The sun rose on the first day of the 2023 Baja Ha-Ha in a cloudless San Diego sky. Perception sat tied to the public docks on Shelter Island along with a number of other rally participants who would head south on a 750 nautical mile journey that morning. The crews milled around nervously, some completing final tasks to prepare. The Perception crew was filling our water tanks one last time before we relied completely on our water maker for the voyage south. 

The public docks in San Diego Bay were near the bay’s mouth, so we were able to start relatively late in the morning to join the other boats gathering in the bay. We pulled out just after 10:00 AM to join the other boats as they moved up the bay. It was quite a gathering, over 100 boats would be heading south at once that day, and we tucked into the crowd as the rally lead boats passed us by. A fire boat had its pumps blasting out water on full display to celebrate the start of our adventure, and we motored en masse towards the mouth of the bay. 

We all tucked towards the south side of the channel to let a US Navy destroyer pass us on its way in to the harbor. Soon most of the sailboats had their main sails up in anticipation of the start. The wind was very light, but we all hoped to get enough wind to sail once we’d cleared the harbor and got some distance out to sea. Profligate, the Baja Ha-Ha “Grand Poobah’s” 60 foot sailing catamaran led the way beyond the breakwater, and started the check-in process of calling each individual boat to get a confirmation of start and crew count. Our excitement peaked when Grace checked us in as Perception was called over the VHF radio.

Once clear of the breakwater, Profligate paused to form a start line for the rally between her and Point Loma. We would cross the line and head south when the rally officially started at 11:00 AM. The wind remained very light, so the Poohbah called a “rolling start”, meaning we could motor at 6 kts for a period of time without penalizing our performance in the rally. The light wind proved to be a short-lived situation, and soon we were seeing headsails pop out all around us. Perception threw out her “screecher”, a large headsail that is good for downwind sailing and we were off.

The rally was divided into three legs. The first leg would be from San Diego to Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay), covering 340 nautical miles in 3 to 4 days. The second leg would be from Bahia Tortugas to Bahia Santa Maria, covering about 230 nautical miles in 2 to 3 days. The final leg would be from Bahia Tortugas to Cabo San Lucas, covering about 180 nautical miles in about 1.5 days. In between legs the fleet would be regrouping, resting for a few days, and partying ashore.

We often get asked if the 100 boats in the rally all hang out close together on the way down the coast. We really started distancing ourselves pretty much as soon as the rally began. The faster boats began pulling away from the pack generally. Many boats decided to head further out to sea to find better wind, or to get a better line on the wind. Some headed dead down wind on as close a point to the destination as they could. It wasn’t long before we were spaced out, and by the end of the first day only had a handfull of boats in sight.

Perception attempted to hang with the downwinders for a while, but given we need to sail about 150 degrees off the wind direction, we were headed on a course to collide with Isla Coronado off the Mexican coast. We decided to point up a bit further and go outside the island – our speed really picked up as we got a better angle to the wind for our sail configuration and we boogied along at over 7 knots – not bad for our fat cat!

It was an exhilarating start to the rally, and it felt really good to make some serious distance under sail. As darkness fell, our wind began to die and we fired up an engine to continue making decent time. Unlike some of the purists, we weren’t all that interested in having a fast time in the rally or making the whole trip under sail, just getting there safely and with as little stress as possible. We completed our night watches as the wind continued to die and we buzzed along under motor.

As Halloween dawned and the whole crew began to emerge, we decided to throw out the fishing line to see if we could catch any monsters to celebrate the day. The Baja fleet was keeping a “net” going on VHF channel 69, and we were getting regular reports of boats landing fish across the fleet.

It wasn’t long before we had a hit, and reeled in a nice little albacore. I dispatched the beautiful fish with a sharp rap from our fish club, and extracted four nice little filets. Grace did the hard work of cleaning up and prepping the white meat filets, and we enjoyed some nice seared fish for lunch. We later learned that most people think this type of fish is barely worth feeding to your cats, but we sure enjoyed it!

We began to settle into the routine of the passage. Grace took her day shift up on the top deck basking in the sun with her sombrero on. The weather was calm and warm – the first leg involved a fair amount of motoring but we got our sails back into action a few times as the wind rose enough to make decent time.

It was the dawn of the first day of November, and we decided to try our luck fishing again as we’d consumed the little bugger we caught the day before. We put out the line again and trolled along. I was attempting to do some day-job work while we were under way, Melinda was at the helm, and Grace was reading (and ostensibly watching the fishing pole). 

One of the less favorable features of our fishing pole is that it doesn’t make much noise when a fish hits it and starts pulling out line. I always leave the clutch on the reel a bit loose so the fish can pull out line rather than breaking it off when it first hits. While working in the saloon, I noticed a slight sound and went out into the cockpit. We had a fish on! And it had taken all the line out from the reel. The line was just hanging on from the hub – luckily Melinda had tied a good knot there! 

We figured we had something like 600 feet of line out with a feisty fish on the end. We cut the engines and started the fight. It was challenging even getting the line started on the reel again, since the knot just slipped around the hub when the line was all out. We had to pull on the line itself and reel in the excess until we had enough on the hub that the reel would operate normally. I figured “there’s now way a dumb fish can outlast the three of us”, but as each of us grew tired and handed off the reel to the next person I began to question my hubris. 

It fought us hard the whole way! We got the fish all the way up to the boat where we could see it, and then it really began to fight. I let out some line to keep from breaking it, and then had to fight to get it back in again. Finally we got the thing up to the boat where I could gaff it and haul it aboard. A few good whacks with the fish club and the fight went out. We’d landed a 25 pound yellow fin tuna! Grace worked her magic and it wasn’t long before we were relishing poke for lunch!

As the first day of November closed, we neared the finish line for the first leg of the Baja. We crossed over under sail, then motored on towards Bahia Tortugas. We would be entering the bay at night, and the rising moon gave us some small amount of illumination on the water.

I wasn’t too nervous about entering the bay at night, just that there would be space for us. It can be a bit hard to tell how tight things might be with 100 boats all trying to squeeze into what appears to be a small bay on Google Earth. My concerns were unfounded, and we found the fleet huddled towards the shore with the pier and village houses leaving room for 10 times as many boats in the bay. The bay had the appearance of a small city as we entered – all the mast lights being a stark contrast from the darkness of the Pacific Ocean outside the byay.

We brought Perception into the bay past rocky shoals following the waypoints specified in our guide books, closely watching the depth sounder to make sure we weren’t coming up on any surprises. We then relied on our radar to space ourselves nicely from our neighbors. We dropped anchor at the edge of the fleet and crawled into the rack at about 4:00 AM on November 2nd.

After a very short rest, I was back up at it with meetings for my day job. The girls slept for awhile and then went to shore to explore. The Baja Ha-Ha puts on a softball game with the locals each year when they arrive in Bahia Tortugas, and this year’s game was to be that afternoon. Melinda and Grace attended and even played a bit! 

After work I joined them ashore, and we found a place to eat alongside our boating friends from Walden. Bahia Tortugas must normally have just a few boats in its anchorage at any given time – transient cruisers on their way north or south. Having 100 cruising boats there all at once was like a giant, geriatric Viking invasion. The restaurants, including the place we dined, appeared to be staffed by locals who just came out for the occasion and were not by training or temperament used to being waitstaff. The conscripted service was all good, especially after the first drinks arrived.

On our second day in Bahia Tortugas was a Baja beach party. I again joined Melinda and Grace after work to enjoy drinks and a “Poohbah Dog” ashore. At least some of the funds raised at the event went to local charities in the village. I would suppose that the Baja visit each year provides a significant influx of capital that the locals don’t see at other times of the year.

For a time on the beach I served as a “visual thong barrier”, standing between Patsy Verhoeven and one of the more eccentric Baja participants who chose to wear a thong and nothing else to the party so she wouldn’t have to see him. It was in all quite the bacchanalia, with horseback riders, motorcycles, and beachcombers moving parallel to the shore. Pangas and their incoming and outgoing riders slicing the traffic perpendicular to the shore. Other scantily clad cruisers wandered randomly or stood in circles gabbing about the cruising life. And in the midst of this there was the girl/boy tug-of-war – the ladies won, sounding like a Roman legion with their battle chant, throwing down the flab-encrusted sailing men in their triumph.

One sad and scary event occurred during the stay in Bahia Tortugas. One of the boats in the fleet had left San Diego late due to various technical problems, and arrived at the bay late in the night, about a day after most other participants. The boat was owned by a woman who had hired a captain to bring her and her boat down to La Paz. Unfortunately the boat hit rocks on the way in to the bay, sinking in minutes. Luckily the crew was able to pile into the dinghy, and all escaped to shore unharmed. An alarming lesson in caution, preparation, and vigilance for the rest of us! 

On Saturday the fleet headed out again on the second leg of the rally. We had sails up early and took off to the south towards Bahia Santa Maria, or “BSM” as it quickly became shortened among the fleet. For some reason a large part of the fleet started throwing out their fishing “handlines” almost as soon as they were underway. Everyone wanted to catch a fish, but it became concerning that boats were dragging a couple hundred feet of line behind them in such tight quarters. At one point I warned a boat crossing too closely in front of us that he was about to hook a 13 ton fish!

Once we escaped from the congested bay entrance things the stress level went down and we had uninhibited seas in front of us. The wind quickly built behind us with true wind speeds reaching mid twenties across the fleet – we were really cooking! The leeward hull was really digging in to the water, and we were throwing an impressive wake for being under sail. We were peaking out at over 8 knots surfing down the waves and we were making great time down the coast.

The strong winds lasted well into the evening but began to fall as the night started in earnest. After midnight we fired up an engine to keep our momentum and motored on through the darkness. The second day of the leg brought us within striking distance of BSM, but we’d still get there after dark. Even so, we were looking forward to having most of the night securely at anchor. Unfortunately for us, the weather had other plans!

As sunset brought out its colors for us, we began to see lighting strikes in the distance to the south. For some time it was unclear where the storm cell was heading, and a lively chatter among the fleet began. Some of the faster boats had already made it to anchor at BSM, but a large part of the fleet – including Perception – was still out to sea. It soon became clear that the storm was heading across our path, right at the entrance to BSM!

Some photos that other members of the fleet took during the storm are shown below. It was nerve wracking to consider sailing under a thunderhead that was throwing out bolts like this – many of which were clearly impacting the surface of the ocean. We soon paused our forward motion, hoping the worst of it would dissipate or move inland so we could pass by uncharged! We put out our jib and cut the engines, just getting enough forward motion to let us maintain helm. 

Before long all those with good Internet connections were all looking at live storm tracking and lighting strike data – especially on the Blitzortung site. The two screen shots below show the lightning strikes from the original cell on the left and a later picture when more cells had formed on the right. They were all moving towards the northeast and BSM!

We had quite the group of boats randomly circling the area. Soon other boats caught up to us and joined the fray. Some boats decided to head to the northwest, out to sea, to get more distance from the thunder cell. Some headed north. Some roughly held position (as we did). Still others continued slowly and cautiously towards BSM and the path of the cell.

As the evening progressed and the air began to cool down, the frequency of the lightning strikes began to abate. Before long the benefits of getting into the bay were starting to outweigh our fear of the storm. We still threw a large portion of our electronics into our microwave and oven, hoping that in the event of a strike the largely metal enclosures would provide some protection for them. A few of the more courageous boats (including the appropriately named “Courage”) started to head in, and we followed bravely a few miles back…

We passed into the bay after the last of the thunder cells had passed to the northeast, and happily anchored at the edge of the boats already there. We had idled in the ocean for several hours by then, and it was now an early morning landing just as we had in Bahia Tortugas. 

Lucky for the skipper it was also a Monday morning, so once again I dragged myself from the rack and attended my meetings for the day. I found myself needing a new word for this state of awareness – something like “sail-lag”. Having sailed all night through trial and tribulation, then crashing for a few hours of shuteye, one attempts to be lucid for 8-10 hours of meetings.

The bay was gigantic, and daylight showed the fleet to be anchored together at the north end near the few structures of a small settlement. There was no noticeable swell from the ocean, and the northerly winds couldn’t build waves from the shore to cause us any trouble. The fleet stayed here for two days – somehow the skipper of Perception never made it to shore as he was working his day job. Grace and Melinda went ashore to a Baja barbecue and had fun hobnobbing with the other crews in the fleet.

Most of the fleet also cleared into Mexico at BSM. Don’t ask me how we managed to be on shore in Bahia Tortugas prior to clearing immigration, but we and the rest of the Baja fleet did just that. The process at BSM has to be my favorite country check-in of all time. It was newly arranged and a complete experiment by the organizers of the Baja rally. Previously the rally had just checked in once they reached Cabo San Lucas, but recent changes to control of the Mexican maritime immigration process had rendered that option obsolete.

This year the Baja was using an agency located in San Carlos, a town near to BSM. We had submitted all our necessary documentation to the agency in advance of the fleet leaving San Diego. That Monday after sunset, the agency representative and a Mexican immigration agent arrived at the fleet, having boated over from San Carlos. They took over the cockpit table of the Poobah’s boat, Profligate, and started calling in skippers by our rally groups. When our group was called, I jumped in the dinghy with the crew’s passports in a ziplock bag and motored in darkness over to Profligate. I hung out in the dinghy and handed our passports up to the Profligate crew. Minutes later I had our stamped passports in hand and headed back to Perception.

I had no trouble getting back to Perception in the dark as I’d put out our two Luci Lights in anticipation of the return and I easily spotted the cycling colored lights. I’d learned the hard lesson once while chartering in Belize, being unable to find our boat in the dark in a crowded anchorage with a dinghy full of inebriated crew! Humorously the lesson was yet to be learned by a number of other skippers in the fleet. One such skipper blundered by alone in his dinghy – he asked us to radio his crew to light up their electronic flare so he could find his way back!

The third and final leg of the Baja was to start on Wednesday morning. The day dawned with strong winds blowing from the northwest. Some boats reported seeing gusts up to 40 knots in the anchorage. As such, the Poobah decided to delay the start of the leg to let the wind die down a bit.

The weather really fractured the fleet at this point. The Poobah was announcing that the rally would go ahead after a couple hours of delay. Some of the braver or possibly more seaworthy boats had already taken off and were reporting rough but manageable seas outside the bay. A number of boats were expressing concern at leaving even after the delay, and had formed a side-conversation on another VHF channel. Perception was among these – no need to go just to go, and encounter potential misery out in the chop. 

We ended up waiting until about 2pm before pulling up anchor and heading out of the bay. The wind had fallen significantly, and reports back from the trickle of boats heading out gave indication that the wind waves were subsiding as well. We found conditions to be fine for sailing and much less stressful than things were reported to be in the morning.

We sailed and motor-sailed the rest of the way down the Baja Peninsula during the course of the night and the next day. We started to round the point at Cabo Falso just as darkness fell. By then we were starting to see more lights, then many more lights, along the coastline. 

It seemed we were passing lump after lump of hotels and resorts. I didn’t realize that there could be so many of them before reaching Cabo San Lucas itself. We dodged past a few pangas on the water that showed as tiny blips on radar well before you could see their weakly shining running lights. A couple of fast fishing boats passed us carrying their drunken touristas back to their hotels at Cabo San Lucas.

Before long we could make out the iconic rocks of Lands End silhouetted against the lights of the resort town. We pulled around the corner, keeping our distance from the tourist boats plying the waters in the bay. One of the Baja boats that had anchored shortly before warned us to stay away from a superyacht in the bay that had out 300 feet of anchor rode. We picked a spot a ways off from the busiest part of the harbor and set our hook.

The lights and noise from the shore were almost startling after spending the past week and a half in silent darkness. The anchor lights of the fleet in the bays along the peninsula were the only illumination we had experienced. Here there were laser lights flashing from the discos ashore, searchlights roaming the clouds above, and blazing lights from all of the hotels lining the bay. This was joined by a faint cacophony of dance music, people talking, and engines revving. It was both comforting and revolting at the same time.

We had made it down the peninsula, and were ready to celebrate in true Perception form. As it was still relatively early in the evening, we made ourselves a landing drink and relaxed on the boat. We were a bit too tired to head to shore for the infamous Baja Ha-Ha landing party that roams the bars of Squid Roe. Instead we caught up on some much needed sleep and set ourselves to explore Cabo the next day.

Cabo from the boat by daylight was a bit less garish, but we soon learned that the anchorage was not ideal for us. It was fine enough at night when the boat activity subsided, but during the day we were constantly swarmed by pangas, jet skis, and fishing boats that were in constant motion in the bay. The wakes and swell from the open ocean combined to make things lumpy and bumpy during the day.

Worse was the dingy ride into the harbor itself. Thankfully we had anchored Perception well away from the harbor entrance, since the boat traffic and lumpiness went up an order of magnitude there. Taking the dinghy in was no joy ride bouncing over the wakes, constantly angling to not take on water or splash the crew. 

The inner harbor was a stream of boat traffic, but thankfully boats generally respected a speed limit there. The dinghy ride from Perception into the harbor was a 15 minute ordeal that soon had us looking for pangas to save ourselves and our dinghy the trouble.

Melinda and Grace went ashore in a panga the first day to explore while I stayed on the boat to fill the water tanks with the watermaker and do a few chores. I also was nervous about our anchor set as we were pretty close to the shore and the waves breaking on the beach. It always freaks me out a bit when the inbound swell makes it look downhill to the beach, like your boat could just slide right down onto the sand. In reality, it’s not like this at the distance we were anchored, just an optical illusion.

Later in the afternoon the girls had joined up with other Baja and Coho boats ashore, and had joined another Baja Ha-Ha party. I took a panga over to the beach and met up with them. After drinks at the party, we trekked back towards the harbor to go to “WTF Burger” for a nice greasy post-sailing meal. We met up with the Walden and Merlin crews there, and had a great time chatting about the trip and our future plans over dinner.

We had originally planned to stay in Cabo for a while, maybe up to a week, to rest and decompress from the trip down the peninsula. By Saturday morning we were rethinking this. I’d looked at the weather forecast for getting up into the Sea of Cortez, and saw that Sunday would offer somewhat of a break in the northerly winds to get up to La Paz. We were also finding the anchorage to be very rolly and uncomfortable, and even after a day the overpriced, overtouristed Cabo San Lucas was starting to wear thin. So we decided to get ourselves ready to head north the next day.

We started the scramble. Melinda gathered up the laundry and headed to shore in a panga to get the whole load done quickly. Once she had deposited the clothes at the laundry, she headed to the grocery store.

My mission for the morning was to pay a visit to the Port Captain’s office. Something that boaters must do in Mexico is check in and out with each Port Captain. We didn’t know the rules for Cabo, and apparently the Baja leads didn’t know that they had changed. While it used to require just a VHF call to check in, it now requires a physical visit to the Port Captain’s office with copies of your paperwork. Sadly while it would have been easy to do this on Friday, there was now only a short window on Saturday when the office would be open for all the Baja fleet to get through this process. I got my documents ready with our handy onboard printer and dinghied in to the harbor.

I found the Port Captain’s office after trudging a fairly significant distance through what seemed to be a red-light district of massage parlors. Luckily on entering the office I found only one other captain in line ahead of me in the narrow space in front of a row of windows. Only one agent was working behind the glass. After several minutes waiting he passed me a set of forms to fill out to both check in and out of the port, and I set to completing them. When I attempted to give the forms and copies of my documents to the agent at the window, he indicated that I needed a copy of our US Coast Guard registration, which I neglected to bring. This brought the actual Port Captain out of the back room, who in Spanish explained that I must submit the document, but that today he would be nice to me and not make me return with it. I fled with my stamped document, relieved at not having to make another round trip to the boat. I was doubly relieved since a significant line of Baja boaters had formed behind me while I completed the process.

My flight from the office of the Port Captain took me on a hunt for our Admiral, who I could see on “find my friends” was at the supermarket. Did I say I was extremely warm and sweating profusely by this point? After even mild exercise in humidity, the degenerate boat-body begins to sweat. I entered the supermarket, and was pleasantly surprised to find air conditioning. It was like entering heaven! I halted and stood just inside the entrance with a stupid grin (should I say a stupider-than-normal grin?) on my face enjoying the blast of AC. 

I found Melinda in the fruits and vegetable section, and enjoyed reading the Spanish words for things while I pushed her cart around. I texted Grace to see if she wanted a calabaza, but was met with harsh rejection. Once the grocery shopping was complete, I took the loot back to the dinghy to ferry it out to Perception while Melinda went to get the laundry. We had too much to carry both in the dinghy at once, so Melinda would return separately in a panga.

On the way back to Perception I encountered the crazy boat wakes just outside the harbor. Despite my best efforts to avoid getting anything wet, I took a wave over the bow of the dinghy. The groceries were then washed and pre-salted, all at once! I made it back to the boat where Grace and I cleaned up the mess and stowed the chow.

Melinda returned later with the laundry, and we all then took a panga back to shore to meet up with friends and go to the final Baja awards ceremony. It was a fun night, eating at a great taco bar with our friends from Merlin, and saying a final goodby to the Baja Ha-Ha!