Finding Santa Rosalia

So what can be said for having a goal? Plenty! A goal can create patience or the lack of it. sometimes it can create focus for an effort and sometimes it can make confusion out of order. The universe, I have observed, has a tendency toward entropy. That is, left alone for a time and chaos is likely to develop. The sailor I have started to become recognizes this trend and tries to make up for it with planning.

My goal has been to cross the Sea of Cortez, form San Carlos on the mainland side to somewhere on Baja, with my small sailboat. Small by any standard a twenty-two foot Hunter of near ancient vintage would be a qualifier. This boat still runs its original sails and rigging and will likely need replacement parts soon, although much has been done in the last two years to expand its capabilities, it is still very much a stock boat even though built in 1982. I think I am the second owner and have been so for about three years. We have trailered to Lake Tahoe and raced at Lake Pleasant near Phoenix and cruised and raced out of San Carlos, Mexico several times in the past three years with other short trips including cruising Lake Roosevelt in Arizona. My own sailing resume has included many explorations out of San Diego bay on all manner of craft from dinghies to a fifty-two foot ketch since learning to sail four years ago. I tell you all this help you understand the creation of goals and the vague nature of their beginnings.

The goal I started with was just to go out over night from San Carlos and on several occasions we had accomplished this. My spouse and I had “camped out on the water” a few times before races starting from there. This time, however, nobody was going to come with me. Not that I hadn’t made some calls to see if there was some crew person available. It’s just that my calls ended in no commitments. The date for all this probably influenced the outcome. Thanksgiving week, 1996.

So, there I was, boat in the water, supplies on board and ready to get away from the dock and the marina. Well, sort of. There is officialdom to deal with. I needed a Despacho to allow me to leave port bound for any other port. “Where do you want to go, Senor?”, she said. “Oh, I thought I’d just head out maybe to baja somewhere or up the coast even, maybe to Kino Bay or somewhere in-between.”, I vacillated." Today or tomorrow? And where, exactly, were you thinking of going... for the paperwork, you understand.", she stated firmly. “Oh”, I said.

 My goal became Santa Rosalia. The paperwork you understand.

Where was that? On the chart I found it and worked out the compass heading and awaited the signed papers to allow me to go tomorrow. If I really wanted to go today there was an extra charge for rousting out the proper signatures on my schedule. Never mind that I had asked for it the day before and been put off because the office was busy that day. In reality it didn’t make much difference to me because this was Saturday and that meant that I had until Thursday to get back for T-day celebrations in San Carlos. Plenty of time. Besides it allowed me to take care of some details that I hadn’t gotten to quite yet... like the bow light was discovered to be out. It was during its replacement that I made friends with Jose. A very accommodating worker, who after exhausting the possible places in San Carlos to buy the replacement bulb, rode with me into Guaymas to an automotive store and negotiated the 3 peso price. Never mind that I would have been hard pressed to have found the place, it was great to have company in this search. The bulb wasn’t a perfect match but we got it to work right off and I was happy with the result.

The next day came and by 09:30 I had had breakfast and double checked everything and felt all was ready. Nothing left to do but go, so, without any hoopla, no bands playing or throngs of people to wave goodbye, I motored out of the harbor and at the appropriate place set the sails and a heading. Before long there were dolphin off the beam and I could make out clouds that seemed to be hovering over an island at about the right heading for Isla Tortuga (Turtle Island). By nightfall the island was visible and I had reduced to the reefed main as the wind seemed to be continuing to build. I didn’t want to be reducing sail in the middle of the night other than to completely take it down if the need arose. As it turned out this was a good choice. The wind continued to gain and the seas were more and more confused. The boat and I were rolling along at three and four knots, five at peaks, and more and more often I was getting a full face of “spray”. Spray, in this context, means a thorough dousing as some confused mound of water slapped the side of the boat and forced its way over the top of the boat and me. Still, there was the island becoming more visible as time went on and I had noticed some interesting things as things changed around me. The full moon, or nearly so, came up and gave me an unexpected navigation aid by giving me a semi-constant angle of shadow to help steer by. By midnight the island was very much in view and I was making for the lee side hoping to avoid some of the confusion of the water if not the full force of the wind. You can imagine getting tired and sleepy in a tender boat to steer without the relief of an autopilot or windvane. There didn’t seem to be much of a lee to the island when it was abeam at 02:30 but there was a group of lights ahead that should by rights be Santa Rosalia. In a tired state there are doubts and mind tricks that make certainty a harder commodity to come by than when you are sitting in the dry cabin at the marina. I couldn’t leave the helm for long periods so I had to dash down the hatch several times to look for, find and read the cruising guide and chart to feel more confident that I was were I thought I was.

 From the time of spotting the lights until I finally motored into the harbor I spent my time fighting off sleep and getting wet. As prepared as you can make yourself it is always a little more that would make you comfortable. I had on foul weather gear and stayed as dry as I could but inevitably a trickle here and a good soaking there made for a general dampness that let me know that, “Next time...”, there would need to be more preparation in the clothing department. But, here I was, motoring into the harbor about 09:00 the day after I left San Carlos! Tired but ready for anything after a short nap.

 With the help of a cruiser-fellow at the marina I made the rounds that allow you to check-in to a port. There is enough about this that make it the subject of a separate discussion but I will say, in general, that its not what you want to do first thing you get to port. It’s more what you need to do. I was looking outside the harbor trying to decide when I would leave almost as soon as I got there. It made checking-in interesting since everyone wanted to know how long I planned to be there! When you have a chance at a shower and sleep you want to stay for a while. On the schedule I needed to keep I knew I had to get away by the next afternoon or risk familial wrath at the Thanksgiving dinner planned for months ahead to be back in San Carlos. Looking outside the harbor I could see the whitecaps and confused sea was at least as much as it had been during my passage. Another cruiser at the dock summed up my feelings for me by saying,” When it’s time to go it’s time to go. You already sailed in here in that stuff.”

 That did make sense to me, so I waited for the forecast to be certain that I wouldn’t face much that was substantially worse than what I had already done. And, catch up on sleep and shower and eats. It turned out that Santa Rosalia is a great little town and as the sign says there, the town that wouldn’t die! You can read all about it in the cruising guides -- believe it, it’s a pleasant place to stay for a while. I’ll be going back.

The next day was weather perfect but not a sailors dream day! Lessening wind and variable directions from sun up on made the decision to leave easy but the method of traverse more complicated. I knew I would have to motor more than I had coming over and with a total capacity of only six gallons of gasoline I wanted every drop I could carry on board. With breakfast in me and the gas tanks full I ventured back into officialdom for the check-out procedure. My main conclusion remains that it takes a lot of rubber stamps to run a port. A goal of checking in and out had been attained!

 At 12:30 everything had been done that could have been and I motored out where I could find wind. I sailed and motored and sailed and motored until I finally passed Isla Tortuga. Somewhere about there, 16 or so miles off Santa Rosalia the then southern wind quit and I hove to for a little nap. When I felt things change I came out for a look-see and by 22:00 was under way with a beautiful beam reach. The moon was freshly up and the stars were incredible. All sail was up and this perfect state held until about 04:30 in the morning. I found myself in the cockpit at the tiller steering by the stars - a dream and a goal obtained to perfection that night! When the wind died down too much I went back to my bunk for more rest.

 With daybreak I started to motor and sail alternately until enough wind took hold and I got a grip on sailing in fair to calm seas and wind. It was during one of the sailing periods that I heard a splash slightly aft. When I turned there was a Manta Ray doing flips several feet out of the water. Very impressive. That’s a large animal tossing itself out of the water. Have you ever tried to clear the water like that? I’ve never succeeded, even when pushing off the bottom. Long before nightfall I had seen my destination but all the calculation in the world couldn’t change the fact that I was going to make it there after dark. Here is a dilemma that I don’t wish on anyone. Since I felt I knew the harbor well, from all the other trips in and out I opted to go ahead in. Shortly after 20:00 I was motoring in and in this well known harbor entrance struck a rock, that I knew perfectly well was there, causing a momentary panic. While I knew the rock was there I didn’t think I was there. There was fortunately only minor damage and belieing the horrible sound it made I did not sink in the final few feet of the adventure. A huge goal had been attained!!

 Originally I had not set out to cross the Sea of Cortez by myself. Only to cross it. There had been lots of thought given to preparations for a passage but it was secondary to what happened. The preparation was absolutely necessary but it was a goal on the way to a goal. There was much that the actual way in which things happen that I could not have known about until I did it, like, the check- out, check-in drill. The way things look now it will be a long while before I will have a new goal of such proportions but the glow of accomplishment will be with me for quite a while. Other trips have seen me not reach the goal but the experience of just going found so many necessary lessons that this trip would not have been as successful without the attempts having been made. So in making this trip I validated the preceding trips. Like the aborted trip to Ensenada from San Diego where we turned around because of airline schedules and a south wind that made it impossible to make it all the way there and back in time. Or, the racing misadventures that showed the planning to be incomplete or the overnights at the lake where we forgot to bring some essential something. The goal was a trip there and back that had the right stuff at the right place. That I did it by myself was a surprise!

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