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 (the 13th) , a large turnout of over 140 boats participated. It is about 740 miles of southerly sailing.
I signed up to crew on "Bronco", which involved three parts:
Here are the "signature" phoitos"
Medical
We forgot:
! Pussers pisser
Add Kialoa II (1987) pix
!!! Main halliard (black line) is on PORT side of mast
Kialoa III interior
Get FOSS T-shirt (x3)...me, Martorano, Steve
Disappointments: no fresh fish...going too fast
- No Godiva chocolates for ladies
- I did not see/visit two CAL-34's who made the trip
- No "Ride of the Valkyrie" CD for dramatic sailing
- No Madeline Peyroux folksong CD
Not such good seamanship: Lost fender, almost lost dinghy,
runaway main halliard
Orange coast College
A community college with an active athletic program
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It turns out that not having an autopilot is a very big plus! Nothing to go wrong, and the crew gets a lot of time at the helm. Wonderful!
File: c:\mikec\O00000OCCquestionaire.txt
Karen,
Here are my responses to your questionaire.
Best,
Mike Chambreau
====================================
1. Absolutely, without reservations.
A fine group of people and a fine boat.
We learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
Being part of the Baja Haha added to it all.
2. I was quite well prepared. Our crewmembers had
a lot of experience, so the were well-prepared too.
Be sure to bring earplugs! Bring you own tether as well.
3. A nicely done manual. I would like to get a copy of
the corresponding "Kialoa III" manual.
4. Add stuff on dinghy operation, especially tying off
a dinghy to the boat.
5. Very good emphasis on safety and procedures.
6. Just exactly right
7. Scott and Rob provided outstanding leadership.
They made the boat run well, with organized watches
and daily cleaning duties. They were low-key
when you made a mistake. They knew the answers to
any of our questions. Under their guidance, we
functioned as a fine team.
(On "Kialoa II" in 1986 the crew got polarized.
That did not happen on this trip. In fact, on this
trip, I cannot remember a single instance of an
angry word or negative personal interaction.)
Scott and Rob were superb. (I compare them with
the captain/mates I have sailed with on Swan 112
in the Med and in Norway.)
8. Ratio was just fine, and the instruction was optional,
so if you did not want to learn celestial, you did
not have to do that.
9. Were we satisfied? Absolutely. Dave did such a phenomenal
job with his "themed" dinners, breakfasts, sandwiches,
snacks, etc. etc. etc. (Again I compare him with the
chef on the Swan 112...a traditional English Christmas Even
dinner in the middle of the Atlantic, for example.)
10. Three big improvements:
[ These are based on safety considerations and on the amount
of time that the skipper had to spend fixing them,
detracting from his other duties. Neal was a great help
of these projects. ]
1. "Alternate the alternators". Get them working, get
them bolted down tightly, get the electrical connections
clean and working. Have a spare alternator on board;
we were fortunate this time that Alaska Eagle had the backup.
2. A bigger, better, more reliable sump pump. Scott and others
spent a lot of time with this problem
3. Fix the dinghy motor and instruct people how to tie
the dinghy to the boat. Dinghy needs a larger-diameter
and longer (3 feet longer) painter.
I'll add a fourth:
4. Lack of working windvane/windpoint. We were all experienced
enough to sail downwind without this instrument, but it
is a very useful tool and should be part of the
student learning experience.
10B.Other small improvements
These are relatively minor, but fixing them would remove
frustrations and put less load on the skipper and chef..
1. Need two dozen #2 pencils and two pencil sharpeners in
the nav station. The "black hole" kept sucking pencils.
2. Vacuum pots for coffee (like on "Alaska Eagle"). The ones
we had were old, too small, and not good.
3. More small line, sail ties and stuff like that. We spent
a lot of time searching for this stuff.
4. Better beer. We were so glad when we ran out of Bud Lite
and had to re-stock with Mexican beer.
5. Better soda pops. Too much "diet" stuff.
6. Fix stove gimbal
11. Not at this time.
12. Absolutely.
It would help a lot if OCSC published its schedules a little
farther into the future, all the way to the end of the year.
I know I was confused about the 2006 Kialoa plans and others
mentioned the 2007 Alaska Eagle plans were not far-enough
out or complete for their personal planning.
13. The quintessional books are:
- "Two Years Before the Mast"
- "South Sea Tales" - Jack London
- "The log from the 'Sea of Cortez'" - John Steinbeck
- "Sex and the Single Zillionaire" - Tom Perkings
- "Margaritaville" - Jimmy Buffet
- "Longitude" - Dava Sobel
14. Special thanks to you, Karen, for making this whole thing work
so well.
Mike Chambreau
"Kialoa III" - Newport Beach to Cabo San Lucas - 2006
You can read a lot about what happened at the Baha Haja in the December 2005 issue of "Latitude 38" and in my excerpts in Part B below.
All the photos are at: http://www.mgb67.com/baja2005photos.htm
These include the great photo of "Bronco" which was on the cover of the December 2005 "Latitude 38".
It's hard to explain, but our crew was mature...not in the sense of being older (which we were...60+ average), but in the sense of "emotional maturity", where one gets temporarily highly emotional (meaning "really pissed off") for whatever reason and then soon thereafter is back on a friendly track with the other people.
And of course it helped a lot to have the crew include contractors, electrical contractors, riggers, navigators, mechanics, cooks, etc., who were quite adept at doing and fixing things.
+++ bronco@skymate.com works well, so we keep in touch if need be
+++ Simple Green in squirt bottle (smelly down below, but
very effective, better than most solvents)
--- Leaks in forward cabin
--- Water leaks into the cockpit instrument panel, shutting down
the display and the autopilot. The panel is loose and
easily bumped.
--- Cleating approach is not always correct....cf. Chapman and
Google. Barber-haulers slip under load due to missing wrap.
++++ Good medecines - Fresh antihistamines
- Bayer aspirin (adult, NOT Tylenol, etc.)
- Asthma inhaler (Bob, etc.)
+++ Throwaway white socks
+++ Blue pillow
+++ Blue blanket - it got a lot of use
+++ LOTS of white undershorts (x10)
+++ Having plenty of cash
+++ Having fresh underwear each day
+++ Having several good books (paperback of course)
++ White pullover I bought at San Diego YC
++ Red vest insert
++ Four pairs of sailing shorts (two light and two dark)
++ Having two pairs of sailing gloves and two sailing hats,
so I always have a (mostly) dry one
+ Thermal long johns
+ Thermal gloves
+ Grey long-sleeved shirt
- Not enough clickable ballpoint pens
- Firefly strobe / not used, heavy
- White floppy hat - pretty grubby (so replace)
- Need holder for toothpicks
-- Way too many ziploc bags
-- Too many t-shirts
--- Forgot to take email address list, so unable to send messages.
Glad to see that John Reilich was able to participate, though he (again) got on a boat that had severe electrical problems, but he was able to jump ship and get onto "Island Mistress" in Turtle Bay.
You can get a pretty good feel for our northward "bash" from my log:
We arrived in San Diego and had several days there, to recover from the northward "bash" and to work on mechanical problems. We first stayed at the guest dock at the San Diego YC...the prime slip in the area and they to another guest dock at the yacht club before we moved to a marina.
We had two rental cars, which helped us run errands.
Sunday was the Baja Haha Halloween party....see photos.
On Monday, we got a great start with the spinnaker up. Great wind and sailing for a while, then no wind, fog. Drifted around quite a bit. Fortunately the ocean current is about 0.5K southbound, so we kept moving south, even in no wind. We are determined not to start the engine, so we keep sailing. After a day or two, the wind comes up and we get to sail, helped by the autopilot, so we can all go below and have a fine dinner while the autopilot steers us across the finish line for Leg 1 (to Turtle Bay).
The usual fine parties. We were interviewed by the editor of "Cruising World". It will be interesting to see their article.
For leg two, more of the same...great start, then wind dies...we eat well.
Fix a few things at Bahia Santa Maria, and party on "Bronco" with a fine lobster dinner and (the next day) a classic Pusser's rum party hosted by "Profligate" (see photos).
I thought I was helping by moving part of the bottled water from one jug to the next to reduce storage, but I got the reverse-osmosis water, the natural high-mineral spring water, and the regular spring water mixed up, much to the consternation of a few of the crew. (I drink water from the tanks, and Nels drinks a concoction of water, sun tea, and powdered flavoring.)
Cabo is Cabo. "Bronco" stayed at a slip in the marina. I stayed in my favorite hotel, "Casa Rafael", for a few days, and we all survived the various parties before the awards ceremony. We came in first, by the way and Nels received a special award (see "Spirit of the Ha-Ha" writeup below).
As with the two preceding legs, the wind died during the evening, and most of the boats motored the remaining miles. This would not include, of course, those aboard "Bronco" and "Millennium Falcon", who had sailed the entire first and second legs, and who weren't about to fire up now. Despite the wind fading at night, Toberson reports that this year was the fastest he's ever done the third leg.
Revised: December 15, 2005