November 5th, 2016

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Saturday, November 5th. First stop Bahia de Tortugas.

Saturday, November 5th, 2016

After I posted the delayed voting ballot that Jennifer brought me, I left San Diego at 1.45 p.m. Sailing conditions were ideal with about 10 to 15 knots from the North West. But it kept strengthening and Wednesday morning I was saling once again under just the storm jib. Thursday was a nice sailing day and night but a lot of commercial traffic rounding the cape near Turtle Bay and the AIS alarm kept waking me up regularly. Yesterday morning the wind weakened and in order for me to get in before dark I motored the last eight hours and assisited by the Northerly when it came up again. The Baja Ha-Ha fleet filled the bay, quite a sight at night to see all those anchor lights of the nearl 180 participants. I missed the party on the beach because I was unable to hail a panga to shore. I plan to go to the 6 p.m. mass service and depart early in the morning to catch up with the fleet in Bahia de Santa Maria, another 250 nautical miles south of here. The bigger boats can do this in two full days, but my max in this thirty footer is about 100 mile days. This boat appears to be slightly faster than my old “Fleetwood”. And the bigger boats have bigger fuel tanks and can motor when the wind dies.

This pueblo is like something out of a John Wayne TexMex wild western. Unpaved dusty streets, bare rocky hills, with a little imagination you can picture the horses in place of the dusty cars.  I love not to have to wear socks any longer. The nights are still cool on the ocean.

I have not had enough time to read all the instructions that came with my new toy, the GoPro camera and all its accessories. In the mean time I have made a couple videos wit the “Flip” camera. A new learning process but the more interesting experiences out on the ocean tend to lend themselves more to videos than the sun and moon still photographs. Like the hitch hiker I had on board on Thursday. Take a look at: Fleetwood on the Pacific It tells a story and replaces the usual pictures this time.