Consolidated Trip Log – Mostly for me to archive my trip but I’m willing to share:
Cabo to San Diego
Travel Day
The day is finally here. (Wednesday, March 15, 23) Michael Roll arrived at my house about 10:30 and after a brief tour of the house we loaded up the car and my wife Belen drove us to the Cross Border Express (CBX). The process of CBX is very smooth. We filled out the imagination/customs form at a kiosk and then scanned our CBX ticket. Exited the US and then proceeded up the elevator then across the foot bridge. We purchased our tourist pass and then cleared Mexican immigration/customs. We made it through quickly and ended up having to wait about two hours before we were able to board our flight.
The flight was relatively uneventful and when we arrived in Cabo it was quite warm. A bit surreal that we had just left the rain and cold and thinking that we would be returning to the distinctly different climate, by boat, in just a couple of days. We ended up getting a shuttle to our hotel and met up with the Nereid race team for dinner. Thanks to the boat owner Stan for treating us to some great Mexican sea food. We had a pretty mellow night and ended up in a little Chicago White Sox bar for a drink before turning in. The race Bow Man (Bill) was kind enough to have us as his guests to “Chicago.”
Thursday March 16. All of the weather models indicated that the sooner we got going the better. There is a weather system that will be coming in at the end of the week and it would be to our advantage to get home before it hits. Damian, the race navigator met with Nic and me and we got a crash course in a computer program called “Navigator”. We also went over how the electronics and network on the boat were configured. We have access to some of the best instrumentation and systems available. We spent the day prepping the boat and getting it set up for delivery mode (as opposed to race mode). The racing gear came off, and the delivery gear came on. I am very appreciative to the whole race crew: Stan, Jeremy, Damien, Bill, Charlie and K. C. for helping with the transition. We went shopping and got our provisions and then filled up with plenty of diesel fuel. Feeling a bit grimy, we all elected for showers before our last land based meal and then our departure. We ended up leaving before 7:00 PM. I felt like a Salmon swimming up stream because there were approximately 50 charters of all shapes and sizes returning to the harbor from their sunset cruises. Having left the harbor, in the protection of the lee from the land we hosted our mainsail with our 1st reef in the sail. We anticipate that the wind will be right on our nose for the first couple of days. The sail will provide some stability, but we are also hoping to get a little bit of push from it as well. As we set out to sea, I was especially thrilled to see and get a couple pictures of the Iconic arch at the end of the point of Cabo San Lucas.
We established our watch rotation with 4 hours on and 4 hours off with a two hour stagger. I took the first Watch starting at 8 till Midnight with Mike Roll doing his half shift from 8 till 10. Alex relieved him at 10. I went off at Midnight relieved by Nic who stood watch till 4:00. During the night, we were joined by up to four birds that seemed to be hitching a ride in our wind draft. I saw several shooting stars and orbiting satellites on a beautiful star filled night. The wind continued to be tolerable in the 10 to 20 knot wind range, and the sea state was not too bad with waves and swell being approximately 5-7 foot at about a 20 second interval. Overall, our first night was fairly pleasant. The wind stayed on our nose the whole time, and we certainly realized why they call it the Baja Bash.
Friday, March 17, 23. The Sun finally rose and the transition from night to day made me happy. What I have read about this trip led me to believe that the first 10-15 hours is usually the toughest. So far, so good.
Friday March 17
So the wind stayed on our nose with constant waves. We kept our speed relatively slow about 5-6 knots to minimize any pounding from the waves. We also stayed fairly close to shore in order to get relief from the geographic features of the land. Keeping it “in the bite” enabled us to have less swell, less wind and a smoother ride. I positioned us right to leeward (downwind) off the large land feature just south of Mag Bay. Here we slowed temporarily and transferred fuel from jugs to our internal tank.
The wind came up pretty strong from about 8:00 pm till about 11:00 pm we were seeing occasional gusts of about 20-25 knots with steep waves of approximately 8 feet at a relatively close interval. Once again we slowed and took it easy as to not stress ourselves, or our equipment.
Saturday 3/18 The wind strength gradually decreased during my late night shift we enjoyed a beautiful star lit night. The moon didn’t rise until about 4:00 so the ocean was black and dark but the stars seemed especially bright on this cloudless night. Michael R. and I had a discussion about how the ancient mariners made a study of the night sky and how well they figured out the patterns and constellations. I took note at the way the night sky shifts around the North star in a counter clockwise direction. The Big Dipper was pointing down to the zenith from above and then four hours later, it was pointing at it to it’s right. Once again, we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise. The stretch between Mag Bay and Turtle Bay is a long one. It’s about 200 miles with nothing but water. On this stretch, I suggested that we begin to fire up the water maker. Jeremy said, “All you have to do is push the button”. Well, I pushed the button, and nothing happened. So then we had to figure out what was wrong. After about an hour of trouble shooting, It turns out, that the sea strainer had become clogged and there wasn’t sufficient sea water flow to operate the machine. We did have some emergency bottled water, but it was good to get things operating again. I am thankful that we got it working. Later in the day, we saw a very large pod of southbound whales. The conditions continued to be favorable as we made progress towards Turtle Bay.
Sun 19 the winds shifted and were now blowing from the south. I notice more Exhaust coming out of our boat than normal, so we took advantage of the southerly wind and shut down the engine and cleared the sea strainer. This fixed the issue and the engine was now running much cooler. While this was going on, Michael R. made us some ham and eggs with cheese. It was a welcomed treat. We arrived in turtle bay at 12:30. It turns out that we were the first boat from the Regatta to stop so that made us feel pretty good about the pace we were going. We set our anchor and welcomed the services of the local fuel merchant Enrica Jr. We got fuel, checked the engine, cleaned the boat up a bit Then we rigged up our #2 reefing line just as a precaution as we were expecting higher winds in a couple of days. We departed Turtle Bay by about 4:30 pm and then resumed our trek up the coast. We had very flat water and a favorable wind direction so I felt very good about the progress we were making. We experienced a brief period of gusty wind adjacent to Cedrose Island . After clearing Cedrose, the wind stabilized around 5 knots in a favorable direction and the water was flat. We maintained a good speed of about 7 knots while running the engine at about 2700 rpms.
Monday: 3/20 both my 8-12 and 5-8 shifts were reasonably uneventful and kind of boring. No moon and no stars due to cloud cover. We did have a few dolphin dart past us in the dark of knight leaving a fiery trail of glowing phosphorescence in their wake. They kind of looked like erratic torpedoes.
Shorty after day brake (no sunrise visible due yo the cloud cover) Michael R. said he heard an engine alarm. I immediately shut down the engines to inspect. I remove the sea strainer and once again, rinsed it out and cleaned it, replaced it and fired the engine back up. The alarm stopped, and water flow was established coming out the back of the boat. We noticed some minor dripping/leakage coming out of the water pump. We decided to keep an eye on the water flow and be alert for any additional alarms. We proceed at about 2300 rpms to see how it went. We checked frequently to confirm water flow out the back. We were at that point about 230 miles from San Diego. The weather forecast for Tuesday morning north of us, near San Diego looked quite threatening. The crew and I met and reviewed the weather data. Based on the information at the time, I suggested that we back off the speed in order for the brunt of the “wind event” to blow through before we got there. We checked out updated weather forecasts and because winds were predicted to be in 35 knots plus, and in an abundance of caution, we stepped down to our 3rd reef. This way, even if we got caught in very high winds, we would be able to control the boat. Right now, it’s 8:30 pm on Monday and out True wind speed is only 4 knots. I’d much rather have too little sail up now, then too much later If and when it starts to blow. We are about 140 km from San Diego.
Tuesday, 3/21
The literal calm before the storm. My 4:00 AM shift started out eerily calm. There was no moon, no stars, no waves, and no wind. Then at about 6:30 things began to change. The apparent wind shifted from my 12:00 relative position to my 6:00. The velocity also gradually increased from 0 to 35 knots. Luckily it didn’t stay that way long. It did make for some fun downwind sailing. The highest number I saw was 14 knots through the water. For pretty much the whole trip, we were using our auto-helm. It’s a computer controlled self steering system. It worked quite well up until the times that it didn’t. Specifically in very windy conditions with waves and a following sea, the controller (the computer that told the mechanism what to do) had difficulty controlling the direction of the boat. Because of this, manual steering was necessary. This specific boat, the J125 is build to be a very lightweight downwind sled. It really performed well and had a great feel from the wheel. Even with only the tiny triple reefed sail, the boat was a lot of fun to drive. We continued up the coast past Ensenada and I was starting to feel somewhat less stressed the closer we were getting to our destination. The rain started really coming down and the sea state continued to deteriorate. The waves were starting to get bigger and the direction was becoming more variable and confused. To say we were uncomfortable would be an understatement. Luckily, conditions began to improve. The last 8 hours or so the wind stayed at between 20-30 knots and was coming directly from our stern. One we were able to see the Los Coronado islands I continued to become mores relaxed. We were still intermittently manually steering, because it was fun, and because there waives were still very irregular. As we approached the San Diego Channel, we were greeted by a Nimitz Class Nuclear Air Craft Carrier. I appreciate that the US Navy was welcoming us home with an escort. As we proceeded inbound in the channel, I logged into the CBP ( Customs and Border Patroll) smart phone app and indicated our arrival. Officer George phoned me and asked a few questions. He inquired about what our future transit plans were after arrival (up to a Newport) I told him negative. San Diego was our home and that all that was standing in my way from a hot Spa my wire l wife and my own bed was him. He got a chuckle at that and then confirmed that we were checked in and free to proceed. I phoned Jeremy (friend and boat owners rep.) and told him we were arriving. He said he would come merry us at the dock. At this point, the winds were still blowing about 25-30 knots. As I cleared the entrance into La Playa I throttled back to neutral but with only the little tiny triple reefed main we were still moving over 8 knots. I briefed the crew of my strategy to turn up wind and drop the sails and then proceeded to orient the boat to back into our slip. It’s as very tight marina and the maneuver would necessitate going backwards up the first fairway making a tight 90 degree turn to the left another to the right and then another 90 turn into the slip. I have had little to no experience with this particular boat operating astern in right quarters let alone in conditions with a 30 knots crosswind. I practiced a bit in the La Playa opening and was feeling less than 100% confident in my abilities to successfully execute the necessary maneuvers. I checked my ego at the door and I phoned Jeremy who at this point was on the dock and told him that I was not comfortable with docking in this slip in these conditions. I suggested that I pick him up at end of a clear dock area and that’s what we did. He did as masterful job in bringing her in under these adverse conditions. I was relieved that we made it back safely with no damages and no injuries. Many lessons were learned and was thrilled that journey was successful and over.
Poltorak Marine Services 