Baja Ha-Ha!

November 5, 2012: Bahia Santa Maria, Baja California Sur, Mexico (!)

Como estas?  Mui Bien!

We’re in Mexico, yay!

We SAILED!  Who knew that RED was a SAILboat?  We’ve spent the last six years motoring around Alaska and the Pacific Northwest where there’s either no wind, too much wind, or it’s “right on the nose”.   So, not much sailing.  Until Mexico!  Oh, what a treat to turn off the motor, and sail down sunbeams and moonbeams.   All we hear is the wind and the lapping of the water – ah, paradise!

Baja Ha-Ha!

Many of you may remember that we had no plans visit Mexico.  Well, here we are, plans be dammed!   We joined a cruising rally called the Baja Ha-Ha for a fun introduction to Mexico.  This year there are 150 boats headed south.  The Ha-Ha consists of 3 sailing legs starting in San Diego and ending in Cabo San Lucas.

The first leg found us a day late and motoring to catch the group in Turtle Bay, a fun little beach town about a third of the way down the penninsula.  We had a baseball game, dinner at Maria’s (lobster burritos and carne asada tacos), and the next day, a potluck on the beach.

The Ha-Ha plays my kind of baseball – they’ll pitch to you until you get a hit, and if the 15 -20 people on the field don’t get you out on the way to first, you keep going!  Richard and I each made it in, then watched and laughed for the rest of the game.  Some local kids joined us and they were good!  (And serious – they couldn’t abide the no strike outs rule.)  And with a store nearby for beer, it was truly a great way to spend an afternoon.

Next we head out for Bahia Santa Maria, about 250 miles south.  This leg is when RED became SAILboat again!  We had 5-15 knots of breeze and made 3 – 7 knots – what a TREAT for us Alaskans!

We entered Bahia Santa Maria in the dark – our first.  (Conventional wisdom is to never enter an unfamiliar marina or anchorage in the dark – but this bay is WIDE OPEN, we have a terrific new radar, we followed a line of our fellow Ha-Ha boats in to the anchorage, and well, we REALLY wanted to be here!)

All went well and we ‘dropped the hook’ at about 2:30 AM, and dropped ourselves into bed around 3:30 – tired puppies.