Good Morning Starshine!: Cabo San Lucas!

After over 800 miles and ten days, we made it to Cabo San Lucas and what an adventure! There was the good and the bad and the downright ugly. The Baja-HaHa Rally comprised of about 125 sailboats. On this rally down the coast, the following problems were noted among the fleet:

Transmission failures - 3 boats

Engine failures - 2 boats

Lost rudder - 1 boat

Autopilots died - 3 boats

Wind vane broken - 1 boat

Bilge pump failure - 1 boat

Water pump failure - 1 boat

Water makers died - 2 boats

Rigging issues - 1 boat

Sails ripped - 2 boats

Spinnakers tangled in Halyards/Stays - 6 boats

Microwave died - 1 boat

There are probably others, but these are the issues that I am aware of. Hearing the problems of these other boats really made me appreciate the seriousness of this undertaking, although some more so than others (engines, rudders, and transmissions vs failed microwave).

The Baja-HaHa Rally officially ended last night with an awards ceremony (we received third place in our division) and the boats are dispersing over the next several days, with many continuing on to La Paz as we will as well in the next few days. As expected, this journey has brought many highs and lows, and with all of these engine mechanical failures, I am seriously reconsidering my thirty day journey across the South Pacific ocean (a plane flight into Tahiti is sounding really good right now), but we shall see. Dave may be seriously looking for crew.

For the highs, as expected, we met some really great new people (crew that included an 87 year old grandmother), and attended several well sponsored parties. The parties in the anchorages were so much fun and we had a great time! I am also thankful for the wonderful winds we had on the second leg and the fact that our new water maker, new self steering wind vane, wind generator, and solar panels are all working great (and the refrigerator). May they all continue to do so....

Cabo San Lucas is quite an experience after the emptiness and quietness of our first two stops. It is quite the resort town with continual loud music (6:00 AM on Sunday morning - please no!!!, hotel parties, and water activities). We did visit the infamous Sammy Haggar's Cabo Wabo restaurant yesterday where I had the most delicious red chicken enchilada. Final item of note is that there was a sport fishing contest here the night before last and the prize purse was $1.5M. There was an extremely happy (and loud) boat that night. And speaking of fishing, we did not have much time to fish with all our boat issues, but Dave did manage to catch a skip-jack tuna (aka bonito), which neither of us had had before with its dark red flesh. However, I baked it in the oven and it was rather interesting and tasted good at the time. Others in our Rally caught marlin, dorado, yellowtail, and one even caught a 300 lb great white shark (he had to let that one go after a picture)! So as you can see, never a dull moment around here! Until next time...

-Gail