Bahia Santa Maria is a vast, beautiful, unspoiled anchorage on the Baja Pacific coast. As you can see we easily fit the entire Baja HaHa fleet in with no crowding and plenty of room to spare.

We arrived in the morning and used the rest of the day to go ashore and explore the beach, collecting a couple of sand dollars (which are many and large) as we went.

The following day was the day of the Bahia Santa Maria beach party, the kids and those young at heart played in the surf and most of the adults gathered around the action on the top of the bluff, rocking out to the music and from the band who had travelled many miles overland (dirt roads) to get here. Much fun was had.

BSM Beach Fun

Party Central

Parking Lot

After the beach party we invited a few of the boats with kids to Aphrodite for dinner. Certainly the most people we have ever had on board!

Dinner on Aphrodite

Boy, are we behind with our updates!

On Turtle Bay there is a small dusty Baja town that lives mainly from fishing. The arrival of the Haha is a big deal here and it is given a warm welcome.

A big event is the baseball game with the locals in which a lot of the fleet play with kids from the town. The rules are relaxed and the scoring even more so, but the since the measure of success is the amount of fun had by the largest number of people, then it is time to pitch in and enjoy yourself. Check.

The infield at Turtle Bay

Looks more like a Cricket Player to me

You can participate in many other activities whilst in Turtle Bay – like walking the dog.

Walking the Dog in Turtle Bay

We left Turtle Bay the day after the Beach Party for the 2-day run down to to Bahia Santa Maria. We soon got back into the rhythm of the boat, enjoying the spectacular sunsets and the welcome sunrises after long nights on watch.

Sunset

Another Sunset…

Grilling Fish Underway

Robert is always happy

We had beautiful sunsets the first evening.

The next morning we were still motor sailing through most of the first day out, so we tried out the new fishing gear we had picked up in San Diego.
We had watched “Kinda Blue” who weren’t too far from us pull in a couple of fish, but things were quiet for a while and Peggy and I had gone down stairs to take a nap.
We both woke with a start at the sound of the reel paying out line fast. When we got back on deck, Richard was busy pulling in his first yellow tail tuna!

Later that day, the wind picked up enough to sail and set the spinnaker for while. In the evening the winds cooled off a little and enjoyed views of Paul and Janet’s Talos IV.

The next day, we managed to sail the full day, flying the symmetrical spinnaker for a while, before the winds got too high. We passed between Cedros island and the San Benito islands at dusk, and then had fantastic winds on the stern throughout the night, pulling into Turtle Bay around 9am the next day.

We had fantastic weather for the the start of the Baja. Though the air was warm, the winds were a little light. The Fleet paraded through San Diego Bay, with the fire boat and the TV crews there to meet us. With 330NM to go on the first leg, there wasn’t a lot of jostling for position at the start line, instead we had a rolling start with most people under power, slowly leaving San Diego behind us and passing between the Coronado Islands on our way south.
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10/19

We left White’s Cove around 4:15am from the ~70NM crossing from Catalina to San Diego. We’re expecting light winds for most of the day and so it was until we were closer to San Diego in the early afternoon. The wind direction and strength was perfect for our symmetrical spinnaker, so we broke it out and flew it.

Under Spinnaker – San Diego Bound

The activity seemed to attract a pod of dolphins nearby and over they came to greet us, leaping out of the water as they approached. There were maybe 25 in total, playing of the bow in groups of 5-8.

We arrived in San Diego in the early evening, leaving plenty of room in the channel for the cruise ships arriving at the city and warships returning to port.

Vision of the Seas

Soon we were tucked away at Cabrillo Isle Marina, with about a week to go before the start of the Baja and loads of things to do beforehand!

Approaching Catalina Island

We spent the first night on Catalina at Cat Harbor on the far side of Catalina from the mainland. Contrary to previous years, Cat Harbor is now filled with mooring balls, leaving only one or two corners of the harbor in which to anchor and then in deeper water and and resulting in a long dinghy ride ashore. This seems like a money extraction scheme, but a foolish one as in the long term, it will just deter visitors.  After the early start and a long day, we reluctantly chose a mooring ball, still aways from the dinghy dock, but with a shorter ride ashore. By the time we got there, most things had already closed up shop for the evening, but we enjoyed the walk into town, the lonesome buffalo and the view on both sides of the Isthmus.

At Cat Harbor

Two Harbors Panorama

The following day we sailed around the southern end of Catalina – the long way around. The morning started nicely with a freshening breeze from the south, but as the day wore on and we rounded the south-eastern end of the island, the swells increased and the wind dropped, forcing us to revert to the “Yanmar Spinnaker” to get us around the point and heading back north. We skipped Avalon and headed instead to White’s Cove, passing Arvid and Annika in Inspare as they left. White’s Cove was very quiet and we went ashore to share a beer with Mike, getting more than a little soaked re-lauching the dinghy in the dark.

10/14
The following day after breakfast with Nicole , we loaded up with fresh water, we headed out on a 25 mile crossing to Santa Cruz Island, arriving at Fry’s Harbour around .. We spent a little bit of time sorting out our stern anchor ( being used for the first time) and ended up just a little too close to the boat in the harbour. Not that we were putting anyone in any danger, but we probably encroached on his solitude a little more than he would have liked. Fry’s Harbour offered good protected and afforded the first swim in the (relative to San Francisco Bay) warm waters of Santa Cruz island. At night a balmy breeze blew from the shore and Bob took the opportunity to sleep in the cockpit.

10/15
We left Fry’s around 9:30am with the thought of stopping in Lady’s Harbour, but the wind and swell outside of the anchorage was surprising given the tranquility of the harbour, so we turned the day into one of sailing, and a super one at that, beating upwind past West Point, on a reach to Fraser Point and then heading downwind along the far side of the island to the Willows anchorage.

Robert on the helm near West Point

10/16
Willows was gorgeous, was somewhat rocky with occasional sets of southerly waves coming through in the night to keep us awake and after an incredible sunrise the next day we started out on the trip to Catalina, but once we were underway a little further around the coast, the seas were very calm and we were tempted back into the shore by the presence of another sailboat in an anchorage a further down the coast from Willows called Coches Prietos. This is a beautiful little bay, with a long curved beach and an easy dinghy landing. Having anchored a respectful distance from our neighbors, we invited them over for lunch.
In the afternoon we took the dinghy ashore and hiked up a narrow trail along the cliff edge and up to a nearby peak. It was warm and the trail was steep in places, but the view at the top was fantastic, with views to Santa Barbara Island and as far as Catalina Island.

10/17
We were woken early by increased swell coming into anchorage from the SW. We were absolutely confident that our anchoring would hold in such conditions, but we couldn’t be sure that that would be true of our neighbor. We chose to do the prudent thing and leave early – anyway it is about a 70nm trek to Catalina from Coches Prietos and the early start would help us get there in daylight. The crossing was uneventful, but we were denied seeing the sunrise as we entered a fog bank at dawn. There were a couple of fog banks we passed through that morning, but then the skies cleared and the only entertainment was listening to the US Navy clear boats from the nearby target practice areas.

Sunrise at Willows

Robert at Coches Prietos

Aphrodite at Coches Prietos

Hiking at Coches Prietos

View to Santa Barbara and Catalina Islands

Finally have a chance to update the blog, since we now have reliable Internet access via AT&T. We had originally planned to stop over in Santa Cruz and take Joseph up on a dinner invitation, but as we checked the weather on the way down it became clear that it was better to keep going and pass Point Conception in a fair weather window. This kept us far enough offshore that we lost our Internet access via AT&T.
Along the way we had visitors in the form of three small birds (of the kind without webbed feet). That must have been blown off course and sought refuge for the night.

We continued sail south east about 20-25NM offshore through Thursday and Friday, with only one patch of spectacular clear skies in the middle of Thursday night. We’re also visited by dolphins in the night, identifiable by their phosphorescent trails in the plankton and flashes of light as they surfaced to breath.

Friday evening we approached Point Conception passing the platform “Irene” near point Arguello

and rounding Point Conception as the sun was setting.

We anchored overnight at The serene Cojo anchorage, shared with only one or two other boats and are now back under way in the warm Southern Californian Sunshine toward Santa Barbara.

We had originally planned to depart the Golden Gate on the 10th of October and we made it!
The last day of preparation was wrapping up all the things that hasn’t quite got done yet. Making sure the dinghy outboard was properly tied down and prepping the ditch bag. What took most time was working out how to lash the dinghy to the foredeck – various approaches were tried until we finally sorted it. Peggy was working really hard in the kitchen at home, making sure we had enough food to last us to Mexico. We had one last dash to Pacifica to pick up a forgotten, but essential piece of gear and then we were away, leaving Brisbane around 10:30.
First problems we ran into was that the autopilot was misbehaving, so we did very slow donuts off Hunter’s point whilst trying to recalibrate it. The log was also misbehaving, as it has done of late. But we got things working sufficiently to head out the Gate and get on our way!