6:45am, underway from Cardoncito (Isla Partida) to Isla Isabel with NW winds steady 15, gusts higher, and steep close together 5-7 foot seas. We decided to go north around the tip of Isla Partida and then make a straight shot southeast across the Sea of Cortez to Isla Isabel. In retrospect, this was the wrong choice.
Seas very chunky, steep-to, as we bashed into them initially then beam on like riding a bronco, seasickness overwhelming Cora. Bashing against one, we heard an unfortunate loud noise and later found that the seas ripped off another clamshell drain cover, not a structural issue at all, but paints a picture of the power of these waves. Ironically, we had made this decision to avoid notorious Cerralvo Channel further south, but ended up actually choosing Cerralvo Channel due to wind direction.
Our loop completed a circumnavigation of Isla Partida and Espiritu Santo. Calder stated, “The cliff colors look like Northern lights!” Surrounded by jellyfish, they washed up on our swimsteps and covered Calder’s fishing lines. Swaths of the water looked purple; a mix of the blue sky and red phytoplankton. Into Cerralvo Channel, we had some amazing sailing, first with our Code 0 (big headsail), then with our asymmetrical spinnaker. It was a comfortable enough ride that I could bake bread and we started Audible “Lord of the Rings.” By 3pm the winds died down, sails down, and we were able to motor at 7 knots; what a difference a clean bottom makes! An hour later, winds up again; asymmetrical spinnaker up again and flying at 7-8 knots. When winds freshened too much to be flying the spinnaker, Calder and I tried to pull it down in 20 knot winds and were pulled off our feet briefly into the air; it took the addition of Chris for all three of us to get it down. Thanks SY Flora for our sailing gloves! Genoa sail up, winds 24, comfortable. It was an active passage with many sail changes in the first 12 hours.
By 5pm, wind died and waves from all directions, felt like we were in a washing machine. As the sun set, the waves grew past the predicted 3 feet or less to a steady 7 feet but the boat handled it well. Lovely to see the moon rise slowly, a friend that kept us company all night. We did 3 hour shifts overnight, Calder and I, Chris and Cora. Mars rose, the sun rose, the moon set. Intermittent sleep.
Next day, no wind, weather turning hot and humid as we went further south, motored. All of us sleepy, but more comfortable moving around and not ill. We made water, more bread, fixed the jib roller furler, checked all systems going into the night.
Calm enough to cook a sunset dinner of shrimp fried rice before we went into the next night’s shifts.
We took watch with the kids again, but they are ready to take a shift together on our next passage.
At 1:30am we had a brown-footed boobie bird land on our bow, balanced on the stainless railing in rolling seas, tucked in for a nap. He would occasionally stretch, groom himself, then tuck his head back into his feathers and fall back asleep. He stayed until sunrise when he flew off with another boobie; perhaps was on top of our cockpit cover all night?
Turtles and jellies everywhere in the calm sea.
Excitement when Calder caught a swordfish, watching it leap into the air before it got off. At 9am, we saw our island destination, Isla Isabel, on the horizon. Calder’s fishing reel whirred, and he caught a lovely mahi/dorado that would become our dinner.
The sky was full of birds as we approached Isla Isabel and we had to quickly reel in our two fishing lines when two blue-footed boobies tried to get our lures; we do not want to catch them!
It was a total 310 mile passage that took 52 hours with an average speed of 5.8 knots, briefly saw a max of 10.8 knots when surfing down a wave. No time to rest…let’s go explore Isla Isabel…
SV Terikah Adventures 
2 responses to “310-miles from Baja to Pacific Mexico”
It’s nice reading your posts! I was thinking about seasickness. I was a fisherman’s daughter and spent my summers on my dad’s boat. I also get seasick. As a teenager I realized I was always got seasick the first day out and then I would get my sea legs for the rest of the week. Being outside on deck is the best place to be when it gets rough because you can see all around you. I would always get sick down in my bunk or icing fish in the fish hold because I couldn’t see out. In my 20’s I fished for 3 weeks on my brother’s boat in Bristol Bay. A doctor from Homer prescribed me a Coast Guard cocktail which was an upper and a downer. It totally worked, I didn’t get sick, however I felt like I barely slept for 3 weeks, like I was on speed or something. (Probably not the best for kids) Matt has had a lot of luck with scapaolomine patches. He fished 18 summers in Bristol Bay. He said he got to where he could put on one at the beginning of the week and just leave it on all week before changing it. He thinks it was kind of a placebo at that point but somehow it worked for him. Anyway, your trip looks amazing! Savina is very impressed that Cora finished 6th grade math already but we knew she was bright! Must be nice for her to get to go at her own pace!
Stephanie Pawuk spawuk@pcsd.us
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Hi! Glad you like the posts. We have finally settled on the scop patches too; seem to work the best for all of us. We’ll add some meclizine if needed on top of it!
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