Cabo to Mazatlan
27 December 2007 | From Mazatlan
Now that Christmas is only 364 days away I will continue the saga.
As you may recall we had made a daytrip to San Jose del Cabo and had lunch with the crazy Ali. We ended up back in Cabo. We awoke to a hot sultry morning that threatened rain. We both needed fuel and so up with the real anchor and off to the inner sanctum of Cabo's marina, a place way too expensive for the likes of Pat and I. At the fuel dock I encountered ( diesel was 2.26 gal) a weather fax and infrared picture of the cloud cover.
I immediately started the weather brain going in order to interpret this raw data. I determined that we would have the first part of our 36 hour trip calm seas and light wind. This would increase to 15knots of northwest wind for the remainder of the trip. The long band of clouds and thunderstorms that stretched from Cabo westward had some big boomers in it but my prognosis was it would go away from us when the Northwesterlies came in.
To date may weather guesses.. I mean carefully crafted predictions have been 180 degrees out of phase. So we should really expect a big blow early and Southeast winds later with giant thunder storms in our path.
Pat had some issues with his autopilot so after a warm rainy afternoon of fiddling around with that and he finding a system he was comfortable with we were both hot and sweaty. There were people jet sking, parasailing and fishing all about us. We kept eyeing the sports bar on the beach and finally Pat decided he was hungry and I longed for a cold Pacifico. So I dropped the dinghy in the water and rowed Pat to the beach. We were both unshaven but we did put on clean clothes.
We ate a very expensive lunch of fajitas and watched with some amusement all the touristas in their fancy clean clothes and Rolex watches. We were hoping we would catch some of the mysterious body shot action but was a mellow crowd and so we watched Philadelphia beat up Pittsburgh, I think.
Now we were fed and happy and it was about 4 pm just the right time to leave for Mazatlan. So I rowed back to the boats upped anchor and took off. There was one little stop.A 60' schooner had just arrived and I wanted to find out what make of boat it was. As I motored closer to inquire, a familiar face peered out from under the mizzen boom. Sure enought it was Tom from my dock in Long Beach. He and his twin brother left Long Beach two years ago in their 70' enginless schooner for Mexico. A friend of mine saw them last year down here and all of a sudden Tom shows up in Cabo just as I am leaving. Tom is generally sullen but he was all smiles and said he was in La Paz and had just delivered this boat from San Diego. Small world and I had to laugh because I know after all those years on the dock he thought I was a weekend warrior who drank Chardonnay and told tall tales of life at sea while never leaving the dock.
Off we go with a beautiful sunset, flat calm seas and not a breath of wind. It was nice to be under way again.