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 123 boats and 450 people participated. It is about 740 miles of dead-downwind sailing.
I met Russ White, the owner/captain of "Northern Dancer" via the Latitude 38 "crew list" advertisements, and we met for lunch in Oakland (his boat is in the southern California area). We hit it off well, and I signed on, even though I had not sailed with him and had not seen the boat.
We had a great adventure.
We fished, of course, trailing lines, but got zero/zip/nada edible fish.
We made a "side bet" with "Cassiopaeia" (Swan 65) that we would beat them to Turtle Bay or buy them a round of drinks.
The Latitude 38 folks did their usual outstanding job....organized but relaxed.
I missed hearing the story about how "Bronco" got hit at night by a powerboat. (Jim Barbee, perhaps you could fill us in.)
To quote Cherie: "There were lots of good friends, good food and good cheer. But more importantly there was good beer."
"Fast is FUN" - being on a faster boat is great! It is fun sailing the downwind broad reaches at 8-11 knots and gybing down the rhumb line. It also means fewer nights at sea, especially on Leg 1 to Turtle Bay, where we got to spend more time.
These are a few of my favorite memories, in no particular order
As usual, I have my own observations, for what they are worth...
Special thanks to Jo Ann, for all her great provisioning and support, even though she did not go with us.
It was a good mixture of skills and interests.
Russ and Jo Ann had already done provisioning, so we had good supply of high-quality food and beer. The beer was stowed in the bathtub, along with all the paper towels (reminiscent of stowage on "Song of the Sea").
FRI 24 OCT - I walked around. Met Bob and Roberta, who was showing off her new ring. Had dinner at "Boathouse" and then to bed early.
SAT 25 OCT - Bkfst at "Boathouse"...good but slow. Walked by "Whirlaway" a very large sailboat in the boatyard there. Went to SDYC and got a guest card, thanks to a fax from EYC. Walked around: Jim Barbee yelled, "hey, Mike Chambreau". He recommended having crab cakes at the "Brigantine", so I did. Had a very nice dinner at SDYC with Russ and Jo Ann.
SUN 26 OCT - Woke up to MAJOR brush fires...orange sky, ash all over. Latitude 38 Halloween party was fun, as usual (see pictures)
TUE 28 OCT - Saw lots of dolphins on my early AM watch. No wind, still motoring. Still kinda brown/hazy skies from the San Diego fires. Autopilot drive comes loose 3 times. Finally some wind, so turned motor off at 5:14P.
WED 29 OCT - Could see two large sunspots at sunrise, with naked eyes!! Arrived in Turtle bay after motoring 36.6 hours (51%) and sailing 35.1 Hours.
WED 29 - Late afternoon lunch at restaurant...VERY slow service, even though we were about the only people there. We arrived AFTER Cassiopaeia, so we made arrangements to pay off the bet. Crew cannot sleep in aft cabin, due to diesel spill... we figured it out and moved our bunks around.
THU 30 - A nice day, just sittin' around. Shuttled to gas dinghy to get diesel in jerry cans and found that the plastic spouts on our jerry cans were broken. Spent the evening wandering around town, talking to the other Baja Haha folks. I had a great hot dog at one of the street vendors, where I met the "Apsara" crew who said that the fish tacos at "La Palapa" were outstanding, so I went there and had outstanding fish tacos. Evening in town + Hot dog + Fish tacos
SUN 2 - Diesel bladder tank still leaks. 8AM - after sailing toward our destination, Larry is on watch, "heating it up", so we now go significantly east, though the VMG is OK
MON 3 NOV - 1AM arrival at Bahia Santa Maria - calm - put on mainsail cover
TUE 4 NOV - Wind died, so we started motoring at 3:30AM. Arriving Cabo, the weather was clear, warm and little wind... a wonderful arrival, as we skirted very close to the coast to see the sights. Stopped for an offshore swim (see my note further down).
WED 5 NOV - Having arrived in Cabo a couple of days early, I looked for a hotel and was fortunate to get a room at the small boutique hotel "Casa Rafael"...not only the same place I stayed last year but even the same room.
The hotel has a great dinner, with lots of music, so I treated the crew (including Arlan, who just arrived) to dinner there. And of course Jorge, the man at the piano bar was there, the mariachi band was there, and after dinner we repaired to their special "cigar room" for a smoke and brandy. A fitting end to a wonderful trip.
The Cabo-to-airport highway which was completely redone about 1-1/2 years ago for President Bush's visit is now not maintained as well...the pavement is fine, but the plants in the center median are all dead, leaving it dry and dusty.
It took me a couple of days, but I did convince Russ about the length of course for a downwind gybing course, after a review of the calculus of line integrals. (e.g. all points must be on the curve and must be connected by simple straight lines.)
Faster, safer and everyone can see what is going on.
The laptop is neat and gives great information and provides quick course changes, but usually only one person on the boat knows how to operate the computer and to update the autopilot track. Thus there is usually no backup at all.
Paper charts provide a fine presentation to all on-board, showing where (and why) the route is being set, allowing questions and discussion. Dangers and questionable areas are easily marked with a felt-tip highlighter, and "cutting corners" at waypoints can be discussed in advance. [I assure you that this discussion is absolutely essential.]
I remain a very strong believer that the paper chart and hourly (perhaps every two hours) plotting is the safe and professional way to go.
The spouts on jerry cans are either very old (cracked and leaky) or are the very-new "politically correct" non-spill types that spill all over. (The famous "Baja filter" [stainless steel filter] did not fit the fuel opening, so it spilled all over as well.)
Be prepared to SIPHON or manually PUMP when transferring fuel.
These photos were taken with a disposable camera, so the quality is not the greatest. They are about 55KBytes each)
Here are a few samples:
According to Russ, his passion for sailing began when he was just a kid. Under the tutelage of his Dad, he and other family members made trips to the Channel Islands, and when he grew older he and his buddies continued the tradition with surfing and diving forays. He knew, even back then, that he eventually wanted to "live the bohemian sailing life" but practical realities - like going to school, raising a family and building a successful manufacturing business - interrupted his pursuit of that noble dream.
Today, however, things are different. Russ bought this long, lean MacGregor a year ago and has cruised much of the California coast since, in preparation for foreign travels. On the run to Cabo, former owner John Scott (a Ha-Ha '95 vet) and his girlfriend will be along as crew, as will Mike Chambreau (also a Ha-Ha vet), Russ's girlfriend JoAnn Mincks and her father John. Sounds like our kind of crew.
Cassiopaeia's head cheerleader will be (occasional LAT 38 contributor) Cherie Sogsti. By her own admission she is not a super sailor, but her nonstop schtick keeps her crew from getting grumpy. Completing this jovial cast of characters will be Greg, Jean, Dustin and Dave.
[[I'm sure that Cherie is thinking: "Whaddya mean...'not'! That was two years ago!". Since then she has done over 4,000 offshore miles including Cuba, the San Blas Islands and Alaska, and I think that means she IS a super sailor. ]]
[ Pat is the 2003 president of Encinal YC. ]
Chuck just bought this boat - his fourth sailboat - nine months ago, but he's known her for almost a decade. Nine years ago he tried to buy her, but the deal fell through. So when she came on the market again recently,
Sharing the ride south will be navigator Jeanine Puskas, who is not only a Baja vet, but has made two trips to Tahiti. (Follow her.)
Also notable is that Bronco has set a record as the only boat (other than the committee boat) to have done FOUR Ha-has.
["Impetuous" crew and friend Jim Barbee was aboard Bronco this year.]
Hi Mike, Tequila arrived just fine. Larry picked a fine vintage! I did hear your message that you kept going. Bahia Santa Maria haha party was not the same without the wizard! Sorry you had to leave so promptly in Cabo. Take care, Jean
Mike... Jo and I are here in a funky little place in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, near PV, reading your email. Thank you for the kind words and good memories. You were an honored guest, glad that came across. I would sail with you again, anytime! Sorry you had go leave Cabo so quickly, but thank you for the wonderful meal, Larry, Arland and I are still raving about it! Jo says (Hi(and sail with us to Zihua!!! Russ and Jo Ann, somewhere near PV !!
November 25, 2003
Kurt Vonnegut in "Timequake"
I started out last month's newsletter with "not a whole lot has happened"! Nothing could be further from the truth regarding last month! We set sail from San Diego on October 27th. The day before we left, several fires broke out east of San Diego, and north of San Diego, then south of San Diego. Ash rained down on the boat and the night sky glowed. Our (and many others in the HaHa) crew flying in from San Francisco had to find alternate ways into the city. It seemed the whole state was on fire. John and Iole made it in style by renting a Jaguar and driving down! Despite the fire and brimstone, we got underway after topping off our fuel tank and headed for the starting line. The wind was very light but we had the spinnaker flying going across the line. We have four sails, the largest is the spinnaker, almost 1400 square feet (more area than my house!) of light weight nylon, red and white, very impressive sight! One of our crew had a side bet with another large boat based on who would be at Turtle Bay first, our first stop some 360 miles down the line. They too had their large sails up but we slowly passed them as the sun set on the first day at sea. The wind was still light so I was able to barbeque steaks, bake some potatoes and in general put out a pretty decent first meal.
Our crew: John, former owner of Northern Dancer; Mike, a friend from the bay area; Iole (pronounced Yo lay), John's lady; Larry, a 28 y/o refugee from the telecom industry who is taking an indefinite amount of time off to explore the world. I had planned on having Jo Ann and her Dad along but, as everyone knows, she decided long boat rides weren't for her (at least not for now!). Her Dad decided to join us later, in Cabo (more on that later).
We worked hard the first night to keep sailing, tacking down wind, divining where there would be more wind, either close to shore or farther out. Our speed kept dropping unless we headed up, further from our destination. Sailing downwind should be easy, right? Well here's the deal: if you head straight downwind, your speed drops off since the wind you feel on the boat drops off (we call the wind you feel on the boat apparent wind). Imagine you are on your bike and decide to pedal with the wind (downwind), as you speed up, the wind on your back slows down, if you are pedaling as fast as the wind you would feel no wind, if you are able to pedal faster than the wind, you would actually feel some wind on your face! On the boat, if you head up enough, say to the point the true wind is coming on your side, your speed picks up to a maximum...lots of fun but you aren't making any progress towards Turtle Bay. So we play a game we call the VMG game (VMG + velocity made good). Our instruments help by calculating how fast we are going (true speed) and how fast we are making progress towards our next goal (VMG). Everyone argues and plays with the sails, lots of fun!
Well enough sailing lessons (for the moment at least!). Suffice it to say the wind totally shut off at night and never much reappeared during the rest of this leg. We ended up motoring a lot (as did the rest of the fleet) to Turtle bay. We stopped the boat in the morning to wash the ash off ourselves and the boat, looking back it seems a baptism of sorts. Total time: 3 days; 1.5 days motoring and 1.5 days sailing. Cassiopia (the boat we had the side bet with) beat us by several hours (they can motor faster than us!). Turtle Bay was awesome. Actually I couldn't stop using that word during this trip. Awesome, killer, totally cool! Everyone on board was talking like a surfer before long! We were there ahead of most of the other boats so we had the place to ourselves for the first day. It was a short dingy ride from the boat to a sandy beach through gentle surf. The local kids would come out and help us in, watch our dingy while we explored the small town. Larry and I hung out with the locals, made friends with the owner of the bar on the beach. Turned out his son was involved in a great little business. He and another friend had converted a small fishing boat to a floating fuel tank. Their investment paid off big time since there was so little wind, all the boats needed fuel.
The next leg to Bahia Santa Maria was more like it! We sailed the entire way. Northern Dancer performed like the champion she was named after. We still had to tack down wind but this time we made steady progress towards our next stop. A small disaster struck just before 10PM. Our spinnaker was old and had started to come delaminated (the sail cloth was made in two parts, very lightweight nylon overlayed with a hard, thin mylar film), a small mistake on the part of one of the crew resulted in a shredded sail, we pressed on with jib and main. We sailed for a day and a half, entered the bay just after midnight of the 3rd, dropped the anchor well clear of the boats that had already arrived and got some sleep. We woke up to strong winds in the anchorage. We watched a Mexican fishing boat drag its anchor through the fleet, listened to the terrified voices of the small boats still making their way down the coast and contemplated our options. If we stayed in Bahia Santa Maria, the wind might die and we could have some fun on shore, if not we would be cooped up on the boat since it was too rough to ride in the dingy without getting soaked. I had wanted to surf here but the wind ruined that too. The weather report called for steady winds in the 25-30 range and a 90-degree shift. This shift would produce a cross sea about the time the fleet was scheduled to depart...having swells to contend with in one direction is one thing...having them come at you in two different directions is like sailing in a washing machine! We decided to leave the fleet and strike off to Cabo.
And what a ride it was! We sailed using the jib alone, turning in speeds well over 10 knots, I think the max speed record was credited to the auto pilot (Otto), 14+ knots. You get that kind of speed only momentarily by catching a wave, here's how: You head up a little bit to get the boat moving fast and as you feel the wave start to pick up the stern, you head down to catch it! The rest is just like riding a wave on a surfboard. The swells were a little too small to catch consistently but we had a blast trying and were successful enough to keep trying. How Otto caught the "wave of the day" is anyone's guess! As we approached Cabo in the early early morning, the wind died. Rounding the cape can be tricky due to strong winds and flukey currents, but not this morning. The sun was out, the water was super clear, we had Bloody Marys for breakfast. Everyone was taking pictures and smiling...we had made it! I climbed the mast to the first set of spreaders to take some pictures, what a great view! The easiest way down was to jump into the clear, warm water; worth the price of admission alone!
As soon as we were tied to a dock in Cabo everyone left the boat for shore side accommodations (unlimited water, hot showers, clean sheets, stationery beds), except Larry and I. We had the boat to ourselves and proceeded to party hard, sometimes until the sun came up.
We are in Puerto Vallarta now, how we got here from Cabo is a long story so stay tuned!
Revised: November 28, 2003
