The Baja Ha-Ha

Here is a short summary of my experience doing the Baja Ha-Ha that started the morning of October 31^st in San Diego:

Light winds in the morning out of San Diego built in the afternoon until by sunset we were seeing sustained winds of 20-23 knots, with gusts over 40 reported. Seas were 10 to 14 feet. At least we were going downwind.... Sails went from the gennaker to reefed main and jib. Stayed rough through the second night. Many boats reported mechanical problems and broken gear, including broken booms and loss of engines. Circadian broke 5 brand new sail slides. The new batteries slid around just enough to pull the cables out of the connectors and we lost all power at midnight in the middle of the big blow. I spent about 30 minutes bouncing around down in the engine room improvising a connection with vise grips. Held all the way to Turtle Bay where other members of the Ha-Ha fleet contributed new connectors and lent a hydraulic crimping tool. I also got replacement slides from fellow HaHa-ers. Nice!!!! Others, unfortunately did not fair as well. One boat was lost for the first time in 22 years of the event. Due to a “navigational error” that seems hard to fathom, they took the boat onto the beach in dent in the coastline about 7 miles north of Turtle Bay. Although the boat was a total loss, everyone survived. My friend Tom on Cut to Heal was missing for three days. He had some serious enough problems that he had to limp into Turtle Bay. Still waiting to get the full story. A couple of boats had to be towed because they had lost propulsion.  Another boat had three knock-downs.  The Grand PooBah declared it the roughest run in 23 years.  I lost power briefly when a fuel tank apparently went dry. It took quite a bit of frustration trying to bleed the air out of the fuel system until Steve remembered that his Beta diesel had a little knob that had to be opened for the hand fuel pump to work. That did the trick. The rest of the trip had some delightful sailing in warm air and smooth seas and about and equal amount of motoring when the wind died. The parties were much like any other, but in some very remote beachfront locations.

Cabo is loud, expensive, and crazy.  It's what you would get if you combined a parade and a circus.

Enough of the text.