Puerto Salina to Cabo

Buenas dias de Los Cabos. We arrived safely in Cabo San Lucas on Thursday afternoon after an exciting 10 day trip from Puerto Salinas, Mexico.

Some details: We (Tom, Andrea, Steve, Connie) left Puerto Salinas mid afternoon on Monday the 29th. We were joining the Baja Ha Ha group for the sail to Cabo, but we were some 40 miles down course from the rest of the boats so we spent the afternoon sailing slowly, getting used to the boat, cruising around the Island of Todos Santos off Ensenada, and generally relaxing. We headed west around 6 PM and eventually reached a point about 70 nautical miles off shore on this leg of the trip. Day 2 brought high winds (18 - 25 kts) and following seas and we quickly found out about old/damaged equipment on the boat that had not become apparent during our summer sailing in light winds. On this first leg of the trip to Turtle Bay (360 miles south of San Diego) we managed to explode a block, break two shackles, and shred two reefing lines (lines used to shorten sail in large winds). We were never in trouble, but we spent a lot of time running around the decks in the middle of the night. Turtle Bay was a very welcome sight when we motored into the anchorage on Wednesday evening some 12 hours ahead of schedule thanks to the strong, favorable winds.

Turtle Bay is a dusty little town that boasts two beach side bars, narrow dirt streets, and lots of concrete block construction. We later discovered that this is indeed a "typical Mexican village". Our visit began inauspiciously when our premier crew member slipped on the forward deck while anchoring and separated his shoulder. Fortunately we were able to take advantage of one of the great assets of the Ha Ha rally.. the presence of multiple retired doctors, nurses and physical trainers. Steve had both immediate attention and strong pharmaceuticals to ease the pain. We soon discovered that an arm sling is probably one of the best ways to meet people on this trip. Everyone wanted to know how Steve was doing. Drugs, alcohol, sympathy? He was doing fine.

 

We were in the Bay for three nights (one bonus night because of the early arrival) and the third night was a huge pot luck beach party for about 150 boats with about 600 people. Access to Turtle Bay by road involves more than 70 miles of unpaved Mexican desert. The town has a population of about 1000 for whom the arrival of 600 visitors at La Dia de Los Muertes (Halloween) is a really big deal.

We left Turtle Bay at 7 AM on Sunday for a 240 mile second leg to Bahia Santa Maria. On this leg the winds were lighter, we sailed downwind, and the passage was much more benign (although we did arrive in a 20 knot breeze). Night sailing downwind is difficult and we experienced a few accidental jibes which did not break, but did stress several more equipment items. If Turtle Bay was remote, Bahia Santa Maria was way, way in the middle of nowhere. No, not even in the middle. Way out. The huge bay has no town, but it did have a few crude fish huts on a bluff that the fishermen use for a few months each year. The Ha Ha had arranged for another beach party with a band and food. The band came from La Paz (150 miles?) and the food came from the town of San Carlos. To get the food, beer and music to the beach the caterer? had trucked everything 20 miles out of San Carlos, barged across a river, and then driven 30 miles along the beach on the back side of the sand spit to reach Bahia Santa Maria.

The surf was pretty large on this bay and we got to experience the rolling swells of the Pacific throughout the night and into the next morning. Because of the large surf between us and the beach the fisherman had brought 4 pangas (20 foot boats with large, 150 hp motors) to get everyone ashore. The surf was a just little too big for the dinghys although several people managed to get ashore in the larger dinghys (and several people also dumped their inflatable dinghys trying).
Adventure Moment: As the party was winding down about 4 PM people started heading back to the boats. Our whole crew got back safely with a flying jump in a panga as we crossed the surf from a small lagoon. Unfortunately about 70 people were still on shore when darkness fell and the pangas could no longer operate because the drivers could not see the surf to time the waves for the crossing. All of those people ended staying ashore for the night. They had plenty of beer, but sleeping in wet bathing suits and tee shirts on the ground was not the highlight of their trip.

All of the stragglers got off the beach the following morning and the fleet left for Cabo San Lucas around 8 AM. This was a great sail with the spinnaker flying, and we were making great time when the winds began to fall in the early evening. That was when Tom really screwed up. I elected to fly our light air spinnaker in what was not quite light air. We wrapped the spinnaker and then shredded it completely (all while listening to Andrea tell me repeatedly "I told you so!".). In the process of shredding a perfectly good sail we had to resort to starting the engines to control the boat and that was when we hit something submerged in the water. Since we were almost 100 miles off shore in about 4000 feet of water we are pretty sure it wasn't the bottom, but that's all we are sure of. Ripped up a new propeller (just installed, 15 days of use) and ripped the lock down mount out of the boat. Think hole. Think panic. Think oh-oh. And remember this all started with an "I told you so!"

Winds were down, we were not taking on water and we managed to sail through the night until the winds died completely the following AM. So we motored. We put about 6 hours on the one remaining engine as the temperatures climbed radically. 95 degrees for the first time on this trip. We had no wind approaching Cabo on Thursday afternoon when we blew out our last (up 'til now) piece of equipment. We had either purchased a boat with a defective traveler or we had stressed it a little too much, but the traveler on our mainsail exploded. A real attention getter, and a part that will prevent us from sailing very much until we can fix it or jury rig a substitute

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Cabo has been fun. Very much a loud, tourist oriented, cruise ship port of call type of town. We land partied at the infamous Squid Roe, beach partied on the sands, snorkled the nearby reefs and finally, after 2 nights on anchor and 13 days from our last marina, we put the lines ashore in the Cabo Marina to wash the boat, drop off crew, fix things as best we could and get a little internet time. I'm sitting in a beautiful little bar, with satellite TV getting ready for NFL Sunday (unless Andrea finds me).

  

Next stops: Anchorages at Los Frailes and Los Muertes on the southern tip of Baja and then upwind to the cruiser friendly town of La Paz (as opposed to the fishing boat friendly town of Cabo).
P.S. I see where our California gas dollars went. There are two boats here named Mr Terrible. Huge boats. Mr Terrible (the little one) is 110 feet. Mr Terrible (the big one) is 150 feet. Monster boats both owned by Terrible Herbst. This could be you, David.