The Taco Traveler

Well, I passed on my chance for an easy day, bypassing Los Frailles about 5pm and deciding to continue on to Muertos or possibly even through the night to Isla Espiritu Santo, the place I’ve been dreaming of since I left last December. I spoke to the boys this morning before leaving Cabo, and I just couldn’t miss them more. It hurts so much being so far away, being so unsettled and financially screwed up, and all I want now is to just be closer, no matter what happens. When I went to San Diego in January, the intention was to try to find a job. And I did try, but for five months there was nothing, not in San Diego or anywhere else in the world I tried. So I guess I proved that location doesn’t matter at the moment as far as a job goes, but what does matter is how far I am from my boys. They’re growing up without me and I’m missing so much. So despite the fact that my plane reservation is set for June 1 out of Phoenix (after a Tufesa bus ride), I feel in a hurry to get to San Carlos and get ready to go. Plus, I guess, there’s the familiarity of San Carlos.
Partially, I suppose, I feel like I’m rushing because I want so badly to just anchor in a quiet, empty cove and have time to enjoy it. When I came down in December, my best memory was my day spent at anchor in Calelero Cove on Isla Espiritu Santo. Amazing diving, beautiful all around, and crystal clear water.

It’s 7:30 and the sun is getting low, and I see fog or haziness on the horizon. I’m already a little tired, so I’ve decided to just head into Muertos (I’ll get there about midnight) and then get up early to make my way to Isla Espiritu Santo. It will be a nighttime anchoring, which is always a joy, but it will also get me some rest and keep me out of the Cerralvo Channel on an unfavorable tide.

Well, Muertos is a no-go. It’s blowing from the south – not bad, but bad enough to make it lumpy in there. I didn’t get close enough to look closely but based on my conditions five miles out, it wasn’t worth poking my head in. I’m motorsailing towards Cerralvo Channel at 7.7 – 8.5 knots. I’ve got 5-10 knots apparent on my starboard quarter right now, but it’s a little flukey. I’m under full sail with the motor at 2k RPM. I could be content to just sail at 5-6 knots, but the longer I wait to get into the channel, the worse the current is going to be on the outgoing tide. And 2k RPM is really taking it easy on the engine anyway.

So I guess I’ll be tired, and get into a quiet cove on Isla Espiritu Santo and sleep as much as I can given the heat, but I don’t like anchoring in unknown places at night in the first place, let alone if I don’t expect it to be a comfortable anchorage. I’ve just made some coffee and turned on the wifi (and wifi scanner, “Network Stumbler.” I expect to run into a wifi connection here near Muertos - either the Giggling Marlin or a development.

Well, weather changes everything. I was really looking forward to Espiritu Santo (as you can probably tell) but about half way up Cerralvo Channel it started to howl: 20-30 knots right on my nose. I gather this is a famous La Paz “Corumel” wind, which often picks up at night and goes until the morning. I decided that as nice as the days would be, I didn’t want to put up with that at night, so I bypassed Espiritu Santo and am now approaching Bahia San Everisto, which is a gorgeous place I anchored on my way down in December but didn’t spend enough time in. So I made 160+ nautical miles in 24 hours, on not much fuel since I had decent wind most of the way. I’ll enjoy a few smaller anchorages up this way that I haven’t been to before, or I’ll just get to San Carlos earlier.

Pretty tired now, though, and looking forward to setting the anchor. I hope I can sleep – it’s pretty hot.

Woke up from that nap and had a good dinner and nice relaxing evening, and woke around 2:30 to lots of swell coming into the anchorage, but luckily no wind, so there was no worry about getting blown onto the rocks. Still, I was very rested as I went to bed about 9:30 and probably fell asleep immediately, so I got up and am now sailing with about 16 knots on my starboard quarter doing a fantastic broad reach north into the San Juan Strait, which divides the mainland from Isla San Juan. I was thinking of finding an anchorage on Isla San Juan because it’s unpopulated, used to have deer but now only snakes and supposedly 6” scorpions. I’d love to get a picture or two of some 6” scorpions, but don’t think I want to get that close either on purpose or accidentally. And I’m sort of anxious to get back to San Carlos to Internet and get more job things working.

Such a great boat – we’re doing 6.5 – 7.8 knots under main and yankee (O.V. Jr. steers a slightly imperfect course that gains/loses a lot of speed – if we were racing I’d be hand-steering at 7.8 knots pure), no motor at all as I expect I’ll get to run that later to cool the icebox so for now I’m taking advantage of the free ride. I also expect the wind to straighten out and turn behind me more soon as we get farther into the strait, so that I’ll have to take down the yankee and may need to motorsail as we’re going upcurrent a bit.

This could work out well, actually, though I expect one of these times to find an anchorage that protects from the southerly swell and lets me sleep to the morning, but I sort of enjoy waking up at 3 and getting to sail – taking advantage of the La Paz “Corumel” rather than having to motor all day in the hot and windless day. Not to mention the privilege of getting to see the sunrise and doing a little morning fishing. This may be the only morning I get to leave anchor just because of a bumpy anchorage, actually, now that I think about it, because I’m going to stop today in Agua Verde, which has southern protection. It’s also 48 nautical miles north, so it’s farther from the Corumel and who knows if the wind will happen up there at night. We’ll see. Okay, concentrating now as the wind starts to turn behind – don’t want an accidental gybe.

Wing in wing up San Juan Strait! No, she doesn’t really like it. Tough to keep that yankee full and we’re only doing 6 knots. But the wind had died down to about 10-12 knots, and we’re heading right down the middle – not heading for rocks… so there’s that.

I’m getting pretty frustrated on the fishing front, and have resolved to get a dorado today on my way to Agua Verde. With that goal in mind, I’ve re-routed around Isla Santa Cruz, where the bottom contours come up from 4,000+ feet to 500 or so. This is also where I got my bull dorado last year, and I’d love to get another one like that right now. It’s about 30 minutes after sunrise, and I’m not sure I have the right lure on – it may be too bright. I read a short book this trip that talked about lure selection as it relates to the time of day, sky conditions, temperature of the water, and optimal temperature for a certain species of fish, and it was useful in that respect (though it hasn’t helped yet), but the book was written by an egomaniac who came across as a complete asshole, and he also recommended using scent made of PVC that sloughs off into the water. Yeah, use plastic that adds plastic to our water – great idea. Dickhead. It’s from “The Master Angler” series and called “Using Color Technology to Catch More Fish” by Phil Rabideau. It’s worthless outside of the bit of science regarding color / temperature, and that could have been covered in brief article or blog entry, but this guy wrote a book full of self-congratulatory stories and information about lures his company makes. It really makes me want to throw it overboard and never buy any Mepps™ products, ever, because we see his company (Mepps™) about five hundred times in the book.

Still no fish in this fish-rich area, so I’m going to take my white squid off and try a swimming lure. Sure wish I still had that old cedar plug that caught anything and everything five minutes after you threw it in.

No, no fish on the Mexican flag-colored squid, either. I decided against the swimming lure but now I’m almost convinced it doesn’t matter, like the dorado just aren’t biting down here – maybe the water is too cold? The water is 77 degrees right now here in Agua Verde. Agua Verde means literally “green water,” but in the case of this town it also means the color turquoise, according to the Rains cruising guide.
I just came in from a sunset cocktail and book-reading in the cockpit that was distracted for the most part by a dazzling show of pelicans dive-bombing their dinner. So incredible to watch, these ugly brown pelicans as they soar about thirty feet above the water not looking terribly interested until suddenly they just alter course and nosedive into the water but only seem to go down maybe six inches. And then they just sit there casually on the water for a few minutes and eat what they dove on. Talent.

They distract me from a book that requires intense concentration: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. It’s a 1000+ page tome (with footnotes, also fiction) that’s so far pretty awesome, though not something you just pick up and progress through as James Brown is singing “Shoot Your Shot” and brown pelicans are reminding me why this is such a special place (The Sea of Cortez) – the nature all around and so incredibly … natural. As I came near Agua Verde from my roundabout voyage around Isla Santa Cruz I came through another gang of dolphins, who happily or aggressively confront the boat and swim all around me like Hells Angels, jumping and surfing, escorting me through their right-of-way towards the anchorable harbor but in just being there telling me, ostensibly, not to bother trying to catch any of their tuna, because even if magically I got one on the line, they’d steal it as soon as it started struggling. And at sunset I was approached by a little duck-like thing – maybe a baby pelican, that couldn’t fly but did a waddly sort of swim up to me, with occasional wing-flapping to try itself and then some head-dips and whole-body shakes. “Hey there,” I said to him. “Did you just come out here to show me how cute you are?”

Last night in Bahia San Evaristo right before I went to bed I went on deck and just watched for a while, and listened. There were waves crashing into the rocks and caves around the anchorage, but the most pronounced sound was the movement of water around the boat. I looked down and watched the spots of luminescence as fish disturbed water at the surface and dove below, their agitated wakes creating “Starry Night” swirls in the water, Van-Gogh’ing all around me. I have no idea how to effectively describe how amazing it is – to watch the millions of sparkles in the water and the streaks and swirls as the fish move around the boat, sometimes casually and sometimes jetting suddenly, creating ever brighter streaks of light. This is why I asked so urgently for friends to join me in this; it wasn’t that I needed companionship or help sailing, but that there are beautiful and amazing things here that are just impossible to describe.

This only goes to drive home the perception that I’m wasting time, that I’m just having fun down here. And it’s true, I am really living, thinking, doing and seeing some incredible things, but at the same time I don’t feel like I’m on vacation. To say (when I was) “I’m at anchor in Cabo” always sounded a lot better than it felt, as I don’t feel like my attitude matches the perception of a cavalier adventurer living the dream – I’m too poor for the dream, and I miss my boys too much. It’s hard to describe but those who know me best will understand that I’m trying to make the best of a horrible situation, and my failed attempt at connectedness in San Diego (full-time Internet / telephone) did nothing to enhance my job prospects in four months, and now in order to keep my boat as cheaply as possible while still feeling something other than desperately broke and unemployed I’ve returned to a place where I can feel quite a bit richer, if only spiritually, while I move closer to another long visit with my boys, and look forward to an ever-improving economy, more complete ventures on my laptop, more book-chapters written every day, and a life’s dream that’s still alive.

Well, I finally landed another fish, but it was yet another bonito, and I’m sorry, though this one was the biggest one yet (probably 15 lbs) I let him go back to the sea to fight another day (hopefully, if his lip didn’t hurt too much). I’m using a swimming lure that shakes and wiggles with a small inclusive diving plane on the front, to get it down 10 feet or so when it’s trailed about 120 ft off the back of the boat. This bonito really hit it hard, and took off like a shot – he actually spooled me and the way he fought I thought it was going to be even bigger, but because he didn’t jump I knew right away it wasn’t a dorado. I’ve never seen yellowtail in the Sea yet, but clearly I need to do some bottom fishing and just drop a line in 100’ for a while and try to get some snapper or flaky whitefish.

I’m on my way to Las Islas Coronados, currently running wing-and-wing with the genny along the west side of Isla Carmen, feeling absolutely beautiful and I’m sure if there were any yachties around they’d say we look spectacular, too. The gennaker is blue, aqua and white with orange trim, and is huge and full, as we are under sail only with about 10-12 knots dead astern for a little while, until I can turn and get the wind of my starboard quarter. It’s been a very nice set of conditions (with the exception of the run through the Canal de San Lorenzo in the Corumel) since leaving Cabo, with generally southerlies – just perfect conditions for getting north, and I’ve bypassed Puerto Escondido because I don’t need (and can’t afford) more fuel. My plans are flexible, but at this point it probably makes sense to cross the Sea early tomorrow morning with an easterly that’s supposed to get up to 21 knots. In an easterly, the farther south I start crossing, the better. That direction will put the wind on my beam or starboard quarter the whole way to San Carlos. If I make more northing, then that easterly will be on my beam or higher – possibly on my nose if I were to leave from up near Santa Rosalia or Bahia Conception as I’d planned. I’d love to see some of those anchorages, but the truth is I’m very anxious to get to Internet and take care of some things. It’s sad to say, but yeah… this isn’t yet time for the relaxing cruising of my future – still too many things require communication right now.

Anyway, I’m going to shut down the computer and give it a break for a while, as it’s quite hot and the charting isn’t really necessary as I know exactly where I’m going for the next couple hours. And besides, sailing at nearly 7 knots wing-and-wing with the gennaker makes me want to crank my “Just Great Shit” iPod playlist and just dance in the cockpit and enjoy.

I didn’t end up dancing, much – instead I used the relaxing sail to start cleaning stainless steel. I just did a fresh water rinse / scrub of the stantions, the cockpit enclosure supports and the radar arch, and will polish it with stainless polish later. For now, the freshwater rub-down did wonders. And I’m working on being less tan, so I tried to stay under the solar panels in the radar arch most of the time, and otherwise I’ve got lots of sunscreen on. Seriously, I saw a photo of myself recently, and I’m frighteningly, oddly dark.

This entry is getting really long. Generally I’d cut this up into several different entries, but whatever – the <hr>s make these chunks bite-sized, usually.
I took some video here at anchor at Islas Las Coronados – of the sunset, the other boats, the scenery, and I’m copying that to my computer now. I’ll get more video tomorrow while sailing. Wish I would have thought to take some video of the gennaker flying today, especially wing-and-wing, but oh well – I’ve got some gennaker sailing video already from when I left San Francisco ages ago. Nothing’s changed about the sailing part but the warmth.

So I’ll be leaving here soon – 3am or 4 or whenever I wake up. It’s about a 12-hour sail to San Carlos, and of course I prefer to arrive anywhere before dark, but I’m familiar enough with San Carlos that it won’t freak me out if I have to approach after sunset. It will be nice to … oh, man – the wind just shifted and is now coming out of the northeast. That could totally suck, and could delay my crossing of the Sea and make me move more north first. Hopefully it’s just a temporary thing. Anchor-wise, I’m in here pretty tight in the corner, so I’m fairly protected from swell from the northeast, but if it shifts much more and keeps up, I may get some swell. There are several other boats who would all be way more uncomfortable than me, however. Gonna watch a movie and see how the wind develops overnight.

The wind is not good – light from the northwest. :( And the worst part of it is that I’m motorsailing through fog, and have had fog pretty much since I left Isla Coronados. I just passed two pangas fishing out here – about 10 miles north of Isla Coronados and 6-7 miles offshore of the Baja peninsula, so I need to keep my eyes open (those pangas don’t show up too well on longer-range radar). Anyway, the southeasterly I was hoping for didn’t show up, so I may alter plans and head to an anchorage up north for a quicker daytime crossing. At this point, since I didn’t leave Isla Coronados until 7:30, I wouldn’t arrive in San Carlos until 10pm or so (very dependent upon the winds / my speed across). I’ll still be fine with fuel – I have probably 50 gallons and burn about a gallon an hour at 1800 RPM and 6.2 knots (1.2 gallons/hour at 2200 and 7.5 knots), but I’d just rather sail anyway. We’ll see – I don’t have to make a decision yet, as I’m heading north generally along the contour of the shoreline and could at any time turn west and go into an anchorage up here.

Well, the winds turned and did indeed start coming from the SSE, so I’m now about half-way across the Sea of Cortez on my way to San Carlos on a very fast but bumpy broad reach, with about 20 knots on my starboard quarter. I was flying the gennaker for most of the way to this point, but recently took it down because it was getting too breezy and that big sail was pulling the boat out of balance and the autopilot couldn’t keep up. I’ve got a post-gennaker-take-down video I recorded which I’ll post eventually, but for now I’ll just say that it was an adventure taking it down, and that’s why singlehanders don’t often use flying sails like spinnakers / gennakers – they’re tough to manage when the wind picks up. In this case, I thought I’d turned the boat enough to get the sail in the mainsail’s wind shadow, but I didn’t and when pulling the sock down over the sail a gust came along and filled the sail which ripped the control lines through my hand and gave me a good burn before I could let go. Ouch. Well, I got it down eventually, and now the yankee is up and we’re still doing 8.5 knots. Flying.

It’s about 3:45pm, and at this rate I’ll be in San Carlos around 10pm. I imagine it will be more like midnight, as it will surely mellow out a little after dark, but we’ll see. I’d take this all the way to San Carlos even though the swells on the quarter make it a pretty uncomfortable ride as they turn the boat all over the place and the autopilot tries to recover. We’re getting there.

I’ve stopped fishing, as going this fast would make reeling in a fish very difficult, no matter the size. And if it were a big dorado… man, way too difficult to be worthwhile. If the wind dies down, I’ll fish again, but it’s not like I’ve had much luck, anyway.

Just three hours out of San Carlos now, with the sun just down and a navy ship dead ahead as well as a shrimper dead ahead and another shrimper on my port beam. I don’t imagine the shrimpers will be dickheads tonight, with the Mexican navy out here. Still, I’ve brushed up on my lingua for certain nautical things if the navy ship wants to board me or whatever. It’s probably the same navy ship that helped out the American sportsfisher yesterday that had hit a whale and needed a tow into San Carlos. I think they just pretty much waited until help came from San Carlos to tow the guy in – I don’t think a 200’ ship is equipped to pull a tiny boat into San Carlos – it’s not that big a harbor – and there were probably liability issues. Anyway, the guy could have benefited by a bit more Spanish. I think I can safely say that I’m conversational, though not fluent since I speak so much better than I understand.

No wind for the past couple hours. I took down the gennaker a while ago and now we’re just motoring at 2k RPM and 6.6 - 6.8 knots in still bumpy seas – but the seas have leveled off quite a bit since the wind died down – this is just residual wind chop. So at 6.6 knots I’ll be into San Carlos right at 11:30. Looking forward to it, and to waking up for the morning net and checking in with the crowd there. Dark now – I could probably use some coffee after I haul in my empty fishing line.

(5/5 and 5/6/2009)

Now we’re sailing! There’s not much wind anymore, and the swells are still following and a bit annoying, but there’s about 15 knots on my starboard quarter and I decided to roll out the gennaker, and it is freakin beautiful. I don’t think I’ve used the gennaker since my last time in Mexico, “racing” Shiloh and Sailfisher from San Blas to La Cruz, but I had crew, then. I haven’t flown the gennaker single-handed since I left San Francisco. So it’s staying generally full, and I should turn a bit right and get it a bit more angle as it’s often masked by the main, but we’re okay with a little flapping.

I “fixed” the autopilot again, but instead of trying to be too fine, I just put a *bunch* of tape on it so it stays engaged no matter what. It won’t slip anymore, and has been great for a couple hours now, but the problem is I can’t disengage it without removing it. But I’ve removed it about 20 times in the last 48 hours to make modifications and repair attempts, so I figure having to spend 2 minutes removing it to disengage it isn’t that big of a deal. The only reason to disengage it between here and Cabo should be to let it cool off, but I’ve got an ice pack on it right now to try to accomplish that temporarily – I’m not ready to hand-steer yet and it’s doing a great job now that it has better purchase on the wheel.

So under full main and 150% gennaker we’re doing between 7 and 8 knots. Outstanding and fun. We’ll see if this westerly breeze keeps up. If the wind shifts to the NW then I’ll have to run under main only, probably. So given the direction of the wind and the slightly smaller swells, I’ve decided to cut straight across to Cabo rather than hugging the coastline. It’s about 80 degrees and beautiful – couldn’t ask for better weather right now though I’ve passed many northbounders who could ask for a bit of relief from the wind and swells. They’re having a very difficult uphill slog of it.

Since Mag Bay, the water has gone up in temperature about 5 degrees. It’s now at 64.4 F. My job since I put the gennaker up about 2pm has been to just keep the autopilot cool with an occasional ice bag. That’s a job I can handle, and the autopilot is doing a great job of keeping the boat on course through following seas and the big flying headsail. Just a great sail all around. I just heard a VHF call from Marina Costa Baja, which is in La Paz, so that’s weird. That’s a heck of a transmitter, as La Paz is currently 67 nautical miles away. Well… I guess I’ve received transmissions from farther (AIS uses the VHF band, and I’m picking up a faint, occasional transmission from a boat that’s 282 miles away), but never over land like that (La Paz is on the Sea of Cortez, on the other side of the Baja peninsula).

I’m racing a bit, as I’d like to keep up a pace of 7+ knots so I get to the cape at sunrise. Right now, at 7 knots, I’ll get there about 8am. I definitely would like to be around Cabo Falso before 9:30 or 10am, as the “cape effect” winds can be pretty gnarly, whipping up some big, confused seas and generally making everything very difficult.

I just took about a hundred pictures of dolphins either sprinting towards the boat from afar or playing in the bow wave. There aren’t very many usable ones, of course, but on “Sports” mode I was able to take several shots in a few seconds to try to grab that one great moment. I got several shots of them coming, then a few jumping next to the boat. Then after that got boring, I took the camera up to the bow and held it over the edge, trying for an extreme closeup on a dolphin right on the bow. Not sure yet how it came out, but there were a few shots of like four guys in a row all surfing the wave. They’re still playing, which is surprising to me because I’m only going 6 knots, but there’s no annoying engine, so they probably don’t get that a lot, with so few sailboats going south right now (most are going north for the end of the season, and are generally motoring uphill trying to go as fast as possible if there’s a calm).

Time to put the gennaker away and start motoring… the wind has dropped down to about 5-6 knots and I’m now meandering along at 5.5 knots (probably 1 or 1.5 of that is current). This won’t do to get me past Cabo Falso before the wind picks up late morning.

It’s a beautiful night, though absolutely windless. There’s a big, bright moon, the swells have died down, and I’m just motoring along at 7 knots at an easy 2k RPM (I can do 8+ knots if I want to). The water has warmed up even more, and is now 66.2 degrees, so we’re getting there. And I’m being reminded of a big negative with Mexicans and their radios… the fishermen who use it honestly tend to whistle to get attention and then often scream the name of a boat or a buddy three or four times, and reapeat that ten times before giving up or being answered. Then there are also just assholes who clog up channel 16 with idle chatter and messing around. This is why cruisers switch to channel 22 when we get down to mainland Mexico (maybe even La Paz?). Channel 22 becomes the cruiser’s hailing channel, because 16 is so full of garbage. It’s ridiculous, and it would be nice if the Mexican Navy would get a handle on it – maybe try educating people about the importance of keeping an emergency channel clear. But I guess it’s a small minority that is hurt or potentially harmed by this misuse.

Just after midnight and I’m watching my second movie of the night – “Say Anything.” So funny that I never noticed before that Jeremy Piven was in it. Did ya know that? He’s the drunk aggressive friend of Lloyd Dobler’s at the party who’s wearing the little hat and high-fives his keys into Lloyd the Keymaster’s hand. Then he passes out on the lawn at the end of the party. Oh, and he’s one of the guys at the Gas N’ Sip, too. He says: “Your only mistake is that you didn’t dump her first. Diane Court is a show pony, and you are a stallion, my friend. Walk with us and you walk tall.” He says that right before the kid says “Bitches, man!”

No wind – been motoring for three hours now. I could probably pull 5 knots if I put up the gennaker, but that’s not enough for my goals this leg:
a) Don’t get run over by this big cruise ship called “The World” which is heading north on a really inshore track – probably to keep its guests out of the offshore swell
b) Get through the fishing fleet safely at Golden Gate Bank
c) Get around Cabo Falso before the “cape effect” winds pick up
d) Anchor in the spot where this past December I had good Internet from some hotel on the beach
e) Send a few emails and post a few blog entries
f) Go to sleep

Weird – Golden Gate Bank is completely deserted (of both fishermen and fish, apparently). When I came through here on my way north in January, there were about a hundred boats working this area. They must have moved over to the Sea of Cortez side for dorado or something (I’m pretty sure in January this area was hopping with yellowtail). Oh well… I guess I’m not going to make a living as a fishing charter captain.

Relatively easy night, but the wind never picked up enough to sail once I took down the gennaker around 6pm. Bummer. I hate motoring, as I just count the dollars getting burned up in the cylinders (are they still called cylinders in diesel? Compression chambers?). So each hour costs me about $2.80 on average – my Pactor modem cash drifting away.

So I’ve got land within 4 miles. Cabo Falso is about 18 miles to the southeast and Bahia San Lucas is another 6 miles past that. Should be at anchor by 11am.

Arrived in Cabo safely. G'night. :-)

(back-dated to 5/4/2009)

My extreme frustration and stress over this trip has turned into elation, as I’ve managed to repair / jury rig the backup autopilot (O.V. Jr.). I’d attempted to fix it sort of casually before, thinking I didn’t want to break it and make it non-reparable by someone who knows what they’re doing, but the last few days have really worn on me, physically and emotionally, spending so much time at the wheel and basically steering a zig-zag course down the coast as I miss a few seconds of concentration and have to correct. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t play chess on my iPhone. I couldn’t really fish because of the trouble caused trying to haul in a fish and steer the boat to ensure there are no dangerous crash gybes…. In short, it was a marathon that was grueling in every aspect – even for shorter hops like yesterday between Isla Cedros and Turtle Bay – and it wasn’t very much fun at all.

But finally about forty minutes ago I decided, “well, it’s not gonna get any more useless, so I might as well be more aggressive in trying to fix it.” So I pulled it apart, and found that the belt inside was still usable but was finding no purchase on the shell that connects to the wheel. Predictable enough, but even simpler was the fix – I just put two wraps of electrical tape around the surface the belt grabs, snapped it back together, mounted it to the wheel again, and … joy.

So we are now motorsailing down the coast, in the lee of the large swells since the land turns to the southeast after Turtle Bay, and will go through the night to get to Mag Bay tomorrow late morning. I’ll still need to steer when we get large following seas, but the in-between times, and the times when I need to make food or coffee, or just take a break and relax in the sun… O.V. Jr. should be able to hold down the fort now.

Well, O.V. Jr. couldn’t handle as much as I’d hoped, but it’s nice knowing that when I get to flat water or non-following seas, I’ll be able to rest and do things (write, read, think) without the boat running off course dramatically. I stopped last night at Abreojos (“open your eyes”), and an approach / anchoring like that is all you need to feel sailorly: darkness, shoals and other hazards all around, 20 knots of wind blowing through the anchorage…. But I got 10:1 scope out in 20’ of water, so the 30 knot gusts were manageable, and I left the Nobeltec on all night and kept a boundary circle on that anchor, so that if the boat slips out of that boundary, an ugly noise would have awoken me and I would have had to run up, start the engine and try to re-set the anchor and 200’ of chain before the shoals about .8 of a mile behind me.

So I had a great night’s sleep, and decided to sleep in (it’s 8:30) and get going again closer to 4 or 5 this evening. The next stop, Mag Bay, is about 140 miles (18-20 hours at 7 – 7.5 knots) away, so an overnight has to happen, so I’ll stage the overnight so I’m fresh. I’ve improved my angle a bit, and should have a very fast sail, though still lots of hand steering because although the seas won’t be following, whenever the wind is behind the beam, this autopilot doesn’t do well.

I’m having some breakfast now, and will be showering and then getting busy taking O.V. (the primary autopilot) apart to try once again to repair that. At this point I believe the problem is the clutch, which isn’t properly pushing the gears into place when it needs to. I doubt there’s anything I can do, but it’s worth a shot. After that, I’ll write and/or work on some other projects until it’s time to hit the road again. I’d hoped to go into town and look for an Internet Café (there are no open Wifi connections here in the anchorage) but there are breakers all around, and I’d need to take the dinghy off the deck in 20 knots of wind, which is a major pain.

Well, I couldn’t wait, so decided if I was arriving at Bahia Santa Maria too early (before sunrise) that I’d just slow down, but I’ve been moseying along and am currently on track to arrive at BSM around 8am. It’s almost 7pm, and it’s been a very nice sail so far, and I’ve only recently had to fire up the engine because the wind started getting shifty / inconsistent. So now we’re cruising along at 6.8 knots and the autopilot is doing a good job in these relatively light seas.

The one thing that concerns me at this point is that the barometer is down to about 1002.5 MB, which could mean a low pressure system is coming down from California, or worse yet, that it’s coming up from the south. That would very seriously suck, but I’m about 1/3 across a huge bight in Baja, the nearest land 26 miles away so there’s nowhere to go but onward. Way back when I left Eureka without adequately checking the weather, I ended up having 45 knots blowing from dead astern, and O.V. handled those winds and seas just great. With only a bit of mainsail up, we were doing 9 knots running towards San Francisco when my friends were rolled, dismasted and helio-rescued well offshore.

So it could be that selling my Pactor modem for the SSB wasn’t the smartest move, as I’d be able to download GRIB weather files to overlay onto my Nobeltec (chart plotter software on my computer), but I figured I wouldn’t be offshore that much this trip, and would generally have connectivity as soon as I get to Cabo (Pacific Coast Baja is pretty desolate and unpopulated). I had decent possibilities last night at Abreojos, but all the connections were secured. No local residents opened up their Internet access to those poor suckers out in the anchorage. But if I get really worried, then I can just radio one of the many ships farther offshore and ask them for a forecast. I’m inside the bight, so I’m protected from some of the swell and am definitely safe from shipping traffic, and I have only seen three or four northbound yachts since Ensenada. And the money from that Pactor modem has been pretty instrumental, as it’s paid for fuel and food the entire trip, and will pay for the first month on a buoy once I get to San Carlos.

No fish yet since the bonito just after Ensenada, but yesterday I screwed up by tightening the drag too much and not checking it, and the first indication that something was interested in my lure was the line – the 60lb Spectra – snapping at the rod tip, so whatever it was, it was damn big and I probably didn’t want it anyway, but now the poor thing is swimming around the ocean with a yellow plastic squid and two big painful hooks hanging out the side of its mouth… not to mention the 100 feet of Spectra fishing line trailing behind him. So this morning I re-spooled the fishing reel and am ready to go again, but no luck today.

One thing I think is worth mentioning as sort of a neat thing, is the failure of my speed gauge – the transducer for the gauge anyway, with a little paddle wheel that spins according to how fast the boat is moving. Well, it’s never worked very well, and it’s always frustrated me because it stops spinning with the slightest bit of gunk or tangle, but I’ve given up on it and have started just using it for its secondary function, which is water temperature. The speed through the water isn’t that important anyway (speed over ground – SOG – is more important and is available through the GPS), and it’s just a lot more fun, romantic and poetic to watch the water get warmer and warmer as I move on south. And yes, it is getting warmer, though it’s still pretty chilly after sunset.

So the sun is down, and it will probably be a long night, but thankfully I’ve got O.V. Jr. back in good condition, so I’ll be able to take little naps here and there as long as the following seas aren’t too bad. It’s a beautiful night, with a great sunset and a very bright, clear ¾ moon directly above me, and we’re moving along now at 8.2 knots, so I need to slow down or I’ll get to Bahia Santa Maria (and the dangerous Cabo San Lazaro) before sunrise.

I’m in an odd sort of racing mood, I guess, and just finished tweaking the sails to get all the speed possible out of the little wind I have. Yeah, sure, I’m motorsailing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also be under full sail (main, yankee, staysail) and tweak here and there as the wind shifts. I just unfurled the staysail because the wind shifted to the beam – basically out of the southwest, which is odd but hopefully not indicative of a more significant or lasting shift (until I get to Cabo, anyway). It’s always nice to see adjustments gain that extra couple tenths of a knot. There’s not enough wind to kill the engine, but I’m only running at 1500 RPM, so it’s only really serving to help the autopilot stay on track and to bring us from 5.5 knots up to 7.

I can’t possibly do this justice, but it’s 3:17 am and the moon has gone down so that all the stars are as visible as they can possibly be – not a light disturbance within 100 miles (outside of my bright laptop screen). In tha past couple of hours (even with the moon out) I’ve seen several shooting stars (meteorites) and at this moment the mass of stars is so great that I can’t even find the second most recognizable constellation out there. I found the Big Dipper, but I had to look at my Cybersky program to figure out where Orion is, and even given the direction and the altitude, I can’t make out Orion amongst all that brightness. Imagine that – and I’ve seriously been an Orion fan for years.

A girlfriend once called me Flappy McFlapperson, and I thought that was hilarious. I don’t remember what I was doing to earn that (it’s reasonable to assume I was talking too much) but I’ve obviously never forgotten the goofiness of the nickname or the cuteness of her as she said it. Well, that’s what my mainsail is doing right now – just flappin’ back and forth as the swells rock the boat all over the place, with not enough wind from behind to keep it full. So we flap and rock. I keep it up because its flapping – while annoying – also helps stabilize the boat as we motor along; without the flapping we’d be rocking even more.

That girlfriend, by the way, is one of my biggest guilt trips ever, as I ended that relationship by being such a dick that I forced her to break up with me. I know – I suck(ed). She hasn’t spoken to me since (10 years ago), and ignored my friend request on Facebook. Sorry, K.

(back-dated to 5/1/2009)

It’s been a very difficult sail so far since I left Ensenada. Well, I guess there has been some good, too, but basically when you’re single-handing and both of your autopilots give out, it’s hard to see the good amongst all the hand-steering for hour upon hour. I’m just now leaving Isla Cedros, about 50 more miles (7 hours) to Turtle Bay where I may be able to get Internet and post this tonight.

The biggest issue so far has been the lack of a reliable autopilot. Theoretically I should be able to balance the boat (adjust the sails so she stays on course), but with the wind coming from dead astern and some fairly large following seas that want to push us off course every ten seconds or so, it’s just not possible. In fact, it’s even difficult hand-steering while *not* standing up, so I spend a lot of time and concentration steering downwind and trying to maintain the right levels of speed and direction, while my arms, shoulders, neck, back, eyes, legs… everything is killing me. I’ve got cuts on both hands, two of them fairly deep and painful but I have no idea where they came from. But I’ve made it across Bahia Viscaino, and that’s one of my larger successes, so far.

Just outside Ensenada on Tuesday morning I caught a nice bonito, but haven’t had time to cook it until last night while finally at anchor off Isla Cedros. This was my first bonito – about 15 pounds, and was a very nice fish. I hauled him in under full sail, so it made the battle extra hard with the boat going 7.5 to 8 knots and having to try to keep the boat going one direction with nobody at the helm. I believe at that point that I was on a beam reach, so the wheel autopilot was able to keep up long enough to allow me to haul the fish in and clean it. Autopilots like a beam reach a lot more than they like going downwind, though my main autopilot (O.V.) could handle anything… it’s just the $1,000 it would take to replace the linear drive that has created the problem.

Crossing Bahia Viscaino was pretty much a nightmare, with the following seas, wind directly at my back, and the last anchorage I’d planned to stop at (Bahia San Quintin) was completely blown out on Thursday night, so I just kept going. The problem with having wind directly at your back, non-sailors, is that it requires a lot of concentration to run dead downwind with just a main, because if a wave turns you too much, or you don’t pay attention, you could have an accidental gybe. I had a preventer rigged the first time it happened, but it wasn’t rigged very well because the boom came crashing over with such force that it just stripped the preventer out of the winch. That accidental crash gybe would have knocked me out (and probably off the boat altogether, 15 miles offshore… at dusk) if I hadn’t been ready, as I was freeing one of the yankee sheets from a turnbuckle and was moving quickly towards the cockpit when I felt it happening, but I was ducking, of course. The preventer line bent one of the stantions and further ripped my house canvas as it smacked it when the boom came over. This, amongst a few other mishaps and bad decisions has frustrated me a lot, but I’m getting better and getting the hang of sailing Chemistry with no help - no help even from an autopilot. I’ve since moved the preventer farther forward, and the preventer has made a couple of saves.
The good news is that with 20-30 knots at my back I’ve been able to get this far using 95% wind power. I only motor to get into & out of anchorages at this point, but we’ll see how that continues.

When I left San Diego I figured I’d be in Cabo by Saturday or Sunday, but that’s looking crazy, and it will probably be more like Wednesday or Thursday because I’m unable to make any progress while I’m resting. And with no autopilot, I need a lot of rest. That’s been another learning curve this trip – I’d never had to “heave-to” before, which is basically a means of standing still at sea. You arrange the sails so that the boat stays pointed to the wind and you just bob there comfortably. I’ve discovered that Chemistry heaves-to fairly well under mainsail only (held out to the side a bit by the track, and with the current and the larger winds I actually make 1 or 1.5 knots backward (south, down the coast as I’m pointed to the north) as I’m hove-to, which is a pretty good deal.

So I’m still just motoring in the lee of Isla Cedros (this is a heck of a big island) and will be stopping at most every rest stop between here and Mag Bay, unless I can find better wind direction (wind at 120 degrees off the bow, pushing me from the aft quarter), in which case I may go offshore farther and just heave-to to sleep again. Can’t wait for Cabo and warmth, a free and nighttime-calm anchorage with parties on the beach, coffee shops with Internet, and jet-ski / parasail craziness out there on the water all day long.

Turtle Bay – 1 May 2009

I’ve made it to Turtle Bay, basically about half way to Cabo. I’ll leave early in the morning for Punta Asuncion or possibly Abreojos (“abre ojos” = “open your eyes”). It will be 14 hours to Abreojos, and then a longer leg down to Mag Bay / Bahia Santa Maria. Then it’s a 24-hour trip from there to Cabo San Lucas.
It’s 7:30 here, and I want to get into town to see if I can get Internet and a couple of fish tacos somewhere. There aren’t many services here, but it’s worth a shot.

Cancel that… I guess the only reason I’d be going into town would be to send this off and catch up on a few emails, but at this point I think it’s more important that I just get going very early in the morning. It’s a pretty big pain to take the dinghy off the deck and an even bigger pain to lower the outboard and attach it to the dinghy, and all of that for one 30-minute trip to town doesn’t make a lot of sense. Hopefully nobody is too worried (Dad) and everyone knows I know what I’m doing despite the occasional bad sailing decisions, and that outside of the occasional crash gybe, I’m doing well and moving forward.

So instead of getting the dingy prepared, I’m going to make some bonito spaghetti, watch a movie on my laptop, and get to bed. I’ll be up and out of here about 4am to ensure I arrive at Abreojos before sunset tomorrow. Is there anyone in the world who likes anchoring in an unfamiliar spot in the dark?

I left Ensenada this morning around 11, intending to just head over to Islas Todos Santos to anchor for the night before starting out early for San Diego. I would have just stayed in the Baja Naval marina again, but the surge is so bad in there, and the rows of slips so crowded together (the "fairway" so narrow) that there's no way I would have been able to get myself out of there safely tomorrow solo at 4 or 5am. Then, while heading over to Todos Santos, I started thinking... "You know, Todos Santos is to the southwest, which is the wrong way." And after so much time getting here, I just couldn't go the wrong way. It would be like passing everyone on the freeway for hours and then having to go to the bathroom and wondering how many of those slowpokes are now passing you back. Well, it's not really like that, but anyway, it's the wrong way.

I thought about stopping at Puerto La Salina - a newer marina at Punta Salsipuedes (sal si puedes = "Leave if you can") that's about 20 miles NW of Ensenada and 35 miles from the border. But after a year of mostly anchoring, when I think about docking now - especially potentially tricky docking in surgy conditions - I feel like... someone who's been anchoring for a year rather than docking. Not that I'm horribly out of practice, but I'd rather just anchor. Okay, and I'm a little out of practice.

I was worried about getting here in the dark (I hate anchoring anywhere unfamiliar in the dark), but I had my waypoints and by now I'm prepared for anything. As I was approaching Isla Coronado Sur, I saw a big fishing boat with tons of lights. From miles away I assumed it must be a government vessel of some sort looking for drug smugglers, but as I got closer I saw the big purse it was closing around its catch, and then I saw I was heading right for some tiny blinking lights of fish pens or some sort of aquaculture. I'd seen the lights before, but thought they were somehow attached to the island because there wasn't supposed to be an aquaculture thing here. But I weaved through those, then dodged a couple of lobster pots, and as I was trying to get my mainsail down a second fishing vessel dislodged itself from the mother-ship to investigate me or maybe see if I'd run anything over that they needed to yell at me about. But at this point I was still thinking everything was Mexican Navy and had already prepared my self mentally to get boarded by dudes in masks with machine guns (they do that to conceal their identities so drug smugglers can't pursue retribution against them or their families if they recognize a face), so one more angry fisherman wasn't going to bother me a bit. I want about my way dropping the main in between weaving around gear in the water.

This was about 45 minutes after sunset, so there was barely any light sky left, and after I made it through the buoy obstacle course, to get to a spot to anchor I had to rely on radar and the coordinates of this anchorage given in the Rains guide. Well, I'm not exactly sure how close I am to shore, but I'm still a ways away. I'd like to be much closer, but when I first got here there was zero wind and the water was flat, so it didn't really matter. I ended up dropping anchor at 32 24.329 N, 117 14.366 W in 35 feet of water and calling it good. And all *was* good until about 20 minutes ago when the wind shifted to the north and now I've got no protection whatsoever. The whole point of coming here was that there were NW and W winds, and the lee of this island would be great for the night and then I'd head into San Diego Bay in daylight (my last nighttime San Diego arrival was uneventful, navigationally, but there's just nowhere to go if the Harbor Police dock is full). But now I'm thinking if the wind or chop gets too bad I'll have to head into San Diego anyway. Which, if I end up pulling anchor at midnight, means an almost certain visit from the Coast Guard helicopter as I cross the border into the States.

I'm thinking I'll be able to stay here, though. I let out more chain, so there's 200' out there in 35-40' of water. That's a lot of chain but I don't know what the bottom is like here. I've got the Nobeltec working with a boundary circle, so I'll know by the loud "boing-boing-boing" that I've started to drag. I'm not really worried about going anywhere - even while sleeping I'm pretty in tune with the movements of the boat and the sounds of the wind, even the waves and the seals on shore. And of course if I *were* to get blown towards shore, that 200 feet of chain just gets a bigger and bigger scope, and has to catch at some point.

I keep feeling like there needs to be some sort of final I'm back to reality; here's what I learned from everything I've done sort of entry coming up here. It's been almost a year since I left San Diego, and so much has happened. Maybe it needs to be tied up in a neat bundle, but that sort of writing - the deeper thinking and the more essayistic stuff - just isn't at the top of my priority list right now. As verbose as I am, for the past two weeks I've written nothing but entries about sailing and location details (well, very little sailing, really - this has been more about moving along with a purpose where the motor was almost always running). And more importantly, it takes a lot of work to take those details and create something bigger. The details are there, though, so I'll let them stew for a while and I'll gain some distance and perspective. Maybe then I'll revisit and get more of the things out of these experiences that have something to say about the bigger things - the human condition (blah). Hell, I could do it in a second if some book publisher would see some potential here and step up, but for now I've gotta find a way to pay some bills more immediately by writing code.

TT

I'm tucked in safely in a very surgey Baja Naval marina, having just returned from the first (non-hotdog, non-fish) meat I've eaten in a couple weeks. I can't write much tonight because I'm beat, and the reason is that Cabo Colonet was horrible. First off, though the wind was from the north and northwest, there was some residual swell from the southeast. So the wind kept my beam to the swells all night. I think I slept one or maybe two hours, at most, rocking crazily back and forth every few minutes and sometimes so intensely I felt like we may have dipped a rail. So I got up about 2am and started working on my web project.

At 4am I pulled the anchor and started out of there, noting that there was a shrimper meandering about. As I started leaving the anchorage, he went in behind me then *turned his lights off* and basically followed me out from the cape, and actually went *inside* of me like he was going to cut me off on my way around the cape. What popped into my mind? "Duel" - one of the first Spielberg movies, of course. I was Dennis Weaver being pursued not by an evil semi but by a psycho shrimper. It was a bit freaky (remember, this is 4am and there is nobody around but us two boats) but the guy backed off as soon as I hailed him on the radio in Spanish:

"Barco de pescando cerca de Cabo Colonet. Este es el velero Chemistry."

... and again. No reply.

Then I started to get mad. I started speaking to myself in Spanish - which I'm sure is a good sign that I'm getting pretty good, conversationally - and it was sort of a ... what you wish you'd said - kinda thing, but I don't wish I 'd said it because he's bigger and faster than me and if he really wanted to run me down he probably could have, eventually.

In my mind, I said: "Cabron! El Armada de Mexico va a oir de esto. Tu barco va a ser mio. Tu vas a trabajar para yo." I don't know how right that is, and I'm too tired to look it up, but the only word I'm not sure of is "oir" - is that "to hear"? That translates as: "Fool! The Mexican Navy is going to hear about this. Your boat is going to be mine. You're going to work for me." Which of course made me laugh out loud thinking "All your barco are belong to us." But you have to be a nerd to understand how funny that is. And "cabron" a tame sort of "ass" - like calling someone a "fool." I think in most versions I called him a "culo," which is more like "asshole." I may have also called him (again, just in my mind) "jota" or a few other things I learned in the restaurant kitchen in college.

Anyway...

 After no response, I hit the gas and got Chemistry up to 7.5 knots and headed for open water. If we were going to have a maneuverability contest, I wanted to be far from shore. He backed off, and I turned the VHF to "scan" and heard him talking a few minutes later with another boat that actually sounded like his boss (dad?) and the other guy said something like "what happened with that sailboat?" ("que onda con esa velero?") I heard what sounded like a younger guy - maybe late 20's - say something like "I got back here and encountered him..." and that's all I could pick up. It was lazy, horrible backwards-ass Spanish - the equivalent of our Appalachian English. Prick. I really do believe that many shrimpers intentionally mess with cruisers down here.

So tomorrow I'll get my exit paperwork in order, then fuel up and stay one more night before leaving early morning Tuesday for San Diego. Time to rejoin modern society for a while.

TT

That was without a doubt the longest night of my trip - ever since I left Seattle in October of 2007. The trip from Eureka to San Francisco was long (30 hours or so) and difficult, but I had O.V. the ultra-pilot, and I had 45 knots pushing me instead of 20 on my nose. I'll take 45 knots behind me, thank you. It was a constant battle all night trying to go slowly enough so as not to shoot over the waves, and that was just motorsailing with a tiny bit of engine and the main only. And O.V. Jr. was getting pretty hot doing lots of work, so I had to take shifts hand-steering, which is a real pain when it's dark since I don't have an internal compass like an autopilot. Yes, I can *watch* the compass, but my computer brain isn't as good as an auto-pilot's computer brain - especially O.V.'s. I really should have had the staysail up for more speed, more stability, and less engine, but I guess it was more important to me to stay right on the wind - as close to my destination as possible. In the end, it may have cost me more time, but hell... I was tired. I took on so much water that it's very disconcerting to me to have to manually activate the bilge pump and not have a working "manual" pump. The boat is generally very dry, but between my freshwater leak and tons of water over the bow last night, I had to keep an eye on the water level. That work is at the top of the list before any more journeys, although I have no idea how I'll be able to repair/replace that stuff 4 feet down in the bilge below the engine. Speaking of water coming over the bows... this morning when I did my walk-around, there were five dead squid on deck - all about 5-6" long just like my lures. They must have been scooped up by the bow as it dipped, or otherwise washed onto the deck last night. Must have been dozens more that escaped through the scuppers - washed right through with the the water.

I did manage to finally sleep for three or four 25-minute stretches as the sun was coming up, but I'm very happy to be in the middle of this huge bay anchored off the beach (waaaay off the beach - there are breakers) at position 30 23.87 N, 115 55.23 W if you're playing along at home. It's pretty far from the beach and the breakers, but it's still only 24 feet of water. This is a very shallow bay leading to an impassably shallow estuary - well, it's passable in a panga or a dinghy if you know the route, I read. Anchoring was a chore for the fourth or fifth straight time due to jumbling up of the chain in the chain locker during rough seas. The first 40' of chain somehow ends up in the bottom of the locker, underneath a hundred pounds of deeper chain, so I'm happy there's almost no wind so I was able to get down in there and untangle everything and feed it through completely, then re-stack it.

It's 5pm - Tecate Time, a little snack (mmmmmm... more guac and some refried beans) and then it's time for bed. It's an easy 45-mile (nautical miles) trip tomorrow to Cabo Colonet (30 57.64 N, 116 17.63 W is the spot suggested in the Rains guide), and then Sunday 65 miles to Ensenada. Check out as soon as the Capitania opens Monday morning, and then another 65 miles to San Diego. Then again, I may also stay Monday night and leave 4am Tuesday to make sure I get to San Diego during daylight hours when the Harbor Police dock (customs, immigration) is open. I hope that cranky guy has retired by now (or been fired for crankiness).

TT

1/1/2009 10pm PST

I'm about half-way across Bahia Vizcaino, and although the swells are bigger than I'd hoped, at least I'm hitting them at a diagonal rather than going right at them or having them hit me square on the beam. And because I've also slowed down significantly (I'm only doing about 5 knots), the jarring landings after leaping off the back of a swell are only coming once every minute or so. The wind direction, however, couldn't be worse, so I'm continuing to motor-sail almost directly into it. I could tack 40 degrees to either side, true, and that's what a true sailor would do if he weren't in a hurry, but I am in a hurry. This is a relocation, after all, and I *really* need to get to San Diego (or L.A.?) and get on with the thing where I work 40-60 hours a week and get comfortable and settled again.

I considered stopping in Las Islas San Benito, which is a set of three islands about fifteen miles west of Isla Cedros, but in the end I passed them by after studying the weather again and deciding that I'd prefer tonight's 10-15 knot winds on my nose rather than the 15-20 knot winds predicted for tomorrow night and the night after. I still can't check out of Ensenada until Monday the 5th, but I can slow down once I've made this final major crossing of open water. From tomorrow morning on, it's all just coastal. It may still be ugly depending on what sorts of systems come down from the north over the next few days (nothing bad predicted), but at least it will all be coastal, and probably just motoring into the baby teeth of a light northwesterly.

It's with only a slight bit of sadness that I'm having my last overnight passage for a long time. I'll miss the exhilarating feeling of having accomplished a 24-hour run on my own, or having crossed a 10,000 foot deep chasm with no land in sight, or hurtling through the darkness relying on radar, AIS and my own eyes to keep me safe. I'll miss this offshore connection with Chemistry, feeling her turn a bit or come slightly more upright and knowing without looking exactly what the wind has done to effect that change in her attitude. So yes, there are "adventure" things I'll miss, but my favorite part of cruising is always going to be sitting at anchor: snorkeling or diving, spearfishing for dinner, relaxing in the sun and then having a cocktail at sunset. And although there's a lot to be said for this time alone - a lot of contemplation, a lot of learning about myself and my capabilities, a lot of healing... in the end I'm not one of those people who would chose solitude over the chance to be out here with someone else - not a stranger or signed-on crew, but someone I'm close to, anyway. And then there's the prospect of someday making this sort of passage with my boys. They've said they want to sail with me, but they don't yet really know what it means to "sail," and an overnight passage like this is many years off for them. Funny, though, how much plans have changed. I remember my initial float plan, where I planned on transiting the Panama Canal two Thanksgivings ago, and I was going to be in Belize shortly after that and maybe the boys were going to meet me for a couple nights in Belize at the beginning of their Christmas Break. That float plan would have my boat in Florida right now, and I'd be closer to the boys on a day-to-day basis, but I would have missed so many great experiences; so many beautiful places and beautiful people. A lot of things didn't play out as they were supposed to - particularly on the business front - but in the end, after just short of a full year in Mexico, I have to say I'm very glad I didn't just rush through.

The excitement is building, though, to be with Chemistry back in the States. I've heard the San Diego Coast Guard on the radio several times today. I'm still 300 miles away, but they've got some mega-transmitters. And every time I hear them on the radio looking out for the local boaters I think about how protected we are up there - how looked after, how coddled. And right now a little coddling doesn't sound so bad.

TT

1/1/2009 10:10am PST

I got into Turtle Bay yesterday afternoon and there was a guy in a panga out fishing with two kids. His panga had "FUEL" written on the side. I was planning on having a panga come to me with fuel while at anchor, so I wasn't approaching the guy for fuel yet, but he seemed to be having some trouble with his engine, so I turned to go closer to him, and came out as I was passing to ask him if he needed any help. Well, his engine started and he pulled alongside asking how much fuel I needed. I asked how much per litre ("cuanto cuesta cada litro") knowing that I needed about 200 litres, and he said 2.80 per gallon. Sounded fine, I followed him to a mooring where they helped me tie up and then went to round up their tanker boat.

The tanker boat is like a little green tug with an outboard, and it's basically a floating fuel tank. He said it holds 2,000 gallons of diesel. He pulled it alongside, tied up to Chemistry, and we talked about how many litres to put in, given my budget of 1800 pesos (I assumed he didn't take credit cards, and his fuel pump measures in litres though he gives price in gallons). Before he started fueling, he actually lowered his price. "Dos y sesenta," he said. $2.60/gallon.

The business is called "Servicio Anabell," run by a nice guy named Rueben. He and his young helpers were nice and efficient. We talked about his tanker boat, my boat, the fishing. Soon enough the 200 litres were in the boat and he invited me to just stay at the mooring if I liked. I told him I preferred to anchor closer to town, so they gave me a couple of business cards (!), we untied, and I went along to the anchorage.

I set the anchor, dropped the dinghy in the water, mounted the engine and took off for town for groceries and maybe a couple of tacos and a beer. I'd read in the Rains guide that you could tie your dinghy to the pier steps and walk, rather than doing a beach landing. This sounded great, as my motor is rather heavy and my dinghy wheels sucked before they broke, and now it's a lot of tugging to pull the boat to safe dry sand. So I got the dinghy dock, started to tie up and a young man came down the steps.

"How you doing, mister?" he said.
"Muy bien, gracias. Usted?"
"Good, good."
"So, how much?" I asked. Meaning how much does it cost to tie up to the dinghy dock.
"Ten dollars."
I laughed. "Diez dolores es riduculo."
"Well," he said. "It's ten dollars."
I laughed again and untied my dinghy. "Okay, right," I said. "Have a nice day."
"It's what happens when you fuel with Rueben. When you fuel with him, it's very expensive to tie up here. You go to the beach and that will be fine for you."

I motored off to the beach, pulled my heavy dinghy high enough to where it wouldn't drift away in the next couple of hours, and started searching for food, thinking the whole way (again) about the backwards business practices of Mexico.

This guy apparently watched too many gangster flicks, and believes that disgracing customers for using his competitors makes good business sense. I can only imagine the poisonous (intimidating?) relationship he must have with his competitor, Reuben. Well, he must not have known that my blog gets *at least* um... twenty visitors a day, and of those twenty visitors ten may be family and friends, and two may be people researching a trip they're about to take to Mexico. One of those two may even be planning a trip by boat. So, Taco Traveler reader who's planning a stop in Turtle Bay as you journey down the Baja Peninsula into Mexico, please do all you can to give your business to good, honest, friendly people like Rueben at Servicio Anabell who understand good business. Reward him and avoid dealing with people like those who own the fuel pier.

Here, too (for the search relevance of this entry as much as anything), I must mention the Baja Ha-Ha annual fun "race" from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. They stop every year in Turtle Bay and Bahia Santa Maria - two places I've stopped on my way down last year and now back up. I hope maybe twenty, thirty of those couple hundred boats will see this and go to Rueben where they would have gone to the the pier otherwise. That's several thousand dollars right there. Seriously. Sailors, like most people, don't like mean people, don't like being taken advantage of, and we like the underdog. Unlike most people, however, we've taken to the uncrowded ocean to get away from the bad stuff you find in rush hour and often in crowded cities, and we'd rather not rely on the whims and attitudes of others to live our lives. Our business is the fuel pier guy's bread and butter, and we're the type of people, I think, to be most offended at the sort of behavior he exhibited. Here's hoping he loses more than one customer because of this entry.

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Okay, back to sailing. My plan for the day initially was to duck inside of Isla Cedros, motor through its 20-mile lee before entering Bahia Viscaino either tonight or early tomorrow morning. However, after downloading the latest GRIB file / weather report and overlaying it with my Nobeltec, I feel like I'm better off playing the angles and staying outside Isla Cedros, despite the three hours of flat water I'd likely get on the inside. The wind is forecast to be light and from the NW, strengthening and turning just a bit to the WNW in the night. If I were to go inside, it would just make for a *more upwind* trek later in the crossing. Whereas the more "outside" I get now, the more on-the-beam the wind will be as I cross.

I'm approaching Isla Natividad now, a surf mecca, I guess. Isla Cedros is next, and then I'll head into Bahia Viscaino tonight to avoid stronger winds tomorrow night and on the 3rd. My target for tomorrow is Bahia San Quintin, about 160 miles (about 24 hours) away.

Happy new year!
TT

It was an easy night, as I worked until 3 or 3:30 before starting my 25-minute dozes. There was absolutely no shipping traffic where I am, because I dipped into the indent by a few miles whereas they do a straight line from several miles off Isla Cedros to several miles off Mag Bay. So no worries all night. Like always, though, while barreling through the sea at 7 knots(which doesn't seem fast but definitely is), the biggest concern is just all of a sudden *hitting something* that would stop the boat cold, like a shipping container, a whale, etc.... And of course there are the long lines and shrimp pot lines that could get wrapped around the prop shaft and potentially pull the shaft right out of the boat, creating a massive hole. All just scare stuff, and very unlikely especially far offshore, but still, it makes me hold onto the hand holds even when not heeling at all.

So, despite my fuel gauge being on 1/4, I just checked with the dipstick and it's nearly half full. Still, I'll fill up in Turtle Bay via the panga service if it's running. The "panga service" is where some guy comes out to you in a panga ask how much you want, then he goes to the fuel pier, gets it in a tank and offloads it right there at anchor. There is an old pier, but it's a pain to tie up to (you have to Med-moor to it). Single-handed, I'll see if the panga is available, for sure. I suppose it's because I don't keep a good ship's log, but I still don't really know Chemistry's fuel / distance capability. My estimate has always been that I burn about 1 gallon/hour at around 2400 RPM, but I see that gauge get down to blinking 1/4 (which means it's almost on "reserve" and just can't believe my assumption (and the dipstick measurement) that I still have say 40 hours of fuel left - nearly half the tank. Someday I'd like to actually track that just so I'm sure. It hasn't really been a problem - it's just laziness I guess.

I look around and boy... what a mess. Not just Chemistry, but me, too. I haven't done laundry in two weeks and I wear the same sweats but swap between three different sweatshirts every night. I haven't shaved or showered since the freshwater issue popped up again. I'll have to do something tonight at Turtle Bay, as this is getting pretty uncomfortable. Of course, I'm speaking just of maybe getting enough hot water together for a shave and a sponge bath (and digging around for some fresh clothes that will still be warm enough at night as I get colder more north; Turtle Bay will have almost no services whatsoever, and I'll be happy with some food. There may be a southbound yacht stopping over in Turtle Bay, but I'm about the only one in the world heading north right now. So a New Year's Eve celebration in a crowded cantina is unlikely, also. That's fine with me - I'd like to just get some sleep and get out tomorrow early for Isla Cedros and possibly even cross Bahia Viscaino if the weather says "go." However I manage it, though, I'll end up waiting in Ensenada until Monday when the Port Captain's office (and the other services - Customs / Immigration) open again. Which means that I'll probably be leaving Monday as early as I can - probably 10-ish, getting to San Diego around 7pm and waiting again until the next day to check back into the States.

TT