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Sailing Log from the Sea of Cortez – Part 3 • Blue Whales & Northers
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As the journey continues…
Voyage aboard the sailing vessel Defiant seeking fun in the Sea of Cortez. With a first leg goal of Guaymas, where some additional refitting will be done to the boat, the Defiant continues in a multi part literary adventure in the Sea of Cortez.
by Capt. Tomas
San Evaristo is usually just a good day’s sail from our home port of La Paz. With our dawdling and enchantment with the local anchorages, we had taken nearly 10 days to cover about 60 miles from our start. With the addition of a precious little ice for the vegetables, we had a hearty breakfast at dawn and motored away from this quaint little anchorage with the intent of putting some significant mileage behind us before sunset.
The seas were virtually flat as just a breath of a southwest wind blew the smell of desert dust along with us as we motored due north. The channel between the Baja peninsula and Isla San Jose is just a little over 4 miles wide at the narrowest part. With the ever so slight push from the SW winds, we were able to motor sail making pretty good time f
or the first couple of hours as we made the 14 miles along the western shore of Isla San Jose. San Jose is one of those islands you need to hurry up and visit before things change. An exclusive residential development with 90 luxury homes and a small marina in the planning stages. Despite the protected status of the islands of the Sea of Cortez, money seems to be able to find its way around environmental roadblocks.
A bulk of the island will be set aside as ‘private reserve’ which will undoubtedly restrict anchoring and trips ashore. Like the rest of the Islands in the Sea, you can be subject to landing and anchorage fees if the Park Patrol happens on you. Again, we do suggest paying these fees with a smile, as a bulk of the money is returned to the park system for additional policing and protection of the natural resources.
As we rounded the north end of Isla San Jose there was but a slight breeze from the north northwest. Having tacked a good sized boat with lotsa sail area 14 times to reach Isla Espiritu Santos and shoulder muscles still a bit sore from that adventure, we (I) decided that a couple of very broad tacks would be the order of the day as we headed for Agua Verde some 50+ miles to our north. As I plotted our course, our first tack would take us about 22 miles to the NNE on a beam reach. With a clean hull and 47’ of waterline we were making good time by 9AM as we turned to a course of 45°. I remember noting in the auto log that our speed was 4kts and the wind speed about 7kts. It was shaping up to be a very pleasant day of sailing.
Our course took us about 6 miles south of Isla Santa Cruz and about 2 miles southeast of Isla San Diego. Isla San Diego is one of those islands that isn’t much more than a rock, standing nearly 700’ above the water. We passed well clear of the island, as there is a reef and isolated rocks along the southeast to west shores of the island that have claimed more than one vessel.
As Isla San Diego slipped to our southwest behind us we had one of the thrills of the entire trip. Two blue whales, the largest animal on the planet, surfaced just a softball’s throw away from the boat.
Blue whales are amongst the rarest sightings of whales are they tending to frequent off shore waters and be shy of human contact. This pair seemed particularly bent on checking out the vessel in their midst. At one point the larger of the two (whom we presumed to be the mother of a mother/calf pair) surfaced and blew with almost a deafening whoosh that whale spit rained down on the boat. After a couple of quick ‘blows’ to check us out the pair surfaced one last time, you could hear them take a deep breath, as their tails went high in the air directly in front of the Defiant and the two went deep and disappeared. Perhaps it was a sign…
As the morning wore on we continued to pick up wind and speed. We were doing 6kts with winds of 12-15kts by lunch time. Now in the ‘big ocean’ winds generate waves over a long distance and develop long periods (distance between wave peaks) In the Sea of Cortez winds that make for excellent large vessel sailing also generate very square waves with very short periods. It can make for wet, if not uncomfortable sailing for some, but we seemed to be plowing ahead, making great time.
By 1PM the winds had reached 27kts and the Defiant was screaming through the water at over 8kts, crashing through the short waves effortlessly. Since one of the events planned for Guaymas was a re-rigging of the vessel I had backed down to a ¼ reef in the main when the winds crossed 23kts. Innamay, this being her maiden voyage, had never experienced anything like this and I could see a hint of trepidation in her eyes as I explained the process of tacking a vessel in strong winds. Now I have been sailing for more than 4 decades, but I think there was a bead or two of sweat visible on my brow as we prepared to make the turn to the northeast and back toward our destination of Agua Verde.
I had rigged the staysail and main for a self tack, programmed the autopilot for a 107° turn to the west northwest and the estimated 35 miles to Agua Verde. May was to supervise the helm and I would work the winch. Planning on single handing this vessel from the onset, I had recently purchased a pair of Lewmar 56 winches, the pair costing half as much as a new car. I had thought about electric or even hydraulic winches, but at that size, they would have come to nearly the price of a new car. If you are single handing, or may be handling a large vessel alone for a watch, don’t skimp, by the largest winch you can stand or will fit the vessel. Here is where it pays off.
One of the first things I had done to Defiant was to rig her for control from the center cockpit. You don’t want to be going forward in weather of you don’t really have to. The self tacking features of the club-foot allow you to focus your attention and energies on getting that headsail around to the other side of the boat, quickly and efficiently so you don’t lose forward speed. In a cutter rig you also have the challenge of getting the headsail around the staysail. This is where we ran into trouble.
I pushed the ‘tack’ button on the auto-pirate and the boat snapped smartly to port. With hardly a luff, the stay and main sails all caught air quickly and you could feel the boat lurch to port as the direction changed. I released the starboard sheet and stepped to the port and began hauling furiously on the line. As the headsail crossed the staysail roller furling there was a horrible sound of a zipper being rapidly forced open. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a zipper at all, but some broken barb half way up the staysail roller furling opening a tear in the headsail from the leach nearly to the luff. I shouted to May to release the headsail halyard, not recalling that English was a second language (although she speaks the language more correctly than most Californians) and sailing was about 7 languages behind that. When she let the ‘blue line’ rather than the ‘red line’ go the headsail continued to tear and the staysail dropped like a rock to the deck.
In the years I have been sailing I have never seen the lower torn piece of a headsail tie a knot around a stay quite so quickly and efficiently. In a flash the sail tore through to the luff rope, the upper half cracking loudly in the wind, the lower half tightening its grip on the staysail stay.
I can recall our publisher’s voice going through my head reciting, “Sailing is one of the safest sports when everything is going right, but can be one of the most deadly when things start to go wrong.” In a moment of divine inspiration I chose a course of action as my Labrador, who is a power boater, not a sailor, dashed below for solace of below deck and May disappeared into guilt, thinking she had caused the pending disaster. Oh, and did I mention the camera took one skip across the cockpit, bounced off the cushion and went for a swim in about 600’ of water.
Knowing that the torn headsail would be the $3000 expenditure for the day, sacrificing the halyard was only a couple hundred bucks more. I found my rigging knife in my pocket as I swung forward between the stays and the mast, and with a hard pressing swipe, cut the halyard free and the bitter end went zipping up into the mast and the headsail pieces fell to the foredeck.
Here I would like to plug B&G auto-pirates (pilots) Despite the dramatic changes in thrust and forward bow pressure the pilot reacted quickly and efficiently enough to maintain course while my rookie crew froze.
Despite the loss of the headsail we were still making good time toward out destination when the wind began to slow as we moved toward the wind shadow of Isla Santa Catalina. In about an hour the thrills of the past disaster were behind us and suggestions of our course of action were discussed. I would like to point out here that the Labrador had little of interest to add to the conversation. With a north wind still blowing to about 15kts and the seas running a rough 3-4’ we opted to take the protected anchorage at the southwest side of Isla Monserrat.
Monserrat is about 13 miles east of Agua Verde and we hoped it would provide earlier respite from a rather grueling day behind the helm. We pulled into the northern most of the two anchorages on the southwest side of the island as the north winds lowly shifted to the east. This anchorage is risky because of the evening and night winds shift to the southwest as they had done the previous night, you would be riding the waves of about 20 miles of fetch. We were lucky; the winds through the night remained from the NNE and settled to a gentle breeze by morning.
With time to reflect I helped May regain confidence, assuring her the events of the day were far from her fault and just one of those things that sometimes happens when sailing. After a great BBQ on the aft deck and a bottle of red, May turned on her cell phone. Although we could not get a ‘line out’ to check messages, she discovered a new text message, the contents of which she held private. I will never be sure what news the message delivered, but as I dozed off in the cockpit above May’s mood down below turned as dark as the moonless night.
To be continued…
From the decks of SV Defiant – over and out.