November 2016 – s/v Mysticeti

Thanksgiving in La Paz

Posted by John

We first heard the term on our second or third day here in La Paz, on the morning VHF channel 22 radio net, which we discovered by accident, during a portion referred to as “Arrivals and Departures.” A boat was welcomed back to La Paz after a two-year absence with the words: the “bungee effect” has struck again. What was meant was that even though boats leave La Paz, they are often drawn back, like the pull of a bungee cord.

We just got here, and we already see the attraction. It’s comfortable, and as we mentioned in the last post, there is a welcoming and supportive cruising community. We joined Club Cruceros, the cruiser club, paying for a one-year membership. Maybe we just want to keep our options open. Or maybe we want to draw a line in the sand for ourselves at a new latitude, to kind of establish a forward base as it were, a familiar fallback position as we ultimately press onward.

The city of La Paz, population around a quarter-million, is located on the Sea of Cortez side of the Baja California peninsula, maybe thirty miles or so north of the Tropic of Cancer. We crossed the Tropic of Cancer twice getting here. The first time was at approximately 3:45 AM on November 10th, entering the tropics on the way south to Cabo San Lucas, and the second time after rounding the southern end of the Baja peninsula and coming back up on the inside, leaving the tropics.

La Paz is located on the Bay of La Paz, which is separated from the Sea of Cortez by a peninsula. The distant view from La Paz is therefore of mountains (or at least big hills) on three sides. Just off the northern tip of the peninsula, at the open end of the bay, is the UNESCO designated biosphere reserve of Isla Espíritu Santo. I dove in these waters before, almost thirty years ago, and have waited a long time to be able to anchor in one of the picturesque bays of the island on my own boat. Because of its protected status, to visit the area now requires each person to purchase a permit, but that is not a big deal.

Up to this point, our trip schedule has been driven by two main events. The first being getting out of Puget Sound during the weather window, and the second being in San Diego by the last week of October to join the Baja Ha-Ha. The next event that would drive a schedule is crossing the Pacific to French Polynesia, but that is at least several months away. In the meantime, we can relax, work on projects, explore and enjoy.

Thanksgiving Day, 2016. We don’t know for sure which of our families these never-lit candles came from, but these, or ones just like them, were part of both Julie’s and my childhood Thanksgivings.

For us as a family the Thanksgiving Holiday has evolved over the years, but this year it took a drastic turn to the different. It’s hard to think of it as Thanksgiving when the sun is bright, hot and high in the sky. At home in the Seattle area we would be entering the “Slimy Season” now, when the sun, if it manages to come out for a few minutes, is too weak and low in the sky to dry anything out, a green slime seems to form on everything and the ground remains perpetually wet. Here in the desert climate of La Paz, if something gets wet it dries in a matter of minutes.

We can’t help but to think back on what we’ve had to do, and give up, to get this far. The years of planning and preparation; the familiar routines of caring for our goats, chickens, dog and cat we used to have, even the bee hives Julie tried to maintain, are all just memories now. The gambles we’ve taken, financial and otherwise, are not trivial. There is a sense of excitement for where we go from here, but also the knowledge that every time we set out is another opportunity for failure. Even if we changed our minds and quit today, just getting the boat back home would not be easy and could take months.

A few days before Thanksgiving, the cruising community threw a party at La Costa restaurant for all the new boats that had just arrived. There was music and dancing, from performances of a Mariachi band and traditional Mexican dancers, to the live band and party participants themselves. In the fading light of the sunset, I looked at the fronds of the trees blowing in the wind and the boats in the boatyard next-door and it hit me as to just how we had gotten here. I suddenly thought of my dad. As a kid I spent many Saturday afternoons with him sailing in his 14-foot C-Lark on Lake Washington and telling him how someday I was going to sail to Tahiti. I don’t think he ever took it seriously. It’s still too early to tell if we’ll make it to Tahiti, or even get close, but if my dad could see what we’ve done to get this far, I’d like to think he’d be impressed and happy.

There were plenty of opportunities offered to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner here. We chose The Dock Café, just up at the end of the dock, overlooking the marina, which made an American Thanksgiving dinner the special of the day. We shared the table with Joe and Cathy from “Slainte,” and shared the experience with others of the local cruising family.

That was our Thanksgiving for 2016.

Cabo San Lucas to La Paz

Posted by John

Sea of Cortez

If you look at a map of the space between Baja California and the mainland of Mexico it will be called the Gulf of California. Yet, everyone I’ve ever known who has been there calls it the Sea of Cortez. I’ve tried to look up why this is, but no one seems to know exactly. Apparently it is one of those instances where there’s a disagreement between the “geographic-name committee” and popular usage.

The Baja Ha-Ha officially ended the same way it began—in a parking lot. During the course of the evening, every boat was called out to come forward and accept whatever prize it had been awarded. It was Saturday night. A few boats had already left for their next destination. Some boats were turning around in a day or two to go back north. Some crew members were going to the airport to head home and go back to work. Some boats were continuing on to Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta, and some boats were heading up to La Paz. We were planning to leave for La Paz in the morning. I had been there once before on a scuba diving trip 27 years ago and wanted to explore the islands around there some more.

We decided to go ahead and buy fuel in Cabo, and we were pleasantly surprised to learn that not only did Ha-Ha boats not get charged the dockage fee, but we were also given a discount on the price of diesel. The benefits of the Baja Ha-Ha continue. However, we did have to pay for water.

As nice as Cabo was, being anchored out was difficult. The anchorage area was not only choppy from boats and jet skis, but it was also rolly with swells. The conditions and distance to the dinghy dock in the inner harbor meant that most people relied on water taxis to and from shore instead of their own dinghies. The going rate was five dollars per person, one way, with a three person minimum. For the three of us, one trip to shore and back was thirty dollars. That adds up quickly.

Those who had requested slips in the marina learned that a “slip” often meant being rafted with several other boats. The boats on the inside had people from the outer boats always climbing over them. For those of us in the anchorage, it was especially difficult to transfer from our own rolling boats to the rolling and bobbing water taxis. Some water taxi drivers were more experienced than others at this. After the final event in the parking lot, we could only find one water taxi driver willing to take those of us needing a ride back out in the dark to try to find each of our boats. The process was not easy, especially with the language barrier making, “I think it’s that one over there, no, maybe it’s that one there,” difficult to communicate.

Good-bye, Cabo San Lucas; and the southern tip of Baja California.

The plan was for us to leave with “Slainte” and make a relatively quick trip around the bottom of Baja and up the inside to Bahia Los Frailes where we could anchor and spend the night. But it was slow going. The wind was strong from the north, right on the nose, and the seas were much bigger than we expected. At times we were lucky to be making headway at two knots over the ground. It quickly became apparent that we would not make it in daylight, but we continued on anyway. We really didn’t have a choice.

Los Frailes has a big, rocky hill which provides shelter from the north wind. The swells, however, were coming from the south. I don’t like anchoring in the dark in places I’m not familiar with, especially when I can see that there are unlit boats already there. It’s hard to judge distances in the dark. We had a big, bright supermoon to give us some light, but we suspect that that moon also caused an exceptionally strong tidal current which we fought all day and was the reason we didn’t make it until after dark. We spent the next 36 hours anchored behind those rocks hoping for the conditions to improve.

That unplanned day at anchor gave us some time to read up on what others had written about the trip from Cabo to La Paz. One book we have insists that the Sea of Cortez has no swells of its own, but that ocean swells from the north refract around the south end of Baja and travel up the inside as far north as Los Frailes. That was encouraging, since we were at Los Frailes.

After getting a weather report in the morning from the Sonrisa ham radio net, and with slip reservations waiting for us at Marina de La Paz, we decided to go on to our next planned stop in Bahia de Los Muertos. Again, the wind was fairly strong, and right on the nose, but the swells did eventually subside and the seas flatten out. We arrived at Los Muertos after dark once again. As before, we were anchoring in unfamiliar territory with the sound of crashing surf just ahead in the dark. Beach bonfires helped to make the experience a little spooky. The moon was just breaking over the horizon as we set our anchor, but our anchor windlass has been experiencing a clutch slippage problem which seems to be getting worse, especially when it gets sprayed with a lot of saltwater, as it had been since leaving Cabo. At one point, while testing the anchor set, the clutch gave way and chain starting going out in free-fall with no easy way to stop it. When we did get it stopped, we pulled the extra chain back in, but we were too close to “Slainte,” who had gotten there and anchored ahead of us. We struggled with the slipping clutch to re-anchor, and then we tied on chain snubbers and an extra safety line just to be sure. I had already all but destroyed the windlass chain lock back in Bahia Santa Maria on the way to Cabo.

After conferring with “Slainte,” we tentatively agreed to try for a 4 AM departure to beat the tidal current, but made no commitment to do so. We were tired and a little worried about the anchor windlass. It needed to be taken apart and cleaned. However, I spontaneously woke up at 2:58 AM and did not go back to sleep. I took this as meaning that we should go. We would’ve been right there with “Slainte” when they departed, but they jumped the gun a little, leaving closer to 3:30 than 4:00. We still had to start and warm up the engine, and then had some trouble getting the anchor up with the slipping clutch. However, after that, we had a totally uneventful day. We made it all the way into Marina de La Paz by mid-afternoon. We never did see Bahia de Los Muertos in daylight.

La Paz webcam

As we did in Half Moon Bay and San Diego, we expect to be in or around La Paz for a few weeks or more. We’ve already found everything we need here. Robyn went with a boat friend to see a movie at a local theatre, and today (November 20th) we saw both a parade on the Malecon, and a Seahawks game on TV in the marina café. I emailed a photo of our slightly worn windlass clutch plate to Lighthouse Manufacturing, the maker of the windlass, and received a reply less than 24 hours later. They said that the plate looked good to them, and their reply included pdf’s of clutch plate cleaning and maintenance procedures. While we are here, we hope to make progress on installing our watermaker, and maybe even the wind generator we’ve been lugging around. But the first few days have been hot so far, and lying around doing nothing, watching frigate birds soar overhead, feels really good.

The somewhat surprising thing we’ve found here is a large and active American retirement and cruising community living on their boats. It is much more extensive and tied together than we expected, with people knowledgeable on just about any subject, and always ready to help. It might not be bad to spend the winter right here. We’ll see.

At sunrise on January 1st of this year, I photographed the upper rim of the sun crossing the horizon from our kitchen window at home. My thought was to do the same at least once per month throughout the rest of the year, wherever we happened to be. It didn’t happen, except for this shot for November, as seen from Los Frailes.

"Slainte" at anchor (on left) at Los Frailes. The rocky hill is to the right, out of the view of this photo. — “Slainte” at anchor (on left) at Los Frailes. The rocky hill is to the right, out of the view of this photo.

"Mysticeti" in La Paz Marina. We've tried to shield the cockpit from the brutal sun. — “Mysticeti” in La Paz Marina. We’ve tried to shield the cockpit from the brutal sun.

Participants and spectators getting ready for a parade on the La Paz Malecon.

This is the La Paz I remember from 27 years ago.

These were my favorite dancing group in the parade because of the happy, pointy things on their heads.

Each dancing group in the parade had their own music. Next time you're stuck at a stoplight with a loud, thumping stereo in the car in front of you, be glad it's not these guys. — Each dancing group in the parade had their own music. Next time you’re stuck at a stoplight with a loud, thumping stereo in the car in front of you, be glad it’s not these guys.

Turtle Bay to Cabo San Lucas – Baja Part 2

Posted by John

The fleet pulled out of Turtle Bay the morning after the beach party. The sailing conditions couldn’t have been much better. We went a little farther offshore than most of the fleet in order to worry less about collisions. Our goal of the day was to experiment with our Saye’s Rig self-steering system to find a way to set it up in the downwind conditions so that we didn’t need to hand-steer all night. Some of the boats had left the bay early and were concentrating on getting to the next stop as quickly as possible. We wanted to take time and enjoy some of the best sailing conditions we’d seen in a long time.

For some, this leg would be an overnight passage down the coast to Bahia Santa Maria, but for most it would take two nights. We had already burned a lot of fuel since San Diego and wanted to sail as much as possible. But with light winds on the second day giving us only about 3 knots, if that, of speed, we began to worry that we might not make it in two nights and would have to carry over into a third. We didn’t want to miss the planned party. We were also looking ahead to the fuel situation. There is no fuel in Bahia Santa Maria, and we were hoping to avoid buying fuel in Cabo, waiting until we got to La Paz instead. So, tough decision, but getting to the next stop on time took priority. Depending on how things went, we might still be able to avoid refueling in Cabo, where we were told of unreasonable “dockage fees” for tying up to the fuel dock. We started the engine. From our current position, we had to maintain 6 knots and travel a direct course for the next 20 hours in order to get there before sunset on the third day. Once the engine was running and the autopilot on, there was not much for us to do except watch out for those we were passing who were determined to actually sail the entire way.

Coming around the corner into Bahia Santa Maria

We arrived in the bay about 3 PM Monday. The main scheduled event was a beach party the next day, to be held at the base of the second mountain in the distance (above). Monday evening, Robyn got together with her friends for a movie night on “Waponi Woo.” Joe, on our buddy boat, “Slainte,” received a broadcast of the Seahawks’ Monday Night Football game on his Sirius satellite radio and kept all of the boats from the Seattle area up to date with the game details over the fleet’s VHF channel. It turns out that a lot of the Ha-Ha fleet are NOT Seahawks fans.

On Tuesday we had a party at the base of a mountain in a desert next to the bright blue sea. A live band played classic rock tunes. The band drove 100 miles on beaches and primitive dusty roads to get to this place, which has no plumbing or electricity and only man-made shade, just to entertain us.

Party headquarters, with wind turbines on the roof and a portable generator in back for the band.

Are they really playing "Another Brick in the Wall"? — Are they really playing “Another Brick in the Wall”?

Some people took their own dinghies to the party... — Some people took their own dinghies to the party…

...but catching a panga was faster and easier, especially for those of us anchored farther out — …but catching a panga was faster and easier, especially for those of us anchored farther out.

Robyn and her boat friends swam for most of the day, while our rides waited for us.

The surreal aspect of the Baja Ha-Ha rally continued the next morning at daybreak when an announcement was made over the VHF radio of the election results, followed by the words, “This is not a joke.”

Everyone raised their anchors and the entire fleet departed the bay, heading for Cabo San Lucas. The bay was quickly emptied of boats, the pangas went home to their normal place of work, the band drove the 100 miles back to their homes, and the small population of Bahia Santa Maria went back to their normal lives. If the experience was somewhat bizarre for us, you have to wonder what it was like for the people of the bay.

With very little wind, most boats motored most of the way to Cabo San Lucas. Fuel was also an issue for some, if not all. We ran more slowly than we could have to conserve diesel, arriving at Cabo on Thursday afternoon, November 10th.

The not-so-quiet anchorage of Cabo San Lucas.

After a quick swim off the boat, everyone went to Squid Roe to celebrate having “cheated death” and making it the entire 745 mile distance from one end of Baja to the other. The party at the club was in obvious contrast to the party at the base of the mountain. The bright lights, thumping dance music, and flashing video screens of the street, not to mention inside the club itself, was surreal in itself after all we’d been through to get here.

So, we didn’t know what to expect from the Baja Ha-Ha before it started, but what we got out of it was an unexpected experience which could best be broken into four distinctly different parties (what’s a party, but people with a common interest getting together). From a party in a retail store parking lot in a city that displays American military power as well as any; to a town so small, and so proud of their little league teams and the field they have built for them; to a place with a tiny population that ekes a living out of the sea while living in wooden shacks in a treeless desert without normal conveniences; to a city thriving off of the excesses of American tourists getting wild. Throw in the most bizarre national election in my lifetime, and the “Baja Ha-Ha” has become a very memorable segment of this entire journey.

As the DJ in the club Squid Roe announced, “Glad you guys made it before the wall went up!”

San Diego to Turtle Bay – Baja Part 1

Posted by John

We didn’t really know what to expect when we signed up for the Baja Ha-Ha last May. We didn’t get a lot of information about it after we signed up, either. There were seminars and meetings as the date got closer, but these were put on by sponsors and seemed more like opportunities to sell something to us rather than specific details about the trip itself.

The first official event where we learned much of any detail was a kickoff party held the day before the Ha-Ha start. It was held in a West Marine parking lot in San Diego. That presented its own opportunity to spend more money, and so we did. That it was held the day before the start was a little annoying since that’s when people were making last minute preparations, buying food and returning rental cars. Due to our shared rental car needing to be returned by 4 PM, we had to leave the party early.

Out of 180 boats entered in the Baja Ha-Ha rally, 150 actually started at the same time from San Diego on Monday morning, October 31st. Local television news stations took footage of the parade of boats leaving San Diego while fire boats (well, technically, police boats with a single fire pump) sprayed water into the air. Everybody put up at least one sail so it would look cool for the video, but there wasn’t any wind.

Two boats of the Ha-Ha fleet passing Point Loma on the way out of San Diego.

The Ha-Ha fleet heading out for Baja with little wind. Many of the boats remained bunched together for quite a while and only slowly, gradually spread out.

The wind picked up later in the day. It was really nice sailing for a while. We even had all four of our sails up at the same time, something we rarely have the opportunity to do.

Things started going downhill as soon as the sun went down. The winds had picked up a little too much, as had the seas. We reefed both the main and the mizzen, and furled the staysail. We sailed off into the darkness with plenty of stars, but no moon. It quickly became eerily similar to the first night out from Cape Flattery: invisible swells, seemingly coming from different directions and slamming us in the middle with all their force. By this time, two thirds of our crew was in less than perfect condition. Rolling from side-to-side with no visible horizon, with violent pitching and yawing thrown in, will pretty much get to me every time. You’d think we would’ve learned the first time, but no, we still had gear and supplies dumping out onto the floor and sliding around the cabin.

The Tuesday morning weather report indicated that the conditions were not going to improve until Wednesday. Although I was beginning to feel better and function more, Julie, who had hand-steered through most of Monday night, was exhausted, and could not do it for a second night in a row. Later in the day, to go easier on ourselves, we decided to start up the engine, haul in the sails, and power through the deteriorating sea conditions. It proved to be the right choice.

Tuesday night was rougher still. We don’t think we were rolled as far or as violently as we had been coming out of Cape Flattery, but we don’t really know because our tilt gauge broke when something crashed into it. Three out of our four sails became unusable because the halyards or jib sheets were so badly wrapped around and tangled. We could not do anything about them until everything calmed down. Our auto-pilot, unable to handle the big seas at times, would go into FAIL mode and we’d have to quickly grab the wheel and retain control before things literally went sideways.

Sure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. The Ha-Ha fleet was using VHF channel 69 for communications with each other. Everyone monitored it continuously. It was the fleet’s communication line, but with the boats spread out by a hundred miles or so, not everyone could hear every conversation. One of the first reported problems during the night was a failed boom vang (a rigging device used to help hold down and control a boom) on “Jersey Girl.” The failure of the vang damaged their boom. They reported at first that they were going to head into Ensenada for repairs, but then continued sailing instead. Then reports of more problems on more boats started coming in. One boat broke its boom in half; another broke its tiller and had to rig up emergency steering. We heard of breaking whisker poles (used to hold sails out, away from the boat), electrical problems, dead engines, blown out sails, and even an onboard fire in one boat. But the worst event of the night began with a mayday call and continued with the ensuing radio traffic, all during the pre-dawn hours. Imagine trying to maintain control of your boat in storm-like conditions, well after midnight, in complete darkness, while boats all around you are suffering damage and breakdowns; and getting bits and pieces of radio traffic, much of it from “Jersey Girl,” who acted very professionally as the fleet’s apparent rescue coordinator, concerning flares, life jackets and signaling devices. It can be a lot for tired brains to hear and process.

When the sun finally came up, and the fleet was tied together with the once-per-day long-range SSB radio roll call, it was learned that the mayday had come from the Ha-Ha boat, “Summerwind,” a Newport 41 from San Diego. They had run up on some rocks and the boat was destroyed. All crew was safely recovered and taken to a hospital to be checked out. “Jersey Girl” had looked for the beached boat during the night but couldn’t find it. They went back at daybreak and found it dismasted and breaking apart in the surf. The rest of us could only imagine what the crew must’ve gone through.

We arrived at the entrance to Turtle Bay, the approximate halfway point down Baja, late on Wednesday night but decided against trying to enter the bay in the dark. We hung out, floating around in the ocean, until daylight. “Slainte,” who had been ahead of us since the start, had run into a little trouble of their own and had decided to anchor for the night in a suitable spot north of Turtle Bay. They saw us on their AIS and hailed us on the radio as we passed by. Joe remarked that this was supposed to be fun. Earlier, the voice of “Jersey Girl” had similarly commented that there hadn’t been much “ha-ha” in the Ha-Ha yet.

The next morning we entered the bay as the sun came over the horizon. We were in Mexico now. We didn’t n eed to unpack our dinghy to get to shore because almost before our anchor was set, men, and sometimes boys, in fishing pangas came by offering taxi service, garbage collection and just about anything else that could be worked out.

The must-attend event of the day was a baseball game between the boat crews and the local little league teams. It was held on the town’s very nice ball field. Robyn and I closely examined the grass on the field, but still couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. It was about the only thing green around. Even the roads in town were dirt.

The traditional Baja Ha-Ha ball game between cruisers and players from local little league teams.

The Ha-Ha fleet anchored off the town pier.

On Friday, the main event of the day was a beach party a couple of miles south of town. Some people re-anchored their boats closer and landed on the beach in their dinghies, kayaks, paddle boards, or whatever. We took the easy route and hailed a passing panga.

The site of the beach party, with people beginning to arrive.

Robyn and her new friends from the boats "Mango," “Me Too,” “Waponi Woo” and “Ankyrios” climbed the bluff for a better view and reported back that it looked like a beer commercial, except dustier and with fewer attractive people in bikinis. — Robyn and her new friends from the boats “Mango,” “Me Too,” “Waponi Woo” and “Ankyrios” climbed the bluff for a better view and reported back that it looked like a beer commercial, except dustier and with fewer attractive people in bikinis.

Music, volleyball, beer and bikinis (a few, as appropriate).

The Baja Ha-Ha brings a chunk of money to the bay, which the locals appreciate.

Inshore from the party site. Nothing but desert.

Before we started this trip, when Robyn asked what to expect, we had promised her that she would have experiences that she, and we, could not imagine ahead of time. When we got back to our boat and settled in for the evening, Robyn remarked that things were becoming surreal.