Anduril Sailing Blog: Southward Ho, with Bro

Our most northerly location in the Sea of Cortez now behind us, we pointed the bow south and towards a rendezvous in Puerto Escondido with Greg's brother, Gord.

Given that we were heading back through now familiar waters, it was a retracing trip for us but new for Gord. For any sailor, the Sea of Cortez offers special pleasures in the form of clear warm waters, lots of sea life and spectacular craggy dry terrain. My brother being also a sailor, we looked forward to showing him some of the aforementioned pleasures.

Happily, this would be a trip made mostly all downhill, with winds from the north and destinations south-eastward. Heading to meet Gord, Alice and Greg's 30th anniversary was spent sailing in said downhill bliss with 25 on the starboard stern and surfing speeds thru 16 knots. Sporty stuff indeed, but more to Greg's taste than Alice's. Do we need to mention that on a boat there is never a condition where every member of a crew is completely happy?

Picking up Gord, we whirl winded south: our myriad agenda including every possible sailing condition, golf, kayaking in the mangroves, snorkeling with both fishes and sea lions, hiking beach trails, playing bata-ball, and relaxing in the night hours with games of Wizard, Scrabble and watching movies leavened by probably more wine and Margaritas than any of us would have been smart to imbibe.

Eventually we made La Paz and after another game of golf it was time to cross the Sea of Cortez. This being an ocean crossing where anything could potentially happen weather wise, there were preparations to be made. For those unfamiliar with the scope of such undertakings, we provide an abbreviated list:

Deflate and stow dingy and kayaks below.
Install jack-lines on deck to clip into to prevent crew going overboard.
Inspect all lifejackets with tethers for functioning AIS transponders, MOB transmitters, light strobes and fit.
Stow solar panels and sunshades.
Stow all loose items against the possibility of violent seas.
Tie lee-cloths and move everyone's sleeping quarters to pipe berths.
And last and not least, lay on a ridiculous excess of provisions as if heading out for Tahiti and not a 1-1/2 day crossing.

And again, for those not having experienced sailing off-shore:

There is no anchoring at night; we keep sailing all the time.
No one but a newbie gives a damn about losing sight of land: we are usually too bored out of our minds (or if the water is really rough, taming our stomachs against the other crew witnessing us puking) to care.
We do watches. What this means is being alone on deck in the middle of night fighting off sleep bored out of your mind (or occasionally terrified).
Those off watch pretend to sleep, tired, sweaty, stinky, with no comfortable position, and experiencing lurid dreams.

On this passage we started motoring, praying for wind so we could sail, finally getting some after Alice's excellent sunset dinner of store bought tuna (note that we are usually shitty at catching fish) and then experiencing even more of the rank and dirty sorts of lurid dreams, because it is bloody noisy on a boat while resting in your bunk when there is wind and sea.

So that's it folks. Sunrise happens and you wake up and then there is land.

For those of you who might quibble that my description above of our trip across the Sea is too abbreviated, well just go do your own damn trip. Wait, did I mention that on this crossing lots of dolphins swam on the bow, we sailed fast as stink at night, there were dead squid on the deck in the morning and other cool things that happened? Oops. Guess you just had to be there...