June of this year found Jill and me in the area of Chicago, Ill. I was raised there, and my father still lives in a small city just north of Chicago. On the way out there, as we were talking on the plane, it came to us! Gail and Nancy Saint have their Nor'Sea in Chicago! We didn't have our address book with us, but thanks to the NorCal Nor'Sea web site, we were able to make a quick phone call and arranged to meet them at No News on the lakefront. I won't go over all that we said and did in this note, but suffice it to say that it very much resembled one of our NorCal get togethers! The questions/answers/suggestions/ideas to copy/etc.... were exchanged FAST and FURIOUS!
We had a GREAT time with the Saints! They ARE the spiritual leaders of the group, as our WEB page points out! Jill and I can now say we have "made the pilgrimage" to visit the founders of the group. View the two photos: one of the Saints and one with us next to them, just to prove "WE DID IT!"
In June of 1994, I sailed Proper Motion from San Francisco to Hanalei Bay, Kauai, in the Single-Handed TransPac race. The race afforded me the opportunity to satisfy a long-standing ambition to sail our Nor'Sea across an ocean. The race also provided many of the critical elements of the adventure.
The pre-race seminar series, sponsored by the Single-Handed Sailing Society, provided a wealth of technical information and practical know-how, but the most important thing the race provided was a deadline. The race started on June 25, and Proper Motion and I had to be there and ready for the 2120-mile crossing.
I had not raced a sailboat since learning to sail 35 years earlier, and the thought of a dramatic start just inside the Golden Gate Bridge was a little intimidating. I should not have worried. At the moment Proper Motion crossed the starting line, a strong flood swept many of the boats in her class backwards up Raccoon Strait and toward the mouth of the Sacramento River. I feel compelled to point out, however, that we were not taken back as far as many of the boats in the fleet. Eventually the tide turned, the wind picked up, and we made it out the Golden Gate.
The night before the start, the race committee arranged for a weather expert to brief the skippers on the conditions that we would expect during the race. He predicted brutal weather for the first 200 miles until we cleared the California coastal conditions. After that, our expert predicted a strong and stable Pacific high that should allow the fleet to take a rhumb line course to the finish. He was right on both counts.
The first two days of the race were some of the roughest sailing I have ever done. Everything on the boat was wet. It was not until day three that I was able to shake the third reef out of the main. I heard a Navy ship offering assistance to other boats in our fleet. Apparently, it was inconceivable to the captain that boats the size of ours could be out in this kind of weather and not be in trouble.
Proper Motion was wet but otherwise appeared to have escaped the wild weather unscathed. The damage she suffered during those first two days did not become apparent until halfway to Hawaii.
Once we broke free of the California coast, we were immediately in the trades. Warm breezes from astern and 6- to 8-feet rolling seas were a welcome relief. But there wasn't any sun. I would have been halfway to Hawaii without a reliable fix if it hadn't been for the GPS.
About an hour after the morning check-in on the single sideband, I noticed that the halyard holding the radar reflector to Proper Motion's port spreader was slack and that the radar reflector was swinging around and hitting the rigging. When I started to tighten it up, the entire spreader came down. The cast-aluminum socket that had attached the spreader to the mast had cracked. It had probably been damaged during the rough going in the first two days.
I wasted a couple of days slowly increasing the amount of sail I carried on the damaged rig. Eventually it was obvious that the missing spreader was not a critical element of the rig when sailing downwind. I just tightened up the cap shroud and kept going. I actually carried the big cruising chute for a couple of days. Prior to the spreader failure, I was doing well, but the lost time was never made up. We crossed the finish line as the last boat to finish before the deadline.
Crossing the Pacific is not what you expect. After breaking free of the coast, it was day after day of idyllic trade wind sailing. I read six novels and two months' worth of "New Yorker" magazines. And I slept more than I ever do at home. The most exciting event most days was seeing how many flying fish had landed on the deck during the night.
Luck plays a large part in ocean racing, and some might think that luck was not with Proper Motion this time (broken spreader and all). Nothing could be further from the truth. Luck was really with her on a very important aspect of the race. She was one of the only two boats to finish during the daylight hours while the "Latitude 38" photographer was in Hanalei Bay. Proper Motion finished early on a beautiful morning, so plenty of photos were shot from the base boat the finish. Many boats have to be campaigned hard (and successfully) for years before they get a spread in -Latitude". Proper Motion got there in one race. That's OK; she deserved it.
We took Proper Motion to the Sea of Cortez in April, 1995. The entire trip, including towing the boat both ways, took about a month and was an experience I hope to repeat. We launched at San Carlos on the mainland side, sailed straight across to the Baja side, and worked our way down to La Paz, and then back.
The Mexican part of the trip started in Nogales, AZ, at dawn. We were in the water in San Carlos by 3 PM the same day. The roads were adequate (4-lane but no shoulder in many places) with tolls about $25 each way. We launched the boat at the Marina San Carlos and were very pleased with the service. At that time, there was no travel lift, so our trailer saw salt water for the first time. The fee for launch was about $15, and storage for the Suburban and trailer in a fenced dry storage yard cost $30 for the month.
There were plenty of Mexican men at the docks looking to help. I hired a talented fellow, Vincente, who spoke just enough English. With his help, I was able to rig the boat and load everything. I paid him $30, which was suggested by other boaters in the marina. Before leaving, I told him that I would be back on a certain date very early in the morning and would like to hire him again. He was there, waiting for me, and with his help we dropped and mast and secured the boat by 2:30 PM and were back in the US by 9 PM.
San Carlos is a modern tourist town with plenty of good restaurants. A great place to provision is Guaymas, a town about 10 miles away.
During the trip south, we had most anchorages to ourselves, but by the time we were working our way north later in April, the American cruising fleet had worked its way north, too, and most anchorages had several other boats in them.
La Paz was a pleasant town with a good supermarket (CCC) that is a reasonable walk from Marina de La Paz. The marina is a well-run place with a coin laundry. A beer truck and a propane truck visit once a week. It's a short walk from the marina to a restaurant that the cruisers call "Cheap Chicken." It serves grilled chicken, frijoles, fries, and cole slaw for $1.65. We ate there a lot and never got sick. In fact, we never got sick on anything in Mexico. Buy beer (three Pacificos for $1) across the street and take it back to the restaurant.
A great dive site is at Las Animas, off the back side of Isla San Jose.
The weather in April was wonderful. The strange experience is to turn on the Wx channels on the VHF and hear nothing!
We bought our Mexican insurance through Vagabundos del Mar, which is a travel club based in Rio Vista, CA. They provide everything you need in this regard. They also can issue your fishing permits.
If you enter at Nogales, you must stop south of town and get a temporary importation permit for your vehicle and boat. You need lots of photocopies of your document/registration for the boat and vehicle. You also need copies of your driver's license and your insurance papers.
Gear:
AAA does wonders at expediting the worst part of border crossings and proper paperwork (temporary import permit for tow vehicle, trailer, and boat). It can be mostly taken care of in any AAA office before the trip, and if you are a member, it's free. It's the way to go since it will assure you are not stuck at the checkpoint, 10 miles south of Nogales, realizing you are missing that one critical document. Tourist visas are no big deal and are readily available at the Nogales checkpoint.
The area around San Carlos is very safe and clean with ample provisioning, restaurants, shops, etc. The Sea is warm and clear with reef sea life rivaling the Caribbean and excellent fishing for dorado, sailfish, wahoo, and others. The scenery is dramatic with 100+-foot peaks rising out of the anchorage. A good chart is available from Cortez Designs (PO Box 976, Patagonia, AZ 85624). More northerly still, for nearly a hundred miles, are similar bays and coves which do not have land access by road and which we plan to explore.
A discussion of this cruise is on my home page at: http://www.serve.com/marbeth/tomales.html.
This discussion is also on my home page at: http://www.serve.com/marbeth/sf_anchorages.html.
