Baja HaHa

Finally, HaHa launch. Bill went to the captain’s meeting while Nina hit the laundromat for a final load. Kick off party in the afternoon. Boat parade the next morning. The boat next to us had a bagpiper who played What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor as we motored out. Not much wind once we got out into the ocean, so we motorsailed.

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Once we were out in the ocean, it was time to try some more fishing. Nina let out the hand line with a cedar plug. The first one got away but the second one we landed. It was a tuna of some kind. In describing it to others, we decided it was a skipjack. Not the tastiest of tuna, but we ate it anyway. One of the surprises was how messy cleaning a fish on the back of a bouncing sailboat can be, even after bleeding it (but probably not enough). Needless to say, we’ll save you that photo.

By the finish of leg 1 to Turtle Bay, Gypsy was at the back of the fleet. We are one of the smaller boats and so we are slower than the boats with longer water lines. We made it in time for the baseball game. We also discovered that something on the boat is eating power and the batteries are not getting fully charged.

Leg 2 to Bahia Santa Maria. We had enough wind to sail the whole way! Nina also caught a yellow fin. Flying along under spinnaker is probably not the best time to do that. Much better tasting than the skipjack. This one was caught on an All Eye black and red lure that Carl gave us. Bill tried running the engine to charge the batteries. Alternator is running really hot and not really charging. Good thing there’s wind. And the wind kept building. The fleet hit a squall in the middle of the night. Felt like sailing down the Oregon coast! We came through fine, but a couple of other boats had mishaps, one of which was Raven. Raven had both their spinnaker and their genoa in the water and wrapped around their prop. We arrived midday at Bahia Santa Maria, the fourth from the last boat to arrive. We swapped out the alternator for the old rebuilt one we had along as a spare. Headed over to Talion for a Portland potluck: Aarinaar, Raven, Gypsy, Dharma Girl. Good company and food.

Lent our 130 genoa to Raven as they have no foresail. It fit enough for them to use for a bit. Bucket laundry before the party on the bluff. Got back to Gypsy only to discover that a pair of jeans had blown away. Just before sunset, there was a single cloud with a sheet lightning storm flashing away for at least half an hour. In a separate cloud off to the side, the full moon was rising. Pretty amazing.

Next morning, the fleet set off for Man-o-War Cove, Bahia Magdalena. Weather report for Cabo San Lucas, the HaHa destination, is not sounding too good, depending on which weather model you follow. The European model has a tropical depression slamming into Cabo with 40 knot winds. The NOAA model has the storm blowing out to sea. Some boats bailed for Cabo to try to beat the storm. Some decided to stay in Mag Bay. We decided to wait until morning and set out at around 0400 (4 am). This way, we’d get to Cabo during daylight and we could assess things then. Winds were light, but we sailed most of the first day. This saved us fuel, but we had to motorsail the rest of the run to Cabo as the wind dropped to a calm. As we got closer, the weather reports were looking like Cabo would get hit. We hadn’t set up for a slip, or signed up with an agent there to check into Mexico, so we decided to keep going to La Paz. After our Richardson Bay experience, we didn’t want to be in an exposed anchorage in a major blow. Approaching Cabo, we were at the back of the fleet again, but as we continued to La Paz, we became the front, with three other boats following us in. Saturday, November 16 we tied up at the fuel dock in the Marina Costa Baja. We’d beat the storm and had a calm trip up. We later met a crew from another HaHa boat who had stopped at Cabo to drop off crew and their last 30 miles into La Paz was rough.

Sunday, the tropical storm Raymond hit La Paz as rain. For a place that may have years with less than an inch of rain, it was a mess. We’d ventured downtown and all the streets were awash. We were drenched, even with rain coats. It was a crazy day to try to get our bearings.