Mexico here we come!

Sailing into Mexican waters. How’s many years have I dreamed about venturing south of the border to enjoy the warmth, beauty and bounty of the Mexican coast. We were one of 135 +/- boats entered in this years 2019 BajaHaha as we left San Diego harbor amidst all the fanfare with a mariachi band and dignitaries from both Mexico and the US. We motored out of the bay with lights winds that continued to increase thru the day but always manageable. We sailed without motor for 4 hours but finally had to use the engine to stay on schedule. We arrived in Turtle Bay in the early morning and toasted each other with sunrise drinks to celebrate the completion of leg one. 

   Turtle bay welcomed us with fresh food from the few restaurants, laundry service, and a baseball game against the local kids and teens from the area. I was so impressed with the talent some of these kids possessed when it came to playing baseball. I got to play first base for most of the game and had a blast. I did feel a little remorseful when a local teen threw a bullet to me on a ground ball from My wife Gina forcing her out. I could have dropped the ball but didn’t want to disappoint the local teen. We did get laundry done while in Turtle Bay but discovered later I was missing 3 pair of underwear. Seems like we just got into Turtle Bay when we had to depart for leg two to Bahía Santa María. 

   Leg two showed us much more wind with a spinnaker start that continued all the way thru the night  until 4:00 AM when we took a little too much wind and the spinnaker exploded and ended up in the water. We moved onto a poled out Genoa and full mainsail and had a great sail with the Hydrovane steering us all day . Eventually we took a side swell that resulted in a roll that ended up snapping the pole in two. We were having a great race on leg two  and I guess I had reverted back to my racing days of the seventies and eighties and was pushing the envelope a bit too much. I had wanted to score  higher points on this leg by not running the engine so we sailed under main alone after losing the spinnaker pole and were still achieving speeds of 8.5. They say bad thing happen in triplet and the next was a doozy. At 1700 of the second day out the furled Genoa became unwrapped and upon lowering the halyard the sail got blown into the water and swept under the bow of the boat. Instead of trying to turn the bow into the now 8 foot seas I elected to stuff as much of the sail on deck and motor the remaining 15 miles to Bahía Santa Maria. About two hour later the sail got blown off the deck and was sucked up into the prop and rudder instantly killing the motor and fouling the rudder. We were now without any means of steering. To add to the declining situation the radio had stopped transmitting due to low battery power. With few options left I had to fire off a flare and signal SOS with the spot light. We had multiple boats respond and    Volunteered to come give us a tow. After an hour of wallowing in the trough of 8 foot swells the Genoa miraculously washed itself out from the prop and rudder allowing us to sail the 15 miles to BSM. We were in a state of physical and mental exhaustion when we finally set the hook. Our crewman Monty got the motor running after our rest and we moved up into the fleet of anchored boats for the two day rest in BSM. 

   The final leg to Cabo San Lucas was rather uneventful as we motored the entire leg and passed on Cabo and ran to Puerto Los Cabos. After attending the party at Squid Row in Cabo that night we were overjoyed that we didn’t stay in Cabo with all it’s noisy clubs, pushy sales people and all the negatives associated with a tourist trap. We stayed in PLC for 5 days and had a good rest. Monty left us on the 2nd day and ended up spending 32 hours in the airport with a canceled flight while tropical storm Raymond Passed over the region. The PLC area received 12 inches of rain in two days. 

   We are now in La Paz staying at Marina de La Paz awaiting another tropical storm to pass and gathering with friends to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Next stop will be the islands of  Isla Partida for 3 nights and then the crossing of the sea to Mazatlan. Another adventure awaits.