Leg 4—Bahia Magdalena to Bahia Tortugas

April 9-April 12
After we made the decision to pass Bahia Magdalena, the rest of the night went smoothly. Bryan navigated us around Cabo San Lazaro, the point at the north end of the Mag Bay area, and then pointed us due north for the run up to Bahia San Juanico. There's a San Juanico Point and a San Juanico Bay. We made sure we were pointed at the right one. He even picked up an internet signal as we passed Bahia Santa Maria and pulled in a current weather forecast, which was still predicting beautiful calms through Friday evening.

I woke to another clear day, no boats in sight and land only a distant outline, the glassy swell untouched by even a hint of wind. I did the dishes, taking advantage of the chance to let them dry on the stable counter before the sea changed her mood. I hardboiled some eggs, chopped the last of a head of romaine, and sliced tomatoes, avocados, and a cucumber for a chef salad. I improvised a creamy dressing, grated the last of the pepper jack cheese, and pulled out sliced almonds for some crunch. We set up the table and gathered around, grateful for one more easy day heading north.

In the afternoon, Bryan hung the solar shower for me and I took a shower in the cockpit. I should have left the bag of water out to heat for a few more minutes—Brrrrrr!—but I finished quickly and the sun soon warmed my skin and dried my hair.

No Photo Available

The wind picked up juuust enough to keep a headsail full, so Bryan and Meira hauled it up and we made good time under drifter alone until the breeze died, less than an hour later. In the quiet, I read aloud to the girls from Arthur Ransome's We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, a locationally-appropriate family favorite. 

Late afternoon found us curled up on the settee for a movie. 

The computer sat balanced on the counter between the sink and the stove and the sound cord ran across the range to the stereo so we decided to take an intermission to make popcorn. Everyone doctored it to their own liking—salt, parmesan-garlic, or cinnamon-sugar. Bryan sat on the companionway steps and stood to look around every few minutes. The girls and I would typically have taken the evening shifts, but we were within 3 or 4 hours of landfall and Bryan needed to be awake to make the call about whether to anchor after dark or wait until dawn. I'd been awake since 6:30 and my weariness had me feeling a little anxious about the prospect of a night entrance. The old rule, “Never Make Landfall at Night.” is a good rule, but not an unbreakable one. Especially if, like tonight, the moon was high, the seas calm, the visibility beautiful...and the captain willing to turn around and spend the night in the safety of the sea if needed. From the charts, San Juanico Bay seemed like an easy place to approach in the dark, with no off-lying reefs and only one, well-charted rock far closer to land than we wanted to venture. Bryan didn't need me up and anxious, at least not until the last minute, so I curled up in bed and let myself relax.
Bryan stretched out on the settee and got a few minutes of sleep while Meira took her evening watch. I woke about 12:30 am in sudden silence. The girls were both in bed, the cabin and cockpit were empty, and Bryan had just shut down the engine and was stepping forward to set the anchor. He'd eased his way into the outer edge of the shallow bay and, as I watched in the light of the high half moon, he settled us snug for the night.
The nighttime temperatures on Baja's southwest coast are a little cooler than where we've been, but still not cold, and the daytime temperatures are perfectly warm, but not hot. I've been enjoying mornings cool enough to savor a hot cup of tea and this morning was no exception. I woke Bryan with a cup of coffee and the girls got ready to go to shore while I made breakfast burritos. We'd all eaten, and were just debating if we should tackle the long row to shore or pull up and re-anchor a little closer, when a trio of fishermen pulled up in a panga. We exchanged greetings and then I asked if there was gasoline in town. One of the fishermen spoke great English and he responded affirmatively and then invited us to hop aboard for a ride. I called over, “Uno minuto, por favor!” We scrambled into our shoes and grabbed the backpack, our cash, a water bottle, and a dry bag with a couple of internet-ready devices in case we found a place to check the weather while we waited for a ride back to the boat. Bryan tossed four empty jerry jugs across the water to the waiting fisherman, who tucked them down among the lobster traps and tools. When we were all ready, the panga pulled up, we stepped quickly across, and were off.
On the way in, Nacho manned the outboard and opened the introductions, pointing to his crew in turn. One of the men seemed shy and I didn't catch his name. But they proudly lifted a plank to show us the day's catch—4 white sea bass. Landing a panga at San Juanico, known for it's record long surfing waves, was a little bit tricky. The fishermen turned the boat stern-to the beach and instructed us to sit tight until they got the truck attached. We watched, fascinated as they rolled a set of wheels down into the breaking surf and floated the boat into the makeshift cradle that connected the wheels. Luis held the boat while Nacho backed his truck down toward the water and the crew expertly tied the boat to the truck bed. The surf threw us into the sand and then floated us off again several times before the truck finally hauled us free of the sea. 

Once safely ashore, we hopped down from the panga. 

Before we could begin to ask directions to the gas station, Nacho welcomed us into his “Fish Car” a beat up, extended-cab truck that looked just right for the job. We found places for the fuel jugs among the crates in the back and piled into the cab. The girls and I tried to avoid hooking our hair, or worse, on the sharp fishing lure hanging from the headliner. We were all grateful for the ventilation offered by the missing rear window. The Fish Car had obviously been well-used. Of course after several days at sea, it's quite likely we added our own aroma to the mix:-)

Nacho drove us up the slender road from the beach to town. He'd lived here all his life and talked about how much the town had changed with the influx of surfers from America. “Everything is so much more expensive!” He pointed out the homes owned by Americans, but seemed quite content with his life. “It's good to live in a town where you know everyone.”
We pulled up to an open structure on the side of the road and Nacho asked one of the men there if he had any gasoline. I didn't understand the whole conversation, but it was obvious they were out. So we drove on through town to the official gas station, the gasolinera. 

Nacho inquired about prices for us and we quickly siphoned 20 gallons into our tanks. The smell of corn tortillas from the tortilleria down the road overpowered the odor from the gasoline dripping from dangling hoses. 

Bryan and Nacho went into the small tienda next door for sodas for the crew and the girls and I tried not to stare at the adorable, ice-cream coated pre-school girl who came out of the store to stare at us.
We paid for the gas and hopped back in the truck. We took a different route through town on our way back and Nacho stopped in the road to chat with a friend on the way. I spotted what looked like an open ambulance with an examining room in the back and Nacho clarified, “There's the clinic.” We have friends following us on our trek north in a few weeks, so we asked about diesel availability and he said, “Yes, there's diesel in town too. If your friends need anything, we always monitor channel 69. Just have them call us.” I asked if he'd seen a recent weather report and he verified that the wind looked calm through Saturday. He said he has satellite internet and checks several sites every day to know what to expect in his work out at sea. “The next week should be the best week of the year,” he claimed. “Not like February and March. Too much wind!”

Back on the beach, the men loaded the fuel into the panga. The crew had stayed busy; fish entrails surrounded the boat and we tried to avoid tracking any on our shoes as we climbed up on the tire and over the gunwales. 

Bryan joined the fishermen in shoving us back down the gentle slope into the water. 

The boat bucked in the surf as they pulled the wheels back up above the high-tide line and hopped aboard.
We'd anchored half a mile or more off shore, but the panga's powerful engine made quick work of the distance. I stepped back aboard and grabbed for our camera to get a couple of pictures of our good samaritans. They hadn't asked for anything, only saying they were happy they could help. But we fished out some pesos and passed them over the lifelines before they motored off.

I glanced down at the clock. We'd only been gone about 30 minutes. We'd hoped that skipping Bahia Magdalena would work out well, that there would be fuel in San Juanico, and that we wouldn't end up regretting our decision. But we never expected to get in, get gas, and get out so easily! We quickly added fuel to our main tank and, just a few minutes later, Meira hauled up the anchor, started the engine, and got us on our way again. 

If our forecast was correct, and the weather began to shift Friday evening, we could pop in to Bahia Asuncion, where we spent Thanksgiving, to wait for a chance to day-hop north to Bahia Tortugas. But if, as our San Juanico friend indicated, the weather held all the way through Saturday, we could make it all the way into Turtle Bay by dawn on Saturday, more than halfway done with our trip up the coast of Baja in only 5 easy days.
The first few hours back out at sea were fueled by leftover adrenaline from our fun fuel run. We had a dance party on our microscopic dance floor (watch your elbows!) 

and I covered our settee cushions in the silly frog fleece we'd bought in Mazatlan.

But as evening came on, reality set in. We still had at least 36 hours of motoring ahead. We sent Bryan to bed to get some rest before his night shift. Toward the end of Meira's watch, in the span of about 5 minutes, a thick fogbank blew in and surrounded us in opaque mist. 

I squinted into the void, listened for engine noises, and tried to stay in the present moment. The fog thickened and lightened a bit over the next few hours. I checked the barometer repeatedly and tried not to wonder if we were racing an oncoming weather system. Bird sounds flew out of the fog long seconds before the birds appeared, close on our beam. I took comfort in our remote location. No major shipping around, no large fishing vessels. And any small panga still out in these conditions would be alert and agile enough to zip out of our way.
By the time Bryan got up for his watch, we'd broken free of the fog. I was glad to leave the thick, gray clouds behind. And there was evening. And there was morning. Another day.
We'd been fighting a bit of a current all the way up Baja, averaging only 4 knots instead of our usual 4.5 or 5. About 6 pm, just when our Monday morning forecast had predicted, the wind picked up a bit and the sea joined in, slowing our speed to 2-3 knots. Knowing that we would likely break free of the higher current in a few hours, after a tide change or after clearing another point of land, I resisted the urge to do the math—would we have enough fuel to get all the way to Turtle Bay? As we passed the entrance to Bahia Asuncion, we edged in closer to try to pick up a cell signal and a weather report. We never managed, but we took comfort in knowing that if the wind did keep us from making northward progress, we could always turn and head into this safe harbor on an easy downwind run. I checked the barometer again. And again. And pondered the cloud formations and the wave direction. Then I let the girls take their watches, went below, and shut my worrier off for a while. Re-analyzing the conditions every now and then is helpful, but I tend to try to analyze them constantly.
Again, by Bryan's night watch, the current had eased, the winds and seas had calmed down. I went to bed and gladly let him deal with the what-ifs for a while. I woke about 6:30am and squinted through the cabin to where Meira's feet stuck out across the cockpit. 

She'd woken early to give Bryan a little rest before our arrival and sat outside, bundled against the morning chill. I got up and helped with the navigation particulars, making sure our course was set to avoid the rocks standing sentinel across the southern portion of the entrance. Then we both sat back and enjoyed the ride. 

The pelicans were out en masse, performing their peculiar dives with the last-second reverse. Several dolphins arched nearby. As we passed the point and entered the bay, we pulled out the binoculars to catch first sight of the town. 

The bay was emptier than on our last visit; many of the pangas were gone and we only spotted one other sailboat's mast. We motored past Turtle Bay's flagship blue fishing boat and found a spot to anchor just outside the line of moored pangas. Once more, Bryan and I executed the now-familiar anchoring dance to complete leg 4.

Bryan steps to the bow. 
I shift to the helm. 
He bows deeply over the anchor and looses the chain,
Arms rhythmically releasing the rode. 
I follow his swinging movements and wait for the flourish, 
A figure-eight to hold the line fast. 
He grasps the anchor rode, 
Waves one hand theatrically broad. 
Thumbs up for a hard reverse to set the anchor well. 
I watch his back tense, 
His whole body listening to the feel of the rope. 
I kick at the throttle with my foot and wait 
A finger meets his thumb for the final “OK.”
He steps back. 
I ease the engine into idle. 
I lean over, 
Turn the key, 
Glance at the clock. 
He steps down into the cockpit.
I stand straight.
I circle into him for a quick kiss, 
Our arrival tradition.

Leg 3—Cabo San Lucas to Bahia Magdalena

April 5-April 8

Back on the boat in Cabo San Lucas, we cleaned up a bit and then, for old time's sake, walked up the wharf to the lot where we built the dinghy. On our way, we ran into another friend, one of the cigar sellers on the wharf (If you're reading this...Hola, Andrez!). We stopped by the de-sal shop to say a quick hello to the workers there and then walked up the road to Pollo de Oro, home of cheap chicken and ice cold ChocoMilk.

With that important duty off our Cabo list, we spent most of the afternoon in the local Starbucks, trying to get all our technology ready for the remote coast of Baja and catching up on the latest sailing news. 

We'd come into Cabo to warm welcomes but bad news. Some good friends from our time in La Cruz, a family with 2 small daughters, were in the middle of a rescue at sea. We waded through news articles and social media, trying to sift truth from rumor. As I write, the story isn't finished, nor is it my story to tell. But that night, we stayed long enough to be reassured that paramedics had reached our friends, 900 miles offshore, and had stabilized their seriously ill baby. They were expecting to move the family off the boat the next day, and would most likely have to sink the boat to prevent it from being a hazard to navigation for the other boaters, many of them also friends of ours, headed that way. (As we found out the next day, a salvage was deemed impossible and the boat was sunk.) With heavy hearts, we headed back to the boat. The fine-dining restaurants were shutting down for the evening, and the noisy nightclubs just ramping up.

The next morning, Bryan and I went back to Starbucks for coffee, tea, and news. I stayed to get some writing done, while he went to get enough cash for our weeks in Baja. There are few, if any ATMs where we'll be stopping so we pulled out extra cash, figuring we could always stock up on Mexican treats in Ensenada if we had any pesos left over. The girls tidied the boat and then they met me at the cafe. We walked across the street to our favorite taco stand for lunch and followed it up with churros from the street stand. We nipped into a little shop for a few more bags of fresh produce and took them back to the boat.

Bryan and Hannah took a few minutes to do some engine maintenance. 

Hannah replaced the spark plugs and assisted while Bryan replaced the fuel filter, cleaned the points, and checked on the oil levels and the distributor cap. They fired up the engine to make sure they hadn't broken anything in the process and then cleaned up and put the companionway steps back into place.

Bryan wanted to get a beer at the local Baja Brewing Company and I went along for company. We sat in the beauty of the warm, Cabo evening and tried to process the contrast between our pleasant day and the heart-wrenching hours our friends had just lived through—their daughter well, their family safe, but their home and dream lost at sea.

We took our whole family up to the cafe again for one last weather check. The boat was stocked and ready, the weather window still looked wide open for a morning departure, but I had pre-trip jitters anyway. I woke about 3am and, with the marina's only-works-in-the-middle-of-the-night wireless connection, checked the forecast one more time. I listened to the nightclub's thumping bass and talked myself back to sleep.

We left Cabo San Lucas a little after 6am. The fishermen were heading out to sea 

and the rising sun was just lighting Cabo's signature arch. 

I went back to bed and let Bryan deal with whatever the cape would bring. Our forecast was good, but actual conditions may vary. Cabo Falso, at the bottom of the Baja peninsula is notorious for hurling nasty winds and choppy seas at optimistic sailors. The sea state definitely picked up as we rounded the cape, 4 miles west of the harbor, but it never got uncomfortable or scary and it settled back down within an hour or so. Bryan received a radio call from another sailor, a delivery captain on his 40th Baja delivery. I felt reassured that his experienced decision to head north this week supported our novice one.

The morning went well. I even had the energy to bake snickerdoodles for a grateful crew. We weren't able to sail, but the wind was up just enough to keep a reefed main full, steadying the boat in the mild sea. 

About mid-afternoon, I got up to pump a pitcher of fresh water and was dismayed to see what looked like dirt in the pitcher. Bryan and I both smelled it and came to the conclusion that our freshwater tank had likely been contaminated with bilge water. I started a mental inventory of water from all the various places we store it—12 gallons on deck, 5 gallons in solar showers, 6 gallons of emergency bottled water, 30 gallons in isolated tanks under the girls bunks—and Bryan lifted the floorboards to investigate. A few cups of water in the bilge is normal, as the engine's propeller shaft lets a little bit in to lubricate it as it turns. But it was good we noticed when we did; the bilge was getting pretty full and some of the bilge water had seeped in around the access port in the top of the water tank. Fortunately that meant the tank was not permanently compromised and could be made usable again after some serious flushing. Unfortunately, there was clearly something wrong with our bilge pump. 

Bryan grabbed the manual bilge pump and Hannah and I helped steady the hoses as we pumped the seawater overboard. 

Then Bryan spent an hour or so diagnosing the source of the problem (an intermittently faulty float switch, we think) and creating a work-around. 

We talked over the pros and cons of continuing on versus going back to Cabo, but going back was never really an option. Both the bilge pump and our freshwater access will take a little more work than usual until we can get them fixed. But neither one is a true emergency, both will be easier to fix in the US, and ignoring the splendid weather window would only delay our return.
We put the floor back together and brought in some bottled water for drinking and cooking. I made a huge pot of pressure cooker macaroni-and-cheese for dinner (and midnight snacks) and sprinkled it with the last of the vacuum-sealed bacon from San Diego. At sea, we live on different schedules and often eat separately, grabbing quick calories whenever we're hungry. It felt like a small victory to pull off dinner together, everyone awake and happy at the same time.
The evening watches passed by easily. The girls still enjoy sitting out on deck during their watch, but I've discovered that long-term exposure to the elements aggravates my anxiety levels. If I sit in the wind and stare at the sea long enough, I forget to relax and start seeing danger over ever wave. The little bit of afternoon wind died down before midnight and I spent most of my watches below in the cozy cabin. 

Though we kept a careful eye out, we didn't see any boats all night. We were far enough away from land and the major fishing/shipping areas to relax a little. Bryan took the long night watch and the girls and I took turns the next morning. The motion was quiet, the engine noise low, and we spent a lazy morning reading and chatting.

In the afternoon, we started doing some figuring. Fuel in Bahia Magdalena is hard to come by. It's there, but visiting sailors either need to contact the retired port captain and arrange a delivery from the bigger port in San Carlos or take the windy channel up to San Carlos themselves, anchor in the unprotected channel, and bum a ride to shore. Either way, refilling the fuel tanks could take several days. The weather was supposed to be good, amazing even, for another few days and we were concerned that, if we pulled into Bahia Magdalena and had to wait a day or 2 to refuel, we would lose the rest of the great weather window. But we didn't have enough gas to last us all the way to Bahia Asuncion, where we got gas on the way down from Turtle Bay.

I pulled out the guide books and scoured their entries for hints about fuel availability. Most sailboat engines require diesel, but cars and pangas run on gasoline. We figured we'd be able to get at least a few gallons in the small community of San Juanico, another day or so up the coast. Even if it still took us several days in port to get it, at least we would have gotten as far north as possible in the flat-calm conditions. So we called a conference with the crew, weighing our weariness, our desire to get in versus our desire to get north. 

Everyone agreed it was a chance worth taking, so we extended our GPS route to head straight past the entrance to Bahia Magdalena. We passed the entrance to the bay sometime after dark and those who were awake exchanged quiet high-fives. Leg 3 complete!

Leg 2—Mazatlan to Cabo San Lucas

March 31-April 5

We left Mazatlan late in the afternoon on March 31. The wind was up a bit and we had to rev the motor up to get across the small bar at the entrance. We motorsailed in the afternoon wind chop and then, as the evening calm arrived, took down the sail and motored through the night. 

Our new watch schedule makes better use of the girls' energy and the whole crew's natural rhythms. 

On a good day, if everything is humming along, a typical watch schedule looks like this:

8am-10am—Bethany (I usually wake about 6:30 or 7, but Bryan sends me back to bed for a few more luxurious minutes of dozing.)

10am-12pm—Meira (She typically wakes earlier than Hannah and likes to take a 2 hour watch and get it over with!)

12pm-1pm—Hannah

1pm-2pm—Bethany

2pm-3pm—Hannah

3pm-6pm—Bryan (This gives the day crew a solid break before sunset, but it also give Bryan a chance to check on all the systems and adjust anything that needs it—sail set, course, etc.—before he's off for a while in the evening. It's also good for him to be on watch to fiddle with the sails if the afternoon wind picks up.)

6pm-7pm—Bethany

7pm-8pm—Hannah (She likes the sunset watch!)

8pm-10pm—Meira (She loves a starry night watch.)

10pm-11pm—Hannah's last watch of the day

11pm-12pm—Bethany (If all has been going well, I may have been dozing on the settee during the girls watches, but they wake me at least every hour to talk over course adjustments or any concerns. This gives Bryan a few solid hours of sleep before his long night watch.)

12pm-8am—Bryan (He worked nights a lot in our early married life and loves the quiet solitude this long night watch offers. He listens to podcasts, dozes in 10-minute increments, or just stares at the stars.)

Of course, ultimately Bryan is the captain and if something goes wrong, we get him up to deal with it. But the girls and I can handle most things and so far, this schedule is proving much more sustainable than our watches on the way down the coast. For many reasons, we didn't have the girls taking regular watches on our southbound journey. And we needed to hand steer quite a bit, so the watches were much more tiring. I know there will be long days, rough seas, and uncomfortable hours ahead. There will be times when Bryan and I, or maybe even just Bryan, have to take a difficult watch, fighting the tiller. But with the girls each taking 4 hours of watches a day, Bryan and I will go into the tough times so much more well-rested. And in the easy times, we can sneak a little more fun into the long passages.

On our run from Mazatlan to Los Frailes, the point on Baja closest to Mazatlan, Bryan spent his afternoon watch curled up on the settee with the girls watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and hopping up every 10 minutes to take a look around the empty sea.

We came into Los Frailes a little after sunrise on April 2. 

It's interesting to watch how our shifting attitudes change our experience. On the way down, we were all about exploration, taking advantage of every opportunity to Go...See...Do! But on the way back, our focus is more on getting the boat (and ourselves) back home. So instead of pushing ourselves to drop the dinghy and take the long row to shore to explore, we puttered around aboard for the day. I made tortillas using our new tortilladora.

And Bryan got a flopper-stopper set up to help calm the motion of the boat in rolly anchorages. While we were in Oldtown Mazatlan looking for computer parts, we stopped in a small store filled with kitchen and household necessities. I'd been looking for a pepper grinder for months and we found one there as well as the tortilla press, some plastic drinking glasses, and a large plastic cutting board. 

Our friends from S/V Gratitoullie had given us some tips about making a flopper-stopper out of a cutting board (handy for cleaning fish on the side decks too!) so Bryan pulled out his drill and some extra line and rigged it up. He hung the board from some lines off the spinnaker pole and hung our dinghy anchor from one end as a weight. This helps the cutting board turn vertically and sink quickly as the boat rolls one way. Then, as the boat rolls away from the flopper stopper, the board flattens out and rises slowly through the water, adding resistance to keep the boat from settling into a pendulum-like rocking pattern. The swell was pretty light, but we think it really made a difference.

The next day, after a good night's rest, we motored the few hours into San Jose del Cabo. We hadn't planned to stop there, but we'd heard it was a delightful little town. We planned to spend one night, just long enough to get Bryan into Cabo to order our English laptop so it would be waiting for us on Monday morning. We got gas at the fuel dock, called the office on the VHF for a slip assignment, pulled in, and walked the 1/2 mile around the harbor to check in at the office. We wandered for a few minutes, trying to find our way.

When we finally located the office, I was so focused on our task, I didn't notice the group of people leaving the office area until I heard one of them call my name. My brain did a lightning-fast tally of the friends we'd met on our trip. Nope, none of them should be here now. I turned around wondering who could have recognized me. As it happens, the marina office is adjacent to a real estate office. And one of the agents and I share a mutual friend, who, when she heard we were going to be stopping in the area, encouraged us to meet. It didn't work out on our way down; the dinghy rebuild and busy holiday season conspired against a rendezvous. But apparently it was meant to happen. Toni and her husband, Bruce gave us a ride back to our boat and offered Bryan a ride into the computer store as well. Toni has been following our story almost since the beginning and she came aboard the boat, posed for pictures with us, and generally made us feel like mini-celebrities.

The girls and I hung out on the boat for the afternoon, while Bryan ran into Cabo. Meira took advantage of a burst of energy to wash some laundry and do dishes on the dock. While she was out there, a fellow sailor from a neighboring boat stopped by and offered to take us to the grocery store. We made tentative arrangements for the next day and I felt great about the hope of getting so many things crossed off our Before-Baja list. Late in the afternoon, Bryan came back with bad news. The Apple distributor for the area was out of English laptops and there was no telling when they would get more in. We'd thought we'd found the perfect solution to our computer troubles, so we took a few minutes to regroup and talk over our options.

Pretty soon, it became obvious that our first priority was dinner. We'd seen a little fish shack called "The Drunken Sailor" on the road near the marina so we walked up and splurged on some fish tacos, ceviche, and sesame fish and chips. The fish tacos were deliciously unique, with sesame, basil, pineapple, and cabbage, and the fish and chips and ceviche were superb as well. We came back with renewed energy for our technical difficulties.

Bryan finally verified that a Linux OS would run the internet from our TelCel stick. This is our most important functionality, as it will be our main source for weather forecasts on Baja. He moved the small hard drive from my old computer (the one with the broken keyboard) to the new laptop (the one with the dead hard drive) and got Linux up and running. The touch pad mysteriously didn't work, but we have an external wireless mouse, so we can limp along until San Diego. We installed important software—a word processor for my writing project, an off-line blog editor, a few games for long passages—and bookmarked the low-bandwidth interfaces for several weather forecasts.

The system is working so well that in retrospect, it seems like an obvious decision. But lately, I've been working on subduing the A+ student in me who wants to get everything right the first time. Life is not a True/False question. It is multiple choice, usually one of those tricky ones with more than one right answer.

The next morning, our kind neighbor drove Hannah and me to the MEGA for the last of the non-perishable provisions. We stopped at a Subway for lunch on our way out. What a treat! Ordering in Spanish was a bit difficult, and there are no foot-long options in this metric country. But the food tasted just the same.

Back on the boat, we ate our sandwiches and put away our haul in a hurry. 

Then Bryan and I walked over to the marina office to check out. The afternoon wind had picked up considerably, but we only had 10 miles or so to our intended destination and we thought the wind would be from a helpful direction once we got out of the harbor. So, with only a little bit of trouble in the wind and current, we pulled out of our slip and headed out to sea. We cleared the breakwater and turned west, but the wind stayed on our nose. We were only making 3 knots against the breeze in the steep chop and we started doing the math to see if we would get in before dark. We planned to stop in Santa Maria Cove, a little one-boat anchorage a few miles east of Cabo and spend a day or so there enjoying the reportedly fabulous snorkeling before heading on into Cabo San Lucas. But we didn't want to risk a night entrance in a strange place with questionable chart accuracy.

About the time Bryan and I were trying to come to a conclusion about the wisdom of continuing, we heard a noise. It came again regularly, but not rhythmically. I was trying to identify the source—animal? vegetable? mechanical?—when Meira poked her head up. "I hear a noise coming from the engine." Bryan throttled down and I took the helm while he went below to have a look. He quickly identified the trouble. The accessory drive, a pulley that powers the alternator, had lost its something-something and that meant that something-something-something, but we're OK for now.

I tend to have selective hearing in a crisis and Bryan knows I only want to know 1-If he knows what the problem is, 2-If he thinks he can fix it, and 3-If we're all going to die in the meantime. Reassured with “Yes, Yes, and That's ridiculous,” I stayed at the helm while Bryan raised our jib. 

The wind was perfect for a reach back through the breakwater and, though we could probably have safely used our engine for the last few seconds of docking, we didn't need it. The slip we'd been at the night before was empty and perfectly situated for an emergency dock-under-sail. The girls prepped the docklines and fenders and I reminded them, “We'll be coming in hot!” Bryan trimmed and released the jib sheet to keep our speed under control and, at the last minute, turned us a little upwind and backfilled the sail to spill off more speed and blow us close to the dock finger. On the bow, Meira ducked as the sail came over and then stepped gracefully down onto the dock. I followed a second later and fumbled the midline around the end cleat. “Gently, gently,” Bryan called, “we've got lots of room to slow her down.” Hannah stepped down when the stern swung in and we eased the boat to a quiet stop.

Bryan and the girls all looked to me, usually the most nervous of the crew. When they saw my wide grin, their faces responded in kind. We all agreed, “That was actually really fun!” We've practiced sail maneuvers many times, sometimes from desire, other times out of necessity. This time, the wind and slip configuration had been so perfect, the crew so reliable, I hadn't even gotten jittery.

We walked the long path over to the marina office again, stopping to play around the sculptures and study the art along the way. And then we took the deserving crew out for gelato.

Later that evening, Bryan dangled over the engine compartment, muttering. He has spares for just about every system on the boat—extra fuel pump, water pump, gaskets, wires, fuses. Even a spare engine head. But he remembers looking at the accessory drive before we left and thinking, “That's so straightforward. It's just a pulley. How could anything go wrong with that?” Thankfully, we didn't need the whole pulley, just an extra bolt. He stepped through the cabin to his spare-parts locker and fished out a couple. One was just the right size to fit the drive and he cleaned it up and reinstalled it with a little bit of lock-tite. He took a few extra minutes talking over engine specifics with his willing assistant, Meira. She asked great questions and soaked it all in.

The next morning, we got up early, tested the engine, and headed back out through the breakwater. 

We wanted to beat the afternoon thermal winds and get anchored in the bay before the tour boats arrived. As we approached the cove, a huge tour boat slipped in ahead of us and dropped anchor right in the middle. A line of snorkelers in bright orange life jackets waddled to the stern deck and dropped, flippers-first, into the water. We circled around in the entrance for a few minutes, considering our options. We wondered about the safety of anchoring with all those people in the water and peeked over the gunwales at the low-visibility water. Finally, we decided to just head on into Cabo San Lucas. We turned away, not really all that disappointed, and spent a couple of bouncy hours tacking into the headwinds toward Cabo. 

It's an awful lot more fun to be at sea in choppy conditions than to deal with them in a rolly anchorage.

We came into the marina in the mid-afternoon. Pangas, pelicans, and sea lions vied for our attention in the busy entrance. 

We'd e-mailed ahead to let our friends know we were coming, but were still pleased to see a familiar face on the dock as we pulled in. We tied up a greeted each other. “Marcilio!” He seemed surprised to be remembered but responded, “Bethany!” If he was surprised, I was shocked. I didn't expect to be remembered by name; hundreds of boaters come through each month. But I suppose, not very many build boats in the parking lot. We chatted for a few minutes, his English much improved, my Spanish a little rusty from our month with mostly cruisers. And then he shooed us on up to the office. “They're closing at 2!” (I'm not going to bore you here with the saga of our time-zone issues and how difficult it can be to figure out the correct time when some devices change automatically, others don't [or change, but not correctly], and US and Mexican Daylight Saving Time don't start on the same week. It shouldn't be this difficult, but it is.)
The office staff was so glad to see us, they almost forgot to charge us for our stay. We told stories of our recent adventures and assured them all that Rover was doing well. “No leaks!” Even behind-the-scenes personnel we barely remembered came out for hugs and greetings. It was a great way to wrap up an easy second leg.