Boat Plans Skiff | La Paz to San Jose

Boat Plans Skiff

Fishermen head out at dawn from Los Muertos.

We planned to leave La Paz around June 6th but circumstances got in the way. The exhaust mixing elbow on the engine was showing signs of corrosion so I removed it for an inspection and, sure enough, it had deteriorated to the point where it could have started leaking salt water onto the engine.

Made of stainless steel, the elbow injects seawater from the heat exchanger into the exhaust, which is why water comes out of the exhaust pipe of your engine. The water is injected through the small tube and mixes with the exhaust gas in the larger tube. Photo credit: Marine Power Ltd.

I did not have an elbow among my spare parts so the only option was to repair the old one by welding up the areas where corrosion threatened the integrity of the part. It took about ten days to get it back from the welder, but when it was finished it was as good as new. While waiting for the elbow to be repaired another yacht transport ship arrived and Rob Cross and I delivered two more boats to be hoisted on deck and shipped to Canada.

The Tiberborgs deck was already half full of boats when it arrived from Panama. In La Paz eight more boats were loaded. Its becoming more popular to ship boats to Canada instead of bashing roughly 2,000 nautical miles up the coast, or sailing the clipper route.

Notice the diver in the water. His job was to position the slings under the boat. The last time we loaded a boat on a ship, there were two divers with SCUBA tanks. This fellow just had a mask and fins, yet he worked faster than the first two guys.

The Tiberborgs slings were lengthened to accommodate this 45 catamaran. I was told that the cost to ship a 35 foot monohull to Chemainus, BC is around $12,000. That might sound expensive, but if you factor in wear and tear on boat and crew, provisions, fuel, etc. for sailing there, its pretty reasonable. Chemainus is located on Vancouver Island, about 50 miles north of the city of Victoria.

By the time the elbow project was done, hurricane Blanca was bearing down on the Baja Peninsula. At this time of year hurricanes usually fizzle out or head out to sea before they reach Baja, so I wasnt concerned about Blanca. The folks that experienced last years hurricane Odile were pretty worked up about it though. So throughout the harbor, people were taking down canvas biminis and awnings, securing dinghies and lashing down anything that looked like it might fly away in a wind. I didnt get concerned until I saw the local restaurants being stripped of sun covers and awnings. So we secured Finisterra for storm conditions, doubled up our dock lines and made plans for a hurricane party the night before Blanca was scheduled to hit La Paz.

Storm track for Blanca. In the last 24 hours before it arrived in La Paz it was downgraded to a tropical storm. Intrepid mariners that we are, we refused to cancel the hurricane party in spite of the downgrade.

Cinnabarbarians
Sylvia & Tom of S/V Cinnabar enjoying fresh blackened yellowtail at the hurricane party.

Saturday, June 6th, the weather was hot and still, with humidity hovering at about 80%. Sunday afternoon the wind began to blow out of the east, rising to about 20 knots.  By that night we were seeing a few gusts to 30 knots. The predawn hours of Monday brought the heaviest winds, with gusts up to 47 knots. We expected heavy rain but, surprisingly, none fell. Instead the air was full of fine dust and by the end of the storm Finisterra was covered with a thick coat of Baja real estate. Monday afternoon the storm left town and we surveyed the damage around the waterfront. In the marina there was little to report except a blown out window in a restaurant and one of the dock cleats that Finisterra was tied to came adrift. Closer to La Paz, a couple of boats broke free from their anchors and at least one fetched up on the beach on the Mogote Peninsula. Once the wind abated we got busy and washed the grime off the boat and made final preparations to head for San Jose del Cabo, about 150 miles to the south, our jumping off point for the trip up the peninsula to California. We departed on Tuesday morning, June 9th.

Our first stop was Puerto Balandra (again!) where we planned to do some snorkeling. The night before we left we went out for dinner with friends, and I picked up a mild case of food poisoning. So instead of swimming, I spent the day recovering. The next day I was feeling better and we left Balandra, bound for Ensenada de Los Muertos (Bay of the Dead). Over the last few years the local hotel operator there has been struggling to get the name of the place changed to Bahia de Los Suenos (Bay of Dreams) and I think the new name is beginning to stick.

We arrived a little before sunset on June 10th. The water was clear enough that I could see the anchor hit the sandy bottom 22 feet below the surface. For the next two days we snorkeled among the extensive coral beds on the southwest side of the bay, marveling at the variety and colors of sea life there.

Los Muertos is a beautiful bay with a rocky point to the northeast and a long sandy beach. You can just make out the coral beds in the southwest corner of this shot. Conditions here were perfect for snorkeling, with hot temperatures and plenty of sun. When we tired of snorkeling we hiked the short distance up to the Hotel del Suenos and sipped margaritas and swam in the pool.

On June 12th Finisterra departed Los Muertos at 0300,  and motored in calm wind and flat seas to the marina in San Jose del Cabo where we are making final preparations for the next leg of our journey.

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Boat Plans And Patterns | Waiting for a Window

Boat Plans And Patterns

We arrived at Puerto Los Cabos Marina a couple of hours before sunset on June 12th and were assigned to our old berth at the end of gangway L. The daytime temperatures here have been hovering in the high eighties, with light southerly winds and intense tropical sunshine every day. The humidity index has also been in the eighty percent range which makes life aboard a bit sticky and sweaty. So I broke out the air conditioner which brought the temperature and humidity inside the boat down to 78 degrees and 50% humidity. The air conditioner is a little 5,000 BTU window unit that fits neatly in the companionway, and stores in the starboard cockpit locker when not in use. It has made life bearable here while we wait.

The only problem with the air conditioner is that it makes you want to stay inside the boat from about noon to dusk.

San Jose is rapidly turning from a town to a city. In 2010 the town had a population of approximately 70,000. Combined with the tourist mecca of Cabo San Lucas a few miles down the road, this area hosted over 900,000 hotel guests in 2011. I remember visiting here in the 1970s when San Jose was a little town that no one went to and Cabo was just becoming popular as a sportfishing destination.

Marina Puerto Los Cabos. 

Heres something for the history buffs out there. Back in 1847, during the Mexican American War, a force of 24 American marines and sailors landed with a 9 pounder carronade and took up a position in the old mission San Jose. There, with a reinforcement of twelve men from California, they fought off an assault by a Mexican force under the orders of one Capitan Pineda Munoz. A couple of months later a larger Mexican force returned and laid siege to the American outpost. The seige lasted about a month and was finally lifted when a strong American naval force arrived. Nowadays we dont remember much about our 19th century conflicts, except for the Civil War, and a bit about the War of 1812. At least Ive never seen anyone doing a Mexican American War reenactment.

9 Pounder Carronade. It fired a 4" diameter cannonball. As far as I can determine, this is a British gun dating form the early 1800s, but its probably fairly similar to the one used at San Jose.  Photo courtesy of Gunstar.co.uk

As you can tell, weve had some time on our hands while we wait for that weather window to open, but its been fun meeting new and interesting fellow cruisers. A couple of days after we arrived the pretty little Eastward Ho 24, named Molly, with Eric and Christine aboard tied up on our gangway. They sailed Molly down from Portland, Oregon and spent the season cruising in the Sea of Cortez. They left San Jose on Tuesday, June 16th, bound for Mag Bay, where we hope to catch up with them in a few days.

The Eastward Ho was designed by the venerable Walter McInnis and is a pretty salty seagoing vessel.

The weather forecast is for light southerly breezes for the next few days, so we will head out early tomorrow morning for Mag Bay.

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Boat Plans Bartender | Homeward Bound Bahia Santa Maria to Ensenada

Boat Plans Bartender

Finisterra remained in Bahia Santa Maria all day waiting for more favorable winds, and by 2200 the strong northwesterly had died down to about ten knots. We got the anchor up and slipped out of the bay at 2330 under a beautiful gibbous moon and rounded the south-facing Punta Hughes around midnight. From there we headed northwest toward Turtle Bay, about 225 miles up the coast. We headed offshore a couple of extra miles as we passed Cabo San Lazaro, giving it plenty of room. The last time we passed this way, in 2011, we watched a large sailing yacht that had strayed too close break up after it was stranded on the rocks there.

Once past San Lazaro, its a straight line to Turtle Bay and we motored comfortably into the northwesterly wind and swell, which remained mild until the next morning. By 1000 we were punching into a fifteen knot headwind and a short, steep swell. Fifteen knots of wind on the nose translates to 20 knots of apparent wind, which is enough to send spray flying across the deck. These conditions stayed with us well into the night, then eased around midnight. The next morning we were greeted with the same lumpy conditions, which finally eased about ten miles out of Turtle Bay.

Finisterras route to Turtle Bay. Notorious Cabo San Lazaro is the point just north of Bahia Santa Maria

We made the entrance to the bay at midday and were tied up to the fuel dock at 1245. We took on about sixty gallons of fuel and checked the weather forecast. It looked good for us to continue north, so we headed out again at 1330. From Turtle Bay, we could go inside Cedros Island, which is roughly the size of Catalina Island,or head further out to sea and pass to the west of it.  We chose the westerly route and headed well out to sea, passing to the west of Cedros and its neighboring islands of Natividad and San Benito. This turned out to be a good decision because that night we passed well to the west of a very large fishing operation instead of threading our way through it. We could see the bright lights of a dozen or so large fishing boats and many smaller lights around them. Throughout the night we could hear the radio chatter of other sailboats that were dodging their way through the fishing fleet. I was glad have a few miles between us and the fishermen, which were most likely after squid. Commercial squid fishing operations use "light boats" and purse seiners. The light boats are fitted with very bright lights that are shined into the water to attract large schools of squid. The purse seiners deploy a net around the school and reel it in close. With the net drawn up close to the boat, a pump is lowered into it and the squid are pumped aboard. I love calamari!

Turtle Bay to Ensenada

The passage from Turtle Bay to Ensenada is about 280 miles. It was all upwind and into seas that varied from easy swells to vicious lumps that we slammed into, making life aboard something less than comfortable. We had those lumpy conditions until we were about 40 miles from Ensenada, where conditions eased and we had a smooth ride between Isla Todos Santos and Punta Banda, and on into Ensenada harbor where we secured a berth at the Cruiseport Marina at 1230 on June 12th. Total distance traveled from San Jose to Ensenada was 824 nautical miles in six days and three hours.

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Boat Blind Plans | La Paz to San Jose del Cabo

Boat Blind Plans

Finisterras route from La Paz to San Jose. Ensenada de Los Muertos is to the right of the "286".  Cabo Pulmo is the easternmost point on the peninsula.

Finisterra departed La Paz on the morning of May 30th with the temperature hovering at 92 degrees and about three knots of wind out of the north. The plan was to transit the San Lorenzo and Cerralvo channels in daylight and anchor at Ensenada de los Muertos around sunset. The forecast was for northerly winds and a nice 12 knot wind arrived around noon. We had been motoring until then and I was about to set the mainsail when the breeze veered northeast, then east and settled at southeast...exactly the direction we were headed. On top of that, once in the Cerralvo channel, we found ourselves bucking a southeast current of about a knot. So I left the mainsail on the boom and we settled down to a long motor to Los Muertos.

We got the hook down around 1730 and had time for a sunset swim in the 85 degree water. We were up well before dawn the next morning and were underway by 0430. Our next destination was Los Frailes, where we hoped to explore the coral reef at Cabo Pulmo. This reef is the northernmost coral reef in the eastern Pacific and is now a Mexican National Park. You can learn more about it at www.cabopulmopark.com/thereef.html

Cabo Pulmo National Park

Unfortunately the unfriendly southeast wind continued to blow and brought with it a hefty south swell, making the anchorage unsuitable. So we reluctantly continued on toward San Jose del Cabo, where we planned to stay until a good weather window opened for us to work our way around Cabo San Lucas and northward to Bahia Santa Maria on the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula.

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