Day 3

This morning the ride was even better! There was no wind chop at all and the swells were small and widely spaced, making the hobby horsing was definitely less severe. The water looks silky from the lack of waves. But more importantly, with the better sea conditions, Trevor finally snapped out of his sea sickness completely. He was lively and full of energy all day. What a relief!

When we checked the weather forecast this morning, it said the idyllic conditions would last through Tuesday, then the winds would get really ugly. We did some quick calculations. We figured out that if we can just push Kosmos a little harder, we should be able to get all the way to Ensenada on Tuesday just before sunset. While we wanted to stop in Turtle Bay, we knew we couldn’t let such a good weather window pass us by, so we changed course yet again, this time for Ensenada. We increased the RPM from 1800 to 1900 and have been averaging 7 7.5 knots, which is an amazing speed for head seas. We are praying the good speeds last and that the adverse currents don’t slow us down too much so that we arrive while it is still light out. Of course, the fact that we are relatively light because the fuel is not full helps with the speed, too. Eric keeps saying we have turned the “Baja Bash” into the “Baja Express”. Trevor keeps saying we are doing the “Baja Dash” instead of the “Baja Bash”.

We have gotten several emails from friends and family in Southern California complaining of uncharacteristically high temperatures for the time of year. It turns out that the same bizarre weather phenomenon is what is causing the normally steady offshore winds to die completely. Having wind free days in the spring is virtually unheard of around here. In fact, the book’s first piece of advice is never to do the run north in the spring because that is when winds are the worst. So, we are either ultra super lucky, or some higher power is being merciful to us by giving us an abnormally rare weather window.

We again followed the advice in the Baja Bash book and plotted a course on the outside of Cedros Island and the San Benito Islands, then made a rhumb line all the way to Ensenada. We have to say that the book was well worth the money. Had we not bought it, we would have followed conventional wisdom and hugged the coast. By making rhumb lines instead, we have saved ourselves 100 miles, which is a lot of time and fuel. We are about 26 miles from shore, and can see the mountains.

Today we passed a big cruise ship. It was enormous and seemed to be doing Mach 5 compared to us. We saw some dolphins. They played on our bow for a little while, but didn’t hang out for very long. We also spotted another turtle. We saw quite a few sea lions, including a baby. Trevor pointed out a 3 foot shark, which was super cool. Eric and Christi never would have noticed it. Actually, to be honest, Trevor spotted most of the wildlife.

We can now hear the San Diego coast guard on the VHF radio. Hearing them really drives home the fact that we are almost home and our big journey is almost over. Wow. We have almost circumnavigated the globe on our boat. We have almost accomplished something huge. We are about to join a small elite group. And the number of people who have done it on a powerboat is very small. We are praying nothing goes wrong. We have this horrible fear of something stopping us when we are so close to the finish line we can almost see it.

The epic conditions lasted all day, and actually slightly improved as the day wore on. By the end of the day, it was starting to look like a lake. After dark, the seas picked up some, becoming comparable to what they were the night before. It was yet another dark night.

We have forgotten to mention that it has been really cold at night since leaving Bahia Navidad, so cold that we have to keep everything closed up. Even during the day, it is a little bit on the chilly side when the doors and hatches are open. Thanks to the cool air coming in through the back vents, the engine room is not very hot. In the tropics, one would come out from an engine room check drenched in sweat. But not here. Also the shaft is totally cool thanks to the cold water.

Day 4

By morning time, the ride had become very lurchy, which is an unusual motion for Kosmos. We felt like we were on a catamaran, which are known for being lurchy. The ride seas are still incredibly calm compared to normal conditions and it is not a bad ride, but to give you perspective of the motion, you have to hold on to your cup at all times. If you put it on the table, even with grippy, it will fall over.

At around 0900, Eagle-Eye Trevor glanced out on the horizon and saw a whale spout about 500 yards away from us. Then he saw another. We watched carefully and could see there were at least three whales floating on the surface. Eric turned around and cut the RPM to 1000 so we could approach them slowly and not scare them off. Once we were in following seas, the ride was so smooth that it didn’t even feel like we were moving anymore.

As Eric steered, Trevor and Christi watched the whales. We saw lots of spouting, making us think that there were more than only 3 whales in the group. We got some good looks at the bodies. They are enormous. Trevor saw a small fluke and a semi-breech, but Christi missed them both. We must have scared them off with our approach, because as we got closer, we saw less and less spouting. We could now only see one whale on the surface, but we could see him well. He was a very big boy. Then he fluked and dove deep. His back was so long that he made Kosmos look like a toy in a bathtub. Trevor got an awesome shot of the tail as he was going down. We were surprised at how small the tail was given the size of the body. After seeing the tail, we believe it is a humpback whale, which are common in these waters. The fin doesn’t match a gray whale’s fin, the other common whale species around here.

Once he was gone, we didn’t see any more spouting at all. The whole pod must have gone under. Bummer. We were hoping to get in even closer, but we suppose we should be grateful that we got as close as we did. The only other time we have ever seen whales while at sea is at the island of Todos Santos (off Ensenada) before we left on the big journey, so this was an extra special moment for us.

When we turned back around, it was almost physically painful for us to go from silky smooth back to lurching. In the following seas we had been doing 6 knots at about 1000 RPM, but in the head seas we were doing 6 knots at 1850 RPM. Talk about a crazy current!

By 1330, seas had smoothed out some and ride became less lurchy, but never got to be as smooth as it had been yesterday. But, we certainly are not complaining! After dark, the wind changed direction to be more on our port forward quarter (front left side) rather than directly on the nose. While the wind speed and waves were exactly the same, the fact that the waves moved to be more to our side made the ride so much more comfortable than it was. But, at around 2200, the wind did start to pick up some, and so did the waves.

We are seeing more traffic now, including containers ships and several more cruise ships.