Category Archives: Passage

Time spent between destinations travelling on the water.

The Last Leg Home — Our 8-Month Baja Adventure is Officially Over

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(*Sorry for the delay in posting. Life got busy once we got back to San Diego)

On Sunday, March 5, we awoke at 0300 to do the last minute things to get Kosmos ready to go to sea. We untied at 0400. It was about 60-nautical miles from Marina Coral to the mouth of the San Diego Bay. Here was the sunrise

The day was mostly overcast and grey. Had we not done the previous difficult passages to Bahia Tortuga and Ensenada, we would have said that the conditions were rough, but compared to those two, sea conditions weren’t all that bad. We were hobby horsing a lot, but the swells weren’t giant nor the intervals rapid enough to make it a miserable ride. We were all functioning normally (for the most part). Here is a “sail” boat passing us… in 5 knots of head winds.

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Passage from Bahia de Tortugas to Ensenada

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On Monday, February 27, we woke up at 0300 to do the last-minute things needed before setting out to sea. We pulled up anchor at 0400. Christi station-kept while Eric went out to set his custom made anchor plate locking system. He could not get it to lock into place. Later, in the daylight, it was clear that mud from the anchor/chain had gotten into the mechanism. While Eric speculated it may be mud, at that moment it was too dark to tell, so he just tightened the chain on the windlass to secure the anchor lock system as good as was possible. By the time we finally got going, it was 0430.

We were not excited about leaving in the dark, but unfortunately, the weather window was small and there was no leaving any later. The 3/4 full moon was luminous and offered a little bit of light; having some light was reassuring.

As soon as we got out of the bay, Kosmos started hobby-horsing like crazy and the ride became uncomfortable. Maybe a better analogy was bucking like a rodeo bull. While standing, we had to hold onto the boat at all times to keep from being knocked over; on the stairs, we needed to hold on with both hands. The sea conditions basically stayed the same for about 30-hours, then they very gradually started to calm down. During the 30-hours, we guesstimate that the swells were 6 – 8-feet at 6 -8-seconds with the occasional 10 – 12-foot wave. When the bigger waves came, Kosmos smacked down hard. Once there was a bit of green water coming over the bow at one point. True wind speed was about 15-knots. Here was sunset on Monday evening:

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The Rest of the Passage from Magdalena Bay to Turtle Bay

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Tuesday, February 21 — The seas had been calm on Monday until about 2030 (8:30 pm), when the swells, swell period and wind chop all started to pick up. By midnight, Kosmos was pitching so much that we had to always had to have one hand holding onto the boat or else we’d get knocked over. The forecast didn’t have the seas picking up this much this fast; it was supposed to be a gradual worsening.

The wind continued to increase throughout the night. It was hitting us on the forward port quarter (for a visual, from 10:00 on a clock). Even though it was dark, from the incredibly uncomfortable motion, it was obvious that the wind chop was coming from that direction, while the swells were on our nose, making for confused seas. The motion was like a half-pitch, half-roll.

At 0400, an alarm went off which indicated that the autopilot couldn’t see the data from the navigation system. Christi woke Eric up. He turned it off and back on again, and it magically worked fine.

When it was finally light enough to see, we surmised that it was probably 5 – 6 foot swells at about 4 – 6 seconds, plus 2 – 3 foot wind chop.

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Passage from Bahia Magdalena to Bahia Tortuga, Day 1

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Continuing on Monday, February 20… After returning from our amazing whale watch expedition, we ate lunch and did a few last minute get-ready-to-go things before lifting anchor. Since we hadn’t gotten the dinghy down, we hadn’t gone out to the top deck yesterday. When we went out there today in preparation for leaving again, we were dismayed to see that the entire top deck, pilot house roof and port side ledge were completely covered in bird poop. We must have had birds stowed away onboard for quite a long time to have accumulated so much poop! Argh! We didn’t have time to deal with the mess; it would have to wait until Turtle Bay. 

As much as we would have liked to have stayed in Magdalena Bay for longer, the sea conditions were ideal right now and we needed to take advantage of the smooth seas to get as far north as we could before the seas got rough again. This season has been especially ugly in terms of sea conditions; the nice windows have been few and far between. Since the sea conditions were so great right now, we’d even considered skipping Magdalena Bay altogether and continuing north so that we could make it to Turtle Bay in completely calm conditions, but we knew that we’d regret missing the opportunity to see the whales up close. The weather forecast was for big waves for the last 12-hours of this leg. When we’re seasick, we’ll keep telling ourselves that petting the whale was so amazing that it was worth the 12-hours of rough seas. 

At 1145, we pulled up anchor and were on our way. In good news, today the strong current inside the bay worked in our favor. For a while, we were doing 9 – 10 knots! The whole way out to the ocean, we watched the water like a hawk, looking for whales. We saw four sea lions and a turtle before we spotted our first two whales near the mouth of the bay where we’d been this morning. 

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The Rest of the Passage from La Paz to Bahia Magdalena

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Continuing on Saturday, February 18… after we rounded the corner of Cabo San Lucas, the conditions in the Pacific continued to get calmer and calmer. Here was the sunset on Saturday.

The smoothest seas were at about midnight, then it slowly but steadily started to pick up. It was head seas, so we were doing a bit of hobby horsing towards the end, but it really was not bad. Here was the sunrise on Sunday.

We saw three different pods of whales, and we got video of the flukes of two of them.

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