Rich and Deb joined me at Marina Mazatlan on Saturday May 3rd, and it was difficult to get going; we were having a good time there with the good restaurants, the comfortable marina, and the necessary Internet (Rich, like me, is still working). But eventually, on Monday afternoon, we got going. We needed to cross the Sea of Cortez to Cabo San Lucas, as that was the adventure we planned in order to get an adequate amount of relaxation and sailing experience into their trip. The winds were blowing out of the west-northwest, so not favorable at all for a direct crossing, especially since Chemistry can't point as high on starboard tack. The closest we could point to Cabo on starboard tack was somewhere between the Galapagos and the Marquesas. So we motor-sailed due north for the day, and put in at Punta Piaxtla, a tiny village with little to offer, and not charted at all. We arrived at sunset, so we didn't have a lot of time to find a good anchorage on the inside bay, so we just dropped anchor inside the point off the beach. We were protected from south swells, but the waves did a good job of wrapping around the point and hitting us all night. We dropped a stern anchor after dark, but didn't get it set properly so it was a fairly uncomfortable night, especially with the loud surf so close by.
The next morning we roused ourselves around 9 and I hopped in the water for some half-hearted bottom-cleaning. Mainly, I wanted to free the knotmeter, which was still stuck from so much gunk growing around it. I also had to tighten the prop zinc, which had gotten loose and was spinning and sliding free, thumping with every shaft rotation. In the course of all that, I managed to get some nice barnacle slices in my right hand, which now, 5 days later, I'm still nursing with anti-bacterial and trying to fight off infection. Those barnacles are a pain.
After the bottom work, we loaded into the dinghy for a trip to town seeking a "real Mexican experience." Well, we got it. We landed the dinghy on the panga-strewn beach and encountered a couple of fishermen. I asked where we could find a restaurante and one of them told us right there, talk with el gordito. We walked to the next group of men and the gordito ("little fat man") was easy to spot in his purple t-shirt. We asked where his resaturant was and he waved for us to follow, and he walked us to the kitchen of his house, brushed off a few chairs, and told us to sit. There was a restaurant sign, and a license, and a sign that said it was unlawful for him to sell cerveza to minors and people in uniform, but the kitchen had clearly been used much more for himself than much restauranteuring, ever. He asked what we wanted, and as is the tradition in Mexico with tiny restaurants like that, rather than go through a huge list to be told "no," I instead asked what he had. He had meat for tacos, and he had sausage and eggs. We opted for sausage and eggs, then I realized he was probably a fisherman, too, and asked if he had any lobster for some lobster tacos. He suggested we walk up the road to his friend's house to see if he had some. If he did, it would have been 100 pesos per kilo, which is about 3 lobsters - awesome. I walked with him while Rich and Deb sat waiting and Rich chased tiny chickens for pictures, but unfortunately, neither of the two people he asked had any lobster. So were were back to the sausage and eggs. He served us coffee (hot water and a jar of Nescafe in hastily rinsed coffee mugs that had been sitting on the table when we arrived), and prepared the food as we looked at each other, unsure just what we had gotten ourselves into. The food turned out to be pretty good, but we didn't do much damage to the coffee, as even after I was finished eating, the coffee was still too hot to drink. But at least all the stuff in the water was dead. We paid the man 120 pesos, went back to the dinghy and motored back to Chemistry, pulled anchor and headed for sea.
At this point we didn't have much wind, and what we had was against us, so we did some westerly motoring for a while. Eventually, the wind picked up and started turning to the north, so we could sail a bit to the southwest. As the trip went on, the wind kept turning, so we kept turning more west and eventually were heading due west towards the East Cape and Los Frailes, and sailing under full sail at 7 to 7.5 knots with 15 knots of wind just slightly forward of our beam. This meant we were heeling pretty well, and there were some large swells out there, so it wasn't the most comfortable ride. One of the coolest parts of this trip was around sunset watching a blue marlin free-jumping about 100 yards off our port beam. He looked like he was just having a good time, and was getting 5-7 feet of air for 5 or 6 jumps. He seemed to be about 5 feet long. It was a very cool thing to watch.
At around 10 or 11pm, OV started making a horrible noise. Basically, the rebuilt gears I installed several weeks ago are now fried. OV is done for the season. So OV Jr took over for the rest of the crossing, and did a good job when we were headed into the wind or on a beam reach.
A bit later in the night - about 2 or 3am, the wind and seas really started to get crazy. It was my watch, and the wind was off our bow and picking up to 22-23 knots and the swells were directly on our beam. It was time (or past time) to reduce sail. I stared by trying to reel in the yankee, but with the staysail using the small winch, and the wind blowing too hard to reel her in by hand, I basically just made a ton of noise. This brought Rich up, and together we managed to get the staysail wrapped up and then get the yankee reefed to about 70%. Then we rolled the mainsail (in-boom furling) down to about 75%, and we were still doing 7.5 knots but were riding a bit more comfortably. After this change, Rich went back down for a bit more rest, as I was still wide awake.
Twenty minutes later, however, I went down and suggested that if he were still awake, he had to come check this out. What had happened was the the sea had slowly turned white with phosphorescence. This was right in the middle of the sea, and I was absolutely amazed. As we approached it, I was slightly confused, as it looked like fog because of its white glow, but I could see stars through it. As we entred it, it was eerie, and awesome. The whiteness all around was consistent - it was like we were sailing through milk. Rich later compared it to walking through a forest after a big slowfall. It was quiet and white and one of the coolest things I've ever seen. As we splashed through the phosphorescent sea, even more brilliant phosphorescence flew all around the stirred up water off our bow and stern waves. Like the stars at night, something like this can't be photographed (I tried) - it just has to be experienced.
Eventually, it was Rich's turn on watch, as he wanted the sunrise shift, and I went down to try to sleep in the still very rocky and pitchy bow (I'd given up my aft stateroom for my guests, as it would be more comfortable underway and I hadn't yet tried sleeping in the forward stateroom anyway). Basically, throughout the morning the swells kept getting bigger and steeper, and we were really very uncomfortable. At one point we took a huge wave off the starboard beam and several gallons of water landed on the deck just outside the cockpit enclosure, made its way under the enclosure, and towards my computer. I thought I picked it up in time, but something bad happened anyway. I'm not sure if it was the water or the shock of me picking it up, or the wear of a couple years, but basically the hard disk drive just crashed. I pulled out my paper charts, and Rich fired up his Nobeltec, and we were able to get by and get towards San Jose Del Cabo. We kept trying to find the right heading to make the ride more comfortable, and eventually we decided to head straight for San Jose Del Cabo, the eastern sister to Cabo San Lucas. We did this so we could head a bit more downwind and try to quarter the swells. It didn't help much, but we were making better progress towards a comfortable marina. We didn't reach that marina (Marina Puerto Los Cabos) until about 4pm Wednesday afternoon, and by then we were so over-tired that we were wide awake, so we cleaned up the boat, cleaned ourselves up, and went to town and got trashed on one single amazing pomegranite margarita (and a bottle of wine). I had Puerco Pilbil because I've loved the dish ever since my buddy Jim Drake (aka "Spicecake") saw Johnny Depp eat it in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and started making it on a regular "special occasion" basis, going by the recipe which is a special feature on the DVD. But Jim calls it "pork butt."
The next morning (and the next two days, going up to about 4 hours ago) was dedicated almost entirely to getting my computer up and running again. I've still got way too much to do to be without a computer for ten days (until I get to Seattle). We left San Jose Del Cabo and spent 3 hours getting to Cabo San Lucas, and way too much money at Marina Cabo San Lucas, but it was relatively fun as CSL seems a lot busier now, for some reason, than when I came through in mid-January.
I'm currently heading northeast along the coast on the south tip of Baja. I'm motor-sailing at about 6.4 knots at 2300 RPM, though the sailing part is pushing it; the mainsail is up but there's almost no wind. At 6.4 knots I've got a 7 knot apparent headwind, which means is blowing less than a knot on my nose. I'm heading towards the East Cape (Los Frailes, Bahia de los Muertos) and probably beyond tomorrow. My plan is to do a 24-hour stretch, get somewhere tomorrow mid-afternoon and rest for the night, then leave early the next day for 12 hours of daylight sailing, then another overnight, then hopefully a short overnight across the Sea of Cortez to Guaymas. It's 9:45 now, pretty dark with only a quarter moon, and coffee brewing. It should be an easy night, as stormsurf.com shows very little wind for the next few days, but with a little bit of offshore breeze (westerly, so on my port beam as I head north) in the afternoons. My goal is Guaymas by Tuesday so I can haul out on Wednesday, hop on a bus on Thursday night, and I've already purchased a plane ticket for Phoenix to Seattle on Friday the 16th. It will be good to be in a city again. I hope the restaurants are still open, and they have good coffee.
TT
