I did get out of the marina in La Paz the day following my
last post. Hopefully, those of you who are interested have been able to follow
Laelia’s path on Facebook and on the tracking page at
I spent two days at anchor getting things stowed in a good
enough fashion that it would be safe to move the boat. The final stowing takes
place when I get to Cabo San Lucas and I have final provisions aboard. I
figured I didn’t have to do a terribly good job of stowing things since the
passage down the Sea of Cortez would be a slow one with not much wind.
Hah!
The part about not much wind was mostly right. The exception
was of interest – as you will see.
I poked away at the job rather half-heartedly. The weather
was being typical La Paz August weather – hot (low 90s) and humid.
Thunderstorms formed in the afternoon but mostly passed by without dropping any
rain.
I ate my meals on deck in whatever shade I could find. The
most interesting part of this was watching the pelicans at work. There were
schools of small fish hanging around in the shade of the boat. The pelicans
would soar overhead until they spotted a target. They would dive and, more
often than not, come up with lunch struggling vainly to escape from the pelican’s
beak.
Part of what made this interesting was the pelicans’ diving
style. Some sea birds that get their food this way are quite graceful about it
and hardly make a splash when they hit the water. Not the pelicans. Their style
could be better described as a controlled crash with wings and legs still
partially deployed. Several times in the two days at anchor in the harbor, they
actually hit the side of the boat as they did the kamikaze routine.
I pulled up the anchor in La Paz Harbor mid-morning, Monday,
7 July 2014. I motored down the channel out of the harbor. When I had some
maneuvering room, I put up sails. Not much wind so I had my lightweight MPG
flying to make the most of the breaths of air.
In short order, the afternoon thunderstorm began to develop –
as shown in this picture. Looks pretty ominous, eh? It hung around over La Paz
for a while building in strength. I was hoping that it would move off to the
south and leave me alone.
Fat chance!
The wind started picking up as the thunderstorm started
decaying an moving my direction. I hastily stowed the MPG. It is only rated for
winds of 10 knots max – about 11 mph. In short order, the wind was gusting in
excess of 20 knots. It caught me with only the main and mizzen set – no jib.
Laelia is not happy with that configuration. She becomes hard to keep on
course. I spent most of the next half hour wrestling with her until the wind
abated and I was able to set my #2 genoa – my second largest jib. For a while, the
wind dropped down to almost nothing - of course.
I had planned to anchor at Puerto Ballandra the first
evening but when I got there, the wind and current were pushing me through Canal
San Lorenzo (San Lorenzo Channel) at a pretty good rate. Since the channel is
known to be difficult when wind and/or current are adverse, I chose to push on.
This committed me to an all night sail to reach Bahia de Los Muertos (Bay of
the Dead – nice inviting name!) I was feeling well rested and eager to get on
with the trip so that was OK.
The next 24 hours were a mixture of nice sailing and frustratingly
little wind. Around noon Tuesday, I was on the other side of the peninsula from
La Paz. I could see the daily thunderstorm starting to build to starboard (to
the right of the boat - see picture). To port was Isla Cerralvo – a largish, barren, island
with a rocky spine reaching over 600 feet in several places. It soaks up the
heat really well, then radiates it back into the air at a high rate – making it
a really good generator of cumulonimbus clouds – thunderheads.
I was mostly watching the storm developing over La Paz. It
looked pretty intense. The clouds over Isla Cerralvo looked pretty and puffy
but weren’t doing much of anything. The thunderhead over La Paz started to
decay dumping lots of water in the form of rain and it appeared to be moving my
direction. I kept a close eye on it for a while until I was pretty sure it wasn’t
going to do anything more than send a little wind in my direction giving me a
nice downwind sail. I set the running pole to hold the corner of big jib out –
making it kind of like the square sail on the old clipper ships.
About the time I got the pole set, there was a huge crash of
thunder from the other direction – from Isla Cerralvo. I hadn’t been paying it
much attention and it had transitioned from developing to decaying in a matter
of minutes. That doesn’t sound particularly exciting unless you are aware that
the decaying stage is the one where the wind, rain, hail, lightning and all the
other phenomena associated with thunderstorms happens. In a matter of minutes,
I was getting gusts of cold wind over 20 knots again along with heavy rain. With
a lot of sail set, Laelia stood up remarkably well to all this but it was hard
to keep her pointed in the right direction. This was becoming important since
the wind was pushing me toward the coast – only about 3 miles off.
Remember the part about stowing things with the expectation
that there would not be much wind? Well, this was where I started hearing
crashing noises from below as Laelia heeled sharply and some of the poorly
stowed items broke loose. I was, of course, too busy to do anything about it.
There were more crashes of thunder – this time from the
direction of the La Paz storm. It wasn’t close enough to be dumping rain on me
but there was a new development in that direction. Looking like something out
of Wizard of Oz, there was a waterspout (tornado over water.) This had me a bit
worried – to say the least. The next five or so minutes were pretty tense as I
tried to figure out which direction the spout was moving and worked at keeping
Laelia pointed as far away from land as possible. Slowly, it became apparent
that the spout either was not moving or it was moving away from me. In another
five minutes, it was gone. Phew!
But the fun wasn’t over yet. The cell with all the wind and
rain passed only to be followed by another – smaller but packing enough wind
and rain to be exciting. It too passed only to be followed by another, still
smaller but exciting cell.
By now, I was soaking wet. At first the rain felt good. I
had been cooking in the heat and humidity for several days with no opportunity
for a shower. But not for long.
Remember that I mentioned that hot air rising off the ground
is what feeds a developing thunderhead. That air goes up and up until it gets
to an altitude where it cools and its moisture condenses into rain. As long as
the thunderhead has a big enough supply of hot air, the moisture and the air
stay trapped in the cloud. Part of what makes a thunderhead make the transition
from developing to decaying is that the situation reaches a point where there
is so much cold air and moisture in the cloud that it collapses. That is why the
rain and wind that come out of a thunderhead are cool – or even cold. If the
air gets cold enough, you get hail mixed with rain. But I digress…
There was enough cool air and rain falling on me that I was
getting chilled. Between cells, I had managed to get the pole down and stowed
out of the way and Laelia was charging along at a blazing 6.5 knots – pretty good
for a sailboat of her size. The good news was that this put me close to my destination
for that evening several hours earlier than I was projecting earlier in the
day.
I made a beeline for Bahia de Los Muertos and anchored. By
the time I dropped the anchor, the wind was all but gone. It was back to being
hot and sticky. Mercifully, there was still some cloud cover until close to
dark.
I got the sails stowed and retreated below to change into
dry clothing. By now, I had been awake for about 36 hours with only a couple of
15 minute naps. I was both tired and wired. I pulled out my old friend Captain
Morgan (rum) and indulged myself in a hefty shot. In a matter of minutes, I was
out cold.
I slept for a little over two hours and awoke feeling
confused and loggy. Gradually, it all came back to me and I realized that I was
also very hungry. I treated myself to spaghetti and wine and went back to
sleep.
When I decided to sail through the night, I also decided
that I would spend a day resting to catch up. So, Wednesday was catching up
day. I slept much of the day. I woke up several times for an hour or so,
wandered around straightening up the mess I had left on deck and in the galley
before going back to sleep. Nothing that broke loose during all the wind had
broken or caused problems – much to my amazement.
For dinner, I was treated to another gorgeous Baja sunset.
Thursday, 10 July, I was awakened a little after 6 AM by the
roar of departing fishermen in their pangas – open boats about 15’ long and
usually powered by a BIG outboard. Some of them seemed to make a point of passing
close enough to Laelia to make her rock pretty good. It did prompt me to get
up, fixe breakfast and get under way again.
The next destination was Bahia los Frailes - Bay of the
Friars. (I had stopped there on the way north and looked in vain for a KFC
stand before I consulted my cruising guide and found that the Friars were
Catholic priests, not chickens. ) Once again, the plan was to stop if that’s
where I was when it was close to time to quit that evening.
By evening, I wasn’t even close. Winds ranged from
non-existent to light. Progress was agonizingly slow. Before I started out from
La Paz, I had decided that I would not use the engine unless I really needed to
– like when I was entering or leaving a harbor. Laelia is, after all, a
SAILboat. I thought it would be interesting to just take what came in the way
of wind. I gotta tell you, it is a character building experience! Parts of it
were idyllic – light breeze, very little wave action, blue water, blue skies,
etc, etc. Interspersed with these
intervals were the ones where there was not enough wind to keep Laelia
pointed in the right direction. Several time, I drifted in circles for an hour
or more.
Night fell. The idyllic stretches were reinforced by the
almost full Super Moon. The moon was at one of its closest approaches to Earth
and looked even larger than usual. Several times, during the no wind portions
of the night, I set my timer and slept for 30 minutes at a time. It isn’t much
but it is enough to keep me going for a while.
Friday morning, I reached the point where I would turn to
enter Bahia los Frailes well after sunrise. There was a good breeze blowing and
I was not feeling all that bad about the loss of sleep. I elected to keep going
with the idea of continuing on to San Jose del Cabo or, if things went really,
really well, on to Cabo San Lucas.
The wind held until early afternoon. Even though this
particular day had been relatively pleasant, it was still hot and sticky. With
the boat moving well, the wind vane was doing most of the work and I could move
around the boat into the shade – if and when it existed.
Even with the steady breeze, by noon it was apparent that I
wouldn’t make it to Cabo San Lucas unless I was willing to sail until after
dark. On the other hand, I could make it to San Jose del Cabo before the marina
office closed. I could get a key to the shower room and wash away a week’s
worth of sweat and grime. Then came a lull in the wind, I realized that if I
didn’t keep my speed up, I wouldn’t get to San Jose del Cabo before the marina
office closed – and I had set my heart on a long, cool shower and some sleep. I
hadn’t had a shower since the previous Thursday in La Paz. I was doing my very
best to stay upwind of myself at all times!
I gave in and started the engine. I motored for the next two
hours, reaching San Jose del Cabo just as the office was closing. I had called
ahead on the VHF radio to make sure there was a berth available. They assured
me that there was, told me the slip number and said there would be someone
waiting to help me dock. I had been to this marina on my way north in March but
it is always nice to have someone ready to take a line to help with the
docking.
When I motored through the channel into the marina, I heard
someone whistle and spotted a man waving from the dock I was expecting to use.
He helped me get tied up and informed me that the office was closing and I
could register in the morning.
“Can I get a key to the shower house,” I enquired hopefully,
my heart sinking at the prospect of having to stay hot, sticky and stinky for
another night.
“No problem,” I was told. In fact, my assistant gave me a
ride to the shower house and opened it for me so I could start my shower while
he went to the office and got the key. He took my passport as hostage to make
sure I would come register rather than leave with the key and without paying.
The shower was heavenly! I stood under it for probably 20
minutes just letting the cool water drop my internal temperature by what felt
like 20 degrees. During that time, the assistant returned with my key and
passed it over the top of the shower stall door.
I say shower stall but that doesn’t really do it justice.
This marina is part of an upscale development that caters to people with a lot
more money than I have. I could afford it only by taking a slip with no water
or power. The shower building appears to be fairly new. The interior is all
tiled with those large, elegant tiles that are so popular in Mexico. It was
clean and in excellent condition. The only anomaly was that there was no hot
water. Not that I wanted it to be hot – or even warm - but I had followed my
usual procedure of turning on the hot water first, waiting for it to get hot
then adjusting it to the desired temperature. I hadn’t waited for more than a
few seconds before stepping into the wonderfully cool water but I was ready to
make adjustments, as needed. “Hot” never happened. Even "Warm" didn't happen.
Walking back to the boat, I made a detour to a nearby
convenience store where I picked up a can of Tecate beer and a medium sized
Gatorade. Back at the boat, I sat in a patch of shade and drained them both –
quickly. It felt good to let the light breeze cool me as I relaxed.
However, the situation was not all wonderful. Not only had
Laelia been in the sun soaking up heat all day but also I had been running the
engine for two hours. The engine puts out a lot of heat – some of which works
its way into the main cabin. To say that it was stuffy was understatement. It
was miserable. I felt like I was suffocating if I spent more than a couple of
minutes below.
This makes it an agonizing experience to cook dinner. I did
it by making quick sorties below to do something simple like put water in a
pan, put it on the stove and light the stove. Then I would make a beeline for
the cockpit where it was still hot but at least there was a bit of breeze.
Night came. It was time to go to bed but there was no
question of using the bed. Thirty seconds of lying in the bunk had streams of
sweat running down my arms. I laid out the flotation cushions in the cockpit
and did my best to sleep there. There were a few problems. 1) It was still hot enough
that I was sweating. 2) Across the adjacent road, there was a night spot of
some description that played loud music until well after 2 AM. 3) MOSQUITOS. By
morning, my legs and arms looked like I had a developing case of measles. Just
as annoying was that some of them chose to buzz around my ears. It is hard –
maybe impossible – to ignore the buzzing of a mosquito close to my ears. I was
kept busy trying to swat the little pests.
Still, I did manage to sleep for a couple of hours at a
time. Around 2 AM, I awoke feeling particularly miserable. I tried retreating
to the cabin. It was almost bearable – but not quite. I headed back to the
shower house for another shower thinking that it would feel good to cool off
and hoping that I could wash away any scent from my shampoo that might be
attracting the mosquitoes. I did feel cooler – and it seemed to reduce the
number of blood suckers that came after me.
I slept briefly, awoke and tried my bunk again. It was just
barely bearable. I read for a few minutes, then fell sound asleep until a
little after 9 AM. I awoke feeling like I had oatmeal running through my veins.
I could hardly put two thoughts together in a reasonable sequence. I did
remember that I was supposed to be at the office shortly after they opened at 9
AM so I pulled myself together well enough to start walking in that direction.
It is about a mile to the office. My slip is on the opposite
side of the yacht basin from the office. The picture to the right was taken from in front of the marina office. Laelia is just out of sight to the right on the far side of the harbor. As you can see, I have to walk some distance around
the perimeter rather than going in a straight line. One of the women in the
office took a look at me and hastily offered me a bottle of water – which I
gratefully accepted.
The paperwork was not too terribly involved. In what may
have been 20 minutes, I was out of the office and wondering what to do next. On
the way into the office, I had noticed that there was a small outdoor
restaurant and bar next door. One of the things I was given during my
registration was a 20% discount card for several of the businesses in the
marina – including the restaurant. Since the thought of going back to the boat
and lighting the stove was close to unthinkable, I took the easy way out and
had breakfast at the restaurant. The food was good. The prices were comparable
to US prices. I left there feeling much better and actually ready to start
doing some work.
On the way back to the boat, I decided on a strategy for keeping
my energy and morale up. I would work for a while, then take a shower and a
rest. Repeat as needed all day.
It worked. To make life somewhat more bearable,, I pulled
out my scruffy cockpit awning and put it up. That created a small patch of
shade in the cockpit – a major benefit, I hoped. My first task was to pull out
the mainsail that had failed me so treacherously on the way here. I cut off all
of the reusable hardware, bundled up the ripped sailcloth and deposited it in a
trash can at the end of the dock. I kept going past the trash can to the
shower. The shade awning was a great idea but I had to do most of the work with
the sail spread out on the dock. I was - of course – hot, sticky and ready for
a shower. As an additional refinement to the process, I rinsed my tee shirt and
underwear in the shower and put them on still wet to help me stay cool.
Back to the boat. I pulled out the mizzen sail and repeated
the process. It was now a little after two in the afternoon. On the way back from
the shower, I detoured to the convenience store again for another beer and
Gatorade boost. I drank and I rested.
There wasn’t much I could salvage from the old jib. It has a
bunch of expensive looking bronze piston hanks on it that I had hoped to
salvage. Unfortunately, they are single use items. When they are installed,
they are bent to fit around the edge of the sail. When I tried to straighten
out the bend, they broke. That greatly simplified the salvage work. All I could
salvage were some stainless steel rings and the tack pendant.
By now, it was dinner time. Still in the spirit of keeping
up my strength and morale, I took myself out to dinner at the marina restaurant
again. It was a delightful experience. I had a table overlooking the harbor.
There was a light breeze and great scenery – and some entertainment. Not too
far from where I sat, there was a large yacht - pictured at left. Lying on the bow, enjoying the
sunset was a youngish looking couple (as far as I could tell.) Every now and
then, the young woman would stand up and wiggle her hips at the man or wave her
skirt around. Sounds like a Playboy bachelor’s dream. On the other hand, they
may have been a married couple who still enjoy each other. I’ve known it to happen.
On the way back to the boat, I was struck by a statue created
by Leonora Carrington – an English born woman who spent most of her artistic
career in Mexico. She is described as a surrealist – a title she didn’t much
care for. You may judge for yourself. See photo to the right. I would be very
interested in hearing what this statue represents to you. The cross in the
background is on a hill a mile or so away and just happened to be in the right
place at the right time to strike my sense of whimsy.
So that’s it for now. I expect to stay here tomorrow
(Sunday) to continue cleaning up and stowing for the broad Pacific. Monday I
will move on to Cabo San Lucas. There, I will do some last minute shopping and
check out with the Mexican government. It seems strange to have to get
permission to exit the country. Not only that but when a foreign yachtsman
moves from one port to another in Mexico, he/she has to report to the port
captain. It makes me extra appreciative of the freedom we enjoy in the USA.
If all goes well (there’s that famous phrase again), I
should be on my way back to Alameda, CA, on Tuesday – Wednesday at the latest.
I hope to have one more blog update before I cast off. If not, you can find out
where I am. See the comments at the start of this posting.
By the way - as I was composing all this, the mosquitoes were swarming again. It finally occurred to me to put on long pants and a lightweight, long sleeved shirt. It is warmer than I would like but it is preferable to being eaten alive!
