Sea of Cortez crossing

As a cruiser that is not comfortable yet cruising, crossing the Sea of Cortez was an adventure. Definitely out of my comfort zone. The first night watch, I shook uncontrollably at 3 in the morning. At 3:30 when the wind dropped, I had to make a decision to wake the captain or try to make due with what was there. After playing with the headsail and mainsail for a while, and seeing on the autopilot that we were going 0 knots per hour, I finally woke John up. He came up and said "hm" and fiddled with the sails until the wind kind of freshened and got us back up to 2 knots per hour. Whereupon, I gratefully fell asleep until 7 AM.

Maybe I should back up a bit and say that as we left Pto. Escondido, we were only sailing to Agua Verde, a 17 mile away anchorage that was very beautiful and relaxing. As we were pulling into this anchorage though, the first of our engine problems started. We spent the night there and then went onto some beautiful spots that were equally relaxing to go to over the course of 7 days.

We were going to pull into Frailles (which is on the cape of Baja) when we realized that the wind was in the South and the fog that was covering Frailles was more as likely as not, going to stay on for the rest of the day (this was at 2 PM). John said "Let's hang a left?" and away we went, to start our crossing.

That 2nd morning on the water broke with about 75 dolphins playfully swimming around our boat and riding our wake. The 2nd night of watch was good and not scary at all. But then again, 1st night watch was from midnight to 4 AM, while 2nd night was 8 PM to midnight. At 10:30 PM, I had already sighted one of the lighthouses before Mazatlan and by midnight, John let me go lay down for a few hours sleep. I got up at 2, and that's when we realized that what with no wind and the engine wouldn't stay on for more than 5 min. at a time, we needed to give ourselves a new plan. Ingeniously, John lashed the dinghy to our starboard side, got in and turned on the motor. Under 2 1/2 knots, we guided ourselves in... oh wait, why can't we see Mazatlan? Oh could that be a huge fog bank covering most of Mazatlan?

We ended up anchoring off of Punto Cameron, in front of Pueblo Bonito Emerald Bay, which was kind of funny given that we are time share owners there. That was at 6:30 (and kudos to my son Leo, who got into the dinghy at 5 and stayed there until we were at anchor). By 10:30 this fog had burned off enough for us to realize that we needed to be 2 1/2 miles further South for the channel entrance that leads into the marinas, and we were tied up to the dock by noon.

While I am glad that I am more comfortable with night watch, I have to say that being sea sick the entire time that we were sailing and I was needed to go below to cook, really bummed me out. I wish I had been thinking about it. I could have had some fresh ginger aboard to get rid of it (and I have a great recipe for ginger tea that works for me), or at least some way to make myself not feel so crappy!

For now all I can say is that I am glad it is over, I am glad that we are in a great marina and that I am glad that the kids had some friends at the nearby El Cid marina, to play with.