On to Cabo

We left Bahia Santa Maria with the rest of the fleet on the morning of November 4th. Winds were light the first morning, but by the afternoon had picked up, creating beautiful sailing conditions.

Some of the skippers seemed to take the racing aspect of this race/rally a little too seriously. The boat shown below used racing tactics to overtake us--putting us in their wind shadow. While we slowed with sails luffing they came uncomfortably close to our stern, before blowing by us with a wave goodbye. We were not in direct competition with them as our boats are in different divisions, but the skipper seemed to enjoy slamming by us. We watched as he repeated this tactic with another boat.

They passed close enough to us that we could see that the ATN tacker they were using to tether their spinnaker was starting to deform their headstay foil--a potentially expensive problem. We were so rattled by their close approach that we somehow forgot to mention it to them.

By evening we decided to put in a reef, just to be safe, and sailed through the night making good time. We had another close encounter during the night with a highly improved catamaran that came up behind us on the starboard side, running wing and wing, while we were on starboard tack. I fell off to try to get out of their way, but they crept up closer and closer to us, putting us in a position where it looked like I would have to jibe to keep them from running into us. Because we clearly had the right of way, I hailed them on the radio and asked their intentions. By that time they were close enough to our starboard side to speak to me directly--the crew shouted directions about what channel I should use to speak to their skipper. When the skipper told me his intention was to hold his course (he was then about 30 feet away from our starboard side and was edging gradually closer, as I was sailing by the lee), I asked him, as politely as I could, if he would be willing to head up a few points so I wouldn't be forced to jibe. He made comments about the failure of monohull sailors to understand the tracking requirements of multi-hulls, but did head up enough to avoid hitting us. I thanked him for this "courtesy."

We also had to maneuver that night to get out of the way of a huge cruise ship that overtook us on its way to Cabo. Thankfully, the AIS gave us plenty of warning of its approach, speed and heading.

We reached Cabo without further incident about 3 the following afternoon. By the time we entered the harbor I was very tired, and I felt a bit frazzled as jet skis buzzed around us and sport fishing boats motored by in the narrow channel. But we made it into the marina, where the HaHa organizers had found us a slip. We opened some wine to celebrate a successful trip. And then headed for the showers.

Here are shots of the famous arch and rocks at land's end, and one of the marina.