Leaving Cabo San Lucas

View of anchorage in Cabo San Lucas

Skipper John at helm leaving Cabo San Lucas

Nov 14...
...left early evening 9:30pm for 2 night and 1 day passage from Puerto San Jose del Cabo to Mazatlan, Mx... was an interesting departure, I'll get to in a minute, but first...

Sailed from Cabo San Lucas south on our way to Los Frailles...but stopped in Puerto San Cabo to meet up with our friends on s/v Silk, Dot and Larry. This new marina is under construction with cool art along the promenade by 1940's surreal artist Leonara Carrington (paying homage to the indigent Indians, the Heioles, who practice peyote induced enlightenment) weirdly, wonderful artwork...

...anyway, tied up to an unfinished dock with no facilities, no water or power and planned on spending the short time and leaving early off to Mazatlan at 3:00am morning...

...went to town San Jose del Cabo, walked the plaza, shops( original art and jewelry) with friends and had a fabulous Argentinian dinner of grilled flank steak on wooden platter with salad and wine, "al fresco" with the grill sparking in the background...so good!

...arrive back at the boat, flop into bed at 9:30pm and then...knock, knock, knock..the dock guards come by and want us to pay for the time spent on this unfinished dock..$65...same at in the marina..but, this dock had no power, no water...really??...and they wanted our passports for overnight...really?? 

John gets up (butt naked) and says  NO way... "we are leaving in a few short  hours...they say,"NO,  give us your passports until tomorrow"( we've been advised never to give your passports to anyone)... sooo, John says ..." NO, we are leaving...NOW!"

He puts on some pants (they are closing their eyes, not wanting to look at the naked American!)  and starts the engine...and off we go into the night! This was so unexpected and unplanned that I was a little shocked!  I would've negotiated a price for several hours stay at this dock.  But, John felt they were being too aggressive and didn't like their attitude.  He IS the skipper and makes the final decisions... so off we sailed into the darkness for Mazatlan...

 MAZATLAN

2 nights and 1 day, 180 nautical miles...
we had the best sailing of the whole Baha trip with 15-22 knot NW winds making 5.5knots over course.
from my log...
"deep blue choppy seas, nothing but birds to look at out here in the open ocean between Baha Sur and mainland Mexico...except the one freighter in the distance"...  we see on our AIS ship locator that s/v Silk is in front of us, they too, decided to leave Puerto San Jose del Cabo early at 3:00am in the morning..but, they are now in front of us...they have a FAST  boat and have to slow down in order to  make a morning land fall!  Other friends, Elizabeth and Brian on s/v Autumn Wind are also bound for Mazatlan...we see them on the AIS, too.

John and I read ALL day, listen to music, eat beans for dinner and simply way the time away...it is 36 hours to Mazatlan...time to slow the brain down and enjoy the passage...we sailed with speed with  huge northerly rolling waves that rolled under the boat and caused an uncomfortable ride, but we were sailing! No motoring! Awesome! It's what we have been waiting for! Reefed sails and speed!

Then the "boobies" arrived! Several blue-footed boobies (type of sea bird) wanted to land on our boat to rest...they would swoop down and land on the radar deck... they pooped and squawked, invited their friends and made a mess! John wanted no part of these free loaders!

Blue-footed boobies catch a ride!

He swooshed them away as fast as they landed! They have no fear of humans... and just looked at him! Huge birds just squawking even tried to bite him when he used the boat pole to swish them off the top of the dodger!  Our only excitement on this passage...