The best way to come back is a matter of opinion. I've done the Baja bash, thats where you sail/motor right up the coast. Same course as going down. I didn't care for that. Lots of wind and traffic not to mention the beach. My friends (in my boat) are sailing up off shore. You can see there progress at
www.shiptrak.org the call sign is w6jss.
The winds and seas for the haha were...
On the morning of the start there was absolutly no wind ten minutes before the start. Then right on que it filled in to about 10 knots west north west for a beautiful spinnaker start. We ended up leaving the Coronado Islands to starboard. It was light in their shadow but picked up once we got out from behind them. That first afternoon my crew was asking about the procedure for taking down the spinnaker. I thought I was joking when I told them we won't take it down, God will. I really did plan on keeping it up the whole way if we could. Well at 05:00 the next morning it literally blew to bits. At roll call some boats were reporting 30 knots...? It was a bit breezy but I don't know about 30 knots. That spinnaker was my favorite. It came with the boat and was about 24 years old. It had been repaired many times but there isn't much left to fix this time. Oh well, good thing we had three more on board. The wind stayed good for the whole first. My wife reminds me that the seas were a little "yucky"
The second leg started just like the first, a headstay reach with the kite up. By mid day the wind had clocked and we were running deep. The seas to my memory were flat. By the next morning the wind had shut down entirely. Profligate, Latitude 38's 60 foot cat started motoring for the first time. We cooked a great breakfast and decided to wait it out. By mid day the wind was back and we were glad we waited.
The second stop is in Bahia Santa Maria. This is a very large Bay protected from the north west but open to the south. There is nothing there but a fish camp and a few buildings. One of the buildings is just a kitchen which I think was just built for when the haha come through. In 99 there was not a single building there. There was a very large swell coming up from a storm at 40' south. This made crossing the bar to get to the beach very dangerous in a dinghy. I made it in and out once while alone in my dinghy with a 15 hp motor. I saw another dinghy with four people in it get flipped on there way in. My crew didn't want to take the dinghy in when I told them we may end up swimming. The next day we took a panga in to the beach for the dinner party. A panga is a fiberglass open fishing boat about 20 feet long with a very large motor and the crew on them are really good at getting over the bar as they do it every day for their living. Almost every one took pangas in that afternoon. When the sun set it got very dark very fast with no moon. Richard the owner of Latitude 38 and Grand Poobha of the haha wanted every one that was on the beach to stay there for the night as he thought it was too dangerous to go through the surf in the dark even in a panga. We had got a ride out to the boat just before dark and I heard the last panga get totally airborn in the dark. Mind you, this is a heavy boat that was full of people. After that even the crazdy Mexican panganeros called it a night and 72 haha folks spent the night on the beach. What a story they have.
The next morning the start was delayed one hour so the pangas had time to get the crews back to there boats. It was yet another spinnaker start with light to moderate winds and a somewhat lumpy sea. By that afternoon it was blowing pretty good, maybe 20 knots.
The next moring the wind had shut down again. We were wing on wing and only had 20 miles to go to the finish line. The wind never did come up that day but we stuck it out. We figured we could turn on the motor at any time and be in Cabo in just a few hours so lets just see what happens. At times the only progress we made was do to the long shore current going our way. At other times the swell which was about 6 feet would get us up to 2 knots. I think our top speed for that day was 3 knots but we sailed across the finish line at 17:30 that night having sailed the entire course.
We were all glad that we stuck it out. I love doing that event. I recommend it to anyone. I would do it every year if I could.
cheers
Phil
