sailing to Baja

On Friday 29th April, day of the Royal wedding, David and I sat sail on Aquarius, as we still call her, and sat our course for Baja, the Californian Peninsula, 250 miles away. We were very excited and the boat did very well.

The winds were gentle till we reached the Baja coast after two days and nights sailing when we suddenly had a Northwesterly force 5 on the nose. We were struggling and 'wilting' but fortunately David found a safe heaven, Los Muertos, with excellent shelter in a northerly wind.

We couldn't get off the boat for two days due to high wind and sea, but lighted the anchor next day as the wind had abated and veered. We sailed all day up through Channel Cerrolvo. When the sun was setting in the evening, the wind died and the sea was totally glassy calm. The engine was on, and in Channel de Lorenzo, three miles from the anchorage, the engine died on us just as we had taken in the main sail. What a classic mistake!

No way could we start the engine again. Fortunately the dinghy was hanging in the davits above the stern. We lounged it and David tugged the yacht safely all the way in to the anchorage. I was alone on the boat steering, navigating, using the autohelm, working the GPS and increasing the lights so that I could read the instruments, and eventually putting down the anchor. This was a total learning curve to me. The boat was new and David had been doing all of these till now, and he was in the dinghy, happy as a sandboy unable to hear me. I can tell you my adrenalin was flowing!

However, all went well and the next few days we did some good sailing and beautiful anchorages with glassy turquoise water.

We made shore expeditions a few times to find barren shores and dessert.

We did some snorkeling and saw a lot of different fish. Out in the sea we saw both whales and lots of dolphins. At the most northern of the three islands we visited we saw and heard sea-lion.