Bahia de los Muertos

With the departure of my last crew member, Jim, it was time to move on while the weather allowed. I left San Jose del Cabo at the crack of dawn and motored up to Los Frailes. Since the weather window would soon close, I didn't linger. Had a pleasant night and left early the next morning for Bahia de Los Muertos. It was a bit of a bash at times, and the engine died again. This time it had been running on the 'good' tank. Switched tanks again (back to the 'bad' tank), bled it and it restarted and ran the rest of the way in. Latest theory: gunk was accumulating on the screen for the intake tube in the tanks over time until it blocked fuel flow. Hours later, it would again disburse and the engine would run fine...for about 10 hours. Thoughts? In any case, I made it fine to Muertos and I have been enjoying my stay while waiting for less adverse winds. Spent some time with some Ventura friends and got a surprise visit from my old buddy Curt. A real treat! Also did a bit of exploring, walking, swimming and kayaking. Nice spot with a surprisingly luxurious hotel and nice restaurant.

Although it's pretty far from people's minds here, Happy Thanksgiving all!

 

San Jose del Cabo

SOOOOOOOOO happy to have gotten out of Cabo!!! We've been in San Jose del Cabo for only a few days, but we love it already. Quiet, friendly, beautiful and real. Now that we've settled down, we realize the toll that the stress, noise and hyperactivity of Cabo have taken on all of us. Much fewer ticks now. The locals here refer to Cabo San Lucas as Cabo San Lucifer. Very apropo. Our counsel to all is “Skip Cabo, go straight to San Jose del Cabo.”

The 17-mile passage was a bit of a bash for the first two or three hours, but things settled down as we got closer. The harbor entrance was tiny, perhaps 75 to 100 feet between rock jetties. A bit tense when you're being knocked around by a heavy swell. Unfortunately, along the way, Steve was fiddling with the radar when it went out. I was pretty bummed for several days as it is only 11 months old and has only 32 hours of transmit time. Today I was able to get it going again. Diagnostic, cleaning the connections and re-tuning did it. Whew! What a relief! We had to raft up next to another boat the first night, but the second night we had our own side tie at the dock. We've been enjoying exploring, eating (already have a favorite local place), and swimming. Did I mention it's hot? Well, it's HOT!

Bashing from Cabo San Lucas to San Jose del Cabo

A look around the beach

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.