Wing-on-winging-it
This trip, with its consistent 10-15 knots of wind, has been our chance to improve our downwind sailing skills. Rarely do we get the precise wind angle for our direction to go wing-on-wing, but we’ve done it four days on this trip and for several hours each time. A brief definition of wing-on-wing (W.O.W.) is: flying the mainsail on one side of the boat and the jib on the other with the wind directly behind us, essentially pushing us forward.  

Yesterday, we flew downstream from San Marte to Timbabiche wing-on wing, but I refused to let Brian put up the pole to keep the jib furled out. It was already far too windy and wavy for Brian to be crawling around on a convulsing, pitching deck unnecessarily. Without the pole though, it was very difficult to keep Indigo in check and stay at the necessary precise angle to the wind. Any little distraction in steering can result in a flapping and flailing jib. Let’s just say it was no leisurely Sunday drive.

WOW Event
So today, we hauled the pole up early, before it got too windy and the seas too gnarly. All the stars aligned for a superior WOW event: wave direction, wind direction and our direction to the next anchorage. It was a glorious thing.

For hours we enjoyed near perfect downwind conditions into the head of the San Jose Channel. As the wind had died the previous night, we started out with minimal waves and 5 knots of wind. And as the morning progressed, the wind slowly built to 15-17 knots but the slow uptick kept wave heights to middling. So the ride was just beautiful, like coasting a sled downhill. Unlike the previous day when Indigo was getting bullied about by the large waves (and me getting bandied about trying to steer her)… today she was expertly schussing down those seas like they weren’t even there.

The Pole is The Key when WOWing
Without the pole, the jib is constantly on the verge of collapsing because it wants to flip to the other side to align with the mainsail (my wandering steering doesn’t help). With the pole, the jib is held out in position whether it wants to be or not. Even though it requires some setup time, pole deployment balances the boat and thwarts the jib’s flip-flop tendency. This accomplished, I could darn near sail without paying attention. My true wind angle could vary anywhere from 180-140 degrees, as opposed to having to vigorously maintain 170 dead on without the pole. I could even venture over 10 degrees into the other side for a bit without gybing (don’t ask how I know this). Ah, but this is gibberish to you non-sailors. Basically, I could wander off unintentionally (my specialty) without dire consequences. What dire consequences? An accidental gybe.

What is a Gybe?
In sailing, there are essentially two types of turns, a tack and a gybe. You tack when your boat is driving into the wind; you perform a gybe when your boat is facing away from the wind. Tacking is way easier than gybing. Gybing can incur anxiety in even the most seasoned sailors - if not done right, disaster can ensue. There are three types of gybes: a ‘controlled gybe’, an ‘uncontrolled gybe’ and what I call a ‘semi-controlled gybe’.

Controlled Gybe
A purposeful turn, the sailor conscientiously controls the boom angle all the way through the turn. So there we are… picture the boom (that big, swinging stick perpendicular to the mast) hanging out over the water with its sail full. As the driver (me) carefully turns the boat towards the opposite wind angle, the mate (Brian) hauls the boom in (reeling it in with rope) until it hits almost amidships (aligning with the length of the boat). At this brief moment in time the wind angle is at exactly 180 degrees on our stern. If it’s calm, the mainsail flutters and the boom does a little waggle, deciding which way it wants to sail, and we can actually manhandle it over to the other side to reduce any load. But, if it’s windy out, forget it. We’d better be quick. As the boom crosses that 180 degree angle, the sail shakes loudly and the boom slams (hopefully just a little) to the opposite side as the wind suddenly poofs the sail. As the boat heels over, I quickly turn her even further and Brian lets the line out so the boom extends over the opposite side. That’s what happens when you do it right. It doesn’t always go so well.

Uncontrolled Gybe
An uncontrolled gybe occurs when the boom slams unchecked to the opposite side of the boat. This can result from a sudden switch in wind direction or a pushy wave. But most likely, someone (me) accidentally turned too far downwind and backwinded the sail before we are ready for a controlled gybe. Imagine that big, heavy boom swinging unrestrained from one side of the boat to the other, a pendulum swing of potentially 90 degrees or more (15 feet rather than 1 or 2 inches).

It can happen in the blink of an eye, but it feels like a slow-mo movie scene where the actor is just watching, wide-eyed and powerless to help. Noooooo! Before you know it, the boom has soundlessly whipped over your head and crashed to the other side with an earsplitting, lightning-bolt “SNAP”. A deep shudder reverberates up the attached mast, throughout the ship and deep into your gut (you are, after all, one with the boat). A palpable sensation, it’s enough to cause some pronounced bowel-shifting. Depending on your speed and how far and fast the pendulum has swung, enough momentum is in play here to break that boom-to-mast joint or snap the boom in half. High wind and wave conditions make that force even greater. If your body or head is in the way… good luck. We have never experienced a really bad gybe, but we have bungled a few over the years in light winds… and while we haven’t damaged anything, we still abhor gybing simply because we can’t help but anticipate potential catastrophe!

Semi-Controlled Gybe
This is pretty much the combo meal deal where I asked for 10 chicken nuggets but I only got 7 and complaining to the manager is pointless because, well, YOU are the manager. In turning across that 180-degree space, the driver turns too quickly and the mate can’t tighten up the boom all the way in time before it schwacks across at a 10-20 degree arc. Or…turn too slowly and a following wave can broadside the boat as the mate is in the process of bringing in the line, causing the boat to roll and gybe. Still a mighty crunch, but not AS BAD as it could have been had the mate not gotten that boom part-way tightened. Seven out of ten nuggets isn’t what I set out for, but at least I got some. Effectively a controlled gybe part of the way, uncontrolled the rest. Brian would still call this an uncontrolled gybe, partially tightened or not, but I prefer to note the difference. A 20-degree pendulum swing is a thousand times better than a 90-degree free swing. But either way… No Bueno. So what can you do?

The Preventer
Sounds like a super hero, eh? “THE PREVENTER – preventing accidental gybes worldwide. Wherever there be sloppy sailors, careless cruisers or ridiculous racers, THE PREVENTER precludes improper pointing.” While most boat parts are awarded some incongruous label, a preventer does exactly what it says. It prevents an uncontrolled gybe, reigning in that boom from flying about, willy nilly. A preventer is simply a line attached from the end or the middle of the boom to the deck, usually encompassing a ratcheting device which can be tightened as needed.

While we employ a preventer to stop full-on uncontrolled gybes, an inadvertent gybe will still cause the mainsail to become backwinded. Wind suddenly filling the sail from the opposing direction can cause excessive load. Depending on a lot of factors, your boom will prooobably stay in place; but this sudden load has caused preventer lines to snap (bad) thus resulting in an uncontrolled gybe anyway. Also, in heavy seas the rolling motion of a wave can cause a quick loosening in the preventer line and then a sickening ‘snap’ as the preventer whips the boom back into place. Despite its shortcomings, we usually sail with a preventer when sailing downwind and always when sailing wing-on wing.

Ok, enough sailing terminology …back to our lovely WOW Event…

The San Jose Channel
The San Jose Channel is notorious for its squirrely nature. It can be as fickle as a 2-yr-old… serene one minute, wailing the next. This 3 to 5 mile-wide slice of water runs between the Sierra Gigantas mountain range on the Baja peninsula and the 16-mile-long mountainous island of San Jose. Swooping tidal current can accelerate already high winds and seas. Previous experience with the Channel has ranged from benign flat water to mildly energetic. But we’d witnessed its howling rage from safe anchorage and were thankful we weren’t out there. Today, we miscalculated.

Let’s Keep Going!…Bad Idea
We had left at dawn, so about noon we’d gone almost 25 miles and were nearing San Evaristo, our original destination. But we’re feeling good, it’s early and Isla San Francisco is only another 12 miles away, we argued. Sailing a brisk 5-6 knots, Indigo rode at a perfect, comfortable angle to the slowly increasing waves… which we noticed… but ignored since our ship was effortlessly balanced. A little lulled into the lure of our perfect WOW sail continuing “as is”, we kept going. Those darn sea sirens must have been singing. Between that irreversible decision (@ noon) and our landing at Isla San Francisco (@ 2:30), the wind gods became angry….probably hangry, they didn’t have lunch yet I assume. Maybe next time I should throw some Cheez Whiz into the sea to calm them down.

Max Hull Speed
Passing San Evaristo, the wind quickly ticked upward from a manageable 15-17 knots… to 22 knots. Indigo was hauling butt at 7-7.5 knots, which by the way is hull speed, the theoretical maximum speed at which our particular boat is designed to go! Whitecaps snarled and hissed intermittently at our rear but there was no turning back. It would have actually been supercalifragilistically uncomfortable to do so, to bash into that mess. It was so windy, sailing wing-on-wing was no longer an option – too risky as the boat became unbalanced. Brian furled in the jib and went up on the lurching bow to take down the pole, no easy task in these now 5ft/4second seas. Sans jib, we were still racing down the channel at 6 knots under full mainsail alone.

27 Knots!
We try very hard not to sail in 27 knots; we just don’t go out when it’s forecasted over 20. But sometimes it sneaks up on you...like right now. I should have just turned off the wind indicator when I consistently started seeing 25-27 knots! Waves now broke behind us in a continuous hissy-fit, threatening to eat us for lunch. I gritted my teeth and opted not to look backward. Hand-steering down those short waves I felt like an Indy car driver – to focus so fully on not crashing is exhausting! Every 4 seconds our rear end lifted, our bow pointed at a daunting downward angle and Indigo was thrust forward like a plaything until it fell into the next trough. The boat handled it fine but at some point we were going to have to make a left turn into the anchorage and go beam-on to these frothing whitecaps. The stern waves were our friend now, helping to push us towards our goal, but as soon as we turned even a little they’d become the enemy.

Sailing Under Reefed Main Only
At 2pm, Brian put a reef in the mainsail and we continued to fly towards the island in 27 knots of wind but at a more controllable pace of 5 knots. We managed to (purposefully) get as close as physically possible to the island, skimming its west side a mere several hundred feet off shore. We are thankful for our accurate chartplotter and The Sea of Cortez Cruiser’s Guide; we had skimmed the island once before in calm waters and were thus confidant as to depths and rock obstructions so close to its edge. Once we made the pronounced left turn into the anchorage, this proximity reduced our time sailing beam-on to the breaking waves to mere minutes. Our skim-the-shore-wave-avoidance plan worked. Whew! We were in. That 8-hr WOW Event turned into quite a bit more WOW than expected, but we made it!

Lounge Lizards
We set the hook and promptly lazed like lounge lizards in the cockpit, resting our travel weary bones. We didn’t move from that heavenly spot for 3 days. I LOVE Isla San Francisco!

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Uncouth Charterboaters
OK, you yacht charterer guys. Just so you know… when you pee off the boat in the middle of the day, count on EVERYBODY seeing it.

So a charter catamaran anchors next to us with a couple families on board. We saw two different adult males pee off the boat no less than four times. During the day. In broad daylight. From the swim step. AND off the bow into the wind – Hey genius, never pee into the wind!  I seem to recall some song lyrics about that. It’s not like we were intently watching them. We’d just happen to be looking out from the cockpit to see what the commotion is about or up on deck showering after a snorkel… and whammo, our eyes are inundated with the uncouth sight. Acckkk! Seriously? And if you think we were the ONLY ones who saw your tactless little display? Think again. In kayaking over to our trawler boat neighbor, the subject happened to come up. “Yeah! We SAW that too! What an idiot, peeing off the bow into the wind. And like no one could see him…” So, if you think no one is watching? Think again. And guess what language said charterers were speaking? French. Yah.

Punta Salinas – Abandoned Salt Flats
After our delightful stay at Isla San Francisco, we ventured over to Punta Salinas for a lunch stop at an old salt mining operation. Centered on Isla San Jose, we hoped this new anchor spot was situated far enough away from the dreaded, biting jejenes at this island’s south tip. We strolled along the beach, poked around the decaying buildings and paused for a photo op in front of a rusty, decrepit pickup. I climbed a 10ft high salt pile that had hardened solid, fossilizing into what felt like gripping a heap of sharp ice crystals.

And Today the Weather Dictates…
But the wind was picking up. Here is a great example of how weather dictates everything we do. Anchored on a lee shore with wind driven waves building across the channel towards us, Indigo was bouncing out there a little too much for comfort. Not to mention the notion of a wet and wild ride back to the boat, kayaking directly against the wind and waves. So we unfortunately only spent about an hour on shore and did not venture inland into the miles of checkerboard salt ponds. This salty maze looked like an infinite place to explore and we hope to be back.

Whale Sightings!
On our way across the channel we caught some whale action! As a group made their way south, we saw spouts every few seconds. When you can see the white geysers from 2 miles away… THAT’s big. We’d seen several whale spouts in the last couple days, all in the San Jose Channel area, but were never close enough for good photos. (The only whale shots I’d ever caught were from our Mazatlan to La Paz crossing.) Later on in the week, a small one blew a few hundred yards away as we sailed near Isla Monserrat, but he spouted only once and we never saw it again.

We’d heard stories of countless whale sightings this spring: one had a pair visit their anchorage in the middle of the night, scaring them out of a sound sleep; another accidentally sailed right into the midst of a pod… then again while kayaking, the same couple witnessed several surface only a couple hundred feet away. All instances were way too close for comfort.

Awe and Anxiety
In discussing whales with other cruisers, the general consensus seems to be 1/4 awe & 3/4 anxiety. Seeing dolphins or manta rays is always cool; seeing a whale prompts that same instant “cool!” exuberance, but is quickly tamped down by an underlying sense of “crap”. While you want to see them up close to experience that ‘National Geographic moment’, you really don’t want to see them up close. Period. It’s fine and dandy to go whale-watching… on a tour ship… ‘cause it’s not your house.

Indifferent Cows
Whales are like sleepy-eyed, cud-chewing cows standing on a car-lined road, completely disregarding surrounding anxious drivers. Furiously, yet fruitlessly, the motorist honks his feeble horn, hoping to annoy them enough to reverse their ingrained inertia. Consider your anxiety level increase as a motorist if that cow was now a gigantic bull that had the potential to run full speed right into your slowly moving car like a deer attracted by headlights or maybe even just because he was mad (look at what happened to Captain Ahab)… or maybe said bull decides that your nice, shiny, perfectly-painted BMW looks like THE perfect scratching post (the horror)… maybe even, just because this particular bull species has a propensity for jumping up and down, he accidentally lands on top of your hood, smashing it to smithereens. Bull: “Oops, my bad.”

Whales seem to ignore moving boats; they don’t particularly care if you are in their way. And why should they, we’re probably like cockroaches to them, we’re so small! While relatively rare odds, there are plenty of stories spanning the centuries of these giants scraping alongside ship hulls, nudging boats from underneath, flicking their flukes dangerously close or swimming full bore into vessels… even breaching right on top of them. And unfortunately, a slow sailboat just cannot move fast enough to dodge such a gigantic mass, even if you see them first. Just a small bump could cause a crack and sink a boat. One cruising boat apparently ran into a whale and sunk 30 miles outside of San Carlos just a couple weeks ago! So while it would be great to have cool close-up snapshots, that sunken boat report made us very nervous…we can only hope our whale friends stay far, far away.

San Evaristo
After sailing across the San Jose Channel, we landed at San Evaristo. Our second time anchoring in this small bay with a teeny fishing community, it’s a favorite of ours due to the shelter it provides from wind waves. And because of the fish tacos. Lupe and Maggie Mae’s restaurant/home makes the best fish tacos in all of Baja.

30 Knots
That night, we were blasted with an unpredicted 30 knot westerly. While blustery, this was an onshore wind (fortunately for us) so we had no uncomfortable fetch (no wind waves rolling in offshore to generate bounce). But the lack of fetch didn’t mean we slept well. The noise generated by 30 knots of wind is quite something. Plus, we had a banging halyard that could not be fixed in the dark, and then there’s the remnants of our no-see-um bites that still itched like crazy. Despite these minor issues, we were supremely relieved to have left San Francisco’s exposed west anchorage the day before. We later heard accounts of a really rough and rolly night there in those same 30kts winds; so uncomfortable that some boats vacated in the middle of the night, motoring around to the east side of the island for better protection.

Flakey Flurries
By the time we got up in the morning, the westerly wind had decreased to a nice 12 kts. We rounded the corner of the little bay into the San Jose Channel thinking we would get some good sailing; and we did – for literally one mile. Then it stopped. Dead. 12-knots to zero in an instant. Where’d the wind go? We waited a bit but eventually took down the flapping sails and motored on for another couple miles. Then it came whipping up again (17 knots); soooo, we started sailing again. We then noticed another sailboat just ahead of us rolling his sails up. Huh? But it’s plenty windy to sail!? We snickered a bit and kept sailing. Sure enough…our brisk breeze petered out again a mile later, right where the lead boat had given up. No longer snickering, the lightbulb finally went on...

Looking closer at the mountain terrain, the wind was funneling down through the sheer passes and out the valleys like a bobsled chute. On either side of the two valleys – zero wind. It’s also probable we caught more wind passing those “chutes” so close to shore than if we had angled away towards the center channel. Every day, the Sea teaches us a lesson it seems: in sailing or anchoring, in weather phenomena, in ocean water patterns, in nature’s infinite wonders…but mostly, of nature’s unpredictability!

Napping El Nino
El Nino seemed to be taking a nap. Thankfully! Sometimes being wrong is magnificent. Our ongoing weather anxieties included the dread of having to deal with and work around week-long strong north winds on our trek back to San Carlos. But during the first two weeks of our trip meandering to Puerto Escondido, we were blessed with exactly 11 days of perfect weather and only two back-to-back days of 25kts. THIS is what the weather is SUPPOSED to be like! Now we’re talkin’!

Bahia Amortajada
The 3rd night of our trip north brought us to Isla San Jose and the south anchorage of Bahia Amortajada. A long, pretty beach and expansive shallow lagoon, perfect for kayaking and wildlife-watching, beckoned. It was the first anchorage since we left La Paz that we had completely to ourselves.  (Now we know why.) We anchored in lovely water and kayaked to the beach. The guidebook suggests navigating into the lagoon at high tide to avoid fighting the current; we happened to arrive at low tide - but the book doesn’t mention that low tide is so low it’s impossible to get in. We didn’t want to portage our kayak, so we ended up strolling the beach instead. The sun was out, the day was hot and bright, all was well with the world.

Swept Away
Back on the boat I decided to cool off in the 70degree pool water. It looked so inviting I just jumped right in…and was immediately swept 15 ft to the back of the boat. Startled, I quickly swam against this current and clung to the ladder, feeling the water rushing along my legs. What the heck? I’d never felt such movement before and should have known better. Indigo had stubbornly been pointing east out to sea, paralleling the bottom of the island, despite the several directions of light wind we had that day. We wondered in passing why this was so, but didn’t really think too much about it, didn’t feel the current when kayaking. Not until I was IN it. The current that flows down along the outside of San Jose must curve and funnel right in between San Jose and Isla San Francisco. We watched some flotsam pass by at an incredible rate and now I will be watching for flotsam speed BEFORE I jump into anything. Later, we heard a story from another boat who swore the current is so swift flowing in and out of the lagoon that it was impossible to kayak into during mid-tide, they couldn’t make any headway and gave up.

Land of a Thousand Bites
Don’t let the pretty pictures fool you…
While daytime was sublime, dusk brought a living nightmare. Silent but deadly swarms of teeny, no-see-um bugs called jejene’s (pronounced hay-hay-nay’s) flew out of the mangrove lagoon and attacked. Worse than mosquitoes (you can actually see and swat mosquitoes), these beasts are less than the size of the head of a pin. Almost impossible to see and lightning-quick, they therefore cannot be killed. How can you kill something you can’t see! They got everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Sleep was impossible. At least with attacking mosquitoes, you can duck under the sheets – these got INSIDE our clothing, INSIDE the sheets! We tossed and turned and itched and scratched until I wanted to cry. Had it not been for our good screens (we think they only got in when we had to go outside), we’d have been mobbed…taken alive, probably perished.

We’re Getting Outta Here!
The morning sunlight did not dissuade them from crowding into our shady cockpit at first light. Unaffected by burning mosquito coils, the ONLY thing that got rid of them was LEAVING. But we regretfully took some with us. It wasn’t until 2 days later we felt they had all left the boat. But the itching remained a constant reminder of their terror attack. We sustained 2 more sleepless nights of less frequent biting and 5 days of furious scratching. After that, our irritation finally subsided enough to inspect with a more detached eye. I counted over 50 welts on one leg alone, that I could see. Multiply that by 4 extremities and add some for the head, neck, stomach…yeah…that should give some indication as to our sheer madness. Calamine lotion and poison ivy itch cream did little to relieve; I used face mask to dry them out, dabbing each welt with white paste - I looked like a spotted snake for days afterward.

Steinbeck Warning
I should have listened to Steinbeck. He wrote about this vile creature at Amortajada in his book, Log from the Sea of Cortez: “We were anchored quite near San Jose Island and that night we were visited by little black beetle-like flies which bit and left a stinging, itching burn. Covering ourselves did not help, for they crawled down into our bedding and bit us unmercifully.” This phenomenon is still absolutely true 76 years later. Fortunately, we have not experienced these little buggers anywhere else. The term “Amortajada” means shrouded, as in a funeral shroud… if you stay long enough that’ll be your fate.

You Can Visit, Just Don’t Stay
For the love of all mankind, do NOT attempt to anchor there overnight. While the guidebook specifically informs about jejene’s, their claim that mosquito coils and bug spray can be easily used as a deterrent defies our experience.  If you absolutely must see the lagoon, abridge your exploring for a short daytrip. Then run right back to San Francisco or San Evaristo well before the sun goes down if you want to save your skin…and your sanity… for the next week. You couldn’t PAY us to go back. Ever.