We left Isabella in the early morning light hoping to cross the Sea and arrive to the Los Frailes anchorage mid afternoon the next day, March 29. Along the way we encountered long-line fishing operations three times.

Long-line fishing is where the fishermen string a 1/8 inch polypro line for a mile or more with baited hooks hung off it at 10 to 20 foot intervals. They are the bane to sailboaters existence since the polypro floats on the surface or just slightly below and you either catch your rudder or wrap your shaft into the line. We have learned to look for soda bottle floats and the occasional 5 foot flag (usually a garbage bag on a bamboo pole) as an indicator of the long-line string. On our first encounter this leg, we approached the line slowly so as to evaluate how deep it was and determine if we could pass over it. Even as slow as we approached, we ran over the surface-floating line almost half the length of the boat before Sue could get the boat moving in reverse and back off. We decided to follow the line of bottles and flags and try to go around the end. Unfortunately, the direction of long-line was at right angles to our intended course, so no matter which direction we investigated, we were loosing time in our crossing efforts. We followed the string for about 1/2 a mile (3 flags), trying once more without success to cross. Finally decided that we were going to have to make a gap for ourselves through the line. We gingerly inched up to a flag and Craig lifted it into the boat and cut one side of the line. He handed that piece to Sue who walked it down the length of the boat to the stern while Craig walked the flag and pole section down the other side. At the stern of the boat, Craig reattached the two pieces together and we sailed away victorious. Our second encounter was less eventful as we altered course slightly so as to go around the fishing panga who was deploying the long-line and appeared to have gotten his own outboard motor fouled in the line. I would say poetic justice, but this is how these guys make a living and when I go to a fish market in Mexico and select the delicious red snapper on display, he probably came from one of these operations. Our third encounter was somewhat different. We spied a line of floats, but this time the floats were not discarded soda bottles, but large white or red or blue 15 liter bottle/floats spaced along a flag line where some of the flags were floating radio transmitters. We saw a big fishing trawler in the distance and as we approached the string, he began to steam our direction. We approached the string slowly again and once again, decided we could not safely get across. This time, the string was set in such a way that we could continue very close to our course without crossing and after about 5 miles the string turned away from our correct course and we were free to continue. The trawler had given up the chase almost as soon as it was apparent that we were not going to try and cross his line. Was this a long-line operation or something else like a very long net? We will never know.

Arriving at Los Frailes after a calm, beautiful night motor we had lunch and discussed how long we might have to stay there because of some predicted bad weather between us and La Paz the next afternoon. We decided that the best course of action would be to sleep for a few hours and then leave Los Frailes about 9 PM with another overnight directly into La Paz. We had originally planned to stay the day at Los Frailes and then move up to Mortos for a day before sailing on to La Paz, but there is a swift, narrow channel between Mortos and La Paz and we feared that the predicted weather would make big waves there. How surprised we were when those feared waves materialized out of nowhere about 2 AM on March 30th. Sue had a smooth, calm watch from 10 PM to 2 AM and Craig enjoyed a blissful sleep in the stern cabin. About 15 minutes before Craig came on watch at 2 the wind began to pick up. Before his watch was done, the wind had risen to 15-20 knots and we had 3-6 foot waves coming directly on the bow at 6 to 8 second intervals. This created a hobby-horse action in Seasilk that sounded like bomb exploding down below as her bow came off the top of one wave and pounded into the trough of the next. This went on for over 2 hours and it goes to say that Sue got no sleep. We considered turning and going in to anchor at Mortos, but decided that most of the waves were being caused by the shallow area off Mortos that we were crossing (35-50 feet) and hoped that the conditions would get better as we passed into deeper water. Sure enough, about 5 AM we moved into deeper water and the waves began to calm down so that by 6 they were almost gone and we were back to a clam sea with only 10-15 knots of wind. Craig let Sue sleep until she woke at 7:30 and the rest of the trip to La Paz was uneventful.

We were sorry that we didn't get to spend more time at Los Frailes. It is the closest anchorage to the famed Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park and it's fine snorkeling and SCUBA. We will plan to stay there longer when we move the boat south to Cabo San Lucas before the Bash back. We were there long enough to observe some the the Mobles rays doing there flip-flop-and-fly routine just yards from the boat.