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Bashing Up Baja
by Capt. Patricia Miller Rains
Make the run before hurricane season catches you
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Along the Pacific coast of Mexico, yatistas have three options: 1. Hunker down in a hurricane hole such as the upper Sea of Cortez or the marina basins at Puerto Vallarta or possibly Barra Navidad; 2. Quickly scoot south of the hurricane belt — down to the safety of El Salvador, Nicaragua or Costa Rica; or 3. Voyage back north along the Baja California peninsula to either Ensenada or U.S. shores where hurricanes rarely follow and where most U.S. insurance coverage remains in effect throughout the summer.
This time, we’ll look at option number three.
BASHING UP BAJA
It’s referred to as “bashing up Baja” for good reason. The Baja peninsula’s Pacific shoreline generally runs northwest to southeast, which is parallel to the flow of the region’s prevailing northwest winds. Also, the Pilot Charts show that the prevailing or long-shore current flows northwest to southeast down the Baja peninsula. Those patterns are welcome when we’re southbound from the U.S. border down to Cabo San Lucas, because the wind is behind you and you get mostly following seas, so your speed over the ground gets a nice little boost from the current. Turn that around, however, and you’ll be bashing into northwest winds and taking head seas on the nose. In such conditions, savvy skippers will usually haul back on the throttles to avoid slamming the boat down into nasty hollow troughs lurking behind the biggest waves. The stress of repeated slamming can take years off the life of your hull, and the jerking motion can knock things loose belowdecks. It’s not much fun for the crew either — forget about sleeping in the bow stateroom.
If the northwesterly wind is strong enough and if the seas it generates are big enough and square enough, even powerboats may need to tack back and forth across the eye of the wind in order to take the slice through the waves more cleanly along the boat’s forward quarter. At the same time, the adverse current is pushing you backward.
Slowing down, tacking back and forth and fighting the current combine to increase the overall time and distance you must travel. It’s like trying to run up the down escalator.
ANY GOOD NEWS?
Well, a few glimmers of light are visible on the horizon — but you must decide if it’s a light at the end of the tunnel or an oncoming freight train.
Capt. Jim Elfers, in his book “The Baja Bash II,” offers eight rules for improving your chances of having a not unnecessarily unpleasant voyage up Baja. Elfers’ Rule #1 is to avoid heading up Baja in the spring.
June isn’t exactly spring, but Elfers is right that July usually sees a drop in the prevailing northwest winds. If your insurance allows you to postpone the Baja Bash until July, you might want to start immediately monitoring the hot water spreading north from the Gulf of Tehuantepec (15°N, 95°W) by viewing this excellent analysis chart from the National Hurricane Center and NOAA: www.nhc.noaa.gov/t afb/pac_anal.gif. It will show you at a glance if hot water (red) is already available north of Manzanillo to feed the season’s first tropical storms. Pay close attention to the National Weather Service’s predictions for hurricane season 2007 in the eastern Pacific. If it’s forecast to be a bad year, June might be the safer month to bash north.
The perfect answer is to squeeze through the weather window between a decrease in the northwest winds and an increase in the likelihood of a hurricane barreling up from the south.
RADIO NETS
Monitor the WX broadcasts on the Sonrisa Net (1400 GMT on 3968 kHz), the Chubasco Net (1530 GMT on 7294 kHz) and the Baja Net (1600 GMT on 7238 kHz). When you have a window, get around Cabo Falso when cape-effect winds are lightest at night or in the early morning.
LONG & SHORT LEGS
Faster, longer-legged vessels should plan to top off in Cabo San Lucas (or Marina Puerto Los Cabos if it’s open by now) and go 400 nautical miles north to Turtle Bay as fast as possible.
There you can top off with diesel either at the high pier or via Anabel, the fuel panga, which is back in business. Turtle Bay is well sheltered for anchoring overnight in order to monitor the WX fax. Turtle Bay has rarely been smacked by hurricanes, and then only late-season storms between late September and late October. The incidence in June and early July is almost nil. From Turtle Bay north to Ensenada, the southbound California Current usually cools off the coastal waters enough to inhibit the progress of tropical storms.
Shorter legged boats (smaller fuel capacity) or those with a slower top speed should wait for a longer weather window before rounding Cabo Falso, because it’s 160 nautical miles to the first anchorage at Magdalena Bay.
BASH STOPS
The south side of Belcher’s Point (located just northeast of the entrance to Mag Bay) is the easiest in-and-out anchorage with shelter from northwest winds. Fuel is available at Puerto San Carlos at the north end of Mag Bay, but the 9-mile N-shaped channel requires a good chart and careful navigation.
Punta Abreojos lies 175 nautical miles up from Belcher’s Point by staying close to shore, or 160 nautical miles if it’s not blowing and you can cut across the Bay of San Lazaro directly to Abreojos, which means “open your eyes” in reference to all the offshore rocks. Hipólito, Asuncion and San Roque are similar stops located 25, 50 and 90 nautical miles northwest of Punta Abreojos.
After Turtle Bay, the Dewey Channel can have squirrely currents, but at least you can run north for 20 miles in the lee east of Cedros Island.
The worst section in the whole bash is usually the 75-nautical-mile open-water crossing of Bay of Vizcaino to Fondeadero San Carlos anchorage, but at least this course keeps the northwest winds on your port bow.
From that point, it’s 57 nautical miles to the San Quintin anchorage by going out and around Sacramento Reef. From San Quintin it’s 100 miles up to Ensenada and 60 more to Point Loma at the entrance to San Diego Bay. Fortunately, coastal conditions in this last 200-mile stretch north of Sacramento Reef to San Diego are normally more moderate than if you ran farther offshore.
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This article first appeared in the June 1, 2007 issue of Sea Magazine. All or parts of the information contained in this article might be outdated. |
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