Hello from La Paz - Where it's 85-90 degrees and the water is 80. The afternoon breeze keeps the apparent temperature a little lower and the morning and night is just right. So far, I have no complaints !!

When I last wrote, I was preparing for the Baja Ha-Ha, a cruiser's rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas - and that is now history. This was the sixth annual rally sponsored by "Latitude 38" magazine, and of over 150 boats that registered, about 130 made the finish in Cabo. A large percentage of those have now found their way 150 miles north in the Sea of Cortez to arrive here in La Paz for a spell - and I'm sure several will never go on from here as evidenced by those who have come before and simply stayed.

The Ha-Ha started on Oct 26 off the end of Pt. Loma in a nice 12 kt breeze. Tammy had flown into San Diego a few days prior to crew and once across the starting line we decided to head "outside", meaning we would put some distance between us and the shore and leave the Coronados Islands on the port side.

The first leg of this rally would take us to Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay), about 360 miles into Mexico. For the most part, the wind stayed with us all the way and we were able to sail the entire leg without reverting to the engine. It was amazing how, within a couple hours of the start, the boats were spread out to the point that we had only 2 or 3 within view. After two and a half days, as we began to close the finish of leg 1, we encountered more and more boats, until arriving in Turtle Bay, we found about half the fleet already at anchor (Hey, I never said this boat was fast!!). The rally sponsors put on a beach party that required a surf landing in the dinghies - that made for an entertaining afternoon.

This being our first landfall in Mexico, we had the first experience interacting with the locals and it went quite well. We were actually able to track down a couple of blocks of hielo (ice) in a village where the tienda (store) was more than likely an attachment to someone's small home. The streets of dirt and the warmer temperatures confirmed those previous conceptions of Hot - Dry - Dusty, but the people there were happy - and happy to have so many gringo visitors - it is by far the greatest number of outsiders they see during the year.

The rally continued the next morning with an early start. This leg would take us about 240 miles further south to Bahia Santa Maria and after more than 24 hours of beautiful sailing, including 14 hours of spinnaker running, the wind left completely and we gave in to the engine, motoring the last eight hours to the finish. Once into the anchorage we found that only 2 or 3 boats sailed the entire leg, with most boats motoring about the same time as we did. There are no facilities in Santa Maria aside from a small panga fishing camp, but the rally organizers had arranged to have a tent, generator and iced beer brought in to the beach for our second leg party.

This dinghy landing required a bar crossing into a quiet lagoon and after watching the surf for a few minutes, it wasn't difficult at all to time the crossing between the surf break. Most of the cruisers made it ashore here and a good party ensued, with several of the local fishermen setting up a barbeque and selling lobster, shrimp and fish dinners, although they had great difficulty keeping up with demand.

That evening Tammy and I joined the crew aboard "El Gitano", a Westsail 32 out of Anacortes, for a great pot luck and spent some time watching cruisers as they dinghied around the anchorage, trying to locate their various boats within the group of more than 100 anchor lights bobbing in the bay. Oh, and the wind piped up to 20+ kts, making the travel by dinghy even more interesting. Overnight the wind continued strong, so the early start at 0700 for leg 3 looked promising, but alas, by 0800 it was only a drift, and the final 180 miles to Cabo would go slow. Let me cut this off here and continue later. It's another beautiful morning in La Paz and I must finally get started on a few projects.

The next installment of these travels will cover the finish of the Ha-Ha and the trip to La Paz. I'll be here for another 3 weeks and then cross the sea to San Blas, Puerto Vallarta and further south for Christmas.

I hope this finds you all doing very well in your various locations and not suffering greatly from the fall/winter weather - AND - Have a Happy Thanksgiving !!

Terry, aboard s/v "Secret O' Life" at anchor in La Paz Bay.