Month: May 2019

After the Bash (2019-05-05 – 2019-05-15)

We are now Baja Bash veterans. Wow!

On the one hand, this was the most adventurous and dangerous thing either one of us has ever done. We were dozens of miles from other people, hundreds of miles from a marina or boat yard, and sailing into high winds and high seas, the bow crashing into the waves.

On the other hand, although there was definitely some bashing involved, it really wasn’t so bad. And while we occasionally felt uncomfortable and occasionally felt seasick, we never felt out of control or like we or the boat couldn’t handle it.

How does this square with the reputation of the Bash? I think it, like many things in cruising, has to do entirely with preparation:

1: Experience on the water. At one point, while we were bouncing up and down in some of the steeper waves, Suzana pointed out that if we’d done this when we first started sailing, she’d be curled up in a ball in the corner. As it was, we’d been through seas just as rough in the past, and had a lot of hours in varied marine situations.

2: The right boat. We picked an Island Packet boat because they’re cruising boats, designed to handle rough seas. And we now have enough experience with our Island Packet that we trust her to handle nearly anything that gets thrown at her. Confidence in the boat lets you relax and enjoy the ride.

3: The right weather window. We ran into more than one person who left to do the Bash ahead of us, who had done it before, and who said, “Forget waiting for the right weather. It’s gonna be miserable no matter what. So just go.” We totally disagree with that attitude. We didn’t wait for perfect weather, but we did wait for reasonable weather; what we called when we left, “not terrible.”

4: Buddy boats. We went with two other boats, Ginger and Blossom, who more or less stuck together — not always along the way, but at least at the stopping points. It meant we had someone to turn to if things went wrong. Nothing did go wrong with our boat, but we did loan Blossom a couple jerry cans of diesel, which they actually needed in the end. And the other buddy boat benefit was having someone to talk to on the VHF during the long, lonely, dark watches. Here are the crews of the other two boats (each had an owner and two temporary crew):

(We were envious of the other boats on two counts: 1) having three crew makes for a much more relaxed watch schedule; and 2) one of the crew on Ginger, Brad, was a professional chef, who seemed to be constantly cooking something tasty (he used to own a restaurant in New Orleans).)

And here’s the blow by blow (pun intended):

We started off in San Jose del Cabo. We topped off the fuel tanks, provisioned for three weeks (just in case we got stuck due to weather along the way), and watched the weather. Before this, the weather projections had been “not terrible,” and that continued. But when it looked like the future was going to become “terrible,” we (and our buddies) decided to head out rather than facing a potential long wait for “perfect” weather.

After a calm stretch along the coast between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, we rounded Cabo Falso, reported to have reliably high winds and rough seas. And it did not disappoint. Winds were 25 knots, gusting to 30, plus plenty of waves bashing the carp out of us, which meant our speed slowed from our usual 5-6 knots to more like 3. So this is what bashing is all about.

We had been told that it takes around 5-6 hours to bash through the higher winds at Falso, then things calm down. For us, it was more like 3-4 hours. After that, it was bouncy but, as expected, “not terrible.” It might even have been a fun ride, except for two things: Suzana had a touch of seasickness (though not as severe as on some past occasions); and the bouncing kept on going for the next two nights — rollercoasters are fun, but not when they keep going for days.

But two days later, we made it to Bahia Santa Maria. We had been there before, when we came down with the Ha-ha, but with the Ha-ha, there had been nearly 150 boats; this time there were just us three and two others. And it’s a big bay.

We had planned on one day there to recover, but one of our buddy boats needed to refuel, which takes time: there is no town there, so they had to arrange for someone to take their jerry cans cross-country to the nearest gas station and return them, a 24 hour operation. Hence, we stayed an extra day.

Meanwhile, Suzana joined them for lobster dinner (a first for Suzana):

And the next day, got a panga ride to the beach:

To go for a hike to the top of the nearest hill (those dots in the bay are the boats):

I stayed on the boat, needing more recovery time than Suzana, and having a couple boat projects to attend to.

Then it was off on the next leg, from Bahia Santa Maria to Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay). For this leg, the weather decided to give us a break. The water was mirror calm. No bouncing up and down. No 25 knot wind in the face. Just pleasant motoring all day. Plus turtles and dolphins. We could have done it for weeks.

Unlike Santa Maria, Turtle Bay has a town, restaurants, and a grocery store. We were looking forward to a day or two to relax there. Unfortunately, the weather was again threatening to become “terrible,” and the other boats decided, rather than risk getting stuck in Turtle Bay, to head out immediately, stopping only long enough to refuel and reprovision.

Turtle Bay has a refueling service that comes to the boat. While we still had a half full tank, and would probably have made it all the way on that, we opted to add another 40 gallons to be safe. The refueling service has a somewhat shady reputation for overcharging and misreporting fuel quantities. But everything seemed fine for us. As far as we could tell, we got as much fuel as we asked for, and though expensive as fuel goes, the extra trouble of getting the fuel out to the boat seemed to justified the cost.

So off we headed, trailing a bit behind the other boats, who were more efficient getting ready to go.

The last leg was the longest, about 300 miles, requiring three nights. Given how briefly we stopped at Turtle Bay, this made for an effective five nights, six days at sea. This was the longest passage we’ve ever done, and good practice for our possible South Pacific passage next year, which will be longer but calmer.

The weather was kicking up again, varying from around 15 knots apparent to 25 knots. It was not as rough as Cabo Falso, but certainly made cooking a challenge.

We had been warned to watch out for fishing boats around Santo Tomas, and, sure enough, we ran into a string of four of them, all in the middle of the night. And they don’t do AIS, so we used radar and their lights to track them.

The first one passed without incident during Suzana’s watch. The second, just as I came on watch, seemed to be changing direction, leading to enough confusion that we had a near collision. Both boats having to turn to avoid it.

So when the third one approached, I made a point of turning 50 degrees to starboard to ensure no possibility of another close call. And he turned to follow me! But I had made the turn sharp enough that he passed at some distance anyway.

The fourth one passed without any similar interactions, but once it was a mile behind us, it stopped, then turned toward us and headed up behind us. But slowly enough that it didn’t get near.

All of which was pretty strange. I have three theories: 1) fishing boats get bored during the long night out, so they find it amusing to mess with the sailboats that come by; 2) everyone involved was a little blurry eyed and not using their best judgement; or 3) I’m still learning how to read the radar and got it all wrong. I give each of those an equal probability of being right.

Early the next morning, we reached our destination of Ensenada. We’re now at the Cruiseport Marina, which we graciously share with the big cruise ships. We’ll stay here and explore Ensenada for a month or so, then head up to San Diego, where we’ll stay for the rest of the summer.

Statistics for the passage:

  • Total days: 10
  • Time at sea: 148 hours
  • Time sailing (as opposed to motor-sailing): 4 hours
  • Nautical miles travelled: 691
  • Average speed: 4.7 knots
  • Highest speed: 6.7 knots
  • Fuel used: 130 gallons
  • MPG: 5.3nm/gal
  • Gallons/hour: 0.9
  • Tank (washing) water used: 130 gallons
  • Bottled (drinking) water used: 5 gallons
  • Highest apparent wind: 32 knots

As to the Bash, our feeling is that it’s one of those things that can be very bad, even life threatening, if you’re not ready for it. Things can go wrong, and if they do, they can go very wrong. But if you’re prepared and do it right, it’s not so big a deal. Of course, the stories everyone tells are about the times it doesn’t go right and the people involved aren’t prepared.

Before the Bash

Some of you have seen me refer to the “dreaded Baja Bash,” and wondered what I meant. Some of you have done the Bash and don’t dread it at all. Time to explain.

Sailing down the outside coast of the Baja peninsula is fairly easy, as it goes with the wind. It’s so easy that the annual rally of 150 or so boats doing it is called the Baja Ha-ha. We did that one last Fall.

Sailing up the coast generally goes against the wind, often against the ocean waves, and is usually much, much harder. Hence, people call it the Baja Bash. That’s what we’re about to do.

We’re doing the Bash for two main reasons: 1) We want to stay on the boat this Summer, but don’t want to cope with the 90+ degree heat here in Mexico — no air conditioning on the boat… 2) It’s a great shakedown trip for us and the boat — after all, we may be going across the Pacific next year, and may run into much worse.

The Bash is one of those sailing things that everyone has opinions about, whether they’ve done it, plan to do it, or wouldn’t ever want to do it. Those opinions cover a wide range of options: “Wait for a weather window.” “Wait until July.” “Don’t go if the wind is orange.” (Makes more sense if you’re looking at a weather app that color codes the wind speeds.) “Hug the coast.” “Get well away from the coast.” “Go 400-500 miles out from the coast.” “Eat ginger.” “Just do it!”

We’re heading out tomorrow in a weather window best described as “not terrible.” But later in the week, things get genuinely terrible (26 knots wind, 10′ waves at 6 seconds, for those of you who know what terrible means). So if we don’t go now, we may not go this month. We expect things to be difficult, we expect the boat to go slower than usual (fighting the wind and waves), but we expect to get to the next anchorage (Bahia Santa Maria) within a couple days.

Why are we willing to do this crazy thing? 1) We trust the boat. She’s proved herself before in rough conditions, and we believe in her. 2) We trust ourselves. We’ve done enough passages to know that we always get there in the end. 3) We’ve done our homework, reading about the Bash and preparing for contingencies*. And 4) We’ve arranged with two other boats to head up at the same time (roughly), so we’ll have others to call for help, or at least for commiseration.

The tentative plan is to stop in Bahia Santa Maria and Turtle Bay, just as we did on the way down. But weather and sea conditions (and more) will dictate what we actually do, and whether we make additional stops along the way. The final destination, though, is Ensenada, getting there in something between ten days and three weeks. If you’d like to follow us on the journey in detail, click here.

So, this blog entry is the “before the Bash” post. I’ll do another one after we’re safely in Ensenada. It will be interesting to see if my perspective changes.

(*) Re contingencies: Yesterday, we discovered that our emergency manual bilge pump was not working. This is something you really, really want if you’re doing something like the Bash. We had visions of trying to find parts for it locally, where there are few chandleries, and poor availability of parts. This morning, we took it apart, expecting an unrepairable mess within. Instead, we found just gunk that was wedging an important internal mechanism open. We cleared the gunk, reassembled the pump, and now everything is working 100%. We were very proud of ourselves.