Wow, where to begin! Leaving San Diego, Shannon and I had very limited sailing and boating experience, and yet we were eager to set sail for the unknown. I had talked to several mechanics and our good friend (and in my opinion, top Captain in San Diego), Sean Hall, and all agreed that we had the right boat for the journey. It’s a solid Blue Water sailboat with a very strong diesel engine, capable of running long and hard for days, even weeks, if needed. The engine was designed and built for this very purpose. We serviced the engine extensively, doing everything we could to give us the best chances. With the help of Casey and crew at Pacific Offshore rigging, we covered the sails and rigging extensively and with all that, we were ready to go.
I knew as a SD native that traveling down the Baja Peninsula during January / February could be quite challenging; it’s no place to get caught with your pants down! The plan was to keep up a pace of 6 knots, jumping from safe anchorage to safe anchorage, whether under motor or sail, or both. We have a saying in life, “Don’t Be That Guy”, meaning don’t be the guy that has those big problems and has the big crazy stories like, “we almost lost the boat” or “we almost died out there”. Don’t Be That Guy.
So off we went, leaving San Diego for the unknown! What would lie ahead for us? We couldn’t imagine. We left SD in the evening and as the sun set, we found ourselves out in the Pacific Ocean, alone. We had the headsail up, our Genoa, and were motoring at a slow pace, knowing there was a storm coming behind us and it was a big one. It was no time to play “let’s learn to sail”. We needed to move, get to Ensenada, and wait there until weather permitted us to go for our jump to the next safe spot. The seas were mixed up with a solid west swell and a new north swell. The two, combined, made for an unbelievably rough trip and the boat rocked from side to side the whole way. I thought the spreader tips on the mast would hit water. This lasted most of the way. During the night the wind picked up and we both felt we needed to bring the head sail in. I had to get her rolled up and put away and it was very difficult, as it got tangled in our spinnaker halyard. It took a long time in the darkness and rough seas, with me running around on deck in my board shorts and t-shirt, barefooted and Shannon yelling at me to put on my harness and tether. No way was it time to practice our night time sailing skill. The storm was coming and coming quick, so we dropped the hammer on the Perkins motor and arrived in Ensanada safely.
We spent a few days there, taking care of paperwork for entering Mexico and restocking the boat with fuel, water, and some food. We met some other boaters, two couples that left San Diego when we did, so we made friends and decided to leave port together, knowing there were more storms coming soon. They have a Tayana brand sailboat, same as us, so as we both left Ensenada together, it was team Tayana! They had planned on stopping at San Quincin and then heading to Turtle Bay, but we planned on pushing all the way to Island San Bonita for a rest, then on to Turtle Bay.
We arrived at the island, having sailed and motored both, and had made great time, but with the anchor down for just a half hour or so, we heard from friend and family it was time to go; the next storm that we were expecting was coming fast. If you live in SD you know the two storms I’m talking about. They had high winds and did some major damage. We got a hold of our friend, Captain Sean Hall, by way of satelite phone, and after talking to him just a few minutes, we were yanking up the hook and hauling ass as fast as we could toward the safety of Turtle Bay.
We arrived with no problem, deep into the night. The bay looked like a great safe haven for us. We were advised by a family member to wait outside the bay until morning, but we decided to enter and glad we made that choice. With Shannon on the bow looking for fishing nets or obstructions, I was in the cockpit staring at the navigation plotter and creeping our way into the bay. The bay was easy to enter, well marked and really no real effort to accomplish. We dropped the hook and both looked at each other with big smiles. Wow, these total rookie sailors had made another section of this passage down the Baja Peninsula.
We would spend several days at Turtle Bay, where we saw our new friends, and Team Tayana was safe again. They decided to leave two days earlier from Turtle Bay than us, having better skills and more people aboard. We decided to wait there and let the next storm pass us by. The time came to leave, but as we started out into the pacific we had smoke coming from the engine room and had to turn back. Errrrrr. We found that the smoke was a result of lose alternator belts, I went to work right away fixing the problem. We thought we had success, so we got some sleep and left the next morning.
The trip from Turltle Bay to Santa Maria cove would take us two days. It was nice. We sailed some and motored sailed some. As we arrived at Santa Maria cove it looked cool. We caught some fish coming in but lost them reeling them in. I saw a surf camp I had heard stories of but never visited, Hughes Point, or “ Huge Point” as the surfers call it. It looked like a great south swell spot. The Bay was nice. We relaxed and I shot some fish for some tocos, seabass, yummmy!
It was a nice few days there. We hiked up on top of a mountain with a picnic packed in the backpack. It was super cool looking down from up high and it was a nice lunch. We had one night where the winds blew up to 30 mph. The boat shook and made noises all night. We took watches, wondering how well we had got our anchor down and if it would hold. It did, thank God! LOL. At one point in the night, we both jumped to our feet. “Did you hear that?” “Yes”, “yes”, we both said. we heard a voice yell out for help. We went to the deck with lights, the wind blowing super hard. We searched and searched the water and seashore, but we never found anyone. We think the boat made the noise and it just sounded like a person. LOL. Yeah, it was a long scary night to say the least. I kept saying, “this in not what I consider fun”. LOL, I’ve said that a lot the last few weeks.
The day came that we felt good about trying to make it to the Baja tip. We felt ready, but nervous, at the same time becaue coming around the corner of the tip of Baja could be challenging. We left Santa Maria cove and right away smoke again from the engine. Wow, not again! Yes, we turned back to go anchor and work on the problem. We had both our main sail up with the headsail as well, and we had a total Sh*! Show! While trying to turn back and get the sails down, the main sail ended up hanging off the side of the boat all the way back to the bay. It was night and no moon, pitch black as we made our way to a good spot to drop the hook and lick our wounds again. The alternator belts weren’t coming lose; the setup just needed more help so I did some onsite engineering and with some bolts, nuts, and a 4” hose clamp, I felt really good about fixing the problem.
As we left the next day, I decided to break out a pole given to us by Pam and Mark. It must be the lucky pole, because it wasn’t in the water 10 minutes and Bang, fish on. We caught three fish within half an hour. We spent four days total making our way to the tip. We had been sailing and motoring at night and having the best time yet, when something started to smell funny. We later learned that we were getting sea water from the cooling housing of the transmission into the trans itself and it was smoking the clutch plates inside. Yeah, not good. We were about 60 miles from the Baja tip when we started the motor and found we had no forward, zero. We were out pretty far and realized we would have to sail the rest of the way to San Jose del Cabo and somehow make it into the slip we had reserved. Wow could we do this? We would have to try. We checked the weather and winds and found that about 6:00 pm that night we should see some wind from the north and we should be able to get some good sailing downwind. The difficult part of this was that we had to plan our angle so we didn’t just end up “anywhere” when we got to the tip. If we sailed too much to port, we would end up running straight into the coast, with no help from a motor to maneuver. As we waited on the wind I feel asleep in the cockpit, but I was awakened by the breeze on my face. I knew it was time; the wind we were waiting on was starting. With Shannon at the Nav station crunching numbers and looking at our path, it was time to go for it. We knew the wind should get to 10 knots or more and we decided the best angle would be to fly wing and wing, which is to have the main sail all the way over 90 degrees on one side and the Genoa open 90 degrees on the other side. This would give us a good angle at the Tip. The wind begun to increase and the boat started to move. We kept checking and rechecking the angle to the Tip, hoping we weren’t wrong. It was night now and Marissa was flying. I kept trying to buy more room to my starboard side but when I did, the Genoa would collapse, so I would turn toward my port to fill it again keeping in mind the angle to the Tip. As we got close, we had some shallows we had to add to the equation and it was close, but we knew we had it . I saw the plotter bump 7.5 SOG. Hauling ass we were, and for the first time I understood what people were talking about when they said things about our boat being big and powerful. As we hit the Tip we knew we had to round the corner, hold our speed, and move the boom over to go to a close haul. The wind would be off our port side. As we rounded the corner, I had the job of going out on deck and pulling in the main sheet and getting the boom over to the starboard side. The boat felt like it was moving fast; honestly one of the most exhilarating things I have ever experienced. I got ready and with Shannon at the helm we worked the turn. It went perfect, well almost. Good thing the boom didn’t get me when she swung over because swung over she did. Wow, fast! Lucky I had it mostly in towards center but it came fast. We were now healed over racing northeast. The boat felt so cool, fast and moving, something I had never really experienced at that level.
We sailed straight up towards our next destination for several hrs when out of nowhere the wind just stopped dead calm. Dang, we were short of making it by probably 15 miles. Now we found ourselves out about 10 miles from land when, just as fast as it stopped, here it came again. Feeling like we had to get as close as we could to the harbor entrance, we had all the sails up and we got in this crazy water current that held us in our tracks. With the wind hitting the nose of the boat we couldn’t move left or right, nothing for a couple of hours. We just stayed in one spot, not moving. Finally, the sun came up and we decided to reef the main and see if it would help. It did, and we were able to change course and head for land, but the wind died again and adrift again we were. We tried everything with the sails to make it to land but came up 4 miles short. We waited for the marina office to open and started making calls. The marina sent out a panga with three guys and they were a site for sore eyes. I was at my end and wanted a fish taco and some rest so bad. We had been up for 4 nights now and tired, very worn out. They pulled us to the Marina entrance and took us to the new safe spot. Wow, epic!
Within an hour, I had met the guys working on the boat next to us and asked them if they knew any good mechanics? It wasn’t more than 20 minutes later that a guy named Jorge showed up to look at the transmission. He knew the model we have on the boat and looked at me and said, “are you ready?”. I said, “for what?”. He said, “let’s get it out!”. What ???? We worked late into the night and pulled the transmission. I must have been running on adrenaline alone because I was so burned out tired. He came back by tonight and said he would be back tomorrow night to put it back in and that he had found all the parts and was almost done. Wow, really? What a few days it has been LOL.
The marina here is so cool; I wish we could stay forever. The people have been so nice, everyone. With every person we have met, we keep thinking we’re in some Twilight Zone episode. Well, that’s my best recap; sorry if it was long. I’m not really a writer and did my best. The journey will start again in a few days. We will head north and meander our way up the Sea of Cortez, working on our sailing skills and searching out new friends and new places, sampling good food, and searching for more adventure. The Baja peninsula was, for us, just a hurdle to what we’re looking for – white sand beaches, relaxing, sipping pina coladas, warm water, and lots of tranquilo…
