Santa Maria Bay

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

024-46.290 N
112-15.520 W

Ahoy from Santa Maria bay on Mexico's Baja coast!

I'm happy to report that made the 175 mile passage from Asuncion to Santa Maria without any issues. If anything, it was a wonderful passage as we were able to sail for the vast majority of it. We left Ascuncion yesterday at around 8 AM and we pulled into Santa Maria mid-morning today. Almost as soon as we left Asuncion we raised the sails and enjoyed traveling without the thrumming of the motor. So far this trip we've had very light winds and/or insufficient following winds. Finally we had enough wind to actually sail!

There's a huge difference between people who go out and putt around the bay and people who are cruisers. As a cruiser I really want to pull into a new anchorage while there's still light. Sure, there are some people who push the limits and have no problems arriving after dark, but I guess that I'm conservative and don't want to end up on the news or as a point of ridicule on sailing blogs. I also try to be considerate of Sue's feelings and because of that, she puts up with our sailing schedules. I know lots of people who claim to want to cruise with their partner, but have trouble coalescing their desires and end up never cruising. Cruising is teamwork, and I very much appreciate Sue's immense contributions and I'll do whatever I can to try to keep her happy.

Anyhow, we typically had between 15 and 25 kts of wind off of our starboard quarter and we were making 6-8 kts through the water and we also had 1+ kts of current with us. As a result we were flying. As the night progressed, the wind clocked around us and we were sailing dead down wind, which is my least favorite wind angle as the wind will switch sides and the boom will want to swing to the other side. This is known as a gybe, and is something that you want to carefully control as the forces can be huge when this occurs. We didn't have any accidental gybes, but we did gybe several times.

We also managed to blow out the strap extensions that I had made for the jib to make it fit the camber spar. At one point jib flipped to the upwind side and when it power-gybed back to the other, the straps shredded where grommets had been installed in them. This also caused some of the stitching on the camber spar pocket to rip out, so basically we're sailing without a jib.

Sailing dead down-wind also creates another problem. Basically the sails aren't providing any stability and in our case, we have a very heavy boom at right angles to the boat, which causes the boat to roll more than it would normally. Between wind driven waves and the wind direction, I'd be kidding you if I said that either of us slept very much.

At around mid-morning we arrived at Cabo San Lazaro, which is the 1275' headland which forms the start of the cape in which Bahia Santa Maria is part of. We threw out a fishing line, but didn't catch anything. Bahia Santa Maria is a huge bay which could hold an entire navy. We anchored in the NW corner in about 22' over sand. We were lined up with a notch between 2 peaks and the wind really funnels through there, keeping our wind generator busy and batteries powered.

We napped, showered and I labeled and documented all of the connections to the auto pilot. My diagrams were sorely out of date as the system has been significantly modified. Tonight we're have pizza and listening to the NCAA men's final. Hopefully the UConn men will do better than the UConn women did last night.

Tomorrow we're headed to Bahia Magdalena (Mag Bay), which is about 20 miles from here.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser: We anchored at about 24-46.29N 112-15.52 in about 22' over sand.

Log ID: 1433