Across the Narrow Sea

I sailed from Vallarta over to La Paz, in Baja.  The beginning of the trip, of course, was exciting, but I don't have any pictures because my hands were wet with salt water and I didn't want to use my camera.  So I shall have to describe it instead.  I had a friend aboard (Jonny), and we left from Punta Mita at Midnight, and motored and sailed up to an island called Maria Cleofa.  Its not a normal stop for folks, but I decided to check if there was a patrol around and discovered there was not.  The swell wasn't big, but I got three nice surf sessions in, and a few really good waves.  It was neat, after the New Years swell, to have another good set of waves.  

After a night there, and a morning of surf, we left at noon, and began sailing west.  The winds were from the Northwest and the north, and we were able to make 7 knots in the northwest direction, close to the mark, for quite a while, but the sea state was building.  As the waves got bigger, we were forced to slow down, to reduce sail, and still we were smashing into the waves with awful (monster truck) force.  It was not good for my psyche.  I couldn't find any sleep during these two days, and sadly my stomach was not happy with it either.  Once the sea state is bigger than 8 ft and we're going upwind, I get a bit unhappy.  I didn't heave, but eventually we changed course to "heave to" for a bit to get some rest.  

So we went from the full main and the big jib to the first reef, then the second reef, then the full ballast tank, then the small jib, then the third reef.  The only thing we could have done more is to take down the small jib (the staysail), and in fact, God took it down for us.  I am actually quite familiar with the process of putting up sails and having God take them down.  In this case, the top of the sail is connected to a "halyard lock" by a length of strong line, but it was rubbing against the halyard lock case, and it parted.  So, I went up the mast (in god-awful seas) to collect the halyard and re-attach the sail and have a staysail again.  The sail went into the ocean and under the boat (of course) and we had to fight a bit to get it aboard again. I'm not exactly sure if I could have done it alone, but I might have tried to change course so it wasn't under the boat...  I'm not sure.

So we got that sail back up and under control, and then just waited for the winds to come down.  

The Northerly winds usually take about a day and a half to get tired, and then its sloppy waves for a little while, but we turned on the motor and drove the boat up about 60 miles to Bahia Frailes, where we saw a bunch of whales and hiked up the hill.

This cactus is the first Cardon cactus I ever saw, when I came down in 2010 with Danny and then dropped him off in Cabo and began moving north.  I stopped in Frailes and did this exact same hike, so I was happy to see this one again.

The other cacti all look so cool with the spikes.

And here's a flycatcher with a fly

And a Red-Tailed Hawk that was circling over us as we climbed.  Look at the sharp hook bill!

This is a canyon wren, I think.

And a big wasp.  Or hornet?  What is the difference?

So after a nice night's sleep, it was very calm and we motored up to Isla Cerralvo and went for a look around.  At this point we were running low on fuel, since Aquila isn't great at motoring long distances, and it was going to be windy and wavy from the north again, so I decided to wait a day at Cerralvo before sailing again.  

We did a bit of a hike around and found these nice blue flowers

And this hummingbird.  

Then we sailed up to Espiritu Santu Island.  We anchored in the Southeast side and went ashore for a hike in the afternoon.  The sandy beaches are so nice!

Aquila out in the shallow waters near Playa Bonanza

We climbed up to the top of a hill, which was very steep, but awesome, and the view was great.  To the south we could see the entire playa Bonanza.

And to the north we could see a lagoon.  This is the spot that I first met Corey, who is the guy I see a lot on a boat in Punta Mita.  Anyway, I'd never seen this lagoon full of water.  I think it must have been filled up by the hurricane, back in October.  

On our way down we found some vultures having a discussion on a cactus.  

The next day we headed up and around Espiritu Santu and then down to La Paz.  The hurricane that came through beat up La Paz a lot and there are a lot of destroyed boats all over.  I had to search for a while to find a spot to put Aquila, but I think I found a good spot finally.  The Safari Voyager was here, having arrived a few hours earlier.  I went over to say hi and now I'm aboard and working.  

So I'll be checking on Aquila on saturdays and doing Uncruise trips up in the gulf of California for the next 6 weeks.