The Grand Poobah is chuffed to report that after just two days, the adventuresome owners of 46 boats have signed up for Baja Ha-Ha XVIII. The ‘Barely Legal’ edition of the popular cruisers’ rally will depart San Diego for Cabo San Lucas, via Turtle Bay and Bahia Santa Maria, on October 24. For entry information, visit www.baja-haha.com. Why sign up early? The earlier a boat signs up, the higher she is on the list for a slip at the finish in Cabo San Lucas.

While we’re looking forward to a terrific summer of sailing in California, it’s great to have the Ha-Ha carrot out there for when the California weather turns grey and cold this fall. Looking down the following list of Ha-Ha XVIII entries, a couple of things stick out. First of all, that friends Myron and Marina Eisenzimmer of the San Francisco-based Swan 44 MKII Mykonos are doing yet another Ha-Ha. That there are two classic plastic Acapulco 40s — Richard Maure’s Marina del Rey-based Tomorrow and Rick & Judith Rosanna Eitniear’s Chula Vista-based Tension Reliever — entered. We can remember hanging out aboard a friend’s Acapulco 40 in Mazatlan in 1978! Speaking of classic glass, entry #17 is Stephanie Mortensen and Robin Kirkcaldie’s Santa Barbara-based Bounty II Red Witch. Not only were the Phil Rhodes-designed Bounty IIs the first large production fiberglass sailboats ever built, they were built in Sausalito. Wait, like they say on television, there’s more! Latitude 38 was founded aboard the Bounty II Flying Scud in Sausalito in 1977. It’s also fun to note that entry #14, the Redondo Beach-based Pacific Seacraft 37 Solstice, is owned by John Alden. What a name for a sailor. We’re also pleased to note that Mike and Dawn Hilliard of Friday Harbor have entered their 85-ft schooner Destiny. Speaking of big entries, Edward King and Aric Ludwig have entered their Oakland-based Lagoon 450 L’Obsessive. We went aboard the Lagoon 450 at the Strictly Sail Boat Show in Oakland last month, and have to tell you that the Leopard 45 ‘ti Profligate we have in a yacht management program in the Caribbean seems about half the size of the Lagoon.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, the Grand Poobah is already jacked up about this fall’s Ha-Ha.

We were up in the Harbormaster’s Office at Marina Bay in Richmond last week, where we bumped into Phil Howe, an old friend and yacht broker. Phil had a big smile on his face because he’d just sold a Beneteau 40.7 to a buyer from Melbourne, Australia.

"It was kind of funny," said Phil, "because I had two Australians who wanted the boat, and the guy who got the boat is the one who got his check in first."

As some readers will remember, there were several Aussies in last year’s Ha-Ha, who had just bought expensive boats in California. What’s the deal with the guys from Down Under buying American boats? It’s all about the fall of the U.S. dollar and the rise of the Aussie dollar. When we were in Australia a couple of years ago, the Aussie dollar only got you about 75 U.S. cents. Now the Aussie dollar gets you about $1.10 U.S. The result is that for Aussies, boats in the U.S. are as dirt cheap as boats in Europe were for Americans in the ’70s.

For a lot of Aussies, it makes lots of sense to buy a boat in the U.S. rather than Oz, and take a couple of years to cruise home. That’s because when they sell the U.S. boat in Oz, they can almost certainly recapture not only what they paid for their boat, but all the expenses incurred in cruising home.

The flip side of the coin is that if you’ve got American dollars, don’t even dream of buying a boat in Australia. This point what brought home by some Aussies from Perth, who laughed at that fact they could buy a bottle of Corona beer on the beach in Mexico for $1 U.S., while back home in Australia, their yacht club was having a Sunday ‘special’ on Corona beer — at $6 each!