Hola, Family and Friends.
Back in La Paz, and I can't believe it's only 2 weeks and a couple days till I depart for Hawaii !!! The past week or so - and the next couple - will be spent working on the boat and provisioning for a possible 4+ week passage, although Pilot Chart data suggests I should make Hilo in about 22 days in the 'average' year during the month of May.

I plan to leave La Paz Saturday, the 6th of May and I want you all to consider it may be the 6th to the 10th of June before I arrive in Hilo - and I'll send out an arrival e-mail there, so please don't go calling the Coast Guard if you haven't heard from me by then. I expect a relatively benign passage with little threat of hurricane as the La Nina has got the water pretty cold this year. But, let me digress here.

Leaving Mazatlan I had a great passage across the Sea of Cortez, 175 miles in 33 hours to Cabo Pulmo, where I met up with daughter Christen, son-in-law Christian and granddaughter Sydney. We enjoyed a wonderful week together swimming and snorkeling on Pulmo Reef, collecting shells and putting away a few Pacificos. Unfortunately, the northerlies blew several days and prevented any day sails in the area.

As my luck goes, it was blowing another northerly when I departed there for La Paz, so I sailed long tacks out into the Sea and arrived in La Paz about 36 hours later. Since then the weather has settled and most days here are in the hi 80's, low 90's with afternoon winds to 15 kts - just about perfect. I'm anchored close in and have use of a pool, so the afternoons go by nicely (mornings are for projects).

A couple of days after I had the anchor down here I was in the galley beginning to prepare dinner - well, maybe I was slicing a lime to squeeze in my cervesa - when a huge splash beside the boat brought me up into the cockpit to see a large porpoise chasing a number of 8 to 10 inch baitfish only 20 yards of the stern. Within minutes what was one porpoise was now five, plus a youngster just learning the fine art of chasing down his dinner. For the next 30 minutes, this small pod stayed within 100 yards and treated everyone aboard the 10 or 12 boats in the anchorage to an exceptional show.

The several porpoises would surround a school of small fish and cause them to surface, then while one or two would circle the fish, another would force them to jump and then yet another would catch an individual and toss it in the air to be chased again and consumed by another. Now, I've seen these porpoises cruise through an anchorage before, slowly gliding through the water as they surface for a breath of air and dive to find their feed, becoming a synchronized team with a regular cadence and predictability - when they sound you know where they'll surface next. But these guys were wild and aggressive ! Numerous times they would leap clear of the surface with a small fish scrambling just ahead only to be nabbed at the last moment. What a fantastic show -- and near sunset as well, with no wind to scar the glassy surface of the bay.

I'm also reminded of the many whales I've seen along the coast this winter. None close enough to touch, but always within sight, some as close as a hundred yards. At times, one will 'full breach', coming straight up out of the water only to fall over sideways and create a splash that can be seen for a mile or more!

But the true clowns here are the Manta Rays. In Banderas Bay, all across the Sea, off Cabo Pulmo, schools of 10 to 50 will begin to leap free of the water, some performing multiple flips in the process. These rays average 2 -1/2 to 3 feet across their wings and are all heading in the same direction. The first indication is usually the slapping sound they make as one will belly-flop back to the surface after a "flight" of maybe six feet, some two or three feet above the wave tops.

Jet black on top and stark white underneath, it's easy to count the number of rotations one makes when performing flips. Once they begin, they'll carry on for ten minutes or more, at times there will be 8 or 10 in the air together ! Looking so much like top secret stealth fighters, they leave the water and gain shallow altitude, wings vigorously flapping in hopes of an extended flight, only to fall victim to gravity and 'slap' down on the surface of the sea to once again build up momentum for another flight. On occasion, one will leave the water with a much steeper angle of flight and commence doing flips - I've counted as many as 6 rotations - before crashing back to the waves.

Why do these creatures perform such antics? I've heard a number of suggestions, but I personally think they do it because they CAN. As far as I've seen, this activity is limited to the smaller, maybe juvenile or adolescent Mantas. The larger ones seem content to sublimely cruise the surface of the ocean with just the tips of their wings turned up, protruding ten or twelve inches above the water. At first usually mistaken for a pair of sharks swimming side by side, the symmetry of the pair of "fins" is finally recognized and their distance apart gives a valid gauge to the size of the ray. I've personally seen a distance of ten or twelve feet between these 'wingtips' and have heard of distances exceeding sixteen feet !

These rays are huge ! In fact, at Bahia Tenacatita in January a Manta confirmed at 16+ feet fouled the anchor of a 42' sailboat and commenced to pull the 25,000# hull through the anchorage at a speed of several knots. Witnessed by dozens of cruisers, the ordeal finally ended when a fellow dove to the bottom at 30' and untangled the line from around one of the 'horns' on the front of the ray. It's possible to grab on and ride the back of one of these monsters, but as yet I haven't had that opportunity - and wonder if I would try should the chance present.

Well, that's the report from La Paz. It's Easter, a bigger holiday here than Christmas, I think. School's been out all week and there's been parades in the evenings with many businesses closing for 4-5 days. Several cruising boats I met on the 'Gold Coast' this winter have arrived here preparing to spend the summer in the northern Sea or leave their boats and go back to the US and Canada during hurricane season.

I'm excited about the upcoming crossing of 3000 miles and look forward to an extended period of 'self appraisal' - what else does one do when alone, out of sight of land and subject to the wonders of nature (both pleasant and perverse) for weeks at a time. Hopefully, I'll be comfortable enough to hammer on the laptop from time to time, so that upon arrival in Hawaii I can send a first hand report on this experience. In the meantime, I hope this report finds you all well and looking forward to spring and summer. Hasta luego!

Terry, aboard S/V "Secret O' Life"