San Jose Del Cabo – Ensenada:
Saturday afternoon we set out from San Jose to find an anchor spot outside Cabo San Lucas. We also found where people are having vacation! It was probably 50 day charter boats out for party with some wildlife watching. Anyway we found a spot and we expected a rolly night but it turned out to be very nice and quiet. Just when we lifted our anchor in the morning a whale on the size as the boat did a roll and showed the tail just two boat lengths away – pretty spectacular!
We went around Cabo San Lucas and Cabo Falso in the morning in headwind between 10 and 18 knots. After clearing the land, the wind has dropped so it has been a ok transport day using the engine. We have seen some turtles, quite big, green with some red on the back of the shell, otherwise, the whales have not showed up more.
In the morning the second day it is thick fog. The sun is up but has not managed to burn the fog away yet. It is a good thing that we unpacked our clothes of wool and the fool weather gear in San Jose Del Cabo because now it is getting colder! We have thought about starting the diesel heater but are still a bit anxious about having fuel enough to get to Turtle bay so we just have to use warm clothes.
We have had some autopilot issues lately and today while running on the backup tillerpilot we picked the drive unit apart. To get to that one we had to empty a room with a lot of gear. Of course, when we had done that the wind changed so that we could have had a couple of good sailing hours. When we first had started the work we had to finish it and by the time the boat was prepared for sailing again the wind was dead on the nose. The good thing is that the main pilot has been working perfectly after this for 2 days!
We got diesel in Turtle Bay. Felt a bit like a rip off, 50% higher price than normal, but we guess they can do that when it is almost 400 miles to the nearest quick fuel station where you don`t have to run around with jerry jugs. Now we have enough fuel to get to Ensenada and use our heater in the night!
We went just east of Isla Cedros and found 1 knot of current going north. We also saw a funny thing with a couple of seals merging in to dolphin groups and playing around with them, jumping in the same way and all. Of course we have never seen this before but haven`t heard about it either. Anyway – a new “juhuu I wanna be like you” animal story, the last one was the bird and flying rays on the Tehuantepec crossing. We are pretty sure that it was not a chase. The seals were bigger than the dolphins, that apart from the size looked a bit like killer whales.. We also saw large whales from a distance south of Cedros and portugeese warships, the sailing jellyfishes which are really poisonous.
Now we are in Ensenada, 14 degrees celcius and some rain. What have we done, a week ago it was warm and dry! Tomorrow we will drive to Mexicali and visit “family” and friends of Maren from when she was exchange student there 20 years ago.
We are very happy to have got past the Baja in a nice and easy way. This was one of the legs we really did not look forward to. Many of the sailors we have met has asked us if we are going to ship the boat, others have laughed about doing it as the normal conditions are 20 kts + from north. In a cruising guide we have it says that it is possible to do this trip but you should definitively not go in May.. We got good advises from Tom Collins who have done the trip 20 times in powerboats since 1980. Sally and Stan Honey also gave us good advises and basically it is – if you get a good weather window, go and do not stop. It may be months in a row without possibilities to do it.
The hunting Pelican!
