We made a clip show from all the video Carl shot while on the Baja Ha-Ha this year. Hilarious!
We made a clip show from all the video Carl shot while on the Baja Ha-Ha this year. Hilarious!
This year’s post-Ha-Ha trip back up the Baja coast was, like last time, a re-play of the Ha-Ha in reverse.
We stocked the boat with food, water, and fuel in Cabo, and set out on November 8 just after the Ha-Ha awards ceremony, bound for Bahia Santa Maria. When we arrived, there was one other boat in the bay: the steel-hulled Muktuk sailed by Austrian Karl Mayer and family. They are one of the saltiest cruising families out there, home-schooling their kids, eating homemade kelp pickles, and making some extraordinary passages like New Zealand to Alaska and Alaska to Cape Horn. We waited a day for the next weather window, then made our way north to Turtle Bay.
The weather this year was dominated by a norther in the Sea of Cortez. The Pacific side of Baja is mostly insulated from weather in the Sea of Cortez (and vice versa), but there are places where the wind pours through the mountains, making it like sailing up the SoCal coast when the Santa Anas are blowing.
It makes the wind angles better (NE instead of NW), but it can pile some serious chop on top of the normal NW swell.
We arrived in San Diego just ahead of a winter storm and just in time to meet our friends Sam and Anthony from the Farr 55 Whistle Wind, who started the Bash a day behind us.
People always ask, “The Bash is all upwind, right? Do you have to motor the whole way?” It’s never so bleak as pointing the boat into the wind and seas while the motor labors and the mainsail flogs. The Bash is definitely motor-assisted sailing, but we’re always sailing strategically, looking for the best wind angles and using the motor to get a few more knots and point a few degrees higher than with sails alone. This year we even had some reaching and running during the last leg from Turtle Bay to San Diego.
Woo-hoo! Charter guests Sean and Carl (in the squid hat) rock the spirit of the Ha-Ha and land themselves and Vanishing Girl on the cover of Latitude 38.
This year’s Ha-Ha was Vanishing Girl’s first, and it was a great one. The weather was about as good as you could hope for: sunny, with a steady 10-25 knots from behind. Fisherman Sean caught a couple of right-sized fish along the way:
And Carl, who Ha-Ha’ed with us in 2013, rocked the Bahia Santa Maria beach party with the band:
After the beach party in Bahia Santa Maria, we had one of the fastest final legs in Ha-Ha history, thanks to a solid 20-something knot wind that followed us all the way to Cabo.
We enjoyed a few days of R&R in Cabo, then Robert and Danna flew in for the trip back up the Baja Coast.
We have fun! This year’s SoCal Ta-Ta was another perfect week of sailing between Santa Barbara, the Channel Islands, and Malibu. Thanks to our crew, Caryl Woulfe, John Ricks, and Karen Huie, and thanks to Latitude 38 for putting on another great event.
Fearless (and first-time) Weta sailors Tony Oropallo and his nephew Brian sail one of our Weta trimarans 22 miles across the Santa Barbara channel to Santa Cruz island. We sail Vanishing Girl with the Neagley family as the support boat.
Tons of fun! We’re going to do this again next year.
No, our roof deck is not getting fumigated. This is Vanishing Girl’s new-to-her half-ounce Pineapple runner! It’s far from crispy new, but it is light and big. It will likely see some action in just a few weeks as we have some downwind miles to log… Newport Beach & Ensenada here we come!
Bill Roberts is a regular charter customer of our Corsair 31 Drei in Mexico. He, his wife, and son Brock took the boat on a whale watching trip out of Puerto Escondido a couple of weeks ago and got more than they bargained for:
Bill writes:
On Saturday, the wind was intermittent, mostly light. That is when we had the near collision with a big Blue. Fortunately, he was a gentle beast and dove deeply to avoid a collision with DREI. Later in the day another big Blue swam under the boat and created a whirl pool that pulled DREI into it and changed her course by at least 30 degrees.
Holy shit!
A nice way to start the day at Lake Nacimiento as the fog lifted this morning. We took the Wetas out for some fun on the lake this afternoon, along with A little DeWitt sailing dinghy. Fresh water, warm weather, and good times.
Friday was fun day, spent sailing around the lake and enjoying the warm weather. On Saturday, the wind spent all afternoon gathering energy for a wonderful hour of double-digit wind speeds just in time for our short-course racing. Most of the crew left Sunday before noon, but Greg and Jared stuck around—and it was worth it! Hours of gentle breeze let us explore the whole lake from one end to the other before it was time to pack up the boats and head back to San Francisco.
Thanks to Molly, Greg, and Bruce for making this such an enjoyable event! Next year we’re planning to take over nearby Lake San Antonio.
Just back from a Sunday sail with a fun group of teacher/photographers from Moorpark.
Charterer Brad and I determined that given the flip-flopping wind (that blew up to 30kts the day before) it was not the right day for the islands.
Our new objective was local laps of Pierpont Bay and some Tall Ship fly-bys.
In highsight, the islands were looking really good. And very few boats were out enjoying the end of January loveliness.
I am not a photographer, but the low sun angles make for good lighting. Or maybe I just like the look of this rig no matter what the light!
There was some snake-waking going on!
Where are we??? Port Royal??
Looking forward to sailing with you again!
-paul
We had both boats out for Sunday’s Weta Play Day at Treasure Island’s Clipper Cove. What a great way to spend a balmy (for January in San Francisco) day on the Bay.
Jennifer Kroon captures the moment:
