Nov  13, 2012, Tuesday Cabo San Lucas to Los Frailes

Last night we carefully planned our trip to Los Frailes.  It is about 40 miles up the coast.   If we can do 4 mph that is 10 hours.  Then add an extra 5 hours of time spent tacking back and forth because the wind will be coming from the north, the direction that we want to go.  So 15 hours, maybe more if the wind is light and we go slower.  We do not want to get into a strange anchorage in the dark.  So rather than get up early in the morning and race to get there before dark, we decide to leave later and sail al night. 

We weigh anchor about 11am, just as a Carnival cruise ship is coming in and anchoring right next to us.  There is quite a strong wind blowing as we head out of the harbor but the super strong winds of that past 2 days are supposed to die down today.  We motor out past the point and raise the sails.  Ah, it is nice to be underway again.  As predicted, there is a light wind coming from the north west, so we tack offshore.  My turn to steer.  This is  a different kind of sailing from the downwind flapping that we experienced last week, a nice reach that moves us along nicely, for a while.  And then it dies and not only are we going in the wrong direction but we are loosing ground. This is one of the many parts of sailing that drives me crazy.  We keep thinking that if we can just get beyond the next point we will pick up some wind.

 Finally, after 2-3 hours on not getting anywhere, Alan gives up and starts the engine.  And so here we go, motoring up the coast.  There are hotels along the coast for quite a way and then another town.  After that nothing but brown hills.  I take a nap, then it is my watch and Alan sleeps.  The sun goes down and little by little the wind picks up.  The sails are set all wrong for this wind but I am not sure that I want try to reset them by myself.  It will require securing the tiller while I leave the cockpit to reset the main and jib  sails.  I can’t turn the engine off until the sails are reset.  So I adjust course the best I can and wait for Alan to wake up.  I want him to sleep as long as he can because he has the first night watch. 

Finally he is up and we get the sails reset and the engine off.  When he plots our position we realize that because we had had the motor on for so long we are probably going to get to Los Frailes about midnight, just what we did not want to do.  New plan.  Since the wind is blowing us to the east, we will just sail in that direction for a few hours.  Then when we have killed enough time we will turn and head back and get there just at dawn.  The wind keeps getting stronger and stronger and the sea is really messy, no big  rolling swells but waves going every which way.  The Sea of Cortez is a long narrow body of water and the waves have nowhere to go, so when they meet the shore they bounce back into the middle again and pretty soon you have a mess, sort of like a bathtub with 2 grandboys in it.

After dinner it is my turn to sleep but it is really hard to get any sleep with the boat bouncing all over the place like this.  I give it up after a couple of hours and go out to the cockpit to see if Alan would like a break.  The wind is up to almost 20 knots and he is having a great time.  Good, because there is no way I am gong to take over this mess.  Now that I am up, it is time to lower the main sail.  We have found that she sails better and almost as fast with just the jib and mizzen and taking the main down all together is actually easier than trying to reef it.  This makes it easier to sail but Alan has decided that he is just going to stay up as long as it is blowing like this.  So much for the light winds that were predicted.  Oddly, our speed is only about 3 knots, even though the wind gage shows gusts over 20.  It is actually a beautiful clear and warm night.  We keep reminding ourselves that we are just wasting time until it is close enough to dawn to turn for shore.  Believe it or not, I am not only not scared but actually enjoying it myself.