Cabo San Lucas to Magdalena Bay to Punta Abreojos to Turtle Bay, pushing north with three consecutive overnight trips, twice relying on panga-delivered diesel, decompressing with a nice hike

Sunday came with a blinding hangover, a total lack of memory, and a feeling of dread and terror when I realized Duane wasn't on the boat with me. I checked topside to see if he had fallen asleep while throwing up over the side of the boat, or was awake already, but there was no sign of him.

I immediately assumed the worst and looked around for his face-down body floating among the anchored boats. I couldn't see him but the tide was coming in so for sure his body would be washing up on a beach soon. Holy shit we needed to get out of Mexico RIGHT NOW.

We had arranged to meet Jeff and Sara at the fuel dock when they opened to give Jeff a proper Wanderlust send-off, but that optimistic plan hadn't included self-induced alcohol poisoning and single-handed operations. I was supposed to have Duane with me! Duane was still supposed to be alive! Oh god I killed Duane. I would need to swear them to secrecy and flee the country.

I didn't think about how difficult it would be to get the anchor up and pilot the boat in by myself. Gotta get outta Mexico. Don't want to end up in jail. I wasn't thinking clearly. Actually, now that I write this, I realize I was probably still drunk.

I changed clothes - my ones from the night before were covered in vomit, had a spit shower, tried to drink some water, and ran upstairs to heave over the side. Okay, no water. Fine. Doesn't matter, just need to leave before the body is found.

I got the engine started and began hauling up the anchor. If you've been following along, you know we have something called a windlass: a manual winch to help haul up the chain and anchor. We move a three-foot steel bar back and forth to slowly bring everything back onboard.

The windlass is awesome, lots of mechanical advantage, a grandmother could haul up our chain and rode. I got half of the chain onboard before passing out from exhaustion. I'm not exaggerating, I started seeing spots, my peripheral vision got dark, then all of my vision got dark, and I half sat down half fell over. Some time passed before things returned to normal. I don't think the boat was drifting while this happened, I'm not sure.

I finally got the anchor up, the boat didn't hit anything, the engine was thoroughly warmed up, and I made my way to the fuel dock and "docked", by which I mean I T-boned the dock while yelling for someone to come and help. Someone came to help, looked like they were going to yell back at me, but then stopped and just tied the boat up while staring at me. Pretty sure because I looked and smelled so normal and not like a murderer.

I ran down the dock and saw Sara and Jeff and their luggage. They were pretty worried, I was late to the dock and hadn't been answering my phone (I forgot to plug it in). I was very happy to see them and waved bye to Jeff and explained how Sara needed to get on the boat RIGHT NOW and how we had to leave RIGHT NOW and how we didn't have enough cash to bribe our way out of a dead Duane situation.

They didn't understand and kept asking "What? Why" and I was feeling scared and angry and woozy again when Duane came out of the store. Oh my gosh I've never been happier to see anyone in my life. Duane wasn't so happy though, his wallet and cellphone were gone, like me he had a hangover so bad that blinking was painful, plus he believed I had left him for dead the night before and was a tiny bit upset.

I had to sit down from the emotional relief that he was alive and I wasn't a manslaughter-er. Duane had to sit down because, well, you know, still hung over. Jeff and Sara were still feeling quite sick but were also starting to laugh a lot. So we all sat down and caught up and exchanged stories, laughed a little more, and gave Jeff a proper send-off to the airport to catch his flight home.

We were originally planning to stick around Cabo for another day or two, but as I checked the weather while paying for diesel it was clear that we had an unusually good weather window to make Magdalena Bay. We had to leave. I checked all the weather services, got second opinions, but it was clear: go time was now. We pulled the dinghy onboard, which in my state took another hour, and Duane was finally able to get through to VISA and cancel his wallet.

So it was 11AM before we were finally ready to leave Cabo. We hadn't had time to recover, read email, explore Cabo, or get Duane any of the goodies he wanted to buy for family and friends. All three of us felt like crap, but we had to get north while the weather was cooperating.

Leaving Cabo!

Goodbye and good riddance

As we rounded Cabo Falso and started to make our way up the coast, we encountered wind directly on the nose, waves directly on the nose, and a one knot current - you guessed it, right on the nose. We cranked up the motor and settled down for a day and a half of misery.

Why didn't we sail? Good question. Our boat can sail about 45-degrees off the wind, in which case only 70% of our boatspeed would be in the right direction (cosine(45)). With a breeze in the 12-15 knot range we sail at about 5 knots, which gets us only 3.5 knots velocity made good (VMG). We could motorsail at 7 knots at the same 45-degrees from the wind, getting us 5kts VMG, or we could just motor straight into the wind and waves and make 6 knots VMG.

With more than 700nm ahead of us, every knot of boatspeed is important. On the average 30-hour passage that can be the difference between arriving at 2PM, before the afternoon winds pick up, and arriving at 6-7PM in the stronger wind and dwindling light.

So we motored north. I won't lie to you, it wasn't all that fun. Sure, there were times when the seas were calm enough that we could lie around and sun ourselves, or read an entire book in the span of a few hours, but there were also times when the waves were just large enough to kick up some spray, and that means no easy reading time.

By nightfall no one was feeling even a little bit better and that first night was fairly miserable. Thankfully Duane brought two MP3 players, and we were also in posession of one Mari donated to the cause, so we had music to help us through the night watches.

This was also the first time we realized what kind of trip we had ahead of us: a very different one! The way south was all fun and frolic. Going north into the wind sucked. The temperatures got down to 50-degrees that night, and when you mix in the condensation that blanketed the boat, the occasional splash of wave spray, and the pounding headaches and general sicky feelings, it all added up to an bad experience.

The only redeeming factor of our trip was that we had three people for the entire coast, so we did three hour watches. That gave everyone a theoretical six-hours of sleep between watches, which was sooo much better than attacking the Baja with just the two of us. Thanks, Duane, we owe you.

The next day was better. The sun was out, the wind was way down, the waves were much better, and we caught fish! A lot of fish!

Woohoo!

Another!

We made it to Magdalena Bay without any drama and managed to arrange a diesel fillup. We don't have very big tanks, we don't have very many jugs, and we were doing as much motoring as possible to get north quickly. The threat of a nasty Norther was enough to make us hustle.

More, more, more

Diesel from our buddy, el capitano del puerto

Unfortunately Otto the autopilot was acting up and needed a full Otto-dectomy to replace a burnt out motor. I also found some other problems and spent several hours getting it working properly again. A good autopilot is essential, it gives you time to change sails, to read a book, to go to the bathroom. It's exhausting to manually steer effectively, especially when at sea with no nearby land references.

Fixing the autopilot

It's an otto-dectomy

We were off before lunch on our next stretch, another two day push to an anchorage near Punta Abreojos, sheltered from the north but otherwise in the middle of nowhere. We sailed out of a Mag Bay into a foggy marine layer and kept pushing north.

Goodbye, Mag Bay!

The fog of war

We fell into a watch rhythm quickly, grabbing sleep whenever we could and hanging out in the cockpit if it wasn't too cold or wet. The monotonous drone of the diesel engine helped smooth out the occasional smashing waves around the bow. Our gear was constantly wet.

Will and Sara off-watch

Piles of wet foulies

We stopped at Abreojos to get a little rest and eat, but the anchorage wasn't very protected and was rolly, so we left as the sun was dropping to take advantage of the lighter overnight winds. We were now four days out from Cabo and it felt like we were hardly making progress back home.

Sara drops the mainsail

Will whips up some grub

Our anchorage at Abreojos

Well, it's dark and stormy: lets go!

We arrived in Turtle Bay ("Bahia Tortuga") the next afternoon and anchored in the wonderfully-protected bay. We bought fuel, aired out our laundry, and settled in for a movie. The nights were now cold, maybe we were gaining some degrees of latitude after all!

Woohoo! Turtle bay!

Tense negotiations ensue

Drying out our wet foulies

Sara captures the scenic beauty

It really is gorgeous here

Gorgeous... and cold

The next day we took a break and went ashore to stretch our legs and replenish our larder. Duane and I climbed the mountain (read: small hill) surrounding the bay to survey the neighbourhood. The baja peninsula really is a desert!

Our Everest