SAILING ON THE EDGE - Prelude-chpt#1

An excerpt (circa November 2006) gleaned from the pages of my Journal recounting three years of sailing, adventures, and life on and about the Sea of Cortez aboard my sailing sloop "Location" (formerly "Seventh Heaven")...... life was a wind, a wave, and at times an anchor on my soul.

My dream started to take shape when I was twelve; watching Gardner McKay’s “Adventures in Paradise” on the television, “Swiss Family Robinson” at the movies, and reading Robin Graham’s adventures on Dove, and Stevenson, Conrad, and Hemingway stories of life on the sea. I was mesmerized, as young boys sometimes are, by the visions of tropical islands, exotic cities and people, and the adventure of roaming the world, and determined then that I would do so sooner than later.

Of course the age of twelve is too soon to put wings on even the simplest of such dreams, and then life as it is designed for most of us began to take hold with high school, college and careers, several over the years, and lovers and marriage, also several, and all of the incumbent responsibilities and diversions that we bring down on ourselves as we mature, and accept as the right things to do, or at least the normal things; the way life should be, expected by society, friends and family. My dream stayed with me though, tucked away deep in my soul, and kept alive by sailing magazines and journals filled with cruisers’ stories of far away islands and people, and the freedom of the open sea. I was an aspiring writer in high school, and in my first years in college as a journalism major at the University of Colorado, and even though I later became “more practical” seeking a degree in business and then a career in business, writing a book, a novel or two perhaps, became a part of my dream.

My cousin and I started to build a ferro-cement sailboat on a slab we poured on our ranch in Northern California, from a design we bought from an ad in a sailing magazine in our early twenty’s. But then, caught up again by life, societal and familial expectations, and a lack of money, the project slipped away from our daily life and then our minds. I sailed a TransPac Race from San Francisco to Hawaii, on a friend’s thirty-eight foot sloop in 1980, and then again on a thirty-nine foot sloop in 1986, and did occasional boat deliveries along the California coast, both north and south of San Francisco Bay. I owned my own twenty-seven foot sloop on Lake Tahoe for a while when I worked in the ski industry, and sailed in the Carribean and Hawaii on vacations, and chartered boats from thirty-two to forty-five feet in length for day sailing and racing in San Francisco and Monterey Bays, and an occasional weekend cruise, keeping my dream alive as I could afford while working at unrelated careers in resort management and financial services.

In 1998, after an unfulfilling career as a stock broker and financial advisor had burned me out, and a failed marriage had ground me down and tossed me out, I landed on my feet with a new job as Regional Manager of a chain of marinas and marina resorts, and a year later, with the passing of my father and the last of my great responsibilities fulfilled, I found myself able to afford the purchase of a nearly-new thirty-six foot sailing sloop, and the wings of my dream began to take shape.

A year later, with my life firmly under control, I met the woman of my dreams and we were married soon after aboard VIVA my Catalina 36, and began to dream together and plan our voyage around the world, for what could be better than to sail the world and share such an adventure with someone you love. LeDean and I sailed San Francisco Bay and the California Delta, and spent three months in Monterey and Santa Cruz sailing Monterey Bay, and up and down the coast, getting to know our boat and feeling comfortable on the ocean. The boat seemed small though to my wife, and of course bigger is better, so in 2003 we sold my thirty-six and traded up to a more comfortable and sea-worthy forty-seven foot sloop, with a plan to begin our journey in three years. We sailed our new boat SEVENTH HEAVEN to Ensenada, Mexico and berthed her there for nearly a year, making trips there every month or two, driving down from the Bay Area for long weekends of sailing and enjoying the city of Ensenada.

Then in 2004 the pull of normal life, and a significant pay raise, caught hold of me again and I accepted a new position as General Manager of another marina management company in Southern California, which moved us closer to our boat in Mexico, and closer to my dream perhaps. I have to admit that it was a comfortable trap. We enjoyed Newport Beach immensely, with new friends at our yacht club, and sailing to Catalina and along the coast after we brought SEVENTH HEAVEN up from Ensenada to a slip in Newport Beach. I raced the boat on occasional summer weekends, and in the 2006 Newport Beach to Ensenada Race, and we cruised to nearby anchorages at Catalina and San Diego, and others along the coast, and we relished in the warm So Cal weather; it was a wonderful diversion.

The job unfortunately was not all it had been cracked-up to be, or perhaps my diverted dream was just nagging too incessantly at me. The pay was good, though the job offered no challenge or stimulation in the least. We had wonderful new friends and a nice home, and a substantial net worth, at least on paper, but still the dream pulled at me, and considering everything, in 2006, it seemed the perfect time to turn those paper assets into cash and set our sails. In May I resigned my position, but was asked to stay until August, which I agreed to. I started my own consulting firm, Marina Business Associates, to stay connected to the industry and to generate some additional income during our trip, though that was not a concern at the time, and perhaps because I couldn’t quite let go of the accepted norm myself. Despite her reservations about timing, and money, and in essence the finality of the decision, LeDean acquiesced to my dream and we planned our initial step around the world as part of the annual Baja Ha Ha cruiser’s rally to Mexico, departing San Diego for Cabo San Lucas, and the Sea of Cortez, at the end of October.

 We spent the early months of the summer pouring money into our house to get it ready to sell, holding garage sales to reduce our collateral goods, and preparing the boat with a new water maker, and solar panels, and other upgrades, and finally at the end of August I was free to make all of our final preparations and provisioning. LeDean quit her position with a local real estate firm, and we put our house up for sale under her broker’s license, confident of the half million dollars in booty we were sure to clear from its sale. We said fond farewells to our friends, and planned our happy escape, with plans to return and visit of course, and then in late October, after a somber but expectant departure dinner the night before at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, we sailed from Newport Beach to San Diego and four days later departed San Diego Bay with a crew of four, and eight hundred other anxious and happy cruisers aboard one hundred and eighty vessels sailing south for Cabo San Lucas on the Baja Ha Ha, and then on to the waiting world and far off seas.

Cruisers are a happy lot, especially just before setting out for the next adventure. There is something extraordinary about casting off the dock lines, disconnecting the phone and media hookups, and slipping out of the berth and out toward open water that more than sets us free. It propels us into another dimension of being, an existence outside of ourselves, unfettered by convention and expectations, secure within our winged vessel of new born reality.

The departure day began in a heavy grey overcast lying close to earth and shrouding the fleet as we motored out of San Diego Bay toward the rendezvous and starting point off the white sand beaches of Coronado. The VHF radio crackled on channel 22 with the anxious chatter of the fleet and the calm direction of the “Grand Poobah" aboard Profligate, the lead boat in the Rally. A hundred and eighty boats, with more attending for the show, gathered on the ocean, sailing, or motor-sailing in wide circles, passing by each other and calling out, waving, some flying bright banners proclaiming their origins or planned destinations, circling and waiting for the start of the rest of their life. As we approached the start the day began to blue as the fog succumbed to the midday sun, and a breeze began to fill the air almost as if empowered by the combined will of the fleet, and then the starter’s call came forth across the radio and the fleet as one wheeled about and headed south, setting free their spinnakers and filling the crystal blue horizon with a bright array of vibrant color flying out on the edge of the wind to deep blue sea.    

Our first day out was perfect with moderate winds and gentle rolling seas. We took an inside course to most of the fleet and flew our spinnaker through the first night and into the evening of the second day, and then as the wind and seas grew stronger, settled for our standard rig of main and jib sail, and sailed on toward our first stop at Turtle Bay. The moonlit nights were clear and magical as we plied our way through ebony water, reflecting the silver moon and leaving a trail of broken phosphorescent sea behind us. We sailed through vast pods of frolicking dolphins, reaching as far as the eye could see, leaping through the waves and air, and playing at our bow, and then in our third morning out, in the channel between Cedros and San Benito Islands, we sailed into a pod of giant Grey Whales, and were nearly adopted I think by one laviathon that swam along and beneath and beside us, circling for nearly half an hour, at times too close for comfort in heavy seas, his giant eye surveying us as he rolled on his side and then splashed us with his flipper, before finally allowing us to sail on our way alone, watching their spouts of exhaled air and water blow up behind us. Distracted by the whales and caught in building seas and wind we wrapped the spinnaker on the forestay that morning and took several hours to finally disentangle it, which set us back some time on our course. We arrived in Turtle Bay nonetheless early in the evening on the third day out and dropped our anchor still ahead of most of the fleet.

Turtle Bay is an isolated village on the Pacific Coast of Baja connected to the rest of the world by sea or alternatively by a dusty road that runs some 60 miles or so through desert sands to Baja’s Highway One. It was once a hub port of the Pacific tuna fishing fleet, but the fish disappeared years ago and the canneries are closed, and the buildings and docks are rusting away as the remnants of the village cling to the edge of the sea. The arrival of the Baja Ha Ha fleet is a major economic event each year and the people were warm and friendly, and the shops and restaurants were good, though limited in their selection of goods. The rest of the fleet trickled in overnight and into the next day, and a potluck beach party was held for everyone that afternoon, with food and drinks and games, which provided a lot of fun and an opportunity for the cruisers to meet and mingle and compare their stories of this escape and future cruising plans. Everyone came in to the beach by dinghy, which also provided some entertainment, since the surf typically has a two to three foot break, and if you’re not careful as you approach the shore and time your landing well, the waves will catch you; and several boats were tossed and flipped end over end as they tried to land, resulting in a sort of Baja christening. 

After two nights in Turtle Bay we headed back out to sea on a clear, warm morning, and the fleet spread out again and headed south toward Bahia Santa Maria. The water and air warmed significantly, and the winds diminished as we made our way south. After a gentle day and night of sailing in light winds and seas, we finally resorted to motor-sailing the last third of the trip and arrived in Bahia Santa Maria late our second night out. We had taken a more inside course and lost our wind, so we were late and most of the fleet beat us in to the bay. We were greeted in the moonlit bay by a forest of naked masts floating on the silver water, capped by their anchor lights swaying across the dark horizon like a string of small Chinese lanterns suspended across the bay. We found a hole in the forest and dropped our anchor, had a cup of soup sitting up on deck in the moonlight, and then fell fast asleep embracing the calm of the bay.

Bahia Santa Maria is even more isolated than Turtle Bay. There is no road to the small fishing village that exists on the northern shore of the bay, a few small shacks and plywood houses built by the government, nestled into the sloping hillside at the mouth of a tidal estuary that winds back into the low sand dunes behind it. At low tide four wheel drive vehicles can manage the trip across the sand flats, but it is a tenuous trip at best. The locals welcomed us even more than those in Turtle Bay, and held a lobster and fish feed for everyone (no host of course), with dancing to vintage rock n’ roll music from a band that drove in from La Paz, several hundred miles away on the other side of the Baja peninsula. We ate and drank them dry, but I am sure that the locals made more money that day than the rest of the year combined. We enjoyed the quiet little bay so much that we stayed an extra day, and watched early the next morning as all but a few of the fleet set sail for the last leg to Cabo San Lucas.   

The trip from Bahia Santa Marina was as easy an ocean voyage as I have ever had. The water and air continued to warm, and after a warm and gentle night and a spectacular orange and purple sunrise we arrived in Cabo with a brisk morning breeze and dropped anchor inside the bay, in crystal clear ninety degree water, in front of the expansive hotels and resorts that line the white sand beaches; back in civilization again and not quite sure how to respond. I spent the rest of that day clearing into the Country, running the administrative hurdles, completing all of our visas and boat registration and import paperwork at Immigrations and then at the Capitania del Puerto’s office. We went to the final party for the Baja Ha Ha that night and said goodbye to friends who were going in different directions from there. We had planned to stay two days in Cabo, but civilization proved too much for us, and the constant tossing from the never ending boat traffic, and the loud all-night rock n’ roll from the bars and resorts convinced us to cut our stay short. We weighed anchor in the morning, after tossing and turning all night, and headed out around the tip of Baja and then north into the Sea of Cortex toward La Paz, listening to other cruisers on the radio, veterans now, as they scattered out across the Sea, wishing each other well and good times to come.

This is where the story should have become the beginning of the happiest times of our life, and for a time we had a wonderful journey and my dream had found its wings, sailing down the Pacific coast and up into the Sea of Cortez, with my lover and friends and our dog Escrow, aboard SEVENTH HEAVEN, warm seas, warm winds, and our new family of other like-hearted sailors who were soon scattered out to all points around the Sea and beyond; but the universe has a way of catching us off guard at times if we fail to pay close attention, like those waves on the beach in Turtle Bay, and we all know the proverbial end “to the best laid plans of mice and men”; and the world soon began to turn upside down.