For most of our time in Mexico, every time the topic of the Baja Bash came up, stories of monsters, misery, and sorrow were soon to follow. Now that we are relaxing here on the Port San Luis mooring with feeding grey whales all around our boat, the crew had some time during dinner tonight to talk about our trip and we are in agreement:

Was the Baja Bash horrible? No.
Was the Baja Bash easy? No.
Was the Baja Bash the roughest and toughest conditions we have seen during our cruise? No.
Were there times we wanted to bail, scuttle boat and jump on a buss for the rest of the trip north? Yes.
Would we do it again? Yes.

It’s always easier to look back on a hard passage (or hard event in life) and find something good and positive about it. But besides the fact that it needed to be done, our trip up the outside of Baja doesn’t have too much good to say about it, other than the fact that it’s over! We have had harder passages in terms of rough seas and weather but those were for shorter duration where you knew all you had to do is hold on until dawn and it would be over. When you add together the continuous motoring into the wind and seas with the cold that our bodies were not adjusted to, you have one tough long trip, that deserves it’s reputation as “The Bash”. We were tied, no exhausted for much of the trip, but we just lowered our head and plowed forward.

The crew has now made 3 trips down and one trip up Baja together and without a doubt the trip up was more challenging than all 3 trips down put together, but that doesn’t mean we all wouldn’t agree to do it again. To be honest, it was harder to make the decision to GO cruising in the first place, to break away from our old lives, our old normal, than it was to do the Baja Bash. Now don’t get me wrong, we are not going to go into the family Baja Bash boat delivery business. However, the crew all agrees that if the entry fee for our next Mexican cruise is that we have a Baja Bash waiting for us at the end, then sign us up. We will see that entry fee and raise you an all you can eat street taco challenge.