Vaughn & Blake Sail the High Seas

For ten days in May, Vaughn and Blake sailed the Sea of Cortez near the pretty Mexican town of San Carlos. We went with our friends from Vaughn's work, Tom House and his son Adam. The Houses had done this before (their boat and tow vehicle), so we were the designated novices.

We drove a thousand miles from Salt Lake to San Carlos, through Nogales, and along the the Mexican roads, switching off drivers along the way. We got there with just enough daylight to assemble and rig the boat. It was dark, about 9:30 pm by the time we finally got launched. We were some pretty tired travellers, and a night's horizontal sleep in Martini Cove was more than welcome.

The next day we went into San Carlos to fuel the boat (15 hp outboard, a very important back up item when sailing the Sea of Cortez) and to get a shower and some breakfast. San Carlos is a pretty place, but quite Americanized. Not the "real" Mexico. We spent the rest of the day trying out the boat and sailing close to San Carlos, then spent another night in Martini Cove.

Next morning at 4:00 am, we began motoring across to the Baja side. The winds normally don't start until about 10:00 am, but this morning the winds were very quiet. About half way across, our outboard motor began sputtering and finally died. With no wind, we were in a bit of a pickle. We were towing a small plastic dinghy that had a small outboard, so we used the dinghy to tow ourselves back to San Carlos. It's a small outboard, and needless to say, it was a slow trip. Late that night we tied up on the dock at San Carlos and slept until morning.

It turned out that our motor problem was a fouled spark plug, which was easily repaired in a local boat shop. Re-enthused, we set sail again, only this time the wind was perfect for a broad reach to Santa Rosalia on the Baja side. This was real upwind sailing, some of the best we had. Late in the afternoon we sailed right through a pod of 12-15 whales. They were spouting, breaching and rolling. And they were huge! Vaughn had fun trimming the sails, Blake had fun navigating with his GPS. As it got dark, the wind died.

We (this is a collective we, as Vaughn was sound asleep below) put out a sea anchor and decided to spend the night, then sail on at first light. But a freak windstorm arose. No clouds, just winds about 45 mph, and the temperature plummeted. Ripples accumulated into chop, which turned to waves, and before long we were bobbing in angry-looking 8-12 foot swells. It didn't take much of this before we were all seasick. As the sun rose, we decided that bobbing in that kind of motion was no fun, so we motored on. The wind began to abate slightly, so we raised our sails and headed on toward Santa Rosalia.

Sometime that afternoon we arrived in the small fishing and mining community of Santa Rosalia. We novices felt quite a sense of accomplishment. We had sailed 84 miles across open sea with some rough conditions!

And what a pleasant sight the harbor was. As soon as you pull up to a slip in one of these Mexican harbors, there are always a few Americans who come up and want to hear your stories and find out about you. Tom House calls them "harbor hippies." They're generally very warm, friendly and helpful people who have retired to live on the water in these places. They devoured our sailing stories the way we devoured the town's fish tacos, they couldn't seem to get enough of them. And once you tell them a few stories, they're eager to share a few of their own. Sharing stories in the harbor is all part of the full experience, we discovered.

We toured the town of Santa Rosalia and found it to be a relatively untouched oasis of Mexican charm and culture. We stopped at a local restaurant and enjoyed a full meal of delicious Mexican food. Then we checked in at a local hotel to get a shower and a well-earned night's rest in a bed that wasn't moving and creaking.

The next morning, Blake and I explored the town and entertained the local merchants with our massacred attempt at Spanish, sign language and some tortured Pigeon English. Blake was looking for a sarong to take back to Sally. Since we didn't know the Spanish word for sarong, Vaughn demonstrated to the shopkeepers how it wraps and tucks, along with a few words like "por senorita," and "playa." This got the most chuckles from our Mexican hosts. I think they may have wanted us to stay in their shops, just for the entertainment.

But Blake persisted and did eventually find Sally's sarong ("pareo" in Spanish). We enjoyed fish tacos for breakfast and lunch. Then we all went back to the marina to refit the boat. With all the hammering from the storm, a few things had come loose, so we had to refit.

Eventually we put to sea again that afternoon, well rested, well fed and ready for more adventure. Unfortunately there was no wind at all. The sea was like glass. We motored until a slight breeze came up. When it became strong enough, we put up our main sail and Genoa while still motoring. Eventually, though, we had enough wind behind us to put up Tom's asymmetrical spinnaker and we were able to have a gentle downwind sail without the motor. It took some work to keep the sails full, but it was fun for a while. Eventually, we went back to motoring when the wind died again.

That night, the sky was the brightest Blake and I had ever seen it. Jupiter, bright in the southern sky, reflected off the surface of the water the way a full moon does. The milky way looked like a streak of white clouds across the sky. Santa Rosalia was a faint glow at a spot on the horizon to the west, Guymas and San Carlos were a barely visible glow at a spot on the horizon to the east. The north star was to us a more convenient navigating point, and more accurate, than looking down at our GPS. Helming and watching the sky at sea on a clear night was an awe-inspiring and novel experience for us. It seems organic and primal in a way that you can only experience. But it's impossible to explain these feelings to someone who hasn't done it.

As great as that night sky was, it wasn't the most amazing thing we saw. Plankton in the Sea of Cortez phosphoresce when they are disturbed. That night, bottlenose dolphins swam, played and performed along our bow. The plankton illuminated the dolphin's bodies as if they were aglow from within. A bright, greenish trail followed wherever the the dolphins swam.

The dolphins synchronized their play, so it was like a choreographed light show, only spontaneous and natural, unlike anything Industrial Light and Magic could ever produce. They reminded Vaughn of adolescents enjoying their bodies' athletic capabilities, demonstrating their skills as if they were showing us how it was done, or inviting us to come out and play. Wow, what an experience! We wanted to be dolphins for a day.

As we approached San Carlos, the wind picked up nicely, as if the Sea of Cortez was saying goodbye to us by giving us a brisk, broad reach to end our journey. And it was fun, the hottest upwind sailing of the whole trip.

It was a bit sad to bring the boat into the harbor, but the thought of fresh food and a hot shower was beckoning us, too. Our six-hour ordeal of trailering and de-rigging the boat ended in time for us to get one last fish taco before we began our drive home.

But it turned out that the adventure of our trip wasn't confined to sailing. We arrived at the US Border in Nogales about 1:00 am, but our ever-vigilant US Border Patrol wouldn't let us through because we were towing a trailer. We were force to turn around, but an enterprising local offered in barely intelligible Spanglish to show us a way to get through at Mexicali first thing next morning. For only thirteen dollars, he said, he would guide us through to Mexicali. OK, we said, and we got a nighttime tour through the rougher side of Nogales, parallel to George Bush's thirty-foot border fence.

Once we were headed through narrow, unlit streets, with nowhere to turn around, we were sure we were going to be pounced on by a group of thugs. But our "guide" was true to his word, and we ended up in Mexicali on the Mexican side, headed the wrong way at the incoming lane of traffic and no way to get to the outbound lanes. That was when Ibrahim, our guide, told us that his price was "thirty," not thirteen dollars. After a lengthy argument we gave him his thirty dollars, turned around and headed out of Nogales to find a truck stop where we felt safer. After sleeping for five hours, we made it through the US border with little delay.

But our adventure wasn't over. Our car engine began to fail just outside of Mesquite, Nevada. We pulled up to an Auto Zone in Mesquite where they gave us a complementary computer engine scan and reported that our number six cylinder was misfiring. That was a simple enough fix. We changed the plug, wire, distributor cap and rotor, and the engine was purring like a kitten.

But then we discovered the axle on the trailer had failed. That was a bigger kind of problem, so we holed up for the night in a Mesquite casino hotel. Actually, that was a refreshing change from trying to sleep in the car on the way back. It may have been a good idea anyway, because we were all tired and sleep deprived. We may have avoided something worse than a bad axle by resting. Next morning, Tom made arrangements through AAA to have the boat and trailer towed to St. George, where his brother allowed us to park the trailer next to his home. After removing the axle and strapping it to the the roof of Tom's car, we were headed home to Salt Lake.

Blake and Vaughn got dropped off in Draper, where Vaughn's truck was parked. On the way to Sugarhouse to drop off Blake we noticed the Houses were pulling off on the Bangerter Highway exit. We just figured they were looking for a fish taco and kept going. But as it turned out, Tom's transmission had failed. He had to get his wife to come and get him the rest of the way to his home in Bountiful. It was a kind of fitting end to our adventure though. After our struggle to get back by mother's day eve, for Tom to be rescued and brought home the last few miles by his sweetheart.