Baja Ha-Ha - San Diego to Bahia Santa Maria

Ah, the Baja Ha-Ha.  The most fun you can possibly have with 150 boats and 550 people in 10 days!  The fun began on Saturday, October 24th when our dear friends Brian and Kim joined us in San Diego.  At noon, Eric headed to the skipper's meeting and at 2pm, the pre-departure Halloween party ensued, foretelling a rowdy and entertaining rally as you can tell from the photos below.

The start at 11:00am the next morning was picturesque with 150 boats on the line and a helicopter overhead taking aerial photos of individual boats for later sale in Cabo San Lucas with all proceeds going to benefit the orphanage in La Paz.   Our first passage to Bahia Tortugas (the Bay of Turtles) was 330 miles, the longest of the 3 passages of the Ha-Ha and three days and 2 nights later, we pulled in  just after dark on the 27th, exactly during the full lunar eclipse.  Wouldn't you know it, the one hour on the one one night we actually really needed the full moon to see what we are doing and the damn Earth gets in the way!  Anyway, the weather on the first leg was pretty nice with NW winds to 25kts during the day and light winds at night giving us a nice downhill ride most of the way although a big shift to the South on the 26th found us beating to windward the last 24 hours.  Nothing too nasty, but not as comfortable a passage as we would have liked.  Still, Turtle Bay made up for that with it's protected waters and rugged beauty.  We spent the two days we were there drinking cervesas on the beach, exploring the small town and partying with the Ha-Ha fleet.  We have met some really great people throughout the fleet including a few families voyaging with kids.

Saturday morning, October 30th found us departing with the fleet on the second leg of the Ha-Ha, 230 miles from Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria.  We had wonderful wind this entire leg, flying our new "code 0"  asymmetric spinnaker all day and then setting up a more conservative sail plan during the night.  Unlike the first leg, where we motored several hours at night when the wind dropped to nothing, we never even turned the engine on during this leg. 

We arrived in Bahia Santa Maria late in the evening on Halloween, once again anchoring in the dark although this time with the help of a partially full moon.  Anchoring at night in these huge, protected bays is actually pretty easy, particularly with radar and electronic GPS-driven charts.  We even have a night vision scope on board - a gift from Eric's mom - which came in extremely handy for spotting lobster pots and fishing floats in the dark as we neared the entrances to the bays.

Bahia Santa Maria was even more picturesque than Turtle bay if that is possible and we had a wonderful stay there.  Check out the next page for details.

As always, click on the photos for larger sizes.