Category Archives: Passage

Time spent between destinations travelling on the water.

Welcome Back to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

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It turns out that the change in wind direction last reported was part of one of those convergence zones. Around 0100 this morning, the wind had picked up to 18 21 knots and the seas followed suit. It was still coming from the port forward quarter, but we were bouncing around like crazy and getting a lot of sea spray on the windows. Sigh. Then at around 0300, we passed out of the zone and all went back to being status quo. Actually, today may have even been a touch smoother overall than yesterday. We find the windy patches along this coast to be really weird.

The most odd thing that happened today was a private jet flew by so low that it showed up on radar. It was definitely flying at less than 1,000 feet, and maybe was even as low as 500 feet.

We were all in incredibly high spirits all day. Christi and Eric were on cloud nine, really. The stars have to have aligned for us for this run, because everything about this leg has been so perfect in every way (except Trevor being sick, of course). The amazing weather. Completing the Baja run in about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time we had anticipated it would take since we didn’t have to stop. Seeing the whales. And now we were literally counting the minutes until our circumnavigation was complete. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. We got word from Eric’s company that a project he has worked on for the last 8 years has finally come to fruition. Wow. His project and our circumnavigation are basically done the same day. That is just unbelievable! It is seriously too good to be true! As you can imagine, after we got that news, we were beyond elated. And Trevor was so excited to be sharing the joy with us.

At 18:29 exactly, we officially reached a point we had been to before. We crossed the circumnavigation line, near the island of Todos Santos at 31- 46N and 116-46W.

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It’s real. We did it.

Our chart plotter numbers each and every waypoint we enter into it. After we got to that mark, we made a course change to follow our previous line back into Ensenada harbor. That was waypoint number 892. Once back on the line, the next course change was at waypoint number 6. Number 6! It seems like a lifetime ago in Continue reading →

Cabo San Lucas to Ensenada — Days 3 and 4

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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 Continue reading →

The Dreaded Baja Bash — Days 1 and 2

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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 Continue reading →

Passage to Cabo San Lucas

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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 Continue reading →

Stability, Kayaking and Departing for Cabo

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Christi was up before dawn yesterday. Don’t be too impressed”¦ the sun doesn’t rise until 0800 here. The pre-dawn silence was suddenly shattered by two people talking. One, who sounded like an adolescent boy with a changing voice, said “I like that boat Kosmos”. The other, a deeper adult male voice, said “Yours is much safer than that one. See the poles there? Those are stabilizers. That boat is so unstable that if you don’t put the poles down, then the boat could flip over.” Christi opened the back door to Continue reading →