Update from the Ha-Ha

Folks are starting to throw their anchors down on the first planned stop of the Ha Ha. Here is a report from one of the crew on Say Hello World (40' Caliber):

The weather report for this first leg from San Diego to Turtle Bay was for wind. Finally! After motoring this entire Pacific coast, we chose to sail in the forecasted 20 to 25 knots rather than duck into an anchorage like most of the rest of the Baja Ha Ha fleet. Turns out that 20 to 25 knots with an unlimited fetch makes for some spiky seas. We saw pretty consistently 8 to 10 foot swell with a very tight period. Hello World would be just coming down one wave when the next would pick us up. Amongst the 8 to 10 foot swells were a few 12 to 14 foot waves. We saw quite a few that broke behind us. Pucker. Also? Barf.

But we had a great downwind sail - minus all the barfing. In Newport Beach, we finally setup our autopilot to be able to steer to a wind angle instead of just a magnetic heading. This turned out to be a huge boon during this run. We set the sails and autopilot for broad reach and hauled ass down the Baja coast under a reefed main and reefed jib. We made just under hull speed for about 36 hours straight. So this is what sailing is like? Who knew. Over 300 miles on this leg and only 17 hours of motoring.

We are now anchored in Bahia Tortuga surrounded by a crapload of other boats. We haven't gone to shore yet because our dinghy is on deck and we need a halyard to pull it off the deck and drop it in the water. Since our spin halyard is piled at the bottom of the mast, we have to drop a sail to get a halyard down. And right now, we just can't be bothered.

This sailing thing is hard.

27 41.068N 114 53.374W

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