11/06/2009, Cabo San Lucas
The Crew of Trim is living and eating as good as it gets. Yesterday morning we decided to go snorkeling and spear fishing in Bahia Santa Maria. The fishing conditions just outside the bay along the rocks was a dream to behold by a diver. Fish of every color and size ...millions of them. In a 30 minute period I hit several Pompano's for tacos while Dave and Lee brought up 8 lobster!
We are sitting at anchor for the final night here in Bahia Santa Maria cooking fish and lobster for tacos. We all sit and laugh at how nice this is. Both Lee and Dave want to get sailboats now and do this on their own next year. We are all glad that we experienced the bad weather up front as it has given us a much clearer perspective of how wonderful it is to be alive and able to enjoy this spectacular place, food and friends.
We also had the big beach party ...fun time with many pictures to be uploaded in Cabo in two days. Stand-By!
Many of our new sailing friends are talking about going to La Paz for Thanksgiving...sound be a great time! Lori is loving life sitting on the deck in her bikini while the boys go fishing. She also likes having the guys cook for her every night.
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We pulled into Cabo San Lucas at 9:30 Am this morning and the experience was everything that we had hoped for. The weather was perfect with bright blue sunny skys and warm breeze. We have caught so many fish that we had to stop. The total count is 5 Tuna, 5 Dorado and 2 Skipjack..and a Pampano/8 Lobster.
Posted from Ham Radio
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The HaHa fleet started pulling into Bahia Santa Maria through the night and into the next day. A big beach party was scheduled up on the bluff overlooking the bay which would include fresh shrimp, cold beer and a live band.
Out in front of the bluff is a tidal river that flows out of the dunes that surround the bay. When the tide goes out, the river flows quite rapidly...almost like a white water rapid. As a result, many of the kids and adults would swim and surfboard down the river and out to the bay.
What was very interesting about the bay and the large sandy beach is the number of sand dollars that are located all over. Many of these sand dollars are 6" inches across. Dave tried many times to collect some of these beatiful shells, but somehow found a way to break all of them before he returned to the boat. The picture is one of the fleet members trying to cross the tidal river holding a handful of the sand dollars.
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10/31/2009, Bahia Santa Maria
The second leg consisted of 35 hours of spectacular sailing conditions with 15 knots on our aft quarter nearly the entire trip and lots of fish action. The crew had the boat prepared for an early departure from Turtle Bay on Saturday morning and our repairs to the boom seemed to be working quite well for us. Right from the very start, the sailing was some of the best I've ever experienced making 8.5 knots towards Bahia Santa Maria some 240 miles down range.
We hoisted the gennaker at around 1:30 in the afternoon and it stayed there through most of the first day and night keeping Trim running down hill at over 7 knots for hours and hours. We even had a wonderful turkey dinner while under gennaker sail prepared by our magnificent cook Captain Lee (he is a fire Captain and they apparently know how to cook really well ;-)
Lee and Dave caught some nice fish, one 20 pound Big Eye and a 40 inch Dorado. We caught the Big Eye as we crossed and sea mount and we had two lines on fish at the same time. One of the line broke, but we pulled in a really nice one for sushi dinner. The Dorado hit our line about 30 minutes later and look nearly the entire spool. It required both Dave and Lee to boat this fighter and a 30 minute tail standing fight. Lee was on an adrenaline high for hours after catching this beautiful fish.
Trim was the 11th vessel to pull into Bahia Santa Maria at around 9:00 pm. The bay is like glass and we all fell asleep as soon as we put a movie on. This morning is pure heaven and we are preparing breakfast as we listen to the morning roll call.
We have 168 more miles to go to Cabo...
The crew is having a great time and Trim is doing superbly!
Posted from Ham Radio
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His fish is bigger than your fish!! HAHAHA
As the years go by the fish will grow to 60 inches.. HAHAHAHA
10/31/2009, Leg 1 - Rough Seas & Broken Boom
The first leg of the HaHa was extreme to say the least. 193 vessels left San Diego heading south with the knowledge that a big wind event was coming down from the north bringing with it 16-18 ft seas and gusts over 30 knots. Well, we got it and more. The sea state built to over 15 ft by Thursday and the wind to over 30 knots sustained. the challenge was the period of the seas and the overall confused condition. Most of the fleet didn't make it to Turtle bay till last night. We made it Thursday afternoon with a broken boom that resulted from an accidental jib coming down the face of a 20ft swell. The main came across and blew the goose neck to pieces. We were able to keep the main flying, however we were not able to reef if needed which was hugely stressful through the long dark night with giant waves overtaking us and cause bursts of wind to 40 knots that would knock us nearly on our side as the wave passed under us.
Making things worse, the autopilot could not handle the conditions and we had to hand steer for nearly 20 hours. When the moon set at around 3:00am, things seemed to get worse as we couldnt see the monsters coming from behind anymore and they would simply roll under us like steam engines.
At approximately 4:00am, we had a really close encounter with a 60 ft power boat with nobody at the helm driving. The boat came within 30 feet of t-boning us off Cedros and sending us to the bottom of 11,000 feet. I'm telling ya, it was so close we could see the instruments of their helm as we rammed our helm hard port when Dave yelled at the top of his lungs that it was going to hit us as it crested over the swell in front of us.
We eventually made it to turtle bay and got the boom fixed, ate some wonderful tuna sushi from the two big eye tuna that we caught, and we partied with all the boats and told stories of the Epic adventure getting to Turtle bay.
Right now we are motor sailing to Bahia Santa Maria after 4 hours of hull speed sailing this morning. The gennaker is out but is luffing.
Cheers for now! We will update with pictures when we get internet.
Posted from Ham Radio
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10/20/2009, San Diego Yacht Club
• Hurricane Rick " Naturally, we're hoping that this mischievous storm continues to diminish in strength or die out completely before making landfall. But if it, or any other weather system, threatens the Ha-Ha fleet, the Rally Committee may choose to delay the start. We'll just have to wait and see what develops.
• Departure Parade " For the first time ever, the Port of San Diego, Harbor Police, and a variety of Port Tenants are working with us to raise the profile of the Ha-Ha in San Diego Bay. The main focus of these efforts is to facilitate a Departure Parade along the San Diego Cityfront. Whether you will be setting out from Chula Vista, the Glorietta Bay anchorage, or elsewhere, we'd like you to time your departure so that you arrive at the WEST END OF HARBOR ISLAND at 10:00 a.m. You'll pass between the island and a San Diego fire boat which will be on station, saluting you with a fan of spray. Who knows, if you're lucky, you might make the evening news, as a wide variety of journalists have been invited to attend. (See the harbor map for the route.) To maximize the fun, wear your Halloween costume for the parade and start (as long as you can perform sailing tasks safely).
After passing Shelter Island, you'll proceed to the starting area outside the harbor (as explained at the Skipper's Meeting, 11 a.m., Sunday, October 25.)
Leg One starts at 11:a.m. Monday, October 26.
• Ha-Ha Forum & Photo Sharing Site " Two more new Ha-Ha features are the Online Ha-Ha Forum and the Ha-Ha Photo Sharing site. The Forum has been set up so current and future Ha-Ha'ers can share info and tips on various aspects of the event, as well as pre-rally prep and post-rally cruising. Sign up for free at: http://www.baja-haha.com/forum/
The Photo Sharing Site has been set up so participants can both post and retrieve photos from this year's cruise. It's easy and free! If you already have a Flickr account, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/baja-haha/. Click on 'Join This Group', read our rules and click 'I Agree'. To keep spam to a minimum, we have to approve your membership. You'll be requested to send a note to moderators, so be sure to include your name, boat name and which Ha-Ha you participated in (or will participate in). We'll approve your membership and then you're free to share your pix with other Ha-Ha'ers!
If you don't have a Flickr account already, you have to sign up with a Yahoo user ID (as Yahoo owns Flickr, you will have to sign up for a Yahoo account if you don't already have one - a little cumbersome but worth it). Then just follow the instructions above.
• Each boat will be given one event program at the kickoff party. If you'd like additional copies, the document can be downloaded for free in PDF format at http://www.baja-haha.com/.
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