Chapter One

It happens to all of us at some point or another. The rugrat, having made us wish the only late night game we ever played was “hit it with a hammer”, had finally turned eighteen. My job which had me galavanting all over North America teaching chemists how to use x-ray spectroscopy software was moving to Madison, Wisconsin. My wife, the admiral, had that “find me a bell tower and a hunting rifle” look in her eye that comes after fifteen years as an er nurse. We sold the house, snuck off in the middle of the night when junior wasn’t looking and moved aboard our boat, the “WE’RE HERE II”. Over the next three years, we pretty much rebuilt everything from the keel up…

On February 2, 2001, at about 1100 CST we rounded the rock formation known as El Arco after having left San Pedro on the 4 of January…

We took our damn sweet time but we’re here too. We rented a slip for three nights at Marina Cabo San Lucas, which is something like bungee jumping. It’s expensive, pointless and downright stupid but there are some things some people are willing to try once. In this 350 slip marina there are about 9 masts, 4 on excursion boats, two on a ketch, a couple of 30 footers and us. There is more fish killing power here than in the entire U.S. Navy and luckily most of it just sits. The outer harbor is busier than Catalina on the 4th of July and a heck of a lot warmer.

On the Subject of Ensenada itself: Only after leaving this dry, dusty, little town were we able to appreciate it for what it is, Los Angeles before the water works. Had Hemmingway lived in California, this would have been his Havana. The fish market is excellent although somewhat smelly, the restaurants we hit were superb and we finally got to Hussongs Cantina for margaritas although it was on a Monday. The admirals birthday was Saturday and I had to buy her the margaritas I promised her at a sidewalk bistro but, that’s life. We shopped at Gigante for the rest of our supplies and made the mistake of buying some T-bone steaks. I’ve heard old shoe leather isn’t as tough I’ll leave the proof to someone else. That was our only disappointment but taking it in context helps soften the blow. It may very well be that Mexican men object to wearing bras so the beef is not pumped full of estrogen like it is back home. Besides, have the beef ground (carne molida) and you’ve got some pretty lean and tasty hamburger. Later on, after reaching La Paz, we learned never to buy anything advertised as an American cut but that’s getting ahead of the story.

All in all, we had some interesting times. We left Ensenada on the 10th, just in time to get hit in the face by what everyone termed “one of those rare southwesters, the kind that almost never happens”. It started about sundown, about the time that most bad things happen when sailing. We anchored in the lee of Coleta Hassler at Isla San Martin about 5 minutes before it blew itself out the next day shortly after noon. We stayed there another three days sorting out the things we missed. The scenery certainly took the sting off of a rough start. There’s not much here other than a fish camp and a lot of cacti but after a baptism of fire its heaven.

Next stop – Punta Baja. This anchorage is a windswept, wooly, desolate place that reminds you of everything you’re supposed to know about anchoring as well as the things mama and daddy never talked about. Those huge Pacific rollers aren’t supposed to turn 180 degrees to sweep an anchorage but here they do. They say you can use a bridle to swing your bow into the swell but they forget to tell you what would happen when the wind stops but the swell keeps going. We may try to swing to a bow and stern anchor here next time but it may only be a new lesson in disguise.

We spent one night at Punta Baja and left early for Turtle Bay via the east side of Isla de Cedros. Sailing across the mouth of Bahia de Sebastian Viscaino is a trip to remember not only because it blew 20 to 25 knots up our stern all day but long after dark as well. We finally came into the lee of Cedros at 2300 or so. We made no log entries between 1800 and 0600 because we both had our hands full and were trying to rest and keep the boat moving properly at the same time. We’ve sailed in the protected waters surrounding Los Angeles all our lives and this is our first taste of open ocean sailing although my understanding of the trade winds is that they usually ease up somewhat after the sun goes down. These clearly ain’t the trades. This crap comes all the way from the Gulf of Alaska and it roars

We entered Turtle Bay shortly after sunrise on the 16 and our new depth sounder promptly gave up the ghost. The old one still worked and after hooking it back up, we discovered the only places in Turtle Bay that didn’t have 30 feet of water were on the rocks, next to Gordo’s fuel dock and all the way down at the southeast end. We stayed 6 days here working on the boat, going ashore, checking out the other boats coming and going and getting a kick out of Ernesto, chief village greeter, head panga dude and gringo farmer. Ernesto meets everyone and tells them that the fuel dock is always closed (Gordo is dead but his children still sell fuel, you just have to run them down). Ernesto has a 55-gallon plastic drum in his panga that is marked in gallons and never seems to have the equivalent of what you requested in liters. He tells me that the fuel dock must have cheated him. Ernesto also ferries water in 16-liter jugs for 10 pesos a jug, which is supposed to come from the village filtered water dispenser but always has something floating in it. But all that’s beside the point, from Turtle Bay on down to Land’s End Baja, looks like Arizona’s painted desert after California meets its seismic demise and slips beneath the waves.

We skipped down to Bahia Asuncion and stayed another 6 days. We didn’t like the anchorage as much as we liked just going ashore and checking out the village. It is as colorful as it’s surrounding are drab and the people are a gas. At night, we could walk ashore on the floes of langoustine crabs drifting in and probably would have were it not for the sea lions eating as though it were their last meal. They used our boat as a backstop to corral the little critters and we were bumped enough to make us think we were back at Avalon around bar closing time.

Punta Abreojos was the next one night stand. This little village is hard to describe except to say that everything here seems completely out of context with its locale. We didn’t anchor off the village itself but stayed just to the east off a fish camp identified as Campo Emmedio in some of the guidebooks. We weathered an attack of giant killer moths here… well, one killer moth…  well this F16 flew inside and we fought valiantly for half an hour to bring it down. The admiral was in the head with a bottle of merlot calling gun directions. Probably what took us so long.

We left Abreojos on the morning of the 29th, bound for Bahia Magdelena. Up until that time, we had no contact with the pangueros other than a wave or two, Forty miles out of Abreojos and we couldn’t spit without hitting one in the eye. In a couple of hours we turned two bottles of Pepsi into 8 verdillo (green fish). Three were Barred Sand Bass, a little oily but otherwise delicious. The rest were some sort of cod. We fried some, steamed some, broiled some and grilled some. There was simply no wrong way to cook them. Another panguero came by with a deep gash in his hand from handling fish traps. We cleaned and dressed the wound and told him to go to a clinic for antibiotics. We also gave him a load of pain killers. We got the impression from him that the nearest clinic was a good hump and a stroll over the next hill or two.

Unlike the leg from Punta Baja to Turtle Bay, the wind on the Mag Bay leg didn’t start till long after dark. By 0400 when the breeze is supposed to be at it’s lightest it was blowing a steady 25 knots and continued to do so until we finally ducked inside the bay the next afternoon. We sailed around inside for awhile before dropping the hook at Punta Belcher. No sooner than we get the hook set and snubbed than two pangueros roar up, drop a bucket of langosta on deck and tell us it’s quarenta dollars. We hand it back and they drop it back on deck and tell us it’s treinta dollars. We hand it back and they look at us and ask, “how much you pay?”. 5 minutes and veinte dollars later the water is boiling, the butter is melting and we’re enjoying the tastiest lobster dinner in memory. They were very mild in flavor and only the largest one is the slightest bit chewy. On our second day whilst working on our todo lists two more pangueros roar over and ask for agua. We’re willing to share our agua with anyone. We toss them a couple of cold bottles and just happen to notice a bucket of camarones in their panga, apparently going to waste. We help them, they help us. It’s the Mexican way. They pass over a dozen or so large ones and its camarones y ajo y pasta for dinner. We would have loved to spend more time here exploring the bay and trading for dinner but Cabo beckoned.

Mag Bay to Cabo San Lucas is the only mandatory long leg on the trip. All the other legs could have been broken up into legs of fifty miles or less with one 70 and one 90 miler thrown in for luck. But Mag Bay to Cabo is one long 155-mile trip that has to be taken in one jump. So we motored all day while talking about why we might have been better off buying one of the trawlers we looked at last time we were out shopping around. All the motoring we were doing in a boat designed for sailing was starting to wear on our nerves. However, not long after sundown, the wind picked up, swung around to the east and we were off on a reach at 7 knots under a full genoa and doubled reefed main. We moved in toward shore to get out of the worst of the swell and took note of the fact that no trawler could ever do this. Around 0100, the wind was on the beam and we were booking along at over 8 knots under partly rolled up genoa and double reefed main. At 0400, the wind was behind us and we were hitting 9 under double reefed main alone. Shortly thereafter the wind started shifting all over the place. We finally brought the main back amidship and fired up the motor because there was no other way to cope with all shifts and it was starting to let up. Just before twilight on the 2nd, we saw the Cabo Falso light and knew we were here too.