UPDATED: Pictures now added!

Our time sailing through California was fun and relaxing and let us see coastal towns in a new way, but, other than the big offshore leg that got us to San Francisco, it never felt like a big adventure. It felt like a new way of living: smaller space, walking and using transit more, limited kitchen, etc.  But nothing too unexpected.  

Now that we are in Mexico things are feeling more adventurous and exotic.  Three weeks in Ensenada gave us lots of opportunity to see Mexican culture while still having the comforts of staying at a marina. We tried grocery shopping at various types of stores (although the big produce market with multiple vendors was farther from the boat than we wanted to walk).  We tried all sorts of local food and learned how to order and ask for the check and to go boxes. 

However, Saturday we finally started a more remote part of our adventure by heading south to San Quintin.  We left Cruiseport Ensenada Village in the morning and said hello to the sea lions that sun themselves near the cruise ship dock on our way out. We could still see the giant Mexican flag on the Ensenada malecón as we motored southwest across Bahía Todos Santos.

• 

• 

We waited until we were out of the bay to put up our sails in a south wind. We are trying to conserve fuel since the only place to buy it between here and Cabo San Lucas is Bahía Tortugas and it can be expensive and complicated there.  We were trying to time our arrival in San Quintin to be after sunrise so there was no need to motor full speed.

Sailing was nice since we hadn’t done much of that in CA.  We were seeing 6-10 kts of wind from the south which, combined with a good current, was enough to keep us sailing upwind making 3-4 kts if speed in the right direction.  The wind eventually started to become a westerly and then started moving slightly to the north so we were on a broad reach. We attached the preventer as we now we’re going slightly downwind and had the boom eased out a little ways .  Around 1:30 PM the wind got too light and we dropped the sails.  

• 

• 

• 

• 

Wind picked back up before 5 PM and we set ourselves up for downwind sailing. We were seeing wind speeds from 8 to 12 kts. I used some shrimp we bought at Mercado Negro fish market right before leaving Ensenada to make a Thai-style coconut curry for dinner.

At 7 PM we started our alternating three hour watch schedule. I took the first watch since I have trouble falling asleep early. The wind continued to shift to the north which meant it was good we had the preventer set because we were sailing a bit closer to the wind such that when the ocean swells would hit us the boom would bounce and the headsail would flog as the boat rocked on the wave.

I even spent some time relieving the autopilot (we weren’t using the wind vane) and hand-steering to try to make it smoother.  The autopilot sometimes overreacted to the larger rolling swells and made the flogging of the sails worse when the air was light.  It also helped me stay awake to be driving. 

When Nojan came up at 10 PM for his watch the wind was now enough to the north that we were considering doing a gybe as we were starting to be heading too much to the west while land was going slightly east of due south.  As we prepared to disconnect the preventer, Nojan noticed the mainsail looked strange – it was blown back against the spreaders and the aft clew end had a space between it and the boom. 

We decided to drop the sail to figure out what was going on.  Since the reefing lines were still in place we were able to use those to guide the aft end of the sail down as we dropped the halyard.  After furling the headsail and getting our motor course set, Nojan took s look and saw that the pin in the shackle that goes through the clew ring had worked loose. We probably hadn’t inspected that shackle since we put the sails back on the boat before leaving Seattle. It was s relief that the sail hadn’t actually torn out.

Nojan tied some dynema to fix the clew in place in case we needed to sail later.  Luckily the motor worked fine and the wind had died off so we weren’t wasting fuel by motoring the rest of the trip. I went down to get my three hours rest and came back up for another three hours from about 1-4 AM. I was listening to the Comedy Bang Bang podcast on a Bluetooth speaker to stay awake and alert. I wished I had warmer pants on.

Nojan had the sunrise shift while I went down to get another couple hours of sleep before the anchorage. With the moonlight I could see the volcano cones and the island near San Quintin pretty well even at night.  I got up around 6:45 AM Sunday and by 7:45 AM we were safely anchored in 25 ft of water in the bay.  We had a light snack and went to sleep and got three hours.

Late morning / mid-day when we woke up Nojan got to work on a better fix for the main clew connection. Sadly when the pin worked loose it did not magically fall into the boat or the sail cradle cover.  We did not have a replacement pin but we did have one spare shackle that fit. Noj worked on replacing that while I made coffee and eggs and toast.

• 

• 

• 

 This anchorage is very quiet and calm. There are buildings on shore and apparently if you go up into the estuary there is the decent-sized village of San Quintin but we aren’t going on shore here. We saw locals clamming at low tide before sunset and I made mashed potatoes and boneless pork chops with cabbage apple salad for dinner.  Today is Monday and we will leave on a longer sailing leg for Bahía Tortugas this afternoon. We plan to sail west of Cedros Island so we don’t need to deal with traffic in the channel between there and the point in the dark.