Dear F&F,
January 18
Turtle Bay is a sleepy little port almost half way down the Baja California coast enroute to Cabo San Lucas. It\’s popularity is the fact that it\’s the best \”all weather\” harbor between Ensenada and Magdelena Bay. Circularly shaped, it is truly where the desert meets the sea. About 1000 people live here and there are a few restaurants and one small hotel. The main attraction for cruisers to stop here is for fuel and rest. And in our case, a chance to fix our \”reacher\”. The sail from Isla San
Benitos was a windy one and I got a little lazy and didn\’t secure the sail properly when it was rolled up. A blast of wind unrolled it and put about a 10 foot rip in the leech of the sail (the back part of the triangle). Our friend Jeff on s/v Beatrix told us he had a sewing machine and Cindy and I went to work. First we used a special sail repair material called \”sticky back\” (a polyester dacron) and carefully placed all the ripped areas back in place. We then stitched the sail up with Jeff\’s
machine. The process took the better part of 7 hours, but we were proud of our work & hope to have many opportunities to use this sail in the days ahead.
January 20
After getting some diesel brought to our boat via \”panga\”, (high speed dinghy), we set sail on a beautiful day with s/v Odyssey (Marv & Ardys). The day began with a slow motor down the stark, but beautiful coast line and then we saw our first whales. We lazily motored along with two different groups, the larger of which let us tag along for 1/2 hour or so at about 50-100 yards. After that, the wind came up and we set our repaired reacher and it looked great. The wind went aft and we put up our
spinnaker (colorful front sail for going nearly straight downwind).
The spinnaker was flying and we were enroute to our next planned stop, Bahia Asuncion. Just after we dropped the spinnaker, we changed course and two whales went right under the front of the boat 10-20 feet away! I don\’t know who was more startled, me or the whales. One was clearly swimming upside down as I could see the white coloration of the underside of its body. We soon rounded Isla Asuncion and in a nice big anchorage area set the hook (anchor) for the night. Odyssey soon arrived and we
discussed our plan to proceed to Punta Abrejos/San Ignacio Lagoon for the next day.
January 21
Basically, Beach House became a power boat as there was no wind and we motored the 55 miles to the anchorage at El Medio, just East of Punta Abreojos. Abreojos translates: keep your eyes open. Which we did due to the many shallow, rocky areas as you approach the anchorage. There were also many lobster traps with surface floats that we had to dodge. This spot was recommended by our friend Dan Melnick who was here with his wife a few years earlier. Upon arrival, we anchored next to s/v Ahe Kalii
and s/v Easy Lady. s/v Ahe Kalii had as skipper, Chad Butler who, small world, is good friends with our friends Ty Hokanson and Dave Robertson. Chad informed us that both boats had hired a \”panga\” (local fisherman\’s high speed dinghy) and taken the 45 minute ride into San Ignacio Lagoon. We thought this was too good to miss as all aboard had gotten a chance to \”pet a baby whale\”…..