Update from the Ha-Ha

Baja Ha Ha Leg 2: from Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria aboard s/v Hello World

This leg was a *much* easier run than the previous leg. Only two nights at sea and the weather has been great. We left Turtle Bay under spinnaker. No - we hadn't fixed the spinnaker halyard. We tried, unsuccessfully, but left the jib piled in a heap on deck and used the jib halyard to hoist the spinnaker. Hello World really hauls ass under spinnaker. In fact, perhaps a bit too much. We let the wind build a bit too high before dousing and had... let's say an exciting douse. Too much wind to put the jib back up so we sailed under mainsail alone for the rest of the evening before starting the engine.

Day 2's big excitement was landing Hello World's first fish! You may recall Christy caught a couple salmon on the west coast of Vancouver Island but both fish shook off the line before we could land them. This beautiful little dorado was not so lucky. We ate very well that day. Thai satay dorado for lunch and teriyaki dorado steaks for dinner. Burp.

At dawn after the second night out, the sun rose behind Mt. San Lazaro in what had to be the most incredible landfall we've made yet. With the rest of the Baja peninsula hidden behind haze, Cabo San Lorenzo towered up like it's own island. It looked and felt like we were sailing into a south Pacific volcanic island. The terrain here is still green after hurricane Jimena blasted the area with rain a month ago.

No sooner did our anchor hit bottom in Bahia Santa Maria than we were shucking off clothes and hucking ourselves into the 80 degree water. Heaven. We anchored next to the ever kooky gang aboard s/v Stepping Stone so we swam over and invited ourselves onboard their great Maple Leaf 42 (hey Scottie and Kelly - we can't seem to escape the Maple Leaf 42's!). The crew of Stepping Stone are great at catching fish and Sarah has worked in a sushi bar for years so we hung out on their boat while they fed us dorado, big eye tuna, and yellowfin tuna in all sorts of ridonculously great concoctions.

Today, we made a shore landing and hiked perhaps not Mt. San Lorenzo itself but one of it's very high cousins. The three of us sweated and grunted and heaved ourselves to the top along with Sarah from s/v Stepping Stone and Kristin from s/v Allymar. We soaked up incredible views of the 170 boats at anchor below us to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Tomorrow we leave at 0600 (I guess that's AM?) for Cabo San Lucas and what should be our last overnight run. I'm sure you'll hear me say this again but it's been so great having Kim on board. Having someone crew that you trust to run the boat safely is such a luxury. Christy and I would be absolutely ragged without her. Thanks, Kim!!!

24 46.680N 112 15.037W