Leg 1 Crew Clyde Betts’s report on his leg 1 experience
Once again I was fortunate to be invited back on another week aboard Gato Loco for the Baja ’09 trip. Gato Loco is owned by my friends in Cholla Bay and is a 32′ seawind cruising catamaran. This year, myself, Cynthia and Bruce Tegge, and Bill Hensler took leg one which was Puerto Penasco to San Carlos.
We were scheduled to leave Penasco at 5pm on friday evening. Sadly, the wind was screaming and we delayed 24 hours. We finally left saturday evening at 5 pm. We were sailing through the night on a 3 on, 3 off schedule. Bill and I were on the 1-4 time when while watching a movie and on look out, I saw lights. We go to the deck to check it out, and while there were white caps as far as the eye could se, the phosphorescence was brighter then I have ever seen. it was on every white cap as far as the eye could see, it was splashing on deck and lasting a good 15-25 seconds and the whole boat was glowing. It was one of the most bizarre and cool things ever.
The Crossing was rough, with high winds on our nose and big waves. a couple of crew members got sea sick, but we survived.
We then sailed into willard bay and stayed there. the next day motored in dead calm and eerily flat calm seas. the skies melted into the ocean and you could not tell where one began and the other ended.
We stayed in Refugio Bay that night and headed out toward bay of LA. The straight oyu pass through to get there is roughly 5 miles wide and we got stuck in the middle as winds climbed t plus 40 knots. we were hitting speeds of over 12 knots and were fighting seas between 6-8′ and took quite the beating. here is a link to the video, this video is only two minutes, how ever this part lasted about 3-4 hours long….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6CVC1TW4vY
from there we continued south, with the winds climbing into the 30 knot daily. we made the crossing back to the main side it started out mellow, but once again winds climbed into the 30 knot range and seas were choppy, but we made the 80 nautical mile crossing in roughly 10 hours.
The trip was great overall, we saw alot of fin back whales, we had a pod of Dolphins (sorry Candra, I did not jump in with them) , swim with the boat for a good 30 minutes then it was followed by porpoises( tons of them) swimming everywhere….
It was a lot of fun over all.. .if you check out my photos you’ll see my favorite pics from this years leg1….
Adios…..
WOW!! I can not even imagine how much fun, how scary, exciting and CRAZY that was. After it was all over, I imagine that was an experience you won’t forget. Thanks for the video. CRAZY!!!
Hey! that’s my post! haha didn’t realize it was on here too… Glad to hear the weather is cooperating better for you guys on leg 2. As always was a Blast!!! Thanks to all that made it happen… smooth sailing….