Cabo to La Paz

I left Marina del Puerto Cabo feeling down and depressed. The forecast was for little or no wind for the next few days. I don’t have an autopilot so that means steering by hand all the time under power.

Despite that, my spirits rose once clear of the marina and out onto the Sea of Cortez. I was moving again, the air was warm and the scenery was quite arresting. Blue sky, blue water – CLEAR blue water. Looking over the rail, it felt like I could see down forever into the deep blue waters.

 

As I moved offshore, I watched the coastline drift by. There is a lot of development going on in the vicinity of San Jose del Cabo as you can see from the picture at the right. From the marina entrance until I rounded the first cape about 10 miles north, there was a steady procession of what appears to be new construction. I hope the Sea of Cortez can withstand the encroachment!

Once past the first cape, there were no other boats within 10 miles or so. I was a good five miles offshore. There were no more buildings lining the beach. Hmmm. Good time to work on my all-over tan. In short order I was motoring along dressed in just hat and sailing shoes. But only for about an hour. The Baja sun is pretty intense – especially on white, gringo skin that rarely sees the light of day. But what a freeing feeling it was for that hour.

The rest of the day was hot and uncomfortable. I was motoring at 5.5 knots and the wind was mostly from behind at about the same speed. That meant that much of the time I was feeling no breezes across the deck. The boredom was relieved briefly in the morning when I spotted what look like waves breaking against a rock directly ahead of me. I altered course to miss that spot – just in case. I was supposed to be in over 400’ of water. I soon realized that what I had seen was a whale surfacing just long enough to breathe and then diving. He/she did it again much closer to the boat. It was done all in one smooth motion – a bit of the head appeared and went back under followed by a LOT of back and finally his flukes came out of the water and disappeared again. He went by maybe 20 feet to port, well submerged. Comparing his length to the boat’s length, I would guess that he was over 20’ long. I saw him repeat the breathing process at about one minute intervals until he disappeared.

It was a welcome change to anchor in the bay at Los Frailes (the friars – priests, that is) and have the full five knot wind coming over the bow as Laelia’s anchor took hold in the sand bottom. Anchored in almost 30 feet of water, I could see the anchor on most of its trip to the bottom. Looking around, I was surrounded by sparkling waves, white sand beach and arid desert landscape. Gorgeous!

Los Frailes appears to be mostly deserted. There were a few houses, widely scattered, and a collection of campers who appeared to be fishermen of the tourist variety. One hailed me as I anchored and wanted to know if I had caught any fish. I’m guessing he hadn’t and was hoping to buy dinner.

After dark, it was dark – really dark. The moon did not rise until much later in the evening. With no man-made lights to compete, the stars put on a spectacular show. I could easily find my old friends – Ursa Major (big bear aka the big dipper), Polaris (the north star), Ursa Minor (little bear/dipper), Orion, Sirius – stealing the show by out shining all others, Betelgeuse and uncountable other. I woke up a few hours before dawn to find Venus low in the eastern sky looking as bright as an oncoming airliner.

After a relaxed breakfast, I got under way - 8:30ish. The leg from Los Frailes to Bahia de Los Muertos (Bay of the Dead) was a full eight hours of motoring with the wind dead behind me at boat speed all day. I put in another hour on my all-over tan in the morning before the sun got too intense, then cooked the rest of the day.

I say another whale – too far off for details and too quickly to get any pictures. Judging by how long it took from the time his head appeared until his flukes waved goodbye, he was a monster.

By the time I reached Bahia de Los Muertos, I was pretty miserable. I couldn’t stand the smell when I got downwind from myself. The logical thing to do was to jump overboard to cool off. Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to get back aboard the boat. The deck is a full three feet above the water and I have no boarding ladder. The next most logical solution was to empty out all the stuff I had been storing in the shower and actually take a shower. Radical concept! But I was desperate enough that it took only about five minutes to prepare the shower. It had been long enough since I used the shower that I forgot which knob was hot water and nearly scalded myself with water that was heated by the engine to just below boiling. Once I got that all straightened out, the shower – complete with shampooing my hair – was an unqualified blessing. The breeze that had been following me at 5 knots all day had risen to closer to 10 knots. Since I was securely anchored, I got the full benefit of all 10 knots.

I seized the opportunity to cut my hair. The 10 knot breeze meant that I could stand at the aft end of the cockpit cutting hair and it all blew overboard. No muss, no fuss. That added to my feeling of having shed a heavy mantle when I showered.

There were several homes and a restaurant on shore as well as a collection of fishermen similar to what I had seen in Los Frailes. There were five other boats anchored nearby. Judging by the total lack of activity on any of them, they must have been ashore – probably enjoying the restaurant. I was too tired to launch the dinghy and row in so, once again, I fixed dinner of canned stuff and crashed shortly after dark.

For the next day, I had the option of 10.5 hours of motoring and getting into La Paz as dusk was falling or settling for a mere 8 hours and anchoring at Puerto Ballandras abou 15 miles short of La Paz. I opted for the latter. Sailing into a strange port with darkness falling is not my idea of fun!

The days’ motoring was tolerable. There was a light breeze from abeam most of the day, moving around toward the bow as the day wore on. If I hadn’t had such a tight schedule and I could afford to sail into the night, I could have sailed for the last few hours.

Puerto Ballandras (at right) is a dent on the western side near the tip of the peninsula containing La Paz. It gave good shelter from the NW wind but there was enough swell that Laelia had fits of violent rolling durng the night. Looking out the next morning, I could see that the other boats were doing the same thing. I felt better. Misery loves company!

It is a curious thing – this phenomena of intermittent violent rolling. I could stand on deck and see no change in the wave pattern but every now and then, Laelia would start a slow oscillation from side to side that got bigger and bigger over a 5 – 10 second interval. The oscillation would build to a climax and then suddenly stop. No tapering off – it just stopped. The boats in the anchorage seemed to take turns doing this. I suspect that the rolling is influenced by boat hull shape, weight and rigging configuration.

I got under way a little before 9 AM, hoping to be tied up in the marina by noon. Fate decreed otherwise. The day did not go well after I cleared the bay. I had plotted out a course using software on my laptop. I downloaded the information to my hand-held GPS receiver. At the second waypoint after leaving Puerto Ballandras, my GPS device was telling me to steer a course that would shortly have me on the beach. Much head scratching and muttered cursing ensued. What I could see trumped what the otherwise infallible electronic device was telling me. After consulting my paper chart, I steered a course to stay a mile or so off the beach. The waypoint that was supposed to put me at the entrance to the channel leading into La Paz harbor appeared to be correct. I steered Laelia to that waypoint and looked for channel markers. Nothing! I kept motoring in what appeared to be the right direction and in short order I was aground. The good news was that the bottom was sand and mud – not rocks. Also, the wind had picked up and was creating little waves that would pick Laelia up far enough that she would move a few inches or a few feet.

Just after I hit bottom, I spotted a channel marker about ½ mile to port. I got Laelia pointed in that direction and kept the engine running at just short of normal cruise power. Over the next two hours, the channel marker drew closer at an excruciatingly slow pace. Finally, some compassionate soul in the marina on the other side of the channel came out in his dinghy to help me get free. I tied one of my jib sheets to my main halyard and he took that long line and motored out directly abeam to starboard and pulled as hard as he could. That made Laelia heel (tip) so her keel was not pointed straight down and she drew less water. After another five minutes of bumping along over the bottom, Laelia was floating free in the vicinity of the channel buoy. My Good Samaritan returned my line, waved goodbye and roared off toward his marina.

It took about 10 minutes to get to the vicinity of Marina de La Paz, My friends Dan and Dee Kent of Rocket Girl were at the marina and had told the marina that I would be there that day and wanted a slip. I motored into what appeared to be the entrance to the marina expecting to see a fuel dock or guest dock where I could tie up and go to the office to register. No such luck! The space inside was cramped and there was no obvious place for a guest to tie up. I backed up frantically until I was in position to go into an unoccupied slip. Several people appeared to help me tie up and informed me that the slip was taken and the owner was expected back soon. I gathered up my paperwork and trotted up to the office hoping to register.

Once in the office, a rather snippy young woman told me in no uncertain terms that I was NOT to do what I had done. I needed to get my boat out of there, anchor outside the marina and come back in my dinghy when they called me on the radio.

I did as I was commanded and anchored across the channel just outside the marina office. I untied the dinghy to be ready to launch when I was summoned, then collapsed into my bunk. It was only a little after noon and I was bushed!

A short time later, I got a call on the radio from Dan Kent. He had been to the office and talked to a different person than I had. She told him that I had been assigned to slip 217 and I could come bring Laelia in. Dan gave careful directions to come through the marina entrance and pass astern of the really good looking boat that was end tied just inside. Unfortunately, he had a different beautiful boat in mind than the one I looked at. I ended up entering a fairway that had a seawall on one side and boats side tied to the dock on the other. It looked doubtful that there was going to be enough room to turn around and because of the wind I couldn’t back up. I would have been pushed against the seawall in short order. Several concerned boat owners appeared on the dock wanting to protect their boats and, incidentally, to help me get turned around and out of there. There was one vacant tiedown. I put Laelia’s bow up against the dock in that tiedown and while the concerned boat owners held onto the bow, Laelia pivoted around her bow  with the wind pushing her stern on around with only inches to spare. The windvane lightly scraped against one of the pilings on the seawall but no damage was apparent.

Once turned around, it was a straight forward exercise to get the hell out of there. I motored past the beautiful boat I had spotted and saw another that I was pretty sure was the one Dan meant. It was. Getting into my slip and tied up was easy – once again aided by helpful, concerned boat owners. In the picture to the right, Laelia is the one with the American flag flying high. Just another marina, but also the end of a hard won leg of this adventure.

It took about half an hour to get registered. Dan and Dee (on the right in the photo) invited me to come on over to Rocket Girl when I was ready. I was presented with a welcoming handshake from Dan, a hug from Dee and a cold beer. Daniel and Heather (on the left in the picture) from Stormy Dawn – new acquaintances of Dan and Dee’s – joined us shortly. We laughed, drank more beer and ate Dee’s delicious chili as darkness fell. Shortly after darkness fell, so did I – right into my bunk. It had been a trying day but one that ended well. I was in La Paz at last.