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12/10/99 - We walk around the town, some school kids throw rocks at us, but I think other kids stopped them. There is garbage everywhere. At many houses they throw it out the back, down the hill. I have two anchors out, as we know this is not good holding ground. The wind shifts 180 degrees to a position where one anchor is in the wrong spot to do anything, and my main anchor drags. Nalu drags into the Port Captain's boat, a 30 foot motorboat. In my absence, the two cruisers from San Francisco put out an anchor of theirs from my boat to slow her, and they get my fenders between the two boats. I am able to retrieve my main anchor, which means the holding ground is terrible there. I tie buoys and cast off the other two anchors, and motor around to assess the next move. The wind is still pretty strong coming down the valley. Our next passage is a short one down to Turtle Bay (Bahia Tortuga), which is huge and promises good holding ground, so I decide it's better sailing weather than anchoring weather, we're going to get ready and go now.
We drop the hook the only place there's any room, near the harbor entrance, but I set it like it's temporary. When we're staying I run the engine in reverse to 2000 rpm, and that simulates about 50 knots of wind. I assess the damage to Nalu. She looks a mess, mostly because at one point I cleaned the fenders with acetone, the only thing that could clean them. The acetone turned the outside of the fenders gummy and it rubs off on the hull. There are also a few dings in the wood cap rail at the gunwale. Except for a few very minor scratches in the gelcoat, and some patching of that wood, amazingly everything cleans off perfectly. Gelcoat is an amazing thing for its toughness, if you have it, pamper it, cause it's all downhill once you paint. Also in retrospect I could have had a third anchor on the shore which might have held her. I never thought to look at the Port Captain's boat, but it didn't look to good to begin with. I sort of whistled and walked away on that one. I'm very lucky she didn't drag another way, into the pier or shore. I can hope the other cruisers would have stopped the worst of most situations, and after that you try to remember you paid for insurance so you don't have to worry.
Ok, so we're sitting on a lunch anchor on terrible ground in the harbor entrance, where the fishing boats would have to avoid us. Not the best position. We pack everything up, and I look at the chart. Turtle Bay is closer than I'd thought, 30 miles. Leaving now, at 4pm, would mean we'd get there about 10pm and have to wait for light to enter. I figured I'd rather sit anchor watches here in a relatively calm and controllable situation than go sit on the North Pacific for eight extra hours. There is also a problem of an island in the way, and this island has one light on it, on the inside passage, which is about a mile wide. The island itself is four miles wide. The outside passage clearly is safer, but there are no markers. It's a low sandy island, so radar might not show you the full extent. You can give it tons of sea room, but you might have to go beam to a very uncomfortable sea to do that. So, I want to leave at 4am, round the island in the light, and sail straight into Turtle Bay.
12/11/99 - We're doing anchor watches, radio on in contact with all the other boats which are in various states of dragging their anchors all night. We have the spotlight out to light up the boat if any fishing boats are coming by. The wind gusts up to 27 knots, and with each big gust every hour or so, we drag anchor. We're actually lined up to get pushed right out the harbor entrance, which beats eating the breakwater, so we're ok. About two am it gets a little worse. One boat is suddenly hanging mostly by their smaller stern anchor, very close to the breakwater and touching some small fishing boats. We are out of room to drag and rather than trying to reset we're going sailing. The other boat got free and followed us out, having left one anchor behind.
As we get out from the shadow of Cedros Island the wind is a steady 20 to 25 knots and the sea is eight feet and messy. We are fairly beam to it on the way around the island. Having plenty of wind makes it more comfortable, as the boat is held over, and we have good speed. It would take an exceptionally big wave to come in the cockpit and get us wet, but the companionway boards are in because it's possible. We have checked our harnesses and lifelines excessively.
We're sailing by the foresail only, about half of the genoa rolled out. We have full speed at 7.5 knots. Fortunately we are able to head high enough into the wind, 10 degrees above beam reach. If we had to head any higher I would have either had to get some mainsail up, or motor, which I would have chosen rather than go get wet at the mainsail.
I was heading to a waypoint two miles off the island. I might have gone just half a mile off during the day. The GPS is an amazing thing, I put in the coordinates of the waypoint, and it tells me whether to turn left or right. Make sure the waypoint is in there right in the first place by checking bearing and distance from where you are when you enter it. There is the case that if the sea is pushing you sideways into the island more than you realize, the GPS isn't going to tell you there is now an island between you and the waypoint that you should keep steering straight to. So I keep plotting GPS position and checking it against visual bearings to two navigational lights every 15 minutes. That all agrees with what I see on the radar, which is basically bearings to land masses, and the rounding is easy. After the waypoint we turn more downwind, the wind eases, and we have a very nice run towards Turtle Bay.
As we're sailing along lazily under full genoa alone, a boat blows by us under mainsail alone. I realize when we get into the bay that this is Giorgio and Simon, the professional crew of the Italian boat Lady Samantha. The lady is about a 48 foot ketch with a wooden hull encapsulated in epoxy and with an outer layer of kevlar. Literally bulletproof, which is befitting of the beauty of this boat. Una barca bella (as Giorgio complemented Nalu once). They are on a direct run to La Paz where the owner will meet them. I know the owner is an opera singer, and I like to think it's one of the few that I would know of. They had to stop because their genoa dropped in the middle of the night due to a shackle opening up. They fix this, then we try to get their on board email working, but can't. Unfortunately I need about $2000 worth of equipment to do this on my boat (go ICCSA). Simon cooks pasta with broccoli which has anchovy paste and a parmesan which Giorgio says is the real deal from Italy. It does taste pretty good. There's something about real Italian food, with them speaking sometimes in Italian. It's a nice afternoon, and nice to be looking at rest in the safety of Turtle Bay. Simon says he would like to stay here a month, but I think it's because he cannot. Turtle Bay is como la luna. Huge, open, desert hills around. The Lady is gone at six PM when I awake from a nap.
12/12/99 - Preparing to sail tomorrow. Wired all the shackles shut as I lost two on the way down. I dropped the genoa and the shackle at the top was wide open. That would have been messy if that had opened up at sea. I rigged the spinnaker pole out to hold out the genoa like I saw Giorgio do. All the lines run through pulleys to minimize chafe. The batteries are doing fine now. The big autopilot takes a lot of power, perhaps 10 amps. I run the generator quite a bit at sea, which is fine. We eat lunch at the Inn. The town dog pack stalks us a little, staying one block away. The leader is a dalmation coated pit bull. Muy authentico. Magdalena Bay (Bahia Magdalena, Mag Bay) is 240 miles, hopefully two nights out.
12/13/99 - Got out of Turtle Bay motoring in calm wind and sea. Sailing nicely by afternoon with genoa poled out. Sailing along with the boats Kalama and Natural Mystic, making good time. I caught my first fish, about a 7 lb Yellowfin Tuna. Scott cooks it up, delicious. The weasel agrees. If Santa is reading this, I need a fish identification book, perhaps specific to the Pacific. Dolphins, whales, sea lions, etc. are also of interest. Also, if Mrs. Claus is reading this, and has a sewing machine, I need a sleeve to go over the spinnaker. This way, you pull the sleeve down with a line and the spinnaker is contained before you bring it in. Otherwise, it is a real bear to get back on the boat. So it is just a cylinder of a nylon type material, the thickness of a windbreaker, with some 1/4" cord sewn into the top and bottom of the cylinder with a couple of loops available at each end. The color doesn't really matter, anything will do, white or royal blue would be preferred. A commercial version of this can be seen at http://www.atninc.com. Email me and I'll get the dimensions.
12/14/99 - Should make Mag Bay tomorrow. Fishing all the time. No more bites. Morrison is tucked in his bed all day. Seagulls follow us, perhaps they smell that tuna.
12/15/99 - The wind dies around midnight. I have to start the engine, but the gearshift is stuck in gear. I disconnect the cable at the engine, start, reconnect, and go. The engine is leaking coolant since I changed it in San Diego. Caught a 3 and 1/2 foot shark. What a fight. I didn't want to bring him on deck, so I cut the leader and lose the lure. We enter Mag Bay easily and find a nice calm anchorage off a fish camp.
12/16/99 - Resting today. Morrison now seems to prefer his cat bed to sleeping with me. I am heartbroken and need to spoon. I dig into the throttle problem, but can't get to it from anywhere. I have to cut in through the liferaft compartment. I spend all day on it and it is nicely fixed.
12/17/99 - Pull apart the windlass, and it turns out to be the solenoid points on it, so eight hours of cleaning, greasing, and sealing fixes that one.
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12/18/99 - Hike Mt. Isabel, a 1250 foot peak overlooking Mag Bay. It's a lot bigger and farther than it looks. Later, a fisherman wants to trade for lobsters. He wants .22 shells, which is strange because that's such an offense for foreign boats in Mexico. I talk him down to $6 for four lobsters, but he never returns with the lobsters. We set out for Cabo San Lucas at 8pm. The sailing breeze doesn't last very long.
12/19/99 - Slow progress through the night. By 8am we're motoring. I've found the coolant leak to be one of the bolts that holds the heat exchanger to the block. I must have loosened it when I was changing the coolant. It's sunny and warm, perhaps 70. The fishing line is in, life is good. I'm thinking of Cabo, as I hear it's super expensive and not a good anchorage. I wonder how it'll work out.
 New spinnaker |
Nalu set up for cruising, see text below |
Nalu setup - 3 surfboards right front, jackline runs inside walkway all around boat for attaching harness; left to right at mast base: folded seawater getter, 2 six gallon diesel (55 gal in main tank, to Cabo we've used less than 30), reacher sail, 2 six gallon water (100 gal in main tank, to Cabo we've used less than 50, plus emergency 2.5 gal in fridge, plus Pur 40E watermaker, not yet installed, water is life); behind jerry cans you can just see the fenders with new fleece covers, now they buff the hull while in use; autopilot is driving, motor is on here with mainsail only up; you can just see the man overboard pole and flag on port side (right in picture); two fishing lines are off back, rod on port side, line with bungee cord on starboard, one carries a purple plastic squid, the other a mexican flag colored feather lure; dingy is stowed in bag on port side back, outboard is on port side back; solar panel on stern davits is helping quite a bit; lightweight stern anchor is on port side stern
12/20/99 - Motor into Cabo. A panga (fishing boat) shows us to a $10 a night mooring very close to the harbor entrance. I am very happy to have reasonably priced, safe moorage. We clean up a little, then set out to check in. Immigration, Port Captain, back to Immigration, to the Bank, and back to Immigration, and we are done. It's fun walking around and seeing the town on such a scavenger hunt type activity. Cruisers, anything you've heard about Cabo being expensive is an exaggeration. Neither Migracion nor the Port Captain charged us any fees. It is certainly policy at Migracion that no fees are charged, and the Port Captains office stamped our paper so fast and sent us away that I doubt it's in their procedure either. $158 pesos ($15 US) was all we paid for our tourist visas. Also, it can be a perfectly safe and reasonably priced place to moor, at $10 a night we have a very strong looking bow and stern mooring in very deep water, full access to the Hacienda Hotel's beautiful beach, pool, showers. We can get water at a hose on the beach as well. Perhaps this is not a busy time for Cabo, availability is not a problem. I'll check on the marina sometime as well. I doubt it's the reported $50 to $60 a night.
We get in bed to nap for two hours before going out, and don't wake up til 1am. I stay up til sunrise doing this web page. My body clock is absolutely destroyed, and its ok, because I sleep when I want to for now.
