Category Archives: Passage

Time spent between destinations travelling on the water.

Ensenada to Puerto Vallarta — Days 4 – 5

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Sunday, December 8 — Saturday we had mostly hazy sunshine and calm seas: 1 – 3 feet, 1 foot wind-chop, long swell period. At one point, we entered a cloud and rode in fog for a while before popping out of it. It’s a wonderful ride.

It warmed up significantly today. We’re finally at a low enough latitude for it to be shorts weather. 

In the wee hours of the morning, we’d moved into a more favorable current and have been making good time today, averaging close to 7 knots @1800 RPM. Eric wants to keep RPM up because he knows we’ll eventually slow back down again, and he wants to ensure we make it to Puerto Vallarta during daylight. 

In the am, Eric spotted a sailfish (we think) doing several theatrically high jumps. In the afternoon, Keith spotted a whale. We watched it spouting on the surface for a while before it disappeared without a fluke. 

We passed Magdalena Bay in the afternoon, which was roughly the halfway point for this leg. Whale season has just begun, so it is unlikely we’d see a baby whale so early in the season. There was a bit of traffic around Magdalena Bay, but overall, we haven’t seen many boats today.

It was a beautiful sunset/twilight:

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Ensenada to Puerto Vallarta — Days 1 – 3

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Friday, December 6  — As mentioned in the last post, the sea conditions were not bad when we left Ensenada on Tuesday night. Despite the good conditions, Keith did initially get sick. But within 12-hours, he was feeling good enough to play video games

When dawn finally broke on Wednesday, we saw it was 3 – 5 foot waves with a 10-second swell period + 1 – 2 foot wind chop waves. Thanks to the long enough intervals in between the waves, it wasn’t uncomfortable. The wind was light, came from behind us, and it was overcast all day. 

Unfortunately, we were moving very slowly, only averaging 5.7 knots at 1650 RPM. Eric eventually sped us up to 1750 RPM, but our speed only improved to 5.8 knots. He’s concerned that we have a net or kelp or line stuck to our propellor or stabilizer fins that is slowing us down. He was considered stopping in Turtle Bay to dive on the bottom.

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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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