We have just sailed in from an extraordinary trip! I kept a daily log on board and it will blow you out of the water!! I am in the process of some wrap up events in Cabo (huge parties). I will be posting the logs a day at a time and let the story unfold. Our boat, crew and fleet were all amazing. There was also a bit of bad news as a boat ran up on the beach. Owner is OK. All in all the trip exceeded all my expectations and they were huge. I can't wait to share this amazing journey down the Baja coast with you all.
Here is the log from Day One:
Rally Start -The day started out dreary and wet. There was was lots of activity around the dock as boats were preparing for a parade and a 1100 rally start. We got off the dock 0945. The parade was just off our bow and the wind was in the low teens with partly cloudy skies. We joined the 170-180 or so boats and headed towards the sea and the starting line. The line is between Pt. Loma Lighthouse and the good ship Profligate. We are just about over the line and we tack with 2 minutes to go before the start. We don't make the tack and have to reset and get some speed. The gun sounds and we are headed north instead of with the fleet heading south. Once we have boat speed again, we tack and are off with the fleet. It's amazing to see this many boats going south. The sun is out and we are making 7 knots over the ground and the wind is holding steady at 14. We head offshore about 5 miles and the wind slowly goes down to about 10 later in the day. We decide to throw on the chute around 4pm and try to increase our speed. Once set, we are doing fine when a herd of dolphins surfaces around the boat. In 5 minutes, I see 150 dolphins. What a thrill! As the sun sets, we hear a report of whales ahead. It's dark now, so we just have to hope we don't encounter any. Just in case we do hit a whale, we sleep feet forward. I am now getting ready to get some rest before my next watch at 2300. More soon....
I was on the midnight watch on my first night time ocean passage. What a thrill it was to come out to the cockpit and have the moon and Jupiter shinning bright in the clear sky. The wind was 15 - 20 on a perfect run down the coast. We have the chute up all night and we were on auto pilot. There are always two of us on deck and my watch mate was Dave on this fine evening. We talked a bit and I spent time starring at Jupiter and thinking about the 63 moons that surround this huge planet. I went off watch at 0300 and went right to sleep for 4 hours. Up at 0700 and the wind is up to 20-22 and we are surfing to almost 13 knots. We are about 15 miles off the coast and not many other boats. After some oatmeal and coffee, we get a huge wrap with the chute on the forestay. We finally sort it out and 45 minutes later we throw her up again. I look behind the boat and a tuna is on the fishing line. We are in the middle of sorting some things out and buy the time I get to the line, he is off the hook. I head down below for some reading and relaxing on day 2!
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