The Taco Traveler

With the exception of a distinct lack of wind, I couldn't have written a better script for today. This place is so beautiful, all around.... Every island I see, every experience I have here in the Sea of Cortez makes this sailing trip that much more special. I'm so glad I decided to bring the boat to Guaymas instead of bashing back to San Diego.

Why the touchy-feely stuff tonight? Well, it's not actually Sunday anymore, Mother's Day, it's Monday morning at 1 am and I've finally arrived at Agua Verde after 16 perfect hours of motoring (sometimes, even motoring can be perfect). The wind was still absent today, which has forced me to redirect my northbound voyage to Puerto Escondido so I can refuel before crossing the Sea to Guaymas. I didn't count on the wind being so light, so I didn't worry about filling the jerry jugs in Cabo, though I'm not sure another 4 jugs (20 gallons) would have kept me from having to fuel up again, anyway.

I left this morning from Isla Espiritu Santo after waking up to a calm, flat morning. Chemistry was the only boat in sight, the large motor yacht from yesterday having left shortly after I posted my last entry. I didn't mess around, as I knew I'd have plenty of flat calm periods along the way for coffee and breakfast. So I pulled up anchor, motored southeast to give Punta Lobos plenty of space, and then headed north. The beach where I stayed, by the way, Playa Bonanza, if you care to follow along on Google Maps, is close to 24 26.3 N, 110 18.1 W. I didn't save my track, otherwise I could be more exact. And looking at the nautical chart only gets me close (most Mexican charts being a mile or so off, unless they've been more recently surveyed like the commercial port areas).

On my way north I crossed paths with a big freighter headed from La Paz to Guaymas, and using my AIS I calculated that we were going to be pretty close as he crossed in front of me headed for open water. I slowed down, and then at 4 miles noticed that he seemed to be slowing down, also. I wanted to make sure he wasn't waiting for me to go first, so I radioed him and let him know I had him on AIS and if we both continue our present course and speed he'd pass safely about a mile in front of me. He was cool with that.

Anyway... all was well. I was motoring along, eating, drinking coffee, watching "Lawrence of Arabia," and then the fishing reel started spooling. It took me 10 minutes to bring in a big (15-20 pound) black skipjack. I popped the barbless hook out of his mouth and off he went. It was a fun fight, though. A short while later, same thing: a good fight followed by disappointment that it was yet another black skipjack. At that point I decided that those waters were too heavy with black skipjacks, and since my fishing confidence was low for anything but gross fish, I felt like I wasn't going to get a dorado anyway. I pulled in the line and just motored along.

Like I said in my entry yesterday, I'd decided I'd like to stop tonight before sundown, so the best place seemed to be Isla Santa Cruz, where there's a small anchor symbol in the Rains guide around the middle of the island at 25 16.7 N, 110 42.5 W. As I was heading that direction, I decided to pop the line back in the water, but this time I let it go waaaaaay back there about 80 yards or so. Well, while I was putting my camera away after taking some pictures of the beautiful islands, the reel started spooling *hard*. I hustled over to it and saw the fish jump, and knew this was no skipjack. Skipjacks don't jump. This baby surfaced, flared its dorsal fin, shook its head and tried to spit the lure. Even from 100 yards away, I could see it was a dorado, and a big one.

I fought that fish for 20 minutes (though some of that time was spent taking photos of him in the water, in case I lost him getting him on board), and when I finally got the gaff in his gills, I knew I couldn't let him go. Even if I'd wanted to set him free, he'd swallowed the bait so hard it was difficult to get it out even after he was dead. I won't finish the meat myself, but someone will surely take it. He turned out to be a monster - a bull dorado. I'd guess he weighed 50-60 pounds and was 4 to 4.5 feet long head to tail. I've got some amazing photos of him (and other stuff in this entry - sunsets, islands, flat seas), but I won't be able to post them until probably Guaymas, as I will need to fuel up in Puerto Escondido tomorrow and get going right away, but be sure to come back to this entry - the photos will be worth it.

After getting the dorado on board and hanging safely from the radar arch, cleaned and waiting to be filleted, I approached Isla Santa Cruz and was amazed at how beautiful it was. The problem was that the sea floor was so steep I would have had to anchor practically on the beach. I was excited to turn on the barbeque at anchor, but ultimately I decided to keep going to a better anchorage.

I went around the tip of Isla Santa Cruz and got some amazing photos of that island and the sunset, and then started filleting the dorado. Soon after sunset, and after all but one of the fillets was in the freezer (the last was on a plate, seasoned with salt, garlic salt and butter), I set my course for here, Agua Verde, which doesn't mean "green water" in this case, but means the color turquoise. I ate my dorado with some rice (it was spectacular) and then, in another little bit of perfection, as I was approaching the reef at san Marcial Point, I had my head out the cockpit window and was startled by a jumping dolphin. By this time it was dark, 10pm, with just moonlight, and seeing that dolphin jump completely out of the water near my bow was a thrill (after I got over being startled). That jump was followed by about five more jumps by the same dolphin and probably others as they played with me for a minute or so.

After the dolphins went on their way, I needed to concentrate. Coming into an unfamiliar anchorage in Mexico, especially a well-protected one like this with rocks and cliffs all around, is slightly nerve-wracking in the daytime with charts being off by up to 2 miles. At midnight, with the half-moon playing hide-and-seek in the clouds, it's scary and challenging, and good proof that in Mexico, your radar is an immensely important piece of equipment.

Successfully anchoring after navigating the rocks and unlit reef (there's a light, but it wasn't working), was the capper to an amazing day. I'm here, there are fish splashing and eating all around, and I'm safely anchored in 60 feet of water at 25 31.305 N, 111 04.318 W. 60 feet is way deeper than I'd like (I've got all 240' of my chain out which still only gives me 4/1 scope) but there are a lot of boats in here so I'm farther out than I'd like to be. No problem though; it's flat calm. I need to get to bed so I can wake up and get going again tomorrow. There's still a sea to be crossed, but with the wind that's forecast, it shouldn't be much of an adventure. Yes, I realize that saying this is tempting the gods.

TT

P.S., Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom and all the mothers in my life (and those not in my life).

 

We're cruising along here, doing about 6.5 to 6.8 knots over the ground (5.9 to 6.2 through the water) as we get a big push from a fairly big swell. We're surfing down 8-10 foot waves and making good time towards Turtle Bay. We've only go the mainsail up, as the yankee wasn't liking our direction nearly straight downwind. When daylight comes, we'll either go wing-and-wing, or we'll fly the spinnaker. It's pretty lumpy out here, though, with some mixed swell that is creating some discomfort (mixed swell meaning the waves aren't always coming from the same direction). We've got anywhere from 10-15 knots of wind.

We've seen a lot of ship activity tonight. Denali piloted us through one stretch where we passed three cargo ships going the other way. We've only had to radio one, and that was a ship coming from behind to overtake us. Anyway, a good radio contact and we both held our course and everything was fine. I just passed Carnival Elation which was heading north. We missed each other by 4 miles, so I didn't bother telling them we were here. Gotta love the AIS system that shows me exactly who they are, how big they are, where they are, where they're heading, and if they're turning or not. I think I'll invest as soon as I can though in an AIS that broadcasts the same information about me. It's great knowing where the big guys are, but I'd like them to know where I am, too, without me having to tell them, or relying on the radar reflectors to tell them.

We're currently 41 nautical miles NW of Bahia de San Quintin, heading right for it because that's the direction these swells are going and having swells this size hit us on the beam was no fun. So we'll need to gybe in a few hours after everyone is awake. 200 miles to Turtle Bay. We're gotten about 65 miles south of Ensenada since we left at 3:00 PM. We've sailed 77 miles, but we can't make a straight line right now because of the wind and swells.

More later today. Hopefully a fish story.

TT

 

This isn't really a "log" since I didn't keep one on this trip, but I'll provide a run-down, anyway. I'm sitting on Chemistry at the moment in Avalon Harbor on Catalina - that big island off of L.A. where the stars used to play. More on Catalina in a bit.

First, I want to talk about how much I love my AIS receiver. Where Radar helps in fog or night or really any situation where you want to map any item that could be out there at all, AIS (Automatic Identification System) helps map out every boat of any significant size that could create a problem for my navigation (or my life). Here's what the AIS screen (the overlay on my Nobeltec charting software) looked like on the night before arriving in SLO: [here]. I'm the little green boat closest to shore. And those are like 8 big ships around me.
 
Okay, back to SLO to Catalina: The trip was definitely eventful. I left San Luis Obispo around 3pm. I was in no hurry to get out of there because I expected another 24-hour run, and I prefer to arrive in the daylight. One thing - I took a lot of screenshots on my computer because I thought some things were interesting. Mainly the AIS system and how it displays the traffic, but also this, just a pic and 2 zooms of the anchorage and the anchor alarm radius with the boat set to store its track all night:
SLO Anchorage 1
SLO Anchorage 2 (zoom)
SLO Anchorage 3 (zoomier)
Basically, what you're looking at here is the roaming area of Chemistry overnight while I slept. If she would have crossed outside of that boundary, it would mean that the anchor was dragging and a really ugly noise would have come from my computer, waking me up.
 
So when I woke up 14 hours later, I worked for a while and delivered some key stuff, sent some emails, etc.... Then I left SLO about 3pm and ran into a big bunch of wind. I had about 20-30 knots on my beam, and we were flying. It was fun, but eventually I started to worry that maybe I should get out in the ocean before I put up 100% sail. Duh. Anyway, I was able to reef no problems, so had a reasonable amount of sail up.

The real excitement started as I approached the Santa Barbara Channel and started seeing how much traffic from all over the world goes into that channel towards the ports of Long Beach and Hueneme (Oxnard). It's insane. One way AIS helps significantly is I know the name of the ship I need to communicate with, if communication becomes necessary. In this first image from the series I call "Frogger," you'll see a ship called "CF Campbell." I had to radio this ship because at first I was going to slow down and let him pass ahead of me, but it turned out he was a tug towing a really big load with a 200M cable and was only doing 6 knots, so it made more sense for me to go ahead. It's so nice to be able to call someone by name, switch to an appropriate channel, and take care of business. So much easier than describing his position and my position and hoping he's paying attention. In this screenshot you also see the track I'd planned but had to abandon (the thick black line that goes straight down from my current position, which would have run me right in front of the Cosco Hamburg).
 
So you see in that initial picture that even after I passed CF Campbell, I still had loads of traffic to contend with. I wanted to go outside of the Channel Islands to keep my wind, but so much traffic forced a change of plans. Just like in Frogger, sometimes you have to run along the highway before you find a good spot to cross... [Frogger2]. By Frogger 2 CF Campbell had caught up to me again because I had gone outside of the oil platforms (those black symbols with lights all around them) and he had gone inside. And basically I'm just sprinting along the side of the road waiting to cross....

And finally, at Frogger3 I had found a break in the traffic, hopped behind Maersk Teal, zagged along the Northbound lane a bit, radioed CSL Cabo (a Carnival Cruise Line ship) to tell him not to worry, I was crossing the separation zone but I'd cross in his wake, and then went for it. I won! Well, I didn't die so I made it to the next level.

Hm, "Soldier Boy" again. Gotta love Top 20 radio. That must mean I've been writing for an hour now. Maybe two? Jeez, it's time for bed.

Anyway, I ended up going between Santa Rosa Island and Santa Cruz Island, having another close encounter with a tanker which I'll add to this entry later.... But you know, I just realized I haven't slept more than 20 minutes at a time for about 36 hours, so.... g'night. :)

 

TT