clouds rolled in in the afternoon and it cooled a little, and she had wasted the morning doing laundry. This bay was also our first chance to buy lobster from the fishermen. As they came back in the bay from pulling their pots they visited each boat anchored there. These fisherman all work for a co-operative now, they are supposed to take all the catch back to the co-op. However most of them take illegal sized lobster that they cannot hand in so these are the ones that they sell to the cruisers. I asked for larger ones and they changed them for me to 3 different lobsters, only 1 of which was any bigger. They are about 1-1/2 lb each and made really tasty eating. It is probably the sweetest lobster meat I have eaten. Not bad for $2 each. After eating them and realizing the value I wanted to buy more, but we never could get the panga drivers attention after that. We were now only 172 miles from Cabo San Lucas and we decided to leave early the next morning so that we would arrive in the early afternoon the next day.

Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo San Lucas.  172 miles.

The weather report we had from the Chubasco Net that morning was for N to NE winds 10-20knots, perfect. As we left the wind was from the NE off the land and quite warm, it was also a nice warm day, the first day we had been sailing with shorts on!!. As we got away from Bahia Santa Maria and out into the open ocean the winds started to build again, the seas were very confused as the NE was blowing over the prevailing swell causing short steep wind waves against the ocean swell. We ended up reefed down to 1/3 of our #2 and nothing else, roaring along at 6-8knots. It was the wettest ride we had had on the trip down. I poked my head up just long enough to see Wayne take a wave that came from the side of the boat, right down his neck. I think what we were getting was the tail end of the “Norther” that had been blowing for the last 2 weeks in the Sea of Cortez whistling over the mountains. As the sun came up the wind stopped dead. The sea flattened in about 2 hours and we were again motoring with no wind towards Cabo Falso, the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.

Every cruiser must take photos of Cabo Falso and Los Arcos as they get to them. It’s a great feeling to actually make it down the outside of Baja and we finally were in hot weather. We motored around Los Arcos and turned in to the harbor of Cabo San Lucas. There is hardly any sign of the damage done by the hurricane that hit Cabo in September, mostly because it all washed away. The beach in the bay is returning but the old fuel dock at the entrance to the harbor is no more. New piling is going on everywhere.

Just after we entered the harbor we contacted the marina for a slip for 2 nights as with three of us on board it is more convenient to come and go as we pleased. That’s when the biggest shock so far came, $69:50 US per night for a 38’ boat. What a choker that was But it did include power and water!!! The water is as good as we have in our tanks, it’s made by a massive desalination plant owned by the marina. The facilities were 1^st class as you would expect for that price.

As Cabo San Lucas was our first official Port of Entry into Mexico (Tortuga and Santa Maria have no authorities) we had to clear in the country. There are two options to do this, pay someone to do it for you or do it yourself. A lot has been written about the paperwork shuffle that you need to do to clear in, after being told it would be $173 to have an agent clear us, we decided we needed the experience sooner or later so tackled the job ourselves the next morning. If we had not made several mistakes in understanding what was needed we could have done the clearance in about 1-½ hours. It took us nearly 4, but we saw the town, met some very nice, friendly officials and best of all saved ourselves $100.

The Port Captain’s office is the 1^st stop and he tells you where to go next. He was very helpful and both the officer who helped us, and the Port Captain himself where charming gentlemen. However I wouldn’t want to cross them. Anybody coming this way be aware these guys monitor just about every channel on the VHF and hear everything that is going on.

One last thing that had to be done in Cabo was visit the infamous bar “Squid Roe”. After a great get together with some of the other Baja crews who had just pulled in, aboard Wilhelm owned by Rob & Natalie, (who also provided the fish they had caught that day for the BBQ) the three of us and Jay and Susan ventured in through the gates of hell!. What a place, it’s very industrial, everything is made of steel and hence impossible to break. The drinks are huge and reasonably priced and you just can’t help but join in the fun and dancing. We probably should have left earlier than we did, as there were two wounded soldiers on board the next day. Luckily one of them was not me, although I did try my best.

So that’s it. We got to Cabo in one piece after some really hectic weather. We actually ran the motor for a total of 35 hrs in the 10 day trip, 10 of that was going slowly up and down behind Cedros the 3^rd night out. So we still have full fuel tanks and are ready to head out to Puerto Vallarta after some last minute provisioning (beer and peanut butter) - cruisers bring lots of peanut butter if you like it.

 2117miles since leaving Portland, Oregon.

We wish all our friends old and new a Very Merry Christmas and hope we all have a great 2002 ahead of us. Ours will be full of adventure as we finally can slow down, and relax into cruising.

       to

 Best wishes to you all.