Day 572 Still heading South and into Turtle Bay
26 November 2009 | Turtle Bay, Mexico or actually Bahia San Bartolome
Bill Hudson
The day dawned bright and blue with the temperature starting in the low 60s. As I said in yesterdays post, Tracy went forward to raise the forestaysail. What I let out was that there were several dozen squid (about 3 to 5" long) all over the forward deck. Even on the sail as we had left it flaked on the deck over night. They stared up at her with their glassy eye. She was less than impressed. My theory is that they were attracted to our boat because we had on our steaming light as we motored over the night. Squid fishermen typically have big lights attached to their boats as they fish. Any how, once the sail was up, I got to go forward and get them off the deck. Tracy had all ready pulled the ones off the sail and she didn't want to touch the rest. They are good jumpers as I found them quite a ways on board even though we have nets along the lifelines. With all the sails up or rolled out, we took off South We wanted to be in Turtle Bay before sundown and we have almost 50 miles to go. With the engine off, we were making good time in the 10 knot breeze. Unfortunately, it meant that we wouldn't get to Turtle Bay till almost 1800 and the Sun sets at 1646 now, so about 1300, on came the engine and we were forced to do a motor assisted sail to get in by sundown.
During the afternoon, we were delighted to see several groups of dolphins approach and play in the bow wake of our boat. They stayed with up for about 15 minutes before heading North. Tracy saw the plume of water from a whale but he never approached our boat. As one of the boats in the Baja HaHa rally was sunk by one, that is just fine by me. I'm not sure of the full story, but it can be read in the Latitude 38 website on line.
We caught up with Lene and Henrik on Dana about 1500 as they headed South. They were continuing South to Magdalena Bay, about another 240 miles farther down the coast. We wanted to stop at Turtle Bay and not rush down the coast. So here we are now at 27 41.116N 114 53.217W safely at anchor. We sighted the entrance to the bay about 1600 and entered at 1650 just as the Sun was going down and dropped the anchor in twilight amongst 13 other boats. I took several pictures and will post them once we get on the internet farther down the coast. I'm posting this using our SSB radio again.
From what we have seen so far as we came down the coast, this place looks much like the back lands of South New Mexico only with less vegetation. It a barren landscape with not a tree or bush in sight as we passed the coastline. The Suns reflection off the rocks on shore gave it beautiful colors but if you are looking for palm trees and sandy beaches, they're not along this shoreline. Once settled in, we sat in the cockpit and dined on smoked marlin that we picked up in the fish market in Ensenada. We bought a kilo(2.2 pounds) for 80 pesos(about $6.10). It's a beautiful deep burnt red in color with a mild smoky fish flavor. Served on crackers with a nice white wine, it was the perfect dinner as we sat at anchor.
After dinner, I tried to get on the SSB and find some networks that might be broadcasting but found none. I've not found a single one since we installed it. All in good time I guess. Put the wine and fish and add three full days under sail with little sleep and we were quite tired. We took off for bed before 2000 hours. I can't tell you the last time I went to bed at 8pm. Obviously we needed it as we both slept in till after 0700 this morning.
Well, that is it for now.