Baja Norte, Halfway down the Baja Coastline: ¡Yatistas!
“Even the desert
needs rain too,” Clif told me last night while I was starting my shift in the
spitting rain. Adorned in full foul-weather gear, including my insulated
xtra-tuff boots, I couldn’t help but express to Clif that this was not the Baja
experience I had anticipated. Where were the tropical cocktails and the SPF 50?
Instead we have multiple pairs fleece socks dangling from the handrails inside
a damp cabin.
San Diego to Ensenada
My dad, Rich,
joined up in San Diego, a day and a half before our departure, in order to help
provision and ready the boat. It’s a quick 60 miles south to Ensenada from San
Diego Bay, and a necessary stop for all cruisers, or “yatistas,” as we are called in Spanish, to pass through
immigration. We chose to sail and motor over night in order to arrive in
Ensenada in the early morning and have the day to clear customs, which turned
out to be an excellent idea. Around sunset, leaving San Diego, we crossed the US/Mexican
border. We had a small ceremony: raising the Mexican flag while James Taylor
crooned from my computer speakers, “Oooh,
Mexico. Sounds so simple, I just got to go…” Clifton was grinning ear to
ear, and beers all-a-round.
That first night
of motoring down the coast was almost as bright as day. We had a nearly full
moon and the lights of Tijuana sprawled out, never ending. There was not an
unlit section of coastline unti after Ensenada. We arrived at the Port of
Ensenada early in the morning, docking the “Cruiser’s Village Marina.” We greeted
the old dock-hand with a “Buenos Dias. Como está usted?” Exhilarated to be
finally using our Spanish. The marina was incredibly helpful assisted with
every step of the immigration process. The assistance included a private ride
over to the Customs Office, as well as private instruction on paperwork to fill
out and people to pay. The whole process maybe took three hours, tops. Of
course, nothing comes free, and when we arrived back at the Marina after a
lunch in town, we had to pay $50 USD, just for mooring in the harbor for the
day and receiving the customs help.
Ensenada was a
bustling tourista town, not only because of the “Puerto de Capítana” (border
control for all mariners and yatistas),
but also because of the Princess Cruise that rolls in just once a week… and we
happen to arrive on that day. The absolute best part about our day in Ensenada was
getting to see Clif ease back into his fluent Spanish while conversing with
marina employees. Dad and I listened on, thankful to have such an asset on our
journey. It just makes it that much less stressful, and much more fun. Throughout
the days on the boat, Clif has been helping me practice gaining back my
conversational Spanish I had in college. It’s a slow going process, but I have
been surprised at the amount of Spanish I can understand just listening. I’m
looking forward to practicing down in Cabo and La Paz.
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| Clif raising the Mexican Flag! |
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| Awesome sunrise outside our first morning out. |
Ensenada to San Quintín
Leaving Ensenada,
again at night, was a lively sail! We were very much aware that the next fuel
stop wouldn’t be until Turtle Bay, a solid 280 plus down the coast, and valued
the good wind more than usual. The entire night and next day we sailed, turning
only the motor on to skirt our way into the Bahía San Quintín anchorage area at
sunset. It was perfect, not to hot, maybe a little surprisingly cold, but we
didn’t mind because we were sailing downwind, at 5-6 knots for free! We also
had the most magnificent sunrise the morning after we left Ensenada. It very
much invigorated us after a long night of watches. Later in the evening, we
anchored in the large bay San Quintin, making dinner and actually being about
to sit around our dinner table inside the cabin, which I loved. We all got full
nights rest, anticipated the long chunk of open water ahead.
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| Clif and Dad changing the head sail to a larger jib. |
All the
guidebooks suggested making the long crossing from San Quintín to Bahía
Tortugas (Turtle Bay) in one fell swoop. The weather reports looked very
mellow, making us come to terms with the fact that we would probably have to
motor for most of the 180 nautical miles. Leaving San Quintin, we could tell
that there was some weather farther out to sea, but it held off for the entire
day, staying dry, yet the air thick with dark grey clouds.
As Dad went
inside to fall asleep, (Clif already was taking his nap to prepare for his
night shift,) I was outside when the rain came… and boy, did it come down. This
wasn’t an ordinary tropical squall; this was serious, sideways, spitting,
Juneau Fall rain. Yes, somehow all the way down in Baja, we managed to get the
Southeast Alaska rain that we haven’t seen our entire journey.
I was drenched
in an hour, even with the canvas covering the cockpit. The rain managed to
sneak up inside and hit my in the face, no matter what direction the boat was
headed. Clif switched with me, giving me a little reprieve for a couple hours.
“It’ll pass,” Clif repeated through out the night, but when he woke up from a
nap in the morning and peaked his head outside, he saw me, once again, out
braving the elements in every layer of rain gear I could manage.
I hope all those
little desert plans are just living it up right now!! Drink up, because we are
in need for some serious sunshine.
The rain finally
gave way in the mid-afternoon, a couple hours out of Turtle Bay. The clouds
lifted just in time for us to see the spectacular, rugged coastline appear next
to the boat, as if being unveiled by a light, misty gray curtain. The colors of
the desert growing more vivid as the sun broke through out rain clouds: vibrant
reds of volcanic cones, yellows and browns of the sand and rock, and a hint of
sage green from the cacti and succulents along the mountain sides. A baby blue
sky peaked out behind us with a turquoise streak running along the horizon
line.
“Well, was it
worth all the rain?” Clif joked with me, still in my rain gear.
“Yes, I think
so,” smiling as I replied, happy to have land and color back in my sight.
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| Bahia Tortugas, view from our anchorage. |
Marine Life
While there have
been no whale sightings thus far down the Baja, we have seen vast amounts of
dolphins. Pods of dolphins frequent the boat at least once a day. We stole the
idea from another cruising vessel to use our underwater GoPro camera to film
the dolphins below the surface of the bow, which resulted in a fun afternoon of
photography. Using a spare extendable boat hook, we secured the GoPro with
parachute line and duct tape. When the dolphins came to ride the bow wave, I
layed down on my stomach, above the anchor box, and attempted to hold the boat
hook so the camera would sit right below the surface. The result: some cool,
somewhat out-of-focus pictures of our dolphin visitors! What worked even better
than photos was video, of which we got a couple. The video is much more clear,
but needs some editting. Hopefully, when I’m done editting the video, we can
post it on the blog as well. Here are a couple of the good photos from the GoPro of dolphins surfing off our bow...
Never a dull moment…
On our way into
Bahía Tortugas, I was sitting down below, typing away at my blog entry, when I
realized that my socks were starting to get wet. I looked down from the
computer to see a small puddle starting to form above the bilge cover. “Woah,
woah, woah…” I said quickly as I jumped up to switch the automatic bilge pump
on. I yelled to Clif that we had a problem: the bilge was overflowing. Clif and
I quickly switched positions. I drove us into the anchorage area, while Dad and
Clif investigated the problem. We had a bilge pump hose that had developed a
hole. Thankfully, it was an easy fix. We were also thankful to have some green
“Rescue Tape” on board, which made a quick “band-aid” of sorts, allowing us to
pull into our anchorage before attended to the hose.
Bahía Tortuga
This morning, we were fortunate enough to have a nice breeze that picked up from the south, so we sailed the Walker Bay into the beach for cervezas, groceries, fuel, wifi and exploring in the sun. Pretty easy to get used to sitting near the beach, drinking a Pacifico in the Mexican sunshine.
I'm looking forward to becoming more conversational in Spanish, just from the one day in Bahia Tortugas. The thought of getting more fluent is so exciting!!
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| One of the local grocery stores in Bahia Tortugas. |
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| Walking through the muddy roads after the rain. |
Schedule for the rest of Baja Coast jaunt:
- Take off from Bahia Tortugas tomorrow morning early (11/24)
- Bahia Ansuncion (11/24-25)
- Bahia San Juanito (11/25-26)
- Bahia Santa Maria (11/26-27)
- Cabo San Lucas (Arriving in between the 29th-30th)
- Dad leaves out of Cabo on Dec. 2nd
Keep an eye on the tracker. I've been trying to remember to update it every 3-5 hours while we're running and leaving messages every night around 5-5:30 (if you're on the email list). I was lucky to find available wifi here in Bahia Tortugas, but will most likely not have any internet until Cabo San Lucas. I will most definitely write another update from there.
Until then, Hasta luego, amigos!
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| Clif enjoying the Baja steady rain! |
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