Political Personae

I was washing my yankee sheets (ropes to control the head sail, land-lubbers), rinsing the lines of their crusty salt to try to soften them for a long summer’s storage in the middle of San Carlos Bay, Sonora, Mexico, and I couldn’t get it out of my head – this uncomfortable feeling like I’d wronged someone, like somehow I’d done something bad. I was remorseful. It’s not the sort of feeling you want to leave Mexico with – they’ll see it at the border and might not let you back into the States without a back-room interview or two.

I’d posted a casual tweet, a #followfriday post to recommend a couple guys with way more followers than me who certainly don’t need my recommendation…. But for some reason I felt like saying something. Like a really stupid scientist throwing an acid and a base into the same tweet and being surprised when there’s a reaction, I took two guys I follow on Twitter, @shoq and @stephenkruiser, and doled out a rare #followfriday:

A #followfriday of contrasts: @Shoq and @stephenkruiser (though a Right-ish figure, however, SK is more personable than political)

It was innocent enough, and I wasn’t expecting any issues with it (who doesn’t like a mention here & there, no matter how many followers they have?), but @Shoq didn’t care much for the mashup:

@tacotraveler Kruiser is about as personable as a roadside I.E.D. Did that crank pay you to tweet my name with his?

There was a back-and-forth w/r/t what “personable” means, and I suppose I gave in and didn’t want to just come out and say, “dude, stop being a dick,” but I let it go. So there I sat, churning my headsail sheets with a winch handle in a five-gallon bucket of warm fresh water and laundry soap, watching yet another amazing sunset and sipping on what may be my last margarita in Mexico for a long time (okay, I’ve since poured one more and am considering a third), but just feeling emotionally shitty, generally. And I figured out what was bothering me so much about it: I felt like the guy with whom I share a side (or at least several posts) of the political fence, as it were, was just plain wrong about how he goes about it – how he navigates the political landscape. Our new president would agree, I'm sure, that making a vitriolic attack against a political opposite was no better than, say, Cheney, who (let’s face it) is a major dick.

I have no idea what Stephen Kruiser’s radio show is like. Does he stir things up, Rush-style, and make an ass of himself to appease an audience that might demand a bit of lefty hatred or they’ll stop tuning in? I don’t know, but I don’t intend to check, either. I've belonged to a country club and seen enough narrow-mindedness to satisfy me for all time - people like slot cars on a track with no criss-cross: they simply won't change lanes - not on an idea or opinion, no matter how small or large or how unreasonable their position. But when it comes to Stephen Kruiser, the only persona I care about – the only one I interact with (as much as you can interact, as one of 80k followers) – is the one on Twitter. That persona seems like a nice guy, and I can't say I'd really like to discuss politics in 140 character snippets. Politics, for me, requires many more words (and usually a lot of alcohol) if feelings and friendships are to be preserved.

Shortly before my #followfriday post, I was introduced on Twitter (accidentally, via a @Shoq post criticizing a different guy on Twitter) to an entirely different sort of conservative. Someone who, when I looked through his posts, referred once to Obama as “Barry” and in many other posts was just a jerk. “Barry,” I suppose is no more disrespectful than calling our previous president “George,” but the way he said it made him sound like an asshole – like someone seeking the tiniest edge, like someone looking for anything that will annoy the left and ingratiate themselves to the right. I don’t have anything against conservatives unless they get preachy or personal, and I guess it’s fair to say that I have nothing against liberals, either, unless they get personal. Why hate someone for what they believe? My seven and six-year-old know better.

My politics? I’ve been all over the place. After high-school and early in college I suppose I was in a sort of “be like my dad” state of being, where finally getting to live with and spend a lot of time with a father who I'd seen only on holidays and summer trips for much of my adolescence was reason enough for me to adopt his politics and be as much like him as possible. I don’t know – I’m probably stretching, but it’s fair to say that I really looked up to Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, and like most of those guys I went to a lot of frat parties (never pledged) and started college as a Business major.

Then, in 1989 or so, I discovered a bit of a reader and writer in me and fell into the English crowd at San Diego State. I started hanging with hipsters (hipster-esque as they could be well past the Kero-wacky fifties). I edited a literary magazine. I may or may not have smoked a lot of pot and I may or may not have smoked some of that pot with a professor or two. Basically, influenced by the crowd I liked being with, I adopted the politics of that crowd. That continued into graduate school, where, as a grad TA and English master’s student I became, um... the professor.

In 1996 my grades and my ambition turned me from the scholar route (I’m a pseudo-scholar), and I started working as a contractor at Microsoft. I think I steadily moved more towards the political center as my income rose and the cool-factor of English-major liberalism started to wear off. I started my own consulting business and saw more than six figures (pre-Y2K, when six figures was still pretty sweet), but even then I didn’t have a problem sharing with my government as long as the money seemed well-spent. I drove a red Jeep. I snowboarded. I climbed a couple times a week at a rock-climbing gym. And I dated a lot. I was a well-monied single guy and life was good.

And where am I now? Well, after marriage, two brilliant and beautiful kids, divorce, unemployment... transience, I’m not much different than I was after grad school. I love “This American Life” and “Radio Lab” on NPR. I believe that art, music and writing should be required at every level of school, and that no life could possibly be full without some sort of self-examination in an artistic context. I listen to pop, hip-hop, electronica, the occasional metal, world music, “Adult Alternative,” and I have five versions of Bach’s “Cello Suites” played by five different cellists (if musical eclecticity (eclectic-ness?) says anything about politics). I voted for Obama and I teared up several times on election night (mostly when overt and uncontrollable happiness was displayed on screen, like a Malia / Sasha grin, but if you know me you know that I tear up easily). I don’t believe – either actually or conceptually – in a knowing, caring or vengeful God, but I believe that if there’s a force in the universe that gives a rat’s ass, it would care more that you’re nice than that you worshiped it every week. So yeah, I’m still a liberal. But the most important feature of “Where I Am Now,” as far as I'm concerned, would be my knowing I’m a part of the process – part of the community of ideas – and not the one and only solution. For me it’s about being a good person and letting other good people be good in their own way. And if they're not good, not friendly, not reasonable in their arguments or respectful while conducting their arguments, then move on. Maybe even unfollow. I guess what it comes down to is this: I just wish people wouldn't be dicks.

TT

Worst. Fisherman. Ever.

Well, at least I know my problem: I just don’t care enough to get up early enough, or trek far enough, to get the good stuff. I have come out pretty far today – 15 miles out of San Carlos – but I didn’t even leave San Carlos until 11:30, which was after all the yellowtail and dorado were biting, surely, and when only the disgusting black skipjack were interested enough to take my lure. I followed birds and drove through the bait balls they were dive-bombing, and got three strikes doing so, but every time there was a black skipjack on the end of the line.

For someone who loves good tuna as much as I do, this is an issue, but it’s probably not something I’ll ever solve with a sailboat, because I’m someone who doesn’t like short day-sails our “out and back” days, which is what a five-hour long fishing expedition ends up looking like (since I have the sails up, but am motorsailing in less than 5 knots of wind). I see having a nice fishing boat someday, where 15 or 20 miles out is nothing but twenty minutes and gas money. Another part of the problem today wasn’t the time I got up (7:30) but rather the need to take care of some things on the Internet / via email and a couple Skype calls before I could go fishing. Yes, I do still have responsibilities, to a degree. Pro-bono responsibilities for a company in which I’m now, for better or worse, fully-vested. The old VC line / investment impetus goes: “Do you want to own 12% [or whatever percent] of nothing, or 2% of a 20, 30, 50 million dollar company?” Well, I own 12% of….

So this first fish was damn big. I saw right away that he was a black skipjack so I started making plans to let him go, but I had to use the gaff to gently pull him up so I could unhook the hook. But when I “gently” put the gaff through his gill opening, I apparently sliced something wide open and he started bleeding like crazy (it might have been the hook too). I’ve seen fish blood before (heh), so no big deal. I pulled him up higher and started working on the hook with the pliers, but before I could start, he went into like convulsions – crazy blood-loss convulsions so quick and furious that they couldn’t have been voluntary, and with as much as he was bleeding, my entire back “fishing area” (including my legs and probably my face, too) turned into a gruesome bloody Jackson Pollack painting. I finally had to knock him on the head just to get the hook out, so I feel bad but that’s nature. We used to do that with undesirable fish in Puget Sound, too – the little bottom-dwelling sharks (I can’t remember their name) that would take our mooches when we were going after the king salmon. That big black skipjack will still go to good use for something down there. Already has.

Before I saw the birds, in a fit of goofiness caused probably by the heat and some cockpit exercise (stretches, standing crunches, “Karate Kid” crane technique, etc…), I had come up with some killer song lyrics that no doubt Jimmy Buffet will steal from this blog:

I don't see no sign of schoolin' tuna
No leapin' mahi mahi anywhere
There's no look of billfish in these waters
But I got my icebox and it is filled with beeeeeeeer.

Sing that in a totally over-blown twang (especially “beer” which should sound like “bear” so that it rhymes with “anywhere”) and you’ll have us a hit (Lyrics copyright 2009 The Taco Traveler – all rights reserved). Of course, all I’m drinking is water, but I do have a few Corona Lights down there chilling nicely, which is one of the reasons for coming out today, too – to get my icebox cold again. I carried the same 20lb bag of ice from San Diego all the way here to San Carlos, with the occasional motoring I did. That icebox chills nicely (below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, if necessary) when there’s enough engine-time at high enough RPM. But since I’ve been here I’ve pretty much let everything get warm, but there wasn’t anything left to lose, really. I’ve still got a few pounds of butter I’ll need to give away since I’m not getting any dorado to sizzle.

TT

Just Great Shit

Sometimes your music just won’t let you sleep. You need to sleep but you can’t stop listening and you think “okay, next bad song…” and that bad song never comes because you had friends over and when you have company of course bad songs aren’t acceptable, so what you have on right now is a mix called “Just Great Shit” that won’t let you leave. Fifty eight songs that you’d smuggle onto a desert island somehow even if they said you could only have ten. You lay there on the salon settee and spin from tequila and maybe the boat’s spinning on the anchor but it can’t be doing it quite that fast – first one way in a 360 and then the other way a 360 as Muse’s “Stockholm Syndrome” hits its changes and curves of guitar oblivion and then straightens out with White Stripes “Just Don’t Know What to Do” – a song that clings tenuously to JGS status but is still up there and short enough that you just can’t … quite … see yourself getting up to go to bed. You are paralyzed by contentedness.

P.M. Dawn’s “Looking Through Patient Eyes” (live) – hip-hop bordering on just beautiful lyricism that is almost spiritual: I left reality early / due to the lack of love, y’all.

Built to Spill’s “Cortez the Killer” with its amazing, consistent and slow but brilliant drumming – fifteen minutes of guitar and cacophony that tells the story of the man who, in Built to Spill terms “came dancing across the water with his stallions and guns” (though I prefer the original Neil Young’s more assonant and comfortable “galleons and guns”).

It’s a make-out mix, a drunk mix, a just feel groovy mix and everything else that matters in a collection of best songs, though Cake’s cover of the Sesame Street “Mahna Mahna” can suddenly and hilariously interrupt what may have been some excellent and serious kissing because you have to – both of you – stop to giggle at the monsters.

Wilco’s “At Least That’s What You Said” for more guitar excellence in just the right ascension, from its a-cappella opening to the machine-gun battle with the drums, piano as mediator. Into Massive Attack’s “Protection” that stops the boat’s spinning and sets it down in a quiet, still anchorage and surrounds it in a mist of warm, dry fog: I’ll stand in front of you / take the force of the blow / protection. / I’m a boy and you’re a girl / but you know you can lean on me / and I don’t have no fear / I’ll take on any man here / who says that’s not the way it should be.

Into “Oi Va Voi Feat. Ben Hassan” – the first of several Buddha Bar rhythmic and world-esque beats with something about Charlie Chan but just sounds cool. John Legend’s “Save Room” though you can’t really be sure how the song first entered your life; who planted it there and why. De-Phazz Feat. Pat Appleton in another Buddha Bar loungey thing that wouldn’t have been out of place at the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” party and urges us to “check the scene outside of Medellin.”

More Wilco because it’s all random and let’s face it, Wilco deserves several spots in any top-60 (or so) list (4, for mine), this time with “Impossible Germany.” Yo La Tengo sings a perky little ditty called “My Little Corner of the World” and the tequila or maybe something someone slipped into the tequila carries you up and onto some sort of agave rainbow and sets you down in a pot of happiness. Femi Kuti sings “Do Your Best,” another Buddha Bar selection in there for its melodic touchstone that won’t leave your head until the next one enters, and it enters right away with King Britt Pres. Oba Funke’s amazing “Uzoamaka”: Free to… free to… free to… free to… free to… free to… free to….

Steve Earle comes next with a live version of “Copperhead Road” and by now you’re realizing that fifty-eight songs will take about five hours and there’s no way to get to sleep because a bad song won’t come, so you turn the music down just a bit – enough to allow it to invade or maybe even create your drunken dreams – and shuffle off to bed.

LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great” with its 80’s psychedelic backbeat and stereophonic scratching creates arcs of light - your eyeballs tracking the sound behind your closed lids. Texas’ “Say What You Want” you can never get enough of and makes you miss her through everything, first hearing the song on BBC’s Radio One while falling in love. You held hands and walked through Oxford, to the cheese shop with its massive wheels and the quiet square speckled with sunlight and tree-leaf-shade, restaurants all around and not a bit of plastic furniture in sight.

Cut Chemist kills the romance when his “What’s The Altitude (Feat. Hymnal)” tells the story of a quick and easy seduction and evening / morning. She gave me head...phones / said 'Have you heard this sound?'.

Mahala Rai Banda vs. Shantel “Mahalageasca” is like a vision of Melaque mariachi-fest last St. Patrick’s Day mixed with a beat that just makes you bounce your head idiotically but totally uncontrollably, at the mercy of its rum-pums. The Roots’ “The Seed (2.0) feat. Cody Chestnutt” a great song that doesn’t go to great lengths to hide its purpose: the guy is anxious to create more copies of himself, to procreate and create a legacy – something to leave behind.

Rescued by the romance again with Counting Crows’ “Long December,” a song that means more to you than almost any other, ever, with a line that stuns and has become the centerpiece for so many thoughts, entire essays, even: The smell of hospitals in winter / and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls / all at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl.

“Mundian To Bach Ke” by Panjabi MC – another Buddha Bar song, this one Arabic and beat-worthy to the degree that an understanding of Arabic is completely unnecessary. You’ll shimmy and your shoulders will rock back and forth. If you’re standing up you’ll stomp your foot at the important places once you figure it all out. Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know (live)” – a song that just is, with little to say now but room for memories.

Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” gets its own paragraph because it’s just fucking awesome, and let’s face it: if it had to share a paragraph it would totally annihilate the other unfortunate song(s).

… especially if that next song happened to be Neutral Milk Hotel’s “The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1” with its sinking into your soul and stuff like that. Somewhere in your dream, then, John Turturro licks his bowling ball as Jesús in “The Big Lebowski,” and as The Gypsy Kings start their version of “Hotel California” he slides and releases, following through for spin, watches his strike and shimmies and glides, rumbas back to the scorer’s table.

Fiona Apple’s “Across the Universe” is next, and plays a never-ending cycle of awesomeness as the song evokes the amazing movie “Pleasantville,” and “Pleasantville” in turn evokes “Across the Universe.”

More Buddha Bar with Howard Maple’s “Springtime” and James Brown funks you up with “Mind Power” and his crucial and critical time, the pruh-nunce-ee-a-tion and the realization, and frankly, just what it is and what it is. And again, not to put too fine a point on it: what it is and what it is.

Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago” resonates with I made a lot of mistakes / I made a lot of mistakes / I made a lot of mistakes / I made a lot of mistakes / I made a lot of mistakes but forgives with all things grow. Bright Eyes’ “You Will. You? Will, You? Will.” More LCD Soundsystem: “Get Innocuous.” Matisyahu despite the middling quality of his Hasidic reggae and the self-righteousness like only a crazy God-maniac can deliver, “King Without a Crown” is still pretty cool – probably more for its catchy guitar riff but I’m not sure because my brain has a switch that turns words off when people get God-preachy and can only hear those words somewhere behind the rhythms. Still more LCD Soundsystem (shuffle-magic) with “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down.”

Tomatito rocks the acoustic guitar with incredible background handclapping like you’ve never heard before in “Mi Nina Rosa Alba” from the “Vengo” soundtrack. Groove Armada’s “Superstylin’” was a girlfriend’s ring tone for a while, when I was messing around with iPhone ring tones. She never said anything, but I could tell she didn’t like that it was “Superstylin’” and not something more like romantic or something. I thought it was rather complimentary. “Rose Rouge” by St. Germain you’d think would be another Buddha Bar pick, but no; I’d found it way before I found Buddha Bar. Oakenfold’s “Starry-Eyed Surprise” since way before it was a Volkswagen commercial. Wilco’s “Either Way” for its unabashed hopefulness. “Gypsy Woman 2006” by Sami Dee & Freddy Jones vs. Crystal Waters for some reason – not quite sure – maybe it’s the fake stadium full of screaming fans.

Built To Spill’s “Car” and yes you can see I’m getting a little bored with this – it’s not at all that these songs are less awesome or I have less to say about them. And Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” is just incredible. Try listening to it at anchor sometime, with nobody else in the world around or even awake and ten billion stars visible in the sky. Again contrasted beautifully by Sean Paul’s “Temperature” which is about as spiritual and romantic as a bean burrito. James Brown’s “The Payback.” “Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)” I first heard on a friend’s MySpace page and had to track it down.

Though I’m not a huge Beatles fan, I’m a fan of Beatles covers. The second one on my list (the first was Fiona Apple, of course) is PM Dawn’s “Norwegian Wood.” Sandi Thom’s “I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers in Her Hair).” Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl” ‘cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue. What’s a fella to do?

Elvis Costello’s “Little Palaces” but let’s face it, I’ve probably lost at least one valuable TacoTraveler reader because I only have one Elvis Costello song on this list.

Carl Cox’ “Ain’t It Funky Now” for boogyin’ down. Coltrane’s “Blue Train” for occasional sulking and Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair.” Radiohead’s “Idioteque.” “Arabian Song (Da Ghetto Fuckiro Club)” by Jayti Ravin - another cool Buddha Bar song, of course.

There’s “Antichrist Television Blues” by Arcade Fire - a hold-over from the “Superstylin’” girlfriend that’s probably destined for the JGS archive soon as I’m getting tired of it, and let's face it, Arcade Fire, you're just not that interesting. “She’s A Jar” by Wilco. And the last song on the Just Great Shit list is one of my favorites, and one with just an incredible story if you really listen to it: “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens.

TT

Cabo to San Carlos - Mega-Post

Well, I passed on my chance for an easy day, bypassing Los Frailles about 5pm and deciding to continue on to Muertos or possibly even through the night to Isla Espiritu Santo, the place I’ve been dreaming of since I left last December. I spoke to the boys this morning before leaving Cabo, and I just couldn’t miss them more. It hurts so much being so far away, being so unsettled and financially screwed up, and all I want now is to just be closer, no matter what happens. When I went to San Diego in January, the intention was to try to find a job. And I did try, but for five months there was nothing, not in San Diego or anywhere else in the world I tried. So I guess I proved that location doesn’t matter at the moment as far as a job goes, but what does matter is how far I am from my boys. They’re growing up without me and I’m missing so much. So despite the fact that my plane reservation is set for June 1 out of Phoenix (after a Tufesa bus ride), I feel in a hurry to get to San Carlos and get ready to go. Plus, I guess, there’s the familiarity of San Carlos.
Partially, I suppose, I feel like I’m rushing because I want so badly to just anchor in a quiet, empty cove and have time to enjoy it. When I came down in December, my best memory was my day spent at anchor in Calelero Cove on Isla Espiritu Santo. Amazing diving, beautiful all around, and crystal clear water.

It’s 7:30 and the sun is getting low, and I see fog or haziness on the horizon. I’m already a little tired, so I’ve decided to just head into Muertos (I’ll get there about midnight) and then get up early to make my way to Isla Espiritu Santo. It will be a nighttime anchoring, which is always a joy, but it will also get me some rest and keep me out of the Cerralvo Channel on an unfavorable tide.

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Well, Muertos is a no-go. It’s blowing from the south – not bad, but bad enough to make it lumpy in there. I didn’t get close enough to look closely but based on my conditions five miles out, it wasn’t worth poking my head in. I’m motorsailing towards Cerralvo Channel at 7.7 – 8.5 knots. I’ve got 5-10 knots apparent on my starboard quarter right now, but it’s a little flukey. I’m under full sail with the motor at 2k RPM. I could be content to just sail at 5-6 knots, but the longer I wait to get into the channel, the worse the current is going to be on the outgoing tide. And 2k RPM is really taking it easy on the engine anyway.

So I guess I’ll be tired, and get into a quiet cove on Isla Espiritu Santo and sleep as much as I can given the heat, but I don’t like anchoring in unknown places at night in the first place, let alone if I don’t expect it to be a comfortable anchorage. I’ve just made some coffee and turned on the wifi (and wifi scanner, “Network Stumbler.” I expect to run into a wifi connection here near Muertos - either the Giggling Marlin or a development.

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Well, weather changes everything. I was really looking forward to Espiritu Santo (as you can probably tell) but about half way up Cerralvo Channel it started to howl: 20-30 knots right on my nose. I gather this is a famous La Paz “Corumel” wind, which often picks up at night and goes until the morning. I decided that as nice as the days would be, I didn’t want to put up with that at night, so I bypassed Espiritu Santo and am now approaching Bahia San Everisto, which is a gorgeous place I anchored on my way down in December but didn’t spend enough time in. So I made 160+ nautical miles in 24 hours, on not much fuel since I had decent wind most of the way. I’ll enjoy a few smaller anchorages up this way that I haven’t been to before, or I’ll just get to San Carlos earlier.

Pretty tired now, though, and looking forward to setting the anchor. I hope I can sleep – it’s pretty hot.

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Woke up from that nap and had a good dinner and nice relaxing evening, and woke around 2:30 to lots of swell coming into the anchorage, but luckily no wind, so there was no worry about getting blown onto the rocks. Still, I was very rested as I went to bed about 9:30 and probably fell asleep immediately, so I got up and am now sailing with about 16 knots on my starboard quarter doing a fantastic broad reach north into the San Juan Strait, which divides the mainland from Isla San Juan. I was thinking of finding an anchorage on Isla San Juan because it’s unpopulated, used to have deer but now only snakes and supposedly 6” scorpions. I’d love to get a picture or two of some 6” scorpions, but don’t think I want to get that close either on purpose or accidentally. And I’m sort of anxious to get back to San Carlos to Internet and get more job things working.

Such a great boat – we’re doing 6.5 – 7.8 knots under main and yankee (O.V. Jr. steers a slightly imperfect course that gains/loses a lot of speed – if we were racing I’d be hand-steering at 7.8 knots pure), no motor at all as I expect I’ll get to run that later to cool the icebox so for now I’m taking advantage of the free ride. I also expect the wind to straighten out and turn behind me more soon as we get farther into the strait, so that I’ll have to take down the yankee and may need to motorsail as we’re going upcurrent a bit.

This could work out well, actually, though I expect one of these times to find an anchorage that protects from the southerly swell and lets me sleep to the morning, but I sort of enjoy waking up at 3 and getting to sail – taking advantage of the La Paz “Corumel” rather than having to motor all day in the hot and windless day. Not to mention the privilege of getting to see the sunrise and doing a little morning fishing. This may be the only morning I get to leave anchor just because of a bumpy anchorage, actually, now that I think about it, because I’m going to stop today in Agua Verde, which has southern protection. It’s also 48 nautical miles north, so it’s farther from the Corumel and who knows if the wind will happen up there at night. We’ll see. Okay, concentrating now as the wind starts to turn behind – don’t want an accidental gybe.

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Wing in wing up San Juan Strait! No, she doesn’t really like it. Tough to keep that yankee full and we’re only doing 6 knots. But the wind had died down to about 10-12 knots, and we’re heading right down the middle – not heading for rocks… so there’s that.

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I’m getting pretty frustrated on the fishing front, and have resolved to get a dorado today on my way to Agua Verde. With that goal in mind, I’ve re-routed around Isla Santa Cruz, where the bottom contours come up from 4,000+ feet to 500 or so. This is also where I got my bull dorado last year, and I’d love to get another one like that right now. It’s about 30 minutes after sunrise, and I’m not sure I have the right lure on – it may be too bright. I read a short book this trip that talked about lure selection as it relates to the time of day, sky conditions, temperature of the water, and optimal temperature for a certain species of fish, and it was useful in that respect (though it hasn’t helped yet), but the book was written by an egomaniac who came across as a complete asshole, and he also recommended using scent made of PVC that sloughs off into the water. Yeah, use plastic that adds plastic to our water – great idea. Dickhead. It’s from “The Master Angler” series and called “Using Color Technology to Catch More Fish” by Phil Rabideau. It’s worthless outside of the bit of science regarding color / temperature, and that could have been covered in brief article or blog entry, but this guy wrote a book full of self-congratulatory stories and information about lures his company makes. It really makes me want to throw it overboard and never buy any Mepps™ products, ever, because we see his company (Mepps™) about five hundred times in the book.

Still no fish in this fish-rich area, so I’m going to take my white squid off and try a swimming lure. Sure wish I still had that old cedar plug that caught anything and everything five minutes after you threw it in.

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No, no fish on the Mexican flag-colored squid, either. I decided against the swimming lure but now I’m almost convinced it doesn’t matter, like the dorado just aren’t biting down here – maybe the water is too cold? The water is 77 degrees right now here in Agua Verde. Agua Verde means literally “green water,” but in the case of this town it also means the color turquoise, according to the Rains cruising guide.
I just came in from a sunset cocktail and book-reading in the cockpit that was distracted for the most part by a dazzling show of pelicans dive-bombing their dinner. So incredible to watch, these ugly brown pelicans as they soar about thirty feet above the water not looking terribly interested until suddenly they just alter course and nosedive into the water but only seem to go down maybe six inches. And then they just sit there casually on the water for a few minutes and eat what they dove on. Talent.

They distract me from a book that requires intense concentration: David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. It’s a 1000+ page tome (with footnotes, also fiction) that’s so far pretty awesome, though not something you just pick up and progress through as James Brown is singing “Shoot Your Shot” and brown pelicans are reminding me why this is such a special place (The Sea of Cortez) – the nature all around and so incredibly … natural. As I came near Agua Verde from my roundabout voyage around Isla Santa Cruz I came through another gang of dolphins, who happily or aggressively confront the boat and swim all around me like Hells Angels, jumping and surfing, escorting me through their right-of-way towards the anchorable harbor but in just being there telling me, ostensibly, not to bother trying to catch any of their tuna, because even if magically I got one on the line, they’d steal it as soon as it started struggling. And at sunset I was approached by a little duck-like thing – maybe a baby pelican, that couldn’t fly but did a waddly sort of swim up to me, with occasional wing-flapping to try itself and then some head-dips and whole-body shakes. “Hey there,” I said to him. “Did you just come out here to show me how cute you are?”

Last night in Bahia San Evaristo right before I went to bed I went on deck and just watched for a while, and listened. There were waves crashing into the rocks and caves around the anchorage, but the most pronounced sound was the movement of water around the boat. I looked down and watched the spots of luminescence as fish disturbed water at the surface and dove below, their agitated wakes creating “Starry Night” swirls in the water, Van-Gogh’ing all around me. I have no idea how to effectively describe how amazing it is – to watch the millions of sparkles in the water and the streaks and swirls as the fish move around the boat, sometimes casually and sometimes jetting suddenly, creating ever brighter streaks of light. This is why I asked so urgently for friends to join me in this; it wasn’t that I needed companionship or help sailing, but that there are beautiful and amazing things here that are just impossible to describe.

This only goes to drive home the perception that I’m wasting time, that I’m just having fun down here. And it’s true, I am really living, thinking, doing and seeing some incredible things, but at the same time I don’t feel like I’m on vacation. To say (when I was) “I’m at anchor in Cabo” always sounded a lot better than it felt, as I don’t feel like my attitude matches the perception of a cavalier adventurer living the dream – I’m too poor for the dream, and I miss my boys too much. It’s hard to describe but those who know me best will understand that I’m trying to make the best of a horrible situation, and my failed attempt at connectedness in San Diego (full-time Internet / telephone) did nothing to enhance my job prospects in four months, and now in order to keep my boat as cheaply as possible while still feeling something other than desperately broke and unemployed I’ve returned to a place where I can feel quite a bit richer, if only spiritually, while I move closer to another long visit with my boys, and look forward to an ever-improving economy, more complete ventures on my laptop, more book-chapters written every day, and a life’s dream that’s still alive.

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Well, I finally landed another fish, but it was yet another bonito, and I’m sorry, though this one was the biggest one yet (probably 15 lbs) I let him go back to the sea to fight another day (hopefully, if his lip didn’t hurt too much). I’m using a swimming lure that shakes and wiggles with a small inclusive diving plane on the front, to get it down 10 feet or so when it’s trailed about 120 ft off the back of the boat. This bonito really hit it hard, and took off like a shot – he actually spooled me and the way he fought I thought it was going to be even bigger, but because he didn’t jump I knew right away it wasn’t a dorado. I’ve never seen yellowtail in the Sea yet, but clearly I need to do some bottom fishing and just drop a line in 100’ for a while and try to get some snapper or flaky whitefish.

I’m on my way to Las Islas Coronados, currently running wing-and-wing with the genny along the west side of Isla Carmen, feeling absolutely beautiful and I’m sure if there were any yachties around they’d say we look spectacular, too. The gennaker is blue, aqua and white with orange trim, and is huge and full, as we are under sail only with about 10-12 knots dead astern for a little while, until I can turn and get the wind of my starboard quarter. It’s been a very nice set of conditions (with the exception of the run through the Canal de San Lorenzo in the Corumel) since leaving Cabo, with generally southerlies – just perfect conditions for getting north, and I’ve bypassed Puerto Escondido because I don’t need (and can’t afford) more fuel. My plans are flexible, but at this point it probably makes sense to cross the Sea early tomorrow morning with an easterly that’s supposed to get up to 21 knots. In an easterly, the farther south I start crossing, the better. That direction will put the wind on my beam or starboard quarter the whole way to San Carlos. If I make more northing, then that easterly will be on my beam or higher – possibly on my nose if I were to leave from up near Santa Rosalia or Bahia Conception as I’d planned. I’d love to see some of those anchorages, but the truth is I’m very anxious to get to Internet and take care of some things. It’s sad to say, but yeah… this isn’t yet time for the relaxing cruising of my future – still too many things require communication right now.

Anyway, I’m going to shut down the computer and give it a break for a while, as it’s quite hot and the charting isn’t really necessary as I know exactly where I’m going for the next couple hours. And besides, sailing at nearly 7 knots wing-and-wing with the gennaker makes me want to crank my “Just Great Shit” iPod playlist and just dance in the cockpit and enjoy.

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I didn’t end up dancing, much – instead I used the relaxing sail to start cleaning stainless steel. I just did a fresh water rinse / scrub of the stantions, the cockpit enclosure supports and the radar arch, and will polish it with stainless polish later. For now, the freshwater rub-down did wonders. And I’m working on being less tan, so I tried to stay under the solar panels in the radar arch most of the time, and otherwise I’ve got lots of sunscreen on. Seriously, I saw a photo of myself recently, and I’m frighteningly, oddly dark.

This entry is getting really long. Generally I’d cut this up into several different entries, but whatever – the <hr>s make these chunks bite-sized, usually.
I took some video here at anchor at Islas Las Coronados – of the sunset, the other boats, the scenery, and I’m copying that to my computer now. I’ll get more video tomorrow while sailing. Wish I would have thought to take some video of the gennaker flying today, especially wing-and-wing, but oh well – I’ve got some gennaker sailing video already from when I left San Francisco ages ago. Nothing’s changed about the sailing part but the warmth.

So I’ll be leaving here soon – 3am or 4 or whenever I wake up. It’s about a 12-hour sail to San Carlos, and of course I prefer to arrive anywhere before dark, but I’m familiar enough with San Carlos that it won’t freak me out if I have to approach after sunset. It will be nice to … oh, man – the wind just shifted and is now coming out of the northeast. That could totally suck, and could delay my crossing of the Sea and make me move more north first. Hopefully it’s just a temporary thing. Anchor-wise, I’m in here pretty tight in the corner, so I’m fairly protected from swell from the northeast, but if it shifts much more and keeps up, I may get some swell. There are several other boats who would all be way more uncomfortable than me, however. Gonna watch a movie and see how the wind develops overnight.

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The wind is not good – light from the northwest. :( And the worst part of it is that I’m motorsailing through fog, and have had fog pretty much since I left Isla Coronados. I just passed two pangas fishing out here – about 10 miles north of Isla Coronados and 6-7 miles offshore of the Baja peninsula, so I need to keep my eyes open (those pangas don’t show up too well on longer-range radar). Anyway, the southeasterly I was hoping for didn’t show up, so I may alter plans and head to an anchorage up north for a quicker daytime crossing. At this point, since I didn’t leave Isla Coronados until 7:30, I wouldn’t arrive in San Carlos until 10pm or so (very dependent upon the winds / my speed across). I’ll still be fine with fuel – I have probably 50 gallons and burn about a gallon an hour at 1800 RPM and 6.2 knots (1.2 gallons/hour at 2200 and 7.5 knots), but I’d just rather sail anyway. We’ll see – I don’t have to make a decision yet, as I’m heading north generally along the contour of the shoreline and could at any time turn west and go into an anchorage up here.

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Well, the winds turned and did indeed start coming from the SSE, so I’m now about half-way across the Sea of Cortez on my way to San Carlos on a very fast but bumpy broad reach, with about 20 knots on my starboard quarter. I was flying the gennaker for most of the way to this point, but recently took it down because it was getting too breezy and that big sail was pulling the boat out of balance and the autopilot couldn’t keep up. I’ve got a post-gennaker-take-down video I recorded which I’ll post eventually, but for now I’ll just say that it was an adventure taking it down, and that’s why singlehanders don’t often use flying sails like spinnakers / gennakers – they’re tough to manage when the wind picks up. In this case, I thought I’d turned the boat enough to get the sail in the mainsail’s wind shadow, but I didn’t and when pulling the sock down over the sail a gust came along and filled the sail which ripped the control lines through my hand and gave me a good burn before I could let go. Ouch. Well, I got it down eventually, and now the yankee is up and we’re still doing 8.5 knots. Flying.

It’s about 3:45pm, and at this rate I’ll be in San Carlos around 10pm. I imagine it will be more like midnight, as it will surely mellow out a little after dark, but we’ll see. I’d take this all the way to San Carlos even though the swells on the quarter make it a pretty uncomfortable ride as they turn the boat all over the place and the autopilot tries to recover. We’re getting there.

I’ve stopped fishing, as going this fast would make reeling in a fish very difficult, no matter the size. And if it were a big dorado… man, way too difficult to be worthwhile. If the wind dies down, I’ll fish again, but it’s not like I’ve had much luck, anyway.

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Just three hours out of San Carlos now, with the sun just down and a navy ship dead ahead as well as a shrimper dead ahead and another shrimper on my port beam. I don’t imagine the shrimpers will be dickheads tonight, with the Mexican navy out here. Still, I’ve brushed up on my lingua for certain nautical things if the navy ship wants to board me or whatever. It’s probably the same navy ship that helped out the American sportsfisher yesterday that had hit a whale and needed a tow into San Carlos. I think they just pretty much waited until help came from San Carlos to tow the guy in – I don’t think a 200’ ship is equipped to pull a tiny boat into San Carlos – it’s not that big a harbor – and there were probably liability issues. Anyway, the guy could have benefited by a bit more Spanish. I think I can safely say that I’m conversational, though not fluent since I speak so much better than I understand.

No wind for the past couple hours. I took down the gennaker a while ago and now we’re just motoring at 2k RPM and 6.6 - 6.8 knots in still bumpy seas – but the seas have leveled off quite a bit since the wind died down – this is just residual wind chop. So at 6.6 knots I’ll be into San Carlos right at 11:30. Looking forward to it, and to waking up for the morning net and checking in with the crowd there. Dark now – I could probably use some coffee after I haul in my empty fishing line.

Mag Bay to Cabo San Lucas

(5/5 and 5/6/2009)

Now we’re sailing! There’s not much wind anymore, and the swells are still following and a bit annoying, but there’s about 15 knots on my starboard quarter and I decided to roll out the gennaker, and it is freakin beautiful. I don’t think I’ve used the gennaker since my last time in Mexico, “racing” Shiloh and Sailfisher from San Blas to La Cruz, but I had crew, then. I haven’t flown the gennaker single-handed since I left San Francisco. So it’s staying generally full, and I should turn a bit right and get it a bit more angle as it’s often masked by the main, but we’re okay with a little flapping.

I “fixed” the autopilot again, but instead of trying to be too fine, I just put a *bunch* of tape on it so it stays engaged no matter what. It won’t slip anymore, and has been great for a couple hours now, but the problem is I can’t disengage it without removing it. But I’ve removed it about 20 times in the last 48 hours to make modifications and repair attempts, so I figure having to spend 2 minutes removing it to disengage it isn’t that big of a deal. The only reason to disengage it between here and Cabo should be to let it cool off, but I’ve got an ice pack on it right now to try to accomplish that temporarily – I’m not ready to hand-steer yet and it’s doing a great job now that it has better purchase on the wheel.

So under full main and 150% gennaker we’re doing between 7 and 8 knots. Outstanding and fun. We’ll see if this westerly breeze keeps up. If the wind shifts to the NW then I’ll have to run under main only, probably. So given the direction of the wind and the slightly smaller swells, I’ve decided to cut straight across to Cabo rather than hugging the coastline. It’s about 80 degrees and beautiful – couldn’t ask for better weather right now though I’ve passed many northbounders who could ask for a bit of relief from the wind and swells. They’re having a very difficult uphill slog of it.

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Since Mag Bay, the water has gone up in temperature about 5 degrees. It’s now at 64.4 F. My job since I put the gennaker up about 2pm has been to just keep the autopilot cool with an occasional ice bag. That’s a job I can handle, and the autopilot is doing a great job of keeping the boat on course through following seas and the big flying headsail. Just a great sail all around. I just heard a VHF call from Marina Costa Baja, which is in La Paz, so that’s weird. That’s a heck of a transmitter, as La Paz is currently 67 nautical miles away. Well… I guess I’ve received transmissions from farther (AIS uses the VHF band, and I’m picking up a faint, occasional transmission from a boat that’s 282 miles away), but never over land like that (La Paz is on the Sea of Cortez, on the other side of the Baja peninsula).

I’m racing a bit, as I’d like to keep up a pace of 7+ knots so I get to the cape at sunrise. Right now, at 7 knots, I’ll get there about 8am. I definitely would like to be around Cabo Falso before 9:30 or 10am, as the “cape effect” winds can be pretty gnarly, whipping up some big, confused seas and generally making everything very difficult.

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I just took about a hundred pictures of dolphins either sprinting towards the boat from afar or playing in the bow wave. There aren’t very many usable ones, of course, but on “Sports” mode I was able to take several shots in a few seconds to try to grab that one great moment. I got several shots of them coming, then a few jumping next to the boat. Then after that got boring, I took the camera up to the bow and held it over the edge, trying for an extreme closeup on a dolphin right on the bow. Not sure yet how it came out, but there were a few shots of like four guys in a row all surfing the wave. They’re still playing, which is surprising to me because I’m only going 6 knots, but there’s no annoying engine, so they probably don’t get that a lot, with so few sailboats going south right now (most are going north for the end of the season, and are generally motoring uphill trying to go as fast as possible if there’s a calm).

Time to put the gennaker away and start motoring… the wind has dropped down to about 5-6 knots and I’m now meandering along at 5.5 knots (probably 1 or 1.5 of that is current). This won’t do to get me past Cabo Falso before the wind picks up late morning.

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It’s a beautiful night, though absolutely windless. There’s a big, bright moon, the swells have died down, and I’m just motoring along at 7 knots at an easy 2k RPM (I can do 8+ knots if I want to). The water has warmed up even more, and is now 66.2 degrees, so we’re getting there. And I’m being reminded of a big negative with Mexicans and their radios… the fishermen who use it honestly tend to whistle to get attention and then often scream the name of a boat or a buddy three or four times, and reapeat that ten times before giving up or being answered. Then there are also just assholes who clog up channel 16 with idle chatter and messing around. This is why cruisers switch to channel 22 when we get down to mainland Mexico (maybe even La Paz?). Channel 22 becomes the cruiser’s hailing channel, because 16 is so full of garbage. It’s ridiculous, and it would be nice if the Mexican Navy would get a handle on it – maybe try educating people about the importance of keeping an emergency channel clear. But I guess it’s a small minority that is hurt or potentially harmed by this misuse.

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Just after midnight and I’m watching my second movie of the night – “Say Anything.” So funny that I never noticed before that Jeremy Piven was in it. Did ya know that? He’s the drunk aggressive friend of Lloyd Dobler’s at the party who’s wearing the little hat and high-fives his keys into Lloyd the Keymaster’s hand. Then he passes out on the lawn at the end of the party. Oh, and he’s one of the guys at the Gas N’ Sip, too. He says: “Your only mistake is that you didn’t dump her first. Diane Court is a show pony, and you are a stallion, my friend. Walk with us and you walk tall.” He says that right before the kid says “Bitches, man!”

No wind – been motoring for three hours now. I could probably pull 5 knots if I put up the gennaker, but that’s not enough for my goals this leg:
a) Don’t get run over by this big cruise ship called “The World” which is heading north on a really inshore track – probably to keep its guests out of the offshore swell
b) Get through the fishing fleet safely at Golden Gate Bank
c) Get around Cabo Falso before the “cape effect” winds pick up
d) Anchor in the spot where this past December I had good Internet from some hotel on the beach
e) Send a few emails and post a few blog entries
f) Go to sleep

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Weird – Golden Gate Bank is completely deserted (of both fishermen and fish, apparently). When I came through here on my way north in January, there were about a hundred boats working this area. They must have moved over to the Sea of Cortez side for dorado or something (I’m pretty sure in January this area was hopping with yellowtail). Oh well… I guess I’m not going to make a living as a fishing charter captain.

Relatively easy night, but the wind never picked up enough to sail once I took down the gennaker around 6pm. Bummer. I hate motoring, as I just count the dollars getting burned up in the cylinders (are they still called cylinders in diesel? Compression chambers?). So each hour costs me about $2.80 on average – my Pactor modem cash drifting away.

So I’ve got land within 4 miles. Cabo Falso is about 18 miles to the southeast and Bahia San Lucas is another 6 miles past that. Should be at anchor by 11am.

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Arrived in Cabo safely. G'night. :-)

Elation

(back-dated to 5/4/2009)

My extreme frustration and stress over this trip has turned into elation, as I’ve managed to repair / jury rig the backup autopilot (O.V. Jr.). I’d attempted to fix it sort of casually before, thinking I didn’t want to break it and make it non-reparable by someone who knows what they’re doing, but the last few days have really worn on me, physically and emotionally, spending so much time at the wheel and basically steering a zig-zag course down the coast as I miss a few seconds of concentration and have to correct. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t play chess on my iPhone. I couldn’t really fish because of the trouble caused trying to haul in a fish and steer the boat to ensure there are no dangerous crash gybes…. In short, it was a marathon that was grueling in every aspect – even for shorter hops like yesterday between Isla Cedros and Turtle Bay – and it wasn’t very much fun at all.

But finally about forty minutes ago I decided, “well, it’s not gonna get any more useless, so I might as well be more aggressive in trying to fix it.” So I pulled it apart, and found that the belt inside was still usable but was finding no purchase on the shell that connects to the wheel. Predictable enough, but even simpler was the fix – I just put two wraps of electrical tape around the surface the belt grabs, snapped it back together, mounted it to the wheel again, and … joy.

So we are now motorsailing down the coast, in the lee of the large swells since the land turns to the southeast after Turtle Bay, and will go through the night to get to Mag Bay tomorrow late morning. I’ll still need to steer when we get large following seas, but the in-between times, and the times when I need to make food or coffee, or just take a break and relax in the sun… O.V. Jr. should be able to hold down the fort now.

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Well, O.V. Jr. couldn’t handle as much as I’d hoped, but it’s nice knowing that when I get to flat water or non-following seas, I’ll be able to rest and do things (write, read, think) without the boat running off course dramatically. I stopped last night at Abreojos (“open your eyes”), and an approach / anchoring like that is all you need to feel sailorly: darkness, shoals and other hazards all around, 20 knots of wind blowing through the anchorage…. But I got 10:1 scope out in 20’ of water, so the 30 knot gusts were manageable, and I left the Nobeltec on all night and kept a boundary circle on that anchor, so that if the boat slips out of that boundary, an ugly noise would have awoken me and I would have had to run up, start the engine and try to re-set the anchor and 200’ of chain before the shoals about .8 of a mile behind me.

So I had a great night’s sleep, and decided to sleep in (it’s 8:30) and get going again closer to 4 or 5 this evening. The next stop, Mag Bay, is about 140 miles (18-20 hours at 7 – 7.5 knots) away, so an overnight has to happen, so I’ll stage the overnight so I’m fresh. I’ve improved my angle a bit, and should have a very fast sail, though still lots of hand steering because although the seas won’t be following, whenever the wind is behind the beam, this autopilot doesn’t do well.

I’m having some breakfast now, and will be showering and then getting busy taking O.V. (the primary autopilot) apart to try once again to repair that. At this point I believe the problem is the clutch, which isn’t properly pushing the gears into place when it needs to. I doubt there’s anything I can do, but it’s worth a shot. After that, I’ll write and/or work on some other projects until it’s time to hit the road again. I’d hoped to go into town and look for an Internet Café (there are no open Wifi connections here in the anchorage) but there are breakers all around, and I’d need to take the dinghy off the deck in 20 knots of wind, which is a major pain.

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Well, I couldn’t wait, so decided if I was arriving at Bahia Santa Maria too early (before sunrise) that I’d just slow down, but I’ve been moseying along and am currently on track to arrive at BSM around 8am. It’s almost 7pm, and it’s been a very nice sail so far, and I’ve only recently had to fire up the engine because the wind started getting shifty / inconsistent. So now we’re cruising along at 6.8 knots and the autopilot is doing a good job in these relatively light seas.

The one thing that concerns me at this point is that the barometer is down to about 1002.5 MB, which could mean a low pressure system is coming down from California, or worse yet, that it’s coming up from the south. That would very seriously suck, but I’m about 1/3 across a huge bight in Baja, the nearest land 26 miles away so there’s nowhere to go but onward. Way back when I left Eureka without adequately checking the weather, I ended up having 45 knots blowing from dead astern, and O.V. handled those winds and seas just great. With only a bit of mainsail up, we were doing 9 knots running towards San Francisco when my friends were rolled, dismasted and helio-rescued well offshore.

So it could be that selling my Pactor modem for the SSB wasn’t the smartest move, as I’d be able to download GRIB weather files to overlay onto my Nobeltec (chart plotter software on my computer), but I figured I wouldn’t be offshore that much this trip, and would generally have connectivity as soon as I get to Cabo (Pacific Coast Baja is pretty desolate and unpopulated). I had decent possibilities last night at Abreojos, but all the connections were secured. No local residents opened up their Internet access to those poor suckers out in the anchorage. But if I get really worried, then I can just radio one of the many ships farther offshore and ask them for a forecast. I’m inside the bight, so I’m protected from some of the swell and am definitely safe from shipping traffic, and I have only seen three or four northbound yachts since Ensenada. And the money from that Pactor modem has been pretty instrumental, as it’s paid for fuel and food the entire trip, and will pay for the first month on a buoy once I get to San Carlos.

No fish yet since the bonito just after Ensenada, but yesterday I screwed up by tightening the drag too much and not checking it, and the first indication that something was interested in my lure was the line – the 60lb Spectra – snapping at the rod tip, so whatever it was, it was damn big and I probably didn’t want it anyway, but now the poor thing is swimming around the ocean with a yellow plastic squid and two big painful hooks hanging out the side of its mouth… not to mention the 100 feet of Spectra fishing line trailing behind him. So this morning I re-spooled the fishing reel and am ready to go again, but no luck today.

One thing I think is worth mentioning as sort of a neat thing, is the failure of my speed gauge – the transducer for the gauge anyway, with a little paddle wheel that spins according to how fast the boat is moving. Well, it’s never worked very well, and it’s always frustrated me because it stops spinning with the slightest bit of gunk or tangle, but I’ve given up on it and have started just using it for its secondary function, which is water temperature. The speed through the water isn’t that important anyway (speed over ground – SOG – is more important and is available through the GPS), and it’s just a lot more fun, romantic and poetic to watch the water get warmer and warmer as I move on south. And yes, it is getting warmer, though it’s still pretty chilly after sunset.

So the sun is down, and it will probably be a long night, but thankfully I’ve got O.V. Jr. back in good condition, so I’ll be able to take little naps here and there as long as the following seas aren’t too bad. It’s a beautiful night, with a great sunset and a very bright, clear ¾ moon directly above me, and we’re moving along now at 8.2 knots, so I need to slow down or I’ll get to Bahia Santa Maria (and the dangerous Cabo San Lazaro) before sunrise.

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I’m in an odd sort of racing mood, I guess, and just finished tweaking the sails to get all the speed possible out of the little wind I have. Yeah, sure, I’m motorsailing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also be under full sail (main, yankee, staysail) and tweak here and there as the wind shifts. I just unfurled the staysail because the wind shifted to the beam – basically out of the southwest, which is odd but hopefully not indicative of a more significant or lasting shift (until I get to Cabo, anyway). It’s always nice to see adjustments gain that extra couple tenths of a knot. There’s not enough wind to kill the engine, but I’m only running at 1500 RPM, so it’s only really serving to help the autopilot stay on track and to bring us from 5.5 knots up to 7.

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I can’t possibly do this justice, but it’s 3:17 am and the moon has gone down so that all the stars are as visible as they can possibly be – not a light disturbance within 100 miles (outside of my bright laptop screen). In tha past couple of hours (even with the moon out) I’ve seen several shooting stars (meteorites) and at this moment the mass of stars is so great that I can’t even find the second most recognizable constellation out there. I found the Big Dipper, but I had to look at my Cybersky program to figure out where Orion is, and even given the direction and the altitude, I can’t make out Orion amongst all that brightness. Imagine that – and I’ve seriously been an Orion fan for years.

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A girlfriend once called me Flappy McFlapperson, and I thought that was hilarious. I don’t remember what I was doing to earn that (it’s reasonable to assume I was talking too much) but I’ve obviously never forgotten the goofiness of the nickname or the cuteness of her as she said it. Well, that’s what my mainsail is doing right now – just flappin’ back and forth as the swells rock the boat all over the place, with not enough wind from behind to keep it full. So we flap and rock. I keep it up because its flapping – while annoying – also helps stabilize the boat as we motor along; without the flapping we’d be rocking even more.

That girlfriend, by the way, is one of my biggest guilt trips ever, as I ended that relationship by being such a dick that I forced her to break up with me. I know – I suck(ed). She hasn’t spoken to me since (10 years ago), and ignored my friend request on Facebook. Sorry, K.

Craziness

(back-dated to 5/1/2009)

It’s been a very difficult sail so far since I left Ensenada. Well, I guess there has been some good, too, but basically when you’re single-handing and both of your autopilots give out, it’s hard to see the good amongst all the hand-steering for hour upon hour. I’m just now leaving Isla Cedros, about 50 more miles (7 hours) to Turtle Bay where I may be able to get Internet and post this tonight.

The biggest issue so far has been the lack of a reliable autopilot. Theoretically I should be able to balance the boat (adjust the sails so she stays on course), but with the wind coming from dead astern and some fairly large following seas that want to push us off course every ten seconds or so, it’s just not possible. In fact, it’s even difficult hand-steering while *not* standing up, so I spend a lot of time and concentration steering downwind and trying to maintain the right levels of speed and direction, while my arms, shoulders, neck, back, eyes, legs… everything is killing me. I’ve got cuts on both hands, two of them fairly deep and painful but I have no idea where they came from. But I’ve made it across Bahia Viscaino, and that’s one of my larger successes, so far.

Just outside Ensenada on Tuesday morning I caught a nice bonito, but haven’t had time to cook it until last night while finally at anchor off Isla Cedros. This was my first bonito – about 15 pounds, and was a very nice fish. I hauled him in under full sail, so it made the battle extra hard with the boat going 7.5 to 8 knots and having to try to keep the boat going one direction with nobody at the helm. I believe at that point that I was on a beam reach, so the wheel autopilot was able to keep up long enough to allow me to haul the fish in and clean it. Autopilots like a beam reach a lot more than they like going downwind, though my main autopilot (O.V.) could handle anything… it’s just the $1,000 it would take to replace the linear drive that has created the problem.

Crossing Bahia Viscaino was pretty much a nightmare, with the following seas, wind directly at my back, and the last anchorage I’d planned to stop at (Bahia San Quintin) was completely blown out on Thursday night, so I just kept going. The problem with having wind directly at your back, non-sailors, is that it requires a lot of concentration to run dead downwind with just a main, because if a wave turns you too much, or you don’t pay attention, you could have an accidental gybe. I had a preventer rigged the first time it happened, but it wasn’t rigged very well because the boom came crashing over with such force that it just stripped the preventer out of the winch. That accidental crash gybe would have knocked me out (and probably off the boat altogether, 15 miles offshore… at dusk) if I hadn’t been ready, as I was freeing one of the yankee sheets from a turnbuckle and was moving quickly towards the cockpit when I felt it happening, but I was ducking, of course. The preventer line bent one of the stantions and further ripped my house canvas as it smacked it when the boom came over. This, amongst a few other mishaps and bad decisions has frustrated me a lot, but I’m getting better and getting the hang of sailing Chemistry with no help - no help even from an autopilot. I’ve since moved the preventer farther forward, and the preventer has made a couple of saves.
The good news is that with 20-30 knots at my back I’ve been able to get this far using 95% wind power. I only motor to get into & out of anchorages at this point, but we’ll see how that continues.

When I left San Diego I figured I’d be in Cabo by Saturday or Sunday, but that’s looking crazy, and it will probably be more like Wednesday or Thursday because I’m unable to make any progress while I’m resting. And with no autopilot, I need a lot of rest. That’s been another learning curve this trip – I’d never had to “heave-to” before, which is basically a means of standing still at sea. You arrange the sails so that the boat stays pointed to the wind and you just bob there comfortably. I’ve discovered that Chemistry heaves-to fairly well under mainsail only (held out to the side a bit by the track, and with the current and the larger winds I actually make 1 or 1.5 knots backward (south, down the coast as I’m pointed to the north) as I’m hove-to, which is a pretty good deal.

So I’m still just motoring in the lee of Isla Cedros (this is a heck of a big island) and will be stopping at most every rest stop between here and Mag Bay, unless I can find better wind direction (wind at 120 degrees off the bow, pushing me from the aft quarter), in which case I may go offshore farther and just heave-to to sleep again. Can’t wait for Cabo and warmth, a free and nighttime-calm anchorage with parties on the beach, coffee shops with Internet, and jet-ski / parasail craziness out there on the water all day long.

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Turtle Bay – 1 May 2009

I’ve made it to Turtle Bay, basically about half way to Cabo. I’ll leave early in the morning for Punta Asuncion or possibly Abreojos (“abre ojos” = “open your eyes”). It will be 14 hours to Abreojos, and then a longer leg down to Mag Bay / Bahia Santa Maria. Then it’s a 24-hour trip from there to Cabo San Lucas.
It’s 7:30 here, and I want to get into town to see if I can get Internet and a couple of fish tacos somewhere. There aren’t many services here, but it’s worth a shot.

Cancel that… I guess the only reason I’d be going into town would be to send this off and catch up on a few emails, but at this point I think it’s more important that I just get going very early in the morning. It’s a pretty big pain to take the dinghy off the deck and an even bigger pain to lower the outboard and attach it to the dinghy, and all of that for one 30-minute trip to town doesn’t make a lot of sense. Hopefully nobody is too worried (Dad) and everyone knows I know what I’m doing despite the occasional bad sailing decisions, and that outside of the occasional crash gybe, I’m doing well and moving forward.

So instead of getting the dingy prepared, I’m going to make some bonito spaghetti, watch a movie on my laptop, and get to bed. I’ll be up and out of here about 4am to ensure I arrive at Abreojos before sunset tomorrow. Is there anyone in the world who likes anchoring in an unfamiliar spot in the dark?