Sail the sea with The Merry Lee

Hola Amigos,

There is crew, then there is Crew, and then there is Martin. Getting crew is on the top of most cruiser's "To do list". Latitude 38 which organizes the Baja Ha-Ha has a crew classified ads: Skippers looking for crew, Crew looking for boats. It even has a party to help them hook-up. Some skippers think that the ideal crew is a 20 year old girl whose main credential is that she looks good in a bathing suit. Martin has credentials but looking good in a bikini is not one of them. Sometimes it seems like it is easier to get a job than a crew position because of all the references you need. Lewis once got an email from Panama from a Skipper who wanted to know what we thought of the crew who helped bring the Merry Lee back from La Paz.

Navigating San Diego harbor at 5AM was a little more challenging than expected. A heavy dew had clouded over our windshield so we had to roll up our center panel. The ambient light was marginal so we crept along using the GPS map with a Radar overlay.
We had a boat passs us with a white over red light on its masthead. Martin told us that that meant it was a Pilot boat and the AIS confirmed that. We then saw a big boat (They all look big in the dark) with 3 white lights on top of each other. We knew that white over white meant a tow but Martin had to explain that 3 lights meant a really long tow. The Colregs( International rules to prevent collisions at sea) says it means a tow that is longer than 2 football fields from the stern of the tug to the stern of the tow. It really says 200 meters but we thought 2 football fields was a better graphic.

Once out of the harbor we thought, except for 10 foot swells, that we were in still water. Just south of the border we got sucker-punched with Gale force (34 to 40 knots) Santa Anna winds. Beaufort Scale 8 out of a possible 12 (Moderately high waves with breaking crests forming spindrift. Well-marked streaks of foam are blown along wind direction. Considerable airborne spray.)

The Merry Lee acted like it was a walk in the park since she is designed for much heavier weather. We were concerned so we woke up Martin( Captain's license, deliverer of boats world wide, teacher at Wood Boat School in Maine and certified to certify sailing instructors) who was napping. He was not quite sure why we woke him up but as good crew do he came up to help us. We wondered if we should shorten sail. He suggested adding more. The only good thingwas that we were only 3 miles off shore so the wind had a short fetch or distance to create waves. A gale with a long fetch can create 18 to 25 foot seas.

The winds finally calmed down to 20 knots and we looked down in the cabin. It looked like we had had our own personal magnitude 9 earthquake. We realized that a sailor came up with the metaphor of a burglar tossing a room. Everything that had been on the starboard side was on the port side and everything on the port side was now starboard.

We got into Ensenada at the Coral marina around 3. We got fuel, a slip and started the checking in process. We go to the Port Captain at 9 to finish it up. We will leave at 3 PM for either San Quintin ( 110 miles and 1 overnighter) or Turtle Bay ( 290 miles and 2 overnighters).

We finally realize that it was not happenstance or serendipity that we met Martin in our Coast Guard class in 1989. It was Mary Lee's Guardian Angels planning for the future.

Happy Still Trail to you until we Blog again,

Mary Lee and Lewis