LandfallVoyages

Bahia Magdalena is one of those places you really ought to see if you’re cruising down the Baja coast. Says so right in all the guidebooks and as it turns out, they do not lie. It’s huge, first off, and this far down, the desert starts to give way to a more tropical feel. It’s supposed to be crawling with wildlife and full of warm, wonderful people. Jamie off the Tardis told us a story about getting boarded by the Mexican Navy while he was down there. They were pleasant, as always, and after finishing up with him, went on to the next boat. They stayed for an unusually long while, then left, only to return again and again and again. At this point, everybody in the anchorage is thinking there’s some horrendous problem with papers or maybe they got caught with something illegal on board. It looked bad.

It was bad. After finishing with their boarding, the Navy guys discovered that this sailboat was having engine problems.  They tried to fix it for them, but couldn’t so they went back and forth a couple of times to pick up parts and more guys– everybody just working like dogs, trying to solve this engine problem. Finally, they called it quits, admitting defeat…so what do they do next? Tow the sailboat to the nearest place they could get it fixed. Naturally. One hundred and seventy five miles to Cabo. And wouldn’t accept any payment for their troubles.

So yeah, we were excited to get down there. In Turtle Bay, there were 5 or 6 of us all heading that way at the same time, which is kind of nice when you’re going hundreds of miles down a desert coast. We’d all gotten friendly in the anchorage and after talking back and forth among all the boats, it was decided that everyone would plan to take off at 2 in the afternoon the following day. In the morning, Hans and Petra swung by on the Lifee P. Baker to holler out that they were setting out a few hours earlier because they were expecting to make slower time than everyone else and we hollered back for them to have a great trip and then carried on with getting ready to go. Now most of the rest of the boats had been working their way south as a pack, and maybe that had something to do with it, but when I came out on deck at 1:15 to finish stowing stuff, imagine my surprise to find the anchorage mostly deserted and 90% of the other boats already small on the horizon.  We tried to hail them on the VHF but they stayed radio silent with us, even though we could hear them chatting back and forth amongst themselves. It was kinda weird, to be honest. We ended up taking off closer to 3:30, because as we hauled the anchor line up, we found a hockle in it about 30′ from the chain so we decided to set the other anchor line up instead.

From the log of S/V Landfall:

Day 1, 1930: Orion is just climbing into the sky. The sea is super dark tonight–all the light we have so far is starlight and while there are for sure a zillion of them up there, it’s not much to see by. Turtle Bay has been steadily glowing off our stern and, here and there along the coast, I can see scattered lights, but it’s pretty thin. It isn’t until we’ve gone mostly all the way across Bahia San Cristobal that the lights from Tortuga fade all the way away.

Day 1, 2142: All’s well except the following sea we were supposed to have is a trifle more disorganized than I was expecting. Seems like we’ve got a bit of a cross swell mucking up the troughs and when those bad boys come rolling through, they pick up the stern end of the boat and kind of swing her sideways, which is annoying for me and making the guys a little anxious. All the lights on land have gone and now it’s just stars above, dark sea below, and two points of light off the port bow that look a lot like we’re catching some of the boats that left ahead of us. We’re doing all right, tooling along between 6.5 and 7 kts. Switched Racors because the 1st looked dirty and we’re seeing some intermittent RPM drops, partly due to confused seas off Pta. San Roque, but anyhow, switched them over and now the engine is just as happy as can be.

Day 2, 0131: Getting close to the back of the pack now. I know this because I can hear them talking about our nav lights on the radio. They chatter back and forth about what we might be and then I hear, “Well, I bet they’re slow anyway–Not gonna worry about them.” I shift our course around, looking for more wind and by the time 0230 rolls around, we’re averaging 7.4 kts. Call me slow, will you?

Day 2, Afternoonish: The wind died off a bit after the sun came up and stayed pretty light throughout the day. All we’ve done is manage to shadow the back of the pack, but Steve had a great time fishing, so it was a good day. The first fish came up hard and pulled a lot of line out really quick. He saw it jump once–it was grey and silver, maybe 4′ or 5′ long. After a minute, the line went slack and the fish ran off with the lure. The second fish was a lot the same, only bigger by a foot or two, and continued the tradition of running off with our lure. Fish number three had to be even larger than the first two; it pulled like crazy and never let up, first breaking the pole in half and then ripping the remaining eyelets right off the pole before snapping the line and swimming off. With the lure. The fourth fish was a totally different experience. It hooked itself and stayed hooked, but compared to the others, had a reasonable amount of fight in it. No lure was lost and Steve pulled in a beautiful Mahi-Mahi, just the perfect size for our family.

Day 2, 2100: The wind picked up after sundown and all night long we’ve been systematically overtaking the pack. We’re far to the outside of them and by the time Landfall is coming into the lead, a strange jumble of lights pops up off our starboard bow. Maybe a fishing fleet or something commercial, anyhow. We scope it out with the binoculars and for a while, all we can tell is that it’s moving fast, whatever it is. We decide to tack in toward the land, leaving some extra leeway for the lights to pass us by. As we cut ahead of the dwindling pack, the lights change course, coming a lot closer to us than I’d like. It’s a huge tug or something, towing two enormous, poorly lit barges behind. Steve flips on the spreader lights and puts out a call to the pack, letting them know what’s coming their way. In the dark, it’s easy to mistake a tug with barges in tow for several different boats and dangerous to try passing between them. We can hear the pack talking excitedly about our hail, but of course, no one gets back to us.

Day 3, 0100: We’ve officially lost the pack, swallowed up in the darkness astern sometime after Eli came out on deck to hang out and talk about the Halo universe, in all its infinite coolness. There are no more sailboats, no more fishing boats or barges–nothing else visible on the water, far as the eye can see. On land, we’ve got a largish glow steady off the port bow and I figure its maybe the moon taking her own sweet time to grace us with her presence. Steve popped his head out for a minute and decided it’s more likely the lights from San Carlos, the main commercial port inside Bahia Magdalena. Could be. All I know is the wind and the swell are cruising us along easy and nice @ 6.5 kts and the engine is running like a champ. There’s an amazing meteor shower going on and all I’ve got to do is keep tabs on  things while I sip on this generic-brand instant coffee that is, all things considered, a pretty damn fine beverage. We should reach the entrance to Mag Bay just after dawn.

Day 3, 0130: Raised the Cabo San Lazaro light, marking the corner you have to turn to start making your way down toward the entrance and all the whole time, that glow of light on the land hasn’t climbed any higher in the sky. Steve’s right–gotta be San Carlos.

Day 3, 0630: Finally got the lights from Punta Entrada and Punta Redondo, marking the north and south points for the harbor entrance. Really tired and also really glad we’ll be hitting this after the sun comes up.

Day 3, 0730: Making our way into Bahia Magdalena and the entrance is just lousy with poorly marked crab pots. Steve’s up on the bow, pointing out the safe path as I dodge us–now to port, now to starboard, and then back to port all over again. Pangas are literally, I shit you not, racing back and forth directly ahead of us and crossing our bow by only a couple of meters, to drop even more crab pots, DIRECTLY IN FREAKING FRONT OF OUR BOAT. WTF?Really? We put out a half-hearted call to the pack behind us, warning them that the entrance has been liberally mined with crab pots, but as far behind as they are, don’t really expect that they’ll hear it. Or respond.

Day 3, 0900: Dropped anchor just off the sleepy little fishing village of Puerto Magdalena.