Baha Ha Ha complete

Baja Ha-ha

We made it!  We're in Cabo San Lucas.  We left San Diego the morning of October 27th with the rest of the Baha Ha-ha fleet and first sailed to Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay - also called Bahia San Bartolome).  The city of San Diego held a spectacular send off with the Police Fire boats wailing the sirens and spewing water.  CNN was supposedly on hand to film the parade of boats as we left the bay.  I haven't checked to see whether our boat was visible, but it sure was fun.

This was our longest passage ever - both in distance and duration.  It took us about 65 hours to travel 300 nautical miles (or so) to the first stop.  Unfortunately, we had to motor most of the way for the wind was nearly nonexistent.  We were grateful to anchor and get a full night's rest in Turtle Bay.  That first day there was a cruisers vs. local kids baseball game at the town's pride and joy: a new baseball stadium with astro-turf.  Really, it was a chance for anyone who wanted to line up for an opportunity to hit and a free-for-all in the outfield.  But everyone had fun.  Some of the local kids, not surprisingly, were very good players.  We also checked out one of the local restaurants and our daughter picked up many, many small, purple and gray olive-shaped shells.  She's turning out to be an avid sheller.  

We all stayed an extra day in Turtle Bay due to the threats of Hurricane Vance.  Then, our boat was one of about 40 that sailed the next day to Bahia Santa Maria.  We had heard good weather reports and wanted to take advantage of good wind and smaller swells.  The next day, the rest of the fleet followed us.

Bahia Santa Maria is beautiful.  Its marked by a 1000+ foot peak at the northwest edge and low mangroves lining a lagoon at the northeast edge.  The bay itself is about 4 miles deep and 8 miles from north to south.  Much of that bay is beach with fine, dark grey sand dotted with thousands of sand dollars and large shells.  The lagoon at the northeast corner leads to a tiny fishing village.  We watched the locals in their pangas navigate the boats back to the relative safety of the lagoon.  Then we followed in our little dinghy.  We tried motoring up the lagoon, but the tide was too low.  We instead explored the beach and were astonished by the number of sand dollars and saddened by the two decaying sea turtles.  By the following morning, the rest of the fleet had arrived and a beach party was held in the afternoon.  Dave and the kids went boogie boarding again and I went hiking.  From the highest point, I could see water on either side of the bay for the beach/mangroves are only a few miles wide and Bahia Magdalena was on the eastern side.  I was only gone a few hours, and there was so much more to explore.  We all hope to anchor there again on our way north.  For those who've seen Florida's mangroves, these were more like bushes to those trees.   

 

Shell collection from Bahia Santa Maria

 

Bahia Santa Maria is on the right and part of Bahia Magdalena on the left.  I took this while hiking.

Our trip to Cabo San Lucas was uneventful -  low winds and lots of motor sailing.  Dave is happy that his "wing and wing" sail set up works well when sailing downwind.  We use a "preventer" to help prevent an accidental jibe and a whisker pole to hold the jib out in the opposite direction as the main sail and catch as much wind as possible.  

      David demonstrating our wing and wing downwind set up

The kids are studying for their second tests - their homeschool program provides the tests for each subject all on one day.  A little stressful, but I think that may be a good experience. 

We're all ready for real showers, and more than a little exploring on land.  

As a side note, I've been baking a lot of bread which the kids are very happy about.  We all love warm slices of bread with butter (or olive oil in my case).  That and veggies have been our dinner on a couple occasions. I use recipes from a book entitled "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes Per Day". These require no kneading and the trickiest part (while the boat is heeled over under sail) is placing a cup of water in the oven to steam the bread.  Cooking in general is challenging when we are underway.  I get a "core" workout just trying to keep myself from falling into the stove or counter or to keep myself at the counter while chopping veggies or otherwise cooking.  Blessedly, David deals with the fish.  I mix a marinade while he catches, bleeds, skins, debones and grills it.  We do need protein after all.

      Our very first tuna- just outside San Diego- was too small to keep

     But the first loaf of wheat bread was devoured instantly

I find that night-time shifts at the helm are better than I imagined.  The stargazing (when the moon isn't as full as it currently is) has been fantastic.  It's delightful to see the Milky Way so often.  I've seen a number of fireballs and look forward to the Leonids meteor shower later this  a month.  

Before we left San Diego, there was a Halloween party.  Only David and our daughter dressed for that. David decided people needed to be reminded of who the Flying Squirrel is.... (Yes, that's Bullwinkle with Rocky)

 

 We found the moose at a Salvation Army store.  Our daughter is supposed to be Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter series.

Our next stop is La Paz for which we will leave in a couple days.