We checked out of San Jose Del Cabo, along with Merry Lee, Lost Pearl and Polaris a (Passport 40), we talked at the Port Captains office for a bit.
The captain of the Passport 40, (James) talked about having sailed from Washington, and when they checked with their insurance company when they were in Ensenada got cancelled for leaving without telling the company. Currently they have Liability insurance only, and are looking. They spent a lot of time in Sausalito working on the boat, and at one point he had a medical issue due to not enough water, and got a trip to the ER out of it. In any case they are here and going up into the sea of Cortez. He talked about having to add a bow thruster, and the only one that would fit/work on his boat was a bolt on below the boat (the head is in the way for cutting a hole in the bow and mounting it through the boat). He also talked about having to replace his holding tank. The forward head was originally the only head on the boat, and the tank was poorly designed and no longer functioning, he replaced it and now has a 6 gallon holding tank for that head. The aft head did not have a holding tank and they added one to it, also a 6 gallon tank. All in all not much holding tank capacity. He also had a folding bicycle which appeared to be pretty handy for getting around.
In any case, the four boats left the harbor with the Lost Pearl being the first one out. The other three of us sort of hung together and motored up the coast, there was very little wind, and no particular rush, as where we were all headed was Los Frailies, about 30 miles or 5 hours or so away.
We anchored about 3:30 with about 7 boats here. Polaris elected to sail/motor on through the night. Probably just as well, as the anchorage is pretty full. We found one spot that was about 100 feet in front of Lost Pearl, who was anchored in 30 feet of water and the point that we passed was 100 feet deep. The shelf here is pretty narrow, and the canyon (submarine) is pretty steep.
Renee’ and I went for a swim, air temp is in the high 70’s low 80’s and water temp is warm. Very comfortable to swim, but a bit rougher than we really like. Also, pretty murky, so the snorkeling was not very good. This is too bad, as the snorkeling here is supposed to be pretty impressive. Bummer. Maybe tomorrow?
The hills behind the bay are very green.
Jordan from Kirah (he was parked next to us in the last marina) came over this afternoon and we chatted for about 2 hours. We invited him to stay for dinner, but he was in a kayak and wanted to get back to his boat before dark. He has had a rough trip getting this far. Short story pieces (no details):
- He spent the night in jail in Ensenada
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His engine would not start, had to get pictures of the manual on troubleshooting
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Got 4 miles out of that bay and had kelp wrapped around his prop and had to dive and cut it off (oh yeah, he is sailing by himself)’
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Carried Jerry cans for fuel several miles up the beach until a local gave him a ride (this was with one of the buddy boats he was with)
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There were other things that had gone bad, but those were the highlights.
We are planning spaghetti for dinner, then we will probably play cards then bed. Currently we are thinking about snorkeling about a mile north of where we are, but we are still thinking about it.
Some of the views along the way around Baja California
