Day 1

Eric and Christi woke up this morning at 0100, having gotten only 3.5 hours of sleep. We immediately went to work getting the boat ready to go. We decided to let Trevor sleep for a little longer, but we got him up an hour later and had him help us.

We mentioned in yesterday’s post that the wind completely died in the evening. The forecast said the calm would last a couple of days. We were taking advantage of this opportunity to make a 36 hour run up the coast to the next suitable anchorage, Magdalenda Bay. We were all feeling pretty grim as we prepared the boat for sea. We have been dreading this last leg for so long, and now it was finally time to face the nightmare.

We pulled up anchor at 0300. The moon was half full and provided decent visibility. There was zero wind as we pulled out of the bay and headed towards the notoriously evil Cabo Falso, the very tip of Baja California. Cabo Falso is a notorious wind tunnel where the wind blows much, much stronger than anywhere else on the run. Many boats get stuck there for days and even weeks because the wind there is often just too strong to make rounding the peninsula possible.

As promised, as we began to round the peninsula, the wind instantly jumped up to 15 knots and the waves suddenly became sharp and tumultuous. Trevor instantly got sick really sick. The increased wind and sharp waves only lasted a few minutes, though. Once we had fully rounded the tip, the wind died back down and the seas smoothed out into long swells with virtually no wind chop. While the ride wasn’t by any means calm, it really was pretty good, considering. Yes, we were hobby horsing away, but Christi and Eric found it to be tolerable, and not even close to the “uncomfortable” category. Christi and Eric figured Trevor would be feeling better in no time.

There were several boats out fishing and we stayed far away from them all. We chose to take a rhumb line to Magdalena Bay rather than hugging the shore. It would shave off a few miles, and we prefer to be farther out, anyway. At 0400, we rolled up 30,000 miles on the odometer. On this journey, we have spent 196 days at sea, which is 27% of the total time. Or conversely, we have spent 73% of our time in port.

After the sun came up, the wind was light but the seas started to build. By 1100, the swells had gotten bigger, averaging 2 to 4 feet, but were quite lazy and gentle, and coming at long intervals. This motion is such a contrast to the sharp and breaking waves that we experienced coming into Cabo. Of course, we were still hobby horsing some from the mild wind chop, but not that bad. Christi and Eric thought the ride was still pretty darn good, at least relatively speaking, but poor Trevor is still sick as a dog. He is passed out on the couch in the salon (living room), and every time he attempts to move or eat, he winds up feeding the fish. The hobby horsing is too much for him to sleep in the forward stateroom. Christi and Eric already knew that we have built up a tolerance to the seas, but seeing how sick Trevor was when we felt great really drove home just how much of a tolerance we have developed. More than we ever thought possible.

In the early afternoon the wind came back, getting up to 20 to 21 knots apparent. The wind chop picked up and the hobby horsing worsened, but the swells seem to be no worse. While the ride was not as good as before, it was still tolerable. We were making better than expected time, so we were on track to pull into Bahia Magdalena in the early morning instead of the early afternoon. Since we will probably arrive before sun up, we switched our destination to Santa Maria Bay, just a few miles north of Magdalena Bay. We would definitely be to Santa Maria after sunrise.

After dark, the wind chop started to die down. We figured Trevor would feel better, but he didn’t. He was sick all night. It was a dark, night, too. The moon must have been hiding behind clouds, because it never peeked out.

Day 2

At roughly 0530, we passed the site where a Nordhavn 62 sunk, just off the entrance to Magdalena Bay. We’re told that you can see the remains of the hull at low tide. But, it was still dark out, so we missed out on the chance to see it. Eric said it probably would have creeped him out, anyway. At that moment, the wind was at 1 2 knots. The wind chop was gone, and the swells were still gentle and lazy. Eric and Christi thought it was a pretty darn good ride considering the fact that we were in head seas, but poor Trevor was still sick.

Shortly afterwards, we checked the weather and saw that the calm winds were supposed to last another couple of days. Should we skip Bahia Magdalena and keep going? The next suitable anchorage is called Turtle Bay and was another 2 days beyond Bahia Santa Magdalena. As tempting as it was to keep going, we decided we needed to stop. It had been well over 24-hours since Trevor had kept anything down, and we were seriously worried about dehydration. We decided that, for his sake, we needed to get to shore so we could get some liquids in him.

At 0630, we got disconcertingly close to a panga. It didn’t show up on radar until we were practically on top of it. Fortunately, we saw it in time and took evasive action. Those little boats can be so scary! Trevor spotted dolphins this morning, which was exciting.

Around 0700, Trevor got up. We were so relieved to see him move. He wasn’t dead yet! Phew. Then he actually ate a couple bites of food and kept it down. Praise the Lord and hallelujah! We were so relieved to know he wasn’t going to die. How would we have explained that one to his family? Trevor said he felt OK now and agreed it was best to keep going. So, we changed course, doing a rhumb line to Turtle Bay, as was recommended for power boats in the Baja Bash guidebook.

In the early afternoon we spotted about a dozen sea lions all sort of floating along in the water. They were in a fairly small radius of one another, but scattered about, none too close to any other. Here is one sea lion floating on his back with his fins sticking up.

We went outside to look at them and realized the water was full of little red sea creatures. We have no idea what they are. They look kind of like big red spiders or red crawdads or maybe baby lobsters. They are a vibrant red and swim using a weird motion. We suspect the sea lions were munching down on the little red guys.

The vast majority of the ride today we have had light winds on the nose (1 6 knots real at most) and the seas are quite calm. We did hit several localized convergence zones where the wind came from an odd direction for a few minutes, or picked up drastically for a few minutes, or both. In every case, the book had warned us of these zones and so the change was expected. As soon as we passed through the small zones, the wind would go back to what it was before.

Of course, we are still getting consistent swell from the north and are bouncing some. Relatively speaking, it is a nice ride for head seas, though there is a bit too much bouncing for it to be “comfortable”. To put the amount of bouncing into perspective, if we put a cup on the table, it will fall over within a minute or two. But if we put a cup on a piece of grippy that is on the table, it stays in place. Our speed has been better than expected, too.

While Trevor is feeling better, he is still not feeling good. He still is spending most of his time sleeping, only up for a couple hours at a time. He isn’t eating or drinking much, either. He also hasn’t kept everything down, but he has at least kept enough down that we know he won’t die. We are still a little worried about him.

The sunset was pretty. The clouds turned all red and the whole sky was awash in color. It was another dark night. Conditions were consistent pretty much all night. Eric made a new friend on the VHF. He is a single hander also doing the run north and he and Eric keep each other entertained with long talks on Eric’s watches.