BAJA BASH 2023

July 11-12, 2023

I was only home long enough to do laundry and pick up my prescriptions before leaving again. Fortunately, my one day home coincided with my friend Jennifer's 65th birthday, so I managed to attend her birthday party.

The next day, I packed my bag and Karen took me to the central bus station in Puerto Vallarta where I was able to catch a direct bus to Mazatlan. Never having been to the Tepic bus station before, I was reluctant to switch bus lines, there, for fear of having to drag my heavy bag across town. As it was, everything was very convenient, so I filed that information away for future reference.

On the Way to Mazatlan

My bus, which was supposed to arrive at 21:00, was an hour late. By the time I hailed a pulmonia (open-air taxi native to Mazatlan) and rode across town to the marina, it was nearly 23:00. Tom was kind enough to rouse himself to help me carry my bag and get through the gate and we went straight to bed at Dragon's Toy. It was hot. Very hot.

July 13 -14, 2023

Cloudy Sunset in Mazatlan

Sunset in the Mazatlan Marina

Rene, Tom & Chris, the Intrepid Crew

We (Tom, his friend, Chris, and I) spent Thursday and Friday preparing the boat to sail, as rapidly as possible in the sweltering heat. We just couldn't drink enough liquid to replace what we sweat out. We installed the main sail, visited the fuel dock to fill the tanks and numerous jerry cans with diesel, and went grocery shopping. We filled two carts with food and drinks which seemed like too much, but turned out to be just right. Tom spent a frustrating afternoon trying to track down the right sized hose for pumping fuel from the jerry cans into the tanks. After having visited every AutoZone in town (The first taxi took him to the Auto Mall.), he had to settle for some that was bigger than desired. We got to eat dinner in a couple of the restaurants near the marina, enjoy some lovely sunserts, and take advantage of the deliciously air conditioned showers. It was still hot. Very, very hot. It also rained, each morning, making it necessary to close the hatches. We couldn't wait to get out of there.

July 15-17, 2023

Pulling Out of Mazatlan

Saturday morning, we got up at 5:30 and pulled out of the slip right on time at 6:00. Having filled up with fuel before we left, we headed straight for Bahia Santa Maria to take advantage of a three-day weather window. Conditions weren't bad. The wind was on the nose, of course, so we had to motor, but the seas were comfortable. It got gradually cooler as we headed north. Just being on the water was a huge improvement.

Abandoned Boats in Mazatlan

Sunset Heading North

We picked up the usual contingent of booby hitchhikers as we crossed the sea. We made good time and passed Cabo San Lucas Sunday evening about 19:00. We pressed on and rounded Cabo Falso while cooking dinner. That we could do that speaks to how easy our rounding was. Things deteriorated the following day, but we pulled into Bahia Santa Maria about 9:00 on Tuesday morning, just over three days after leaving Mazatlan.

Boobies on the Bow

Passing Cabo San Lucas

Melted Shifter Cable

July 18-20, 2023

We knew bad weather was coming and were prepared to wait it out in Bahia Santa Maria. We dropped the hook, but when we went to back down to set the anchor, I couldn't shift into reverse. The mechanic who had recently repowered Dragon's Toy had routed the shift cable too close to the exhaust manifold and the insulation on the cable had permanently fused with the wire inside. To shift, we had to disconnect the cable and shift it manually. Chris became the engineer. Anchoring became a three person job.

Starry Night in Bahia Santa Maria

There is nothing to do in Bahia Santa Maria, especially when you have forgotten to buy gasoline for your dinghy. It was howlingly windy, but we were protected from the swell. One boat came in and immediately left. We figured they had headed for the shelter of Magdalena Bay. It was just us and the shrimpers who were also sheltering there. We read a lot of books. I made a big dent in my much overdue blog post about my earlier road trip. We took advantage of the flat water to transfer fuel into the tanks, fitting the oversized hose to the pump with rigging tape. The temperature was pleasant. We spent a lot of time looking at the weather and trying to decide when it would be safe to head for Turtle Bay.

July 21-23, 2023

Crossing to Turtle Bay

Finally, we just couldn't take it anymore. We knew it would be lumpy to begin with, but we decided to leave after dinner on Friday, the 21st. It wasn't terribly windy, but there was enough wind to sail, at first. The swell was nasty, however, after four days of high winds. We spent an uncomfortable night.

We had been making five or six knots for most of the trip, but our speed slowed to barely 2 knots, at times. We soldiered on. The crossing, which normally takes less than two days, took us two-and-a-half. 

July 24, 2023

Fishing Floats Decorating a Panga

We finally pulled into Turtle Bay about dawn on the 24th. Turtle Bay was deserted. The fuel boat, which usually arrives before one gets the anchor down, never showed up. We finally had to call them on the radio.

The weather looked good for continuing on, so we decided to stay overnight to get a good rest and then leave early the next day. While we were lounging about the boat, that afternoon, we heard a distant Mayday call from a boat called Milagro. They had gone aground at Punta Blanca, nearly 100 miles north of us. We could hear them, but they couldn't hear us. There was also a tow boat called Halcon

The Pier in Turtle Bay

 trying to reach them, but they couldn't hear him, either. We felt very helpless. Tom finally tracked down the phone number for the Mexican Search and Rescue and notified them of the situation. We had the GPS coordinates, but that didn't seem to matter. When we got to Ensenada, we learned that the boat had lost its transmission and, rather than go out to sea to try to fix it where they had sea room, the new owners elected to head for a marginal anchorage. When they got there, their anchor chain bound up in the hawsepipe and they went aground before they could get the hook down. The owners eventually grabbed their passports, jumped into the water, and swam to the remote shore. Eventually, they were picked up by a local gringo who took them to the bus. They got to Ensenada before we did. The boat was a total loss.

July 25-27, 2023

Crossing Vizcaino Bay

We left Turtle Bay the morning of the 25th at first light. It wasn't bad, at first, but it was foggy and we couldn't see much. At least it was cool. We went way outside the islands east of Cedros and then headed across Vizcaino Bay. Vizcaino Bay was very lumpy. The swells seemed to come from every direction. That night, no one wanted dinner and I was happy not to have to cook.

Things improved once we passed Sacramento Reef and we made up for lost time. We arrived at the Cruiseport Marina just in time for dinner on the 27th.

Shortly after we had left Mazatlan, we received an email telling us that Cruiseport would not accept our exit documents from Mazatlan because they had not been stamped by the port captain. The port captain in Mazatlan is very busy with commercial traffic and prefers to let the marina prepare the exit documents. Whenever we found a shred of internet, Tom had been communicating with Marina Mazatlan, trying to obtain a stamped copy of the exit paperwork. It had finally come through the morning of the 27th, but the email that Tom sent to Cruiseport had not been received.

Having to shift gears manually, we had hoped to head directly to our slip. This was not to be. We were directed to the guest dock where we had to stay until we produced the stamped exit document from Mazatlan. Once we cleared that hurdle, we were allocated a slip and, through excellent teamwork, managed to navigate into it without incident. We had a celebratory beer and headed into town for a calamari dinner.

July 28-29, 2023

We spent the 28th scrubbing the boat inside and out. I tackled the inside, wiping every surface down with vinegar and water, while the boys worked on the outside. That took me all day. I made us dinner to use up the last of our fresh food. In the end, we only had to give away one package of sausage and some produce. I took the last of the fruit and cheese with me to eat on the plane.

Driving to Tijuana

Tom had planned to stay an extra day but, when he learned that a driver would charge $220 to take us to the Tijuana Airport, decided to come with us. I was flying out to Puerto Vallarta at 11:00. Tom and Chris had flights in the late afternoon. It turned out that it was a good thing they had time because they learned that they couldn't use the CBX border crossing at the airport unless they had flown in. They had to take a taxi back to the regular crossing. It all worked out and we all made our flights without incident. My friend, Mary Nell, picked me up at the airport and whisked me straight to another birthday party. I was thankful to be back in La Cruz, not to leave again before the fall.