We had origionally planned to leave Oct. 25th, but the weather gods had other plans in the form of a small craft warning. We waited till the 26th, but the flaggs we're still flying. Carefully studying the forcast we could see that there would be a weather window opening all the way south for us if we left on the 26th. So we did.
The crew at the start was myself, of course, Tom Morton, Bob Taylor and Tucker ( a friend of Tom's from Oregon) Everybody seemed to get along really well and we soon fell into a rythum with watches being 3 hours on, and 9 hours off. This is a great luxury enableing one to sleep, shower, watch TV etc.
It was a bit rough out at 6 am on the 26th when we left, but it was pretty much on the stern. We yawed around for the first 20 miles, then settled into a large following sea with almost no wind. We were FINALLY going south!!! 24 hours later we arrived in Ensenada. AS it turned out it was the perfect time to leave.
We spent the day in Ensenada clearing into Mexico doing paper work, cleaning the boat a bit and getting some last minute provisioning. We left ensenada at 9 PM that night to an absolutely flat sea. We could the the reflection of the stars in the water. We had this condition all the way to Turtle Bay which we arrived at on the 29th after a 36 hour run. The Baja HaHa sailboat race was in Turtle Bay when we got there , so it was packed with sailboats. We refueled, got more beer for the crew and were back underway in 90 minutes flat.
The weather south of Turtle Bay was a bit more windy with a large following sea once again. Not a bad ride, but we were glad we to not be going north. We had started fishing at dawn the first day out but didn't get a bite till we were south of Turtle Bay....Then WHAM!, two Wahoo in a short time. Fresh sashimi!!! Then a Yellowtail to round out the menu.
Along the way we stopped in Bahia Santa Maria, about 180 miles north of Cabo San Lucas for some rest and relaxation. Tom and Tucker went ashore to explore, and we spent the night there. The next day the wind was blowing in Bahia Santa Maria and we we're conntemplating staying another nite there. Weather reports said conditions would only get worse so we left at 10 am. Once outside we found the wind mostly died and away we went again to medium choppy seas on the stern. Not a bad ride at all.
23 hours later we rounded Cabo Falso and viola!!!, Lands End.
Cabo San Lucas is expensive. I paid $164.00 US for a slip for one night!. Bob left us there to visit his Mom who has a homoe there and it was nice to meet her and her sister.
We changed oil in the main engines, installed new fuel filters and departed Cabo on November 2 at 3:30 am for the 300 mile run to Puerto Vallarta. We had origionally thought of crossing to Mazataln (180 Miles), and then heading further south to PV, but this would have made the trip a hundred miles further overall, and added another day to our trip. As it turned out, going directly to Puerto Vallarta was the right choice. It was smooth seas all the way accross.......The weather gods had smiled upon us the entire trip down.
We arrived Nov. 3rd at 4 PM in Puerto Vallarta for a total of 1150 nautical miles.....
GODZILLA
Who would name a boat Godzilla?.?
