Log 38 Turtle Bay to Ensenada

Carrie, bundled in 3 layers, two days from arrival in Ensenada

Almost home...

We ended up spending another three days in Turtle Bay, trying to keep a positive attitude and trying to keep ourselves entertained. We finally departed on April 25th at 8 PM. It was a terrible night, as we worried it might be, but it seemed to be the only marginally safe weather window we were going to have for another ten days or so. We suffered through 20 knots on the nose, big, lumpy seas, and freezing cold temperatures. Neither of us was able to sleep for the first 24 hours - a first for us. We would have liked to, but the conditions made it impossible. We spent the daylight hours avoiding kelp to the best of our ability and trying to maneuver through the swells in such a way as to keep from breaking something. We were exhausted, soaked to the bone, and little scared.

By the middle of the afternoon on the second day, we were on the outside of Cedros Island and conditions finally improved enough for Bryan to get about 3 1/2 hours of rest. I woke him around 8 PM for some dinner, and then he went on watch so I could sleep. For the next 18 hours, we were able to keep a regular watch schedule. The swells were big, but far enough apart to be manageable and comfortable. No sun, though. Cloudy skies kept the temperatures cold, and we remained bundled up in multiple layers of clothing and foul weather gear.

April 28, 2007

From the log: It's been about 36 hours since my last log entry, and amazingly, we are now within 3 hours of Ensenada. Thank the Lord! The last 36 hours have been pretty fair, other than the June gloom that has kept the sun away and kept the temps really cold. STILL in foulies. Can't wait to burn them.

Last night we had a scary episode. I napped from 10 PM - 2 AM, and when I awoke and removed my ear plug from my right ear, I felt an excruciating pain inside my ear. When I tried to move to the companionway to get Bryan's attention, I began to feel like I was going to faint. I had just enough time to tell him what I was feeling before I blacked out and went limp. He says he sat me down on the the bench and as soon as I started to come to, I fainted again. When I came to the second time, I had the cold sweats. He got me outside for some fresh air, which helped, but of course then I was freezing and started shivering like crazy. Long story short, Bryan thinks my equilibrium was all screwed up from being underway for the last 3 1/2 days, wearing my two seasick bands, and only one ear plug while sleeping. He let me go back to sleep since I was feeling pretty rotten, and when I got up around 5:30 AM I was much better. Glad that's all it was. Pretty scary, though.

Today we napped off and on, talked to Godspeed on the radio, and I finished another book, my fifth of the trip. This afternoon we were visited by a cute little yellow bird who decided to take up temporary residence on the leg of Bryan's yellow foulies, which he was wearing at the time. Eventually the bird left, but he must have gone and told all his friends about us because soon we had 5 or 6 yellow birds hitching a ride on Salty Dog. We thought we had shooed them all away, only to discover one asleep on the spigot of the galley sink, and another asleep on top of the medicine cabinet in the head, having apparently flown in through the open porthole. Cute for awhile - of course, we took some pictures - but a pain to get rid of! Stubborn little brats had us trying to coax them out of every possible hatch and porthole for about an hour.

Now that we're almost to Ensenada, I guess it's appropriate to tell you what we thought of the trip north. Well, I can honestly say that renaming the Baja Bash the "Baja Bliss" didn't work out as we all had hoped. It ended up taking us 21 days to do what we hoped to accomplish in 10-14, and we still were only able to make it to Ensenada in that amount of time. Bryan still had to bring the boat the rest of the way to Long Beach, which would end up taking another 2 weeks due to the weather.

Yes, the weather was consistently bad. Every passage was miserably cold. I was queasy a lot of the trip - which doesn't usually happen to me. There isn't much good I can say about the experience - I certainly wouldn't choose to do it again. However, we have been told since our return home that possibly we just timed our trip poorly, which is possible. If you don't mind the fog of the early Spring, May or June may potentially be a better time of year to bash.

The only thing that helped make the trip bearable was being with Beth and Leonard, and the new friends we made along the way- Joe and Kathy, Paul, and Paul and Debbie. Without friends to commiserate and socialize with, we probably would have lost our minds! But hey, to us, the best part about cruising has always been the people you meet along the way.

And as miserable as the trip might have been, now we can say with pride that... WE SURVIVED THE BAJA BASH!!

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