Day 2

In the wee hours of the morning we got to the Sea of Cortes, the body of water that separates Baja from mainland Mexico. We expected the seas to pick up, but they didn’t at first. All was status quo with the ride until about sunrise. Then the wind and waves slowly but surely picked up all day long. The pick up was so gradual that it was truly a nice ride for the better part of the day. The sun was bright and visibility was good. The wind was on our nose and so were the waves, but the waves small and the swells were gentle and lazy and were far enough apart that it was still reasonably comfortable.

Of course, by dark it had picked up enough that we were hobby horsing a lot, but it still wasn’t too bad of a ride overall. By 2200, though, it had picked up enough that it finally made it to the “no fun” category. The moon didn’t rise until midnight and it was dark out with poor visibility.

We have continued to make excellent time, so in the early afternoon we again upped the RPM’s by another 50 RPM. According to our calculations, we were on course to arrive just after sunset, and we needed just a little more speed to get us there while it was still light. We are crossing our fingers we continue with such good speeds.

Day 3

The wind and seas continued to pick up throughout the night. At 0300, Eric had to slow us back down from 1900 to 1750 RPM because we were just bashing way too hard into the waves. We were getting tons of sea spray hitting the windows and we were bouncing like crazy. It was beyond “no fun”.

The winds just continued to steadily increase. By dawn, we had officially entered into the “uncomfortable” category. With the morning light, we could see why it was so uncomfortable. The wind speed was 19 – 23 knots apparent on the nose. Swells were 4 – 6 feet, rapid and sharp, and wind waves were 2 – 3 feet, also rapid and sharp. Waves were breaking constantly around us and on us. The ocean was a giant never ending series of white caps. Yuck. This was way worse than the weather forecast had predicted.

By mid day, it had picked up enough to move us into the “miserable” category. The wind was screaming and the waves were big. We were being absolutely pounded by the waves. On some of those waves, we would crest the peak and then come down really hard so violently hard that we would wince in sympathy pains for Kosmos. Pretty much every wave was sending sea spray into the windows, so there was a never ending flow of water coming at us and marring our visibility. It was very, very hard to move around the boat because it was bucking so violently. Any effort to stand or walk required holding on to the boat to keep from falling over. When we would open the fridge, food would fly out of it. It was too bouncy to read or type or watch movies, so we couldn’t do the usual things to occupy ourselves. We just sat and stared at the clock, willing time to go by faster, while feeling frustrated at how slow the progress was. Actually, in all honesty, given the conditions, we were making fairly good time, and still would possibly get in before sunset, a full 12 hours ahead of our original schedule. But it was so uncomfortable that every minute felt like days. We felt like we couldn’t possibly get there fast enough.

At 1430 we could see land. Oh, praise God! Land means protection, right? It was going to get better really soon, right? Since the wind was coming from the northwest, we altered course in hopes of a more comfortable ride. We had been following a rhumb line (direct line) course northwest right into the wind. Instead, we turned north, so that the waves were hitting us more on the side than directly on our nose. The plan was that when we were in the shelter of land and not being hit as hard by the waves, would turn west. It was a brilliant plan, but the wind didn’t cooperate with it.

Land slowly but surely loomed closer until we were as close as we could get before turning west, but the seas never improved, not even a little. Why, you ask? Because the wind suddenly decided to switch direction and come from the southwest. So, we were never in any kind of shelter at all, got stronger waves from the west than we would have on a rhumb line, and also got the joy of confused seas. It was horrific. And all the while, the wind speeds just kept steadily increasing. Oh, and it was getting close to sunset and the sun was blinding us so we couldn’t see at all. And the sea spray also adversely affected visibility. And we were close to land and really needed to keep a sharp lookout for hazards in the water. Did we mention it was horrible?

It wasn’t all bad, though. There were a few really good things going for us. One, the charts seemed to be right on, the only ones that have been 100% right in Mexico yet. And, there are no natural hazards, such as low lying rocks in Cabo San Lucas Bay, so we felt like it was safe to continue in even with diminished visibility. We crossed our fingers that any fisherman in our path would see us and get out of our way because we probably wouldn’t see them. We reached the edge of the bay and entered in, waiting for it to magically calm down. It didn’t. The wind was still screaming and the bay offered little protection from the southern gusts. The closer and closer to the mooring field we got, the more depressed we got, thinking it was going to be as bad in the mooring field as it was at sea.

The mooring field is at the west side of the bay, along the main part of town. While the coastline is flat, there are some big mountains in the distance behind town. When we got close, two wonderful things happened. The mountains blocked the wind and it got calm. And, the mountain blocked the sun, so we could see again. Ahhhhh! So happy about both! Our mood instantly improved, going from feeling miserable and desperate to pretty happy and proud of our accomplishment. It is amazing how our moods are so affected by the weather. In our old life at home, we scarcely ever noticed the weather. We are so, so grateful that we made it in early. We can’t imagine being stuck in those hideous seas for another 12 hours!

Now that we could see, we were totally confused. Hmm”¦. We don’t see any mooring buoys anywhere. About five boats were anchored where the mooring field was supposed to be. Are the moorings gone? Are we in the wrong place completely? We decided we were too tired to care and decided to drop anchor. The problem, though, it that there is an underwater shelf. The water goes from being too shallow to anchor in to too deep in an instant, so anchoring can be really tricky. We picked a spot and dropped anchor. Eric set the anchor and it was clear the anchor did not set. The first time it has done this. We must have dropped in on a cliff. We noticed the depth change very rapidly on the depth sounder. Darn. We found a new spot and re-anchored. It was now 2200, and was starting to get dark. Fortunately, the anchor seemed to set the second time. Phew!

While we were getting anchored, we could see some sea lions playing in the water near us. There were at least 4, but probably more. Seeing them was kind of a shock. There are zillions of sea lions in San Diego, but we just now noticed that haven’t seen a single one since leaving home. That made us realize how close we are to home. We are 97% completed with the journey now. Wow. Is it really almost over?

We had our doubts that this is a good place to be anchored. There was loud music coming from the beach bars directly in front of us. There were tourist sunset cruise boats zooming around us in circles, making it wavy, and one of them was blaring ungodly loud and obnoxious music. But after a little while, the tourist cruise boats went away and the music from the beach died down. Then the anchorage was calm and peaceful. We went to bed at 2200 and slept like rocks.