Log 6 - Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas See Photos Here Mid October to mid November was definitely one of the weirder months we've spent "cruising". For one thing, Nancy and Kurt were separated for 3 weeks while Nancy flew to Seattle and Kurt stayed in Ensenada to oversee the paint job. We've never really considered stopping in Ensenada before, because we had heard that it was a "dirty" harbor and a tourist trap. Kurt actually ended up really enjoying the town as he spent days at the boatyard and evenings in town (which was about one block from the boatyard). Almost immediately, there was excitement. One morning Kurt woke up on the boat to the sound of very strong winds. This is rather disconcerting when you're on a boat in a concrete yard being supported by what look like flimsy braces. To make matters worse, Gumbo Ya-Ya was wrapped in plastic to prevent sanding dust and paint overspray from ruining the topsides. This plastic wrap acted like a spinnaker when the Santa Ana-type winds blew, making the boat shudder to the point that Kurt took a knife and cut all the plastic away. These same winds caused some small brush fires to become rather large and frightening. The hills surrounding Ensenada were all on fire and the sky was lit with flames for about 4 days. As this was occuring, San Diego was fighting much bigger fires. Smoke and ash filled the skies over Ensenada and we were afraid the painting project would be delayed for a week. But, luckily, the winds reversed, blowing the fires to the East and the smoke and ash away from Ensenada. On a more positive note, one of the highlights of Kurt's stay in Ensenada was the festival of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This holiday is roughly a Mexican version of Halloween (with a few more religious aspects thrown in for good measure). Friday night (Halloween) in town was a hoot. Everyone was in costume with the young children parading around earlier and then the scantily clad teenagers and young adults cruising the streets later in the evening and night. Discos were blasting, hookers were strolling, barkers were trying to get patrons to enter the "girlie" bars. Kurt spent the evening strolling through town, taking pictures of the "Norte" musicians. Apparently, there are three popular styles of music in Ensenada. Mariachi bands have the guys in the tight pants and jackets, playing the huge guitars, guitar-basses and trumpets, while singing mostly sad songs. Norte musicians seem to all wear black pants, vests and cowboy hats. They stroll around with a couple guitars, an accordion and a snare drum and also play mostly sad songs. And then there is Banda music which is music played by 10 or more musicians with accoustic and electric instruments. And they play REALLY LOUD!! Kurt didn't care that much for Mariachi or Banda music but really enjoyed the Norte musicans who seemed to show up in all kinds of unusual locations with different groups of players, playing for a single family in a home or business, or for two lovers on the street, or for diners in a restaurant. The other thing that was quite unexpected about Ensenada was Baja Naval Boatyard. Usually, when we haul our boat, whether the boatyard is in Seattle or San Francisco, the yard is dirty, the restrooms and showers are filthy and we always leave, after paying the bill, feeling like we've been ripped off. In contrast, Baja Naval was a cement-paved yard that was cleaned daily. The showers and restrooms were marble tile and also cleaned daily. The quality of the work was impressive and was done right on schedule. And, finally, the price was less than half of what we were quoted in Seattle. And interesting note is that we were told by experienced people in Seattle that the way to work with Mexican boatyards was to first located the foreman and give him a gift, saying that you wanted to make sure a good job was done on your boat. Then, you should give the crew working on your boat a 6-pack of beer every other day or so to make sure THEY did a good job. Well, the surprising thing was that first thing we had to do when arriving at the yard was to sign a paper saying that we would NOT give any gratuities to individual workers (and if a worker was caught accepting a gratuity, even off the premises, he would be fired immediately). It was okay, however, to do something for the entire boatyard, if you were pleased with the work. So, one day I went to the local donut shop and bought 3 dozen donuts for the boatyard crew. I was immediately a hero and was always greeted with a smile from that day on. The paint job took the entire 3 weeks that we were told it would take, and went off without a hitch (unless you count painting the name back on the boat with the hailing port: SEATLE, WA). Nancy arrived back from her trip North on November 9th and we spent a week getting the boat back in the water and provisioned for the trip South. On November 15, we departed Ensenada for the first long leg of our trip down Baja. This leg was to be a 260-mile jaunt to Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay). This leg also proved to be one of the most uncomfortable passages of our trip so far. We had plenty of wind from behind (which was good because we could sail fast), but we had a vicious cross-swell that caused the boat to roll mercilessly from side to side. We always had to hang on to SOMETHING or risk getting thrown on our ass. It was an exhausting 2.5 day trip and we slept like babies when we got to the nice flat anchorage of Turtle Bay. This was the first anchorage where we started running into other boats that were headed south and even to the South Pacific. We spent a couple of days there, wandering around through the very small and primitive (except for the ever-present internet cafe) village. Also spent some time repairing a Monitor windvane that somehow un-welded itself. On November 19, we left Turtle Bay for another 2-overnighter passage to Bahia Santa Maria. This leg had much less wind (we had to motor most of the way) and the cross swell didn't appear until the second night. Bahia Santa Maria is a beautiful bay about two-thirds of the way down Baja. Its a rather weird ecosystem as there are steep desert mountains on one side, white sand dunes on the other and right down the middle is a lush mangrove estuary. We powered our dinghy through some rather hair-raising surf to get into the estuary and proceeded up the winding water way for about a mile, passing a couple small settlements of fisherman. We don't know if they were seasonal settlements or year-round, but they were very primitive. These fisherman mainly fish for lobster and shrimp and we traded a bottle of 2-Buck Chuck and 2 Pepsis for 3 large lobster. During our second night there, we had a potluck on the beach the crew of about 6 other boats and a great bonfire under the overhanging rock cliffs. We departed Bahia Santa Maria on November 23 and had a 4 hour passage to Bahia Magdalena. We had spent time at the village here on our last trip down Baja, but this time we elected to anchor of Punta Belcher, near the entrance to the bay so that we could make a faster departure the following morning for Cabo San Lucas. It was here that we discovered our refrigeration was no longer working! Sheesh - warm beer! So one more boat project to deal with. Punta Belcher had all the appearances of a nice quiet anchorage - just off a sand beach and in the lee of a deserted whaling station. At first the evening was very pleasant, but as the night wore on, the wind picked up and blew in the opposite direction as the very strong tidal current. This meant that Gumbo was pitching and rolling like crazy. We didn't get alot of sleep that night and were happy to depart the anchorage at 6:45 to begin the final leg to Cabo. We motored most of that morning and early afternoon in light winds, but, by mid afternoon, the wind picked up from behind us and we flew downwind under reefed main and poled-out genoa. Very pleasant sailing! As the evening wore on, the wind started changing direction every hour or so, which meant gybing the main and pole. Got to be a drag, especially because the wind chop, combined with the swell, started that gawd-awful rolling again. Finally, in the early morning hours, we just rolled up the jib, fired up the diesel and motor-sailed the rest of the way to Cabo Falso (the southern most tip of Baja California). After rounding that cape, we motored another 6 miles around Cabo San Lucas and entered the harbor. There was already a cruise ship taking up most of the harbor and what little else was left was filled with jet skis, pangas, glass-bottom boats, water taxis, etc. What a zoo! We went over to the fuel dock and topped off our diesel tanks, then went to the anchorage and dropped the hook and 25 feet of crystal clear water. Later that day, Kurt did the rounds of Port Captain, Immagracion, bank and API (port authority) to check into Cabo. And that evening, we met up with Mike and Diane Quiriconi, who had flown down from Seattle to crew with us on the next leg to Puerto Vallarta.