We left Cabo San Lucas after fueling up and getting some shuteye. The seas seemed pretty good, and the wind was mild. What a surprise we had in store for us. After the first couple of hours we found ourselves wondering where this short chop was coming from- in another half hour or so we figured it out- the wind picked up to 20-25 from the north and the seas did their thing as well. 5-8 foot on the nose, and at times we were seeing the bow on one wave while the stern was still on the one going under us. Extremely uncomfortable is an understatement, just absolutely miserable sailing conditions, but really good conditions for expunging my earlier meal over the rail. Apricots and apple bars don’t taste that bad twice.

We couldn’t really see ourselves running back to Cabo San Lucas, as easy as that would have been, it was a place that we couldn’t see ourselves returning too, no matter the sailing conditions. There was a port about 15 miles ahead and to the north from where we were. We tack to starboard, start running to the NE and hold on.

Puerto San Jose del Cabo is a completely man-made facility about 21 miles as the crow flies from Cabo San Lucas, and at least a thousand miles away as a facility. No loud bars blasting disco, no street hawkers trying to sell us fake cigars and imitation silver, just a quiet, albeit isolated, marina surrounded by a development well underway. Even though this is a very gringo facility, things seemed to run at the slower pace we were looking for.

It was pretty cool, a lot of our fellow Ha-Haer’s found the same conditions at sea untenable and had found shelter along with us, so there was that shared experience thing. It was nice getting to meet folks that we had sailed with, but never actually met. There were also folks that we had met and getting to see them again was great as well. About 45 boats from the fleet ended up there!

If I had it to do over again, I would have blasted up to Puerto San Jose del Cabo after one night in CSL. We went into the town of San Jose del Cabo and were totally charmed by the place. It is another of the cash-separating gringo towns, but in an adult, artsy-fartsy way, rather than the drunken frat boy way. Much easier to take. Really a nice place, from what we read, was that the employment rate is near 100%. Probably a little bit of fluff, but I could see that in the people’s faces, not the desperate hawkishness we saw in CSL, but a contented ease with which they were trying to sell us overpriced trinkets.

After two nights and the full day we were ready to move on to what will be our temporary base in this journey- Mazatlan- 180+/- miles to the east, across the southern end of the Sea of Cortez, otherwise known as the Golfo de California.