I left Santa Rosalia as planned on Tuesday morning at 0600. As I cleared the marina breakwater and turned toward the mainland of Mexico I was treated to a large fog bank hanging just off the coast. Fog is the one weather issue that concerns me the most. I had had a bad experience in fog some 30 years ago when sailing my first boat to Ensenada. That boat was poorly equipped and I basically spent 3 days bobbing around in the fog off of the Mexican coast. Although the memory remains with me, Si Bon is a VERY well equipped yacht and by keeping a close eye on the radar we plowed through the pea soup thick fog, avoiding the Santa Rosalia ferry, several shrimp boats and of course the ever present pangas.
The crossing was a total of 72 NM (nautical miles) and I had calculated that it would take me somewhere between 12-14 hours, I arrived in Playa Algodones at 1900...which if my math is correct is 13 hours. You would think that a passage of that length would be full of boredom. However, I was kept busy all day, first with the fog, then with a couple of islands that I wanted to avoid and then with several other vessels. One of the vessels was the Research vessel New Horizon, The New Horizon put out a security message (a warning) that they were restricted in their ability to manuver and should be avoided. The message was in english, they only gave a vague discription of their location and they would not answer repeated requests from S/V Si Bon to clarify their location, which turned out to be within a mile of my intended course. Luckly I was on top of things and past the New Horizon in spite of their poor seamanship skills.
All in all it was a great trip, still no horror stories to tell, but full of adventure and excitement. I am currently anchored in Playa Algodones, which is a beautiful bay also known as "Catch 22 Beach" after the 1960's movie that was filmed here. I´ll fill you in more on Playa Algodones manana.
God Bless