Baja Haha 2002

The "Baja Haha" is an annual cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas (at the southern tip of Baja California), organized by Latitude 38. This year, about 105 boats and 450 people participated.

I met Nels Torberson, the owner/captain of "Bronco" at Cabo at last year's Baja Haha, sailed with him once on SF Bay, and jumped at his offer for "needing crew" for this year's Baja Haha.

Other crew starting from Alameda were Kelly (who did Friday night racing on "Impetuous" this last year, and Greg and Maryann, each of who did a number of say sails on "Bronco" in SF Bay.

We fished, of course, trailing lines. Got four small non-keepers and one really good keeper, which on deck spit out the hook and jumped back into the water, despite Bob's full-body tackling.

The Latitude 38 folks did their usual outstanding job....organized but relaxed. They had many creative awards at the awards ceremony. See the DEC 2002 issue for their perspective and photos. They promise to provide a full moon next year.

It was a great adventure. If you get a chance, do it. Soon.

Summary

Highlights for me

These are my favorite memories

What I learned

I learned and re-learned a lot. A few of the "tekkie" things were:

San Francisco to San Diego

Five of us (Nels, me, Kelley, Greg and Maryann) depart Alameda around 9PM. A couple of nights at sea and we arrive at Catalina in the expected 60 hours.

Catalina Island was interesting, though it is a small and touristy town. Overcast weather.

Then overnight to San Diego, where we were very lucky to get a slip and not have to anchor out. Coming into San Diego, we went through a "pod" of over one hundred leaping and jumping dolphins...an amazing sight.

Baja Haha - San Diego to Cabo

Bob and Roberta joined us in San Diego. Bob had crewed on several Baja Hahas, so between his and Nel's Baja flags, we were abole to fly a total of seven...pretty impressive!

In San Diego, various crew did the provisioning, so we had quite a mixture of food for various tastes and preferences, including some very good steaks.

Leg 1 - San Diego to Turtle Bay

Very light winds, so we motored the maximum amount, totalling about 33% of the total time. Afterwards, the Baja Haha "Poobah" (the guy in charge) made an "executive decision" to throwout/disregard the results of this leg, due to the lack of wind.

The winds were so light that one evening while I was at the helm, we actually did a 360-degree circle with the spinnaker up (1 knot of wind, boat speed 0.5 knot, the spinnaker backwinded and pulled the boat around due to lack of steerage at that speed, so I just let it go around.)

Leg 2 - Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria - 260 miles

The good news is that there was more wind. However, many things happened to us on that leg (see pictures): All of this was frustrating to Nels, who keeps his boat in good condition, and he had to spend a fair amount of time doing repairs.

Leg 3 - Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo

Light winds again, so we motored as much as was allowed. Finally the weather go to be what several of the crew had hoped for - sunny days and warm nights. A fine, warm, very slow sailing afternoon before crossing the finish line, at which time (of course) the wind picked up for a fast reach into Cabo, arriving 9PM.

At Cabo San Lucas

At Cabo San Lucas, we and around 400 other Baja Haha cruisers partied on the beach at the Latitude 38 party, went to the Latitude 38 awards party, and had a good time with our various friends. Baja haha stuff

Found hotel

Marylyn flew into Cabo, and we stayed at the Hacienda hotel/resort for four days, as we did last year. Our dear friend, Alan and Barbara Steiner joined us for some snorkeling and for a lovely shared anniversary dinner, where we danced and sang songs at the piano bar at the hotel "Casa Rafael".

The return trip

The return trip is usually a "bash" directly upwind, but our luck and karma combined to give us a great trip back, complete with warm and sunny days, calm seas (mostly), interesting scenery, full moon and starry warm nights (mostly), boat moving right along. The refridgeration unit failed, but we put in lots of ice to keep all the Corona cerveza cold. Had "Santa Ana" wind conditions south of San Diego, resulting in very warm gusts of around 25K from the land. The seas were dead calm at Point Concepion (see pictures on web page), and our biggest problem there was sunburn. Our total elapsed time from Cabo to the dock in Alameda was 8 days + 9 hours, slightly over 6.2 knots for 1230 miles! (that's 150 miles per day). We caught a 20-lb fish and had GREAT sashimi (with wasabi sauce) for a couple of days.

At Cabo, many of our crew went on their various ways, so Nels Marylynn and I returned to boat to San Diego, and Nels and I double-handed the boat back to Alameda.

Photos

(These photos are about 55KBytes each)

Revised: January 4, 2003