Episode #174: 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha LIVE Aboard ‘Profligate’ in Turtle Bay

This week we sail to Mexico with the 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha cruisers rally. Tune in as Good Jibes host Nicki Bennett chats with Chuck Skewes of Ullman Sails and the crew who are sailing the Ha-Ha aboard Profligate.

This episode includes livestreams from November 6-8, 2024.

Get an insider’s thoughts on what it’s like to do the Baja Ha-Ha, hear about the legendary Turtle Bay Bazeball Game, the boat that wouldn’t stop drifting away, the record amount of fish caught, and the top reasons to do the Baja Ha-Ha.

Here’s a sample of what’s in this episode: 

• What happens if someone can’t make it to the next leg?
• How does roll call work for such a large group?
• Fishing on the way to Cabo
• How the community help each other throughout the Baja Ha-Ha

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots — follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re feeling the Good Jibes!

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

• 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha: LIVE Aboard Profligate in Turtle Bay
  • [0:21] Welcome to Good Jibes with Latitude 38
  • [1:21] Get swept into the sounds of the 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha!
  • [3:01] 40 miles outside Turtle Bay – what news do we have to share so far?
  • [5:23] How does the Starlink help with connecting to other boats in the fleet?
  • [7:40] What’s the schedule look like in Turtle Bay?
  • [9:33] Anybody’s first Ha-Ha on Profligate?
  • [12:07] Secret life as a movie star?
  • [13:16] How does roll call work?
  • [16:24] What are the top reasons someone should do the Baja Ha-Ha?
  • [20:49] Are you thinking of sailing to Mexico or across the Pacific? Latitude 38 has a resource page called “Heading South” & the “First Timer’s Guide” to help you prepare 
  • Arriving in Turtle Bay
  • [21:37] Welcome back
  • [23:31] How many boats came in before Profligate?
  • [26:34] The 57th coastal trip for this Profligate
  • [28:56] Watching the SpaceX rocket launch
  • [32:00] The boat traffic in Cabo
  • [36:02] Connecting with the local people and terrain
  • [37:36] To find a copy of latitude 38 near you, go to Latitude38.com
  • Heading to Bahia Santa Maria
  • [42:20] Are all the boats in?
  • [44:31] The beauty of community
  • [46:09] How long is the next leg?
  • [47:49] How long does roll call take?
  • [50:50] If you want to watch video footage referenced in this episode, check out the Latitude 38 Youtube channel and Facebook page
  • [1:08:49] Make sure to follow Good Jibes with Latitude 38 on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • Theme Song: “Pineapple Dream” by Solxis

Episode Transcript:

Please note: This transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:02

I think it’s a bonito. Oh no, is that a yellowfin? Woo! No, hold on, that’s a bonito. Dog gone it, it’s not a keeper.

00:21

Ahoy! It is time to cast off, laugh, learn, and have more fun sailing. My name is Max Branstetter and I have the honor of bookending today’s episode of Good Jibes, a podcast to help you experience the world of sailing through the eyes of the West Coast sailor. Each week, hear stories and tips from the West Coast sailing community on cruising, racing, and just plain sailing. All brought to you by Latitude 38, the sailing magazine for West Coast sailors since 1977!

00:52

Today we have a real special treat for you as we’re taking you back to the 30th annual Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally. You will hear host Nikki Bennett talk with Chuck Skewes of Ullman Sails live aboard Profligate aka the Mothership. This episode includes live streams from November 6, 7, and 8, 2024 from which you’ll hear about the cruise to Turtle Bay, the legendary Turtle Bay Bazeball Game, and a

01:21

Bit of a scare at sea. Now, let Nicki and Chuck take you away with the sounds of the 30th annual Baja Ha-Ha!

01:34

So these lives, you know, just schedule depending most every day throughout the ha ha so we can get updates on all the boats and what’s going on with the sailing weather is like how the events are going. So our goal here is to give everyone at home an inside look at what it’s like to do the bah ha ha ha. So thanks so much for taking some time. Chuck how’s it going out there? So yeah it’s been it’s been like a

02:01

Almost postcard perfect haha so far. We had an incredible start with winds 12 to 16 maybe 18 knots sailing most the way through the night. I believe we motored from like 4 a.m to 10 a.m and that’s only because we want to be one of the first boats down. There was just light air sailing. Then we had great sailing all day yesterday and incredible sailing last night. We were doing a solid 10 to 11 most of the night and

02:31

Yeah, just ideal angle. The angle actually became so ideal that we’re going right now, we’re going inside Cedros Island. We almost always go outside because of all the lobster pods inside, but it’s completely navigable waters all the way around it. You know, weather’s already gotten warm. We’ll probably be sailing here in a few minutes. We have to get past the San Jacinto, the San Benito, I’m sorry, and then turn left and go into Turtle Bay. So,

03:01

40 miles outside Turtle Bay right now. Okay. And what are the updates from some of the other boats? What news do you have to share with us so far? Any, anything exciting or any issues? We had one boat that had a furling spinnaker and they were wrestling with it and the spinnaker was winning. They were dealing with that all night. We had another boat, I think they just had, they just had fatigue. There was only two of them on it. So they actually…

03:29

If theory dropped out, they’re just going to go different spots on the way down. Okay. What boat was that? It’s a boat from the Seattle area. Okay. They’re still having a really good time. They just realized that they didn’t want to keep up with the pace with two people. Uh, the fishing for us has really been awful, but one of the boats caught us a huge tuna last yesterday afternoon. So, uh, Richard sent them out a written update to the fleet every day now. And, uh,

03:56

But the weather’s been spectacular. We’re looking forward to the SpaceX launch tonight because we have a perfect sky for it. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Awesome. So how many crew do you guys have on Propagate this year? We have 11 people. We actually have two Latin alumni. We have Mitch Perkins and Richard Spindler, the founder on the boat, obviously, his boat. And I guess Donnie will work for the magazine some, so maybe three there. We have a

04:23

Steve and Kristen Mueller, she’s a nurse and he’s a retired fireman. And then we have Dana, who’s an old friend of Donya’s on board. And Jim and Janet, Jim was one of the guys who helped build the Prophagate and sailed with Richard back in the days of his first boats and things. So it’s a really good group, really everyone gets along great. We have Dino on board who’s basically a chef. And he’s been just…

04:53

getting us fat. Basically, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. The food’s been incredible. Oh, that’s great. So what kind of watch schedule are you guys running? So we’re doing three on six off and it’s working basically around the clock. In the middle of the day, we don’t really have watches because everybody’s up anyway. And it’s a real simple watch schedule and allows everybody to socialize and fish and be creative in the galley and other things like that.

05:23

Great. Get caught up on their reading even. Yeah. That’s awesome. So I’m curious, how’s the Starlink made connection? I know, I mean, obviously you guys have a lot of connectivity. I’ve been following your tracking going down and I’ve been receiving some updates from Mitch, which is great, but how is it for connectivity with the other boats in the fleet? It’s been incredible because first of all, you can use your cell phone and call people if there’s really an issue.

05:50

The email and texting between boats has been flawless. I have a few guys that hooked up with me at the party before we left about different issues and we’ve been dealing with that. It’s been seamless. And a couple of people on board have been getting work done, which is, you know, a few years ago, that was impossible. Totally. So you guys having, how many boats are actually out there? I think it ended up being 118 made the start.

06:20

Okay, great. Yeah, I’ll get you those exact numbers for tomorrow because we do roll call. I’ll tell you how many are still in it. Because I think we had two people leave one with issues and one just wanted to go slower and then everybody else I think is coming down. We’ll see. You know, there was it was it was not really windy last night like 18 knots, which is kind of ideal when you’re going downwind, but there may be a little bit of carnage from last night. We’ll see. Okay, got it. And a couple boats started in Ensenada, right?

06:49

Correct. Yes. But it takes a long time to get out of that bay. So you only save yourself a couple hours, maybe three hours, because we were passed in six hours. We were right at Ensenada. Yeah. We had such great sailing for the start. Yeah. I was looking at the tracker and I saw those boats kind of coming in and then I was reading about another boat that had engine issues and they had to head into Ensenada. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, so you guys, when, when do you think you’re going to make landfall in Turtle Bay?

07:19

Well, let me see, 40 miles, we’re probably going to be there in about, probably right at sunset tonight, maybe a little bit before and then, and then we’ll anchor. We always like to get in there, why we can still see when we anchor close to the pier, makes it easy picking for the pongas for all our garbage to shore for the activities. Totally. And what’s the schedule look like in Turtle Bay for activities?

07:44

So we get there tonight and that’s just sort of, most people don’t even go to shore. We just anchor out and have a relaxing time and clean the boat up. And then tomorrow midday, we have this, what we call the Baja Baseball or Baja Softball Tournament, which is all the kids in Turtle Bay play baseball. And the nicest thing in Turtle Bay is this amazing baseball facilities. Got AstroTurf, stands.

08:11

The rest of town is dirt roads with one cement road in it. It’s a dusty little fishing village, but they’ve got some amazing baseball things. So everybody in the town plays baseball. So all the kids come out, we play with them. They all take turns batting. There’s this big lineup of batters. We do announcements as they’re going through. And then at the end, we have a ton of baseball items donated from the Baja Cruisers that we give out to all the kids. Very cool. Then we…

08:38

Everyone has back to boat. We try to end everything in the ha. We try to end before nightfall because it’s it’s very difficult to find your boat at night when there’s a hundred boats anchored at a bay. It’s it’s even if you know where your boat is, you have a hard time finding it. So we we end that fairly early. A lot of people go and eat tacos on the street. And then the following day, we kind of move over to the south side of Turtle Bay and there’s a beautiful beach there.

09:06

And the locals set up taco stands and bars. And we have a tug of war competition and everybody barbecues on the beach. And it’s a beach party and it’s a lot of fun. We throw frisbees off the cliff and it’s really a fun deal. And then that ends around four o’clock. Everyone gets back to the boat. And then we leave for Bahia Santa Maria the following morning after that. Okay, awesome. So Chuck, how many ha-has is this for you personally?

09:33

I think this is my ninth. I was trying to figure it out, because I did one and then I took a year off or two years off and then I think eight in a row now. Okay, awesome. And I’m curious, is it a first ha-ha for anyone on Propagate? No, actually we don’t have any virgins on board. You’re all alums. Yeah, we have somebody that’s done it, did it quite a few years ago and this is the second one but yeah, it’s all alumni. Very cool.

10:00

And when we were at the skippers meeting, you ask who’s done ha-has, it was a majority of the people had already done them before. So it’s a, it’s the fun, the event’s that great that people keep coming back. Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, just in the few years that I’ve done the, um, the events, the parties and the sponsorship, I have gotten to know a lot of familiar faces. Yeah. You’re going to have to work on your schedule so you can come next year. I know I will. So I was close.

10:29

That’s right. You were very close. I was very close, but we might not be streaming. Maybe we would be because we have internet. Exactly. I think 90% of the fleet has Starlink. Yeah, I read that. It’s really good. Yeah, that’s great. Well, since you’ve got the Starlink, you want to walk us around? We always have the mainsail up, whether we’re motoring or not. We’re currently motoring now because the wind has shifted left.

10:54

literally a half hour ago from Spinnaker to all the way upwind. And we’ve got to get through a little gap over here. So we just took the Spinnaker down the side of the water. This is one of our starlings. We actually have two starlings apart. This is a generation two. And then we have the mini over there. The mini uses much less power. So we’ve been surviving on the mini. Did you come back on propagate? You come to where everybody really hangs out. This is a…

11:21

gathering spot where you could talk day and night because it doesn’t bother people sleeping. There’s snack and beer in the freezer to get it cold for our arrival. Hi, honey! This is Dino, the chef chef port en bleu. Hello! This is Jim. Jim’s now the fisherman. He’s also the chief engineer and watch captain. He’s pretty much how he holds a hat in every aspect of the boat.

11:49

He’s no fisherman because he hasn’t caught any fish. Yeah, that’s right. We’re not fishermen. We’re just trollers. This is the first ha ha I haven’t caught a fish before. Get down this far south. This is this is Steve up here. Howdy. Donya doesn’t like to be on camera, but she has her glasses on. So we’ll let her. This is Donya. All right. She’s the movie star. Is that right? This is this is live on Latitude 38. Oh, hey, Mickey. Hey.

12:19

Here’s Mitch, he’s sleeping so we’re not going to wake him. This is inside. This is our basil plant. Oh, it’s very beautiful. It looks better than the one I have here. That’s going to get minced up in the next day or two. Obviously we just have stores for, we don’t starve on this boat. We have stores of stuff. So this is the main salon and this is, you could probably seat 35 people in here.

12:46

And then down in each hole, we have two cabins in each hole and two heads in each hole. So, uh, yeah, it’s very roomy. I mean, with 11 people on here, you’re not bumping into anybody and everybody has their private spaces and it works out quite well. That’s awesome. This is command center. So when we do roll call, this is where Richard sits and, uh, takes everything. And Chris with a K we call her over here. Wait, Chris, this is latitude 38.

13:16

So she keeps all the data for Richard and Patsy and her have like a Google Doc that they share back and forth and log everybody’s location every day at Roll Call. Great. Yeah, it’s just kind of a well-oiled machine. It works well. Yeah. So how does Roll Call work exactly? So you need to give your eight o’clock position before nine o’clock a.m. So you…

13:44

You basically just mark down your Latin long at eight o’clock and you email it into the site. We used to do it on single sideband of VHF radio, but what with Starlink and Advancement’s single sideband has just gone away. We still have a single sideband, but it hasn’t been on in two years. Okay. And then, so then they send their positions in and we mark them down on a chart. So we know everybody’s position every day, even though a lot of people are being tracked and have communication.

14:13

We just want to know every day where somebody is so that way if they’ve never reported in or any issue, we know their last location and when we approximately should see them in port. Okay, cool. And then once everybody’s in port, they just say in port and we keep track and anybody who’s not, we constantly try to communicate with them. And if we don’t hear, we’d obviously alert the authorities or emergency contacts. But luckily, we haven’t had to do that. Great.

14:43

a good thing, right? Yeah. You guys keep an eye on each other. So a reason a lot of people do it. Obviously, people come back over again. So and when we did single sideband, there was a sense of community because people would tell stories on the radio and everybody would hear it. You know, VHF doesn’t travel as far as the fleet really disperses. So you actually get to where you’re out of VHF range with half the fleet or three quarters of the fleet at times. Okay. If not all of it. Yeah. And so we’ve done this. We started this email thing, but

15:12

we realized that we were losing the sense of community. So what now is happening is everybody is emailing their personal stories into Richard then Richard’s sending out a daily newsletter. And so I’ll go through those stories tonight. We’ll have more to talk about tomorrow when we’re in Turtle Bay. Oh, awesome. About what each member of the fleet is experiencing. And there’s a lot of kids on the ha ha this year. And so it’s gonna be really fun in Turtle Bay with the baseball game and all the shenanigans that go on in Turtle Bay. Yeah.

15:41

It’s great to see so many families doing it. It’s really awesome. Yes. Cool. Well, Latitude Nation, we are going to aim to do this every day to the best of my ability within my schedule and the boat schedule. So we’re going to do our best. But as we, you know, get ready to sign off, Chuck, I’m curious, you know, because I think a lot of people, I actually came to my job at Latitude 38 through a ha ha ha ha crew party. So I knew about the ha ha. Oh, that’s awesome.

16:11

kind of before I knew about latitude, but sort of all in the same timeframe as a brand new sailor. So I feel like it is really something that people look forward to and work towards. What are your top reasons personally that somebody should do the ha ha, whether that’s as crew or on their own boat? It’s really funny you say that because we got a fish on. You guys are live while we got our first fish on. Yes, I’m lucky. I hope it’s a keeper or this could be embarrassing.

16:41

Anyway, so we anyway, I used to think of the Baja ha ha as just a bunch of drinking and and craziness down the coast. And I said, I don’t know if I really need to be part of that. We’ll see how that goes. And what it turned out when I went on my first ha ha, which I went on with a customer, I’m watching this fish. What is it? I think it’s a bonita. Oh, no. Is that a yellow fin?

17:10

No, hold on. That’s a Bonita. Dog on it. It’s not a keeper. It’s not a keeper. Not a keeper? So anyway, we, um, I thought it was just this party, uh, rampaging pirate-like guys going down the coast. And, uh, I went on my first ha ha in like 2012, 2013, somewhere around there with a

17:34

with a couple that was friends and a customer of mine, and they were taking off to sail around the world. They’re still sailing around the world. And when I, after going on the ha ha, I realized how important these rallies are for people that wanna go cruising. Especially if you don’t have 100% confidence because at the first stop, I was repairing sails, there was medical professionals, there was people with spare alternators. And…

18:00

Richard does a great job. He’s really into the community of each of these stops to go into and he kind of gives you a hint of the Mexican culture and what to expect and how to behave and what not to do, what to do is to stay out of trouble. And it just became to me, it became very important to me or noticed to me that this is almost a mandatory thing. If you’ve never really taken your boat to Mexico that this is really what you should do. And it was so helpful. And then the next year I did it.

18:29

somebody had some health issues and it turned out it was a young gal with a UTI. And somebody had a UTI test kit, somebody had the medication for it, and there’s medical professionals to help with that. And that’s the type of thing that they would have to stop in and go to a hospital and everything was taken care of. And it just made it safer and easier for people to understand the cruising lifestyle. Very cool.

18:54

It’s definitely the start of a lot of people’s adventures, which I think is great. And I also think it really does, at least I’ve done it, so this is my outside perspective, from being involved, but not have done, there is a lot of community and camaraderie that is created. And I think that that’s really important. I feel like that’s a really foundational part of keeping people in unity and to keep people cruising is to kind of start forming these relationships.

19:21

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I talk to people from every ha ha every year, not everybody that does a ha ha, but I have people that I’ve met, been friends with, and we stay in communication as they’re traveling around the world or even just Mexico, or it came back to the States. And some people, I’ve sailed with people up in the Seattle area my whole life when I was growing up. And then I moved to California and we reconnected as they came down to do the ha ha. And those people think it was the most fun thing they’ve ever done in their life. And these are people who…

19:50

or on the water every week. It’s really important that something like this survives. This is the 30th one. We’ll see how many more Richards willing to do, but it’s a great event. Cool, awesome. Well, thanks for bringing us along. Chuck just threw this idea out to me at the party on Sunday and we decided to make it happen. So we’re kind of winging it out here, but it’s a cool opportunity with the Starling for people to go along and check this out. And we’re gonna have fleet updates every day.

20:20

We’ll have some info on the events. Party words for our audience from the crew? No, I just put it on your schedule for next year. It’s always either the last Monday in October or first Monday in November. So I would just plan on ahead and use it as your stepping stone to go off and cruise and enjoy yourself. Yeah, it’s on my schedule. Awesome. All right, sign it off from the Baja. Latitude 38 here.

20:49

Are you thinking of sailing to Mexico or all the way across the Pacific or maybe even further? We just heard from Joanna and Cliff saying, my husband and I subscribe to Latitude 38 and enjoy the Good Jibes podcast regularly. They went on to say they’re headed to Mexico in the fall and will continue across the Pacific to Australia. However, they’re looking to simplify all the choices they need to make to prepare. Of course, there’s tons of resources out there, but Latitude 38 does have a page in our website called Heading South.

21:18

And we also have LATTA 238’s First Timers Guide to Mexico available to read online on the Heading South page or a printed copy that is available to purchase in our online store. There’s a lot to know, but latat 238.com is a good place to start.

21:37

All right everyone, welcome back. We are live from Turtle Bay with the crew of Profligate on the 30th run of the Baja Ha Ha Rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. We have Chuck Skews from Oman Sails with us. He’s gonna give us an update on the sail so far, what’s going on with the fleet and the weather in Turtle Bay. Well it’s a fantastic day here in Turtle Bay, probably mid 70s, a little bit of breeze.

22:06

I would say three quarters of the fleet is in and there’s still a few guys coming in. I can see off in the horizon. It was an interesting sail down. So we had great wind yesterday all the way through our interview yesterday and then we started motoring about then. And then the wind shifted out of the east and we came in, everything was calm, but the guys who were out there last night had some big Santa Ana winds. And so some guys had 30 knots of wind.

22:33

Um, not really much carnage luckily, but you know, just a little bit uncomfortable ride coming into the Bay for a lot of people. Okay. Uh, but you know, it’s, it’s warmer. It’s easier to deal with the wind down here, but, uh, the sail down was fantastic. That some boats motored about 50% of the time. Most of the boats sailed much more than that. And it was, uh, it was just ideal. It was almost a postcard perfect. Great. And you guys got in yesterday, like a late afternoon, just before sunset. Correct. And we’re.

23:02

We’re on what we call a ha ha time, which is actually the time of Baja California, sir, which is where we are. Once you get south of that big little peninsula on Baja, that time actually goes to one hour earlier. And so we stay on, we stay on that time from the ha ha so that when we land in Cabo, we’re on the exact time. So right now it’s noon for us. Oh, okay. Great. Well, ha ha time, Baja time.

23:31

Yep. It’s a good time no matter what, right? Yeah, we got in. We had about an hour of daylight after we got in yesterday and a couple people came over. We had a wonderful dinner of goat cheese stuffed chicken. So it’s not like we’re starving. Yeah, no, it seems like you guys are well fed out there. Yeah. So how many boats came in before you? How was that? I think seven boats beat us in. The big boat Sapphire night, which is the 80 foot trip design.

24:01

It beat everybody down here. Then Kalea came in next, which is a super fast catamaran. It’s doing its ha ha with its second group, the owner that built it. And then he sold it to this group and then they’re sailing it down. Very cool.

24:19

And I think I caught this, but how many boats haven’t come in yet? I think there’s probably about 20 boats out there still. Okay. Great. Is the baseball game today or is it tomorrow? It is today at two o’clock. Famous turtle Bay baseball. Yeah. So I guess if you arrive late, you might miss the game.

24:41

Yeah, there’s people that sail the whole way often struggle to make the game. Talion sails the whole way and actually they had a little bit of an engine issue. So they’re sailing into the bay. They should be here any minute. I think I actually see them on the horizon. So they’ll probably make the game maybe a little bit late, but the, the game runs for a while. It’s it, the game is so much fun. Yeah. It’s all about the kids in the, in the athletically challenge. That’s awesome. How many people from the fleet play the game?

25:11

I would say body wise about 150 people. That’s awesome. Yeah, we often have like 20 outfielders and two short stops and somebody that plays between first and second base so that because nobody’s that athletic and then all the young kids like under eight years old tend to get a home run and all the women guaranteed hit. It’s really, it’s just a lot of fun. It’s just we do announcing and give their stats for their

25:40

pre see where they were drafted from and where they might have played ball before. And it’s just a lot of fun. Sounds like a great amount of fun. And it’s also like a really positive thing for the community. So a win. Yeah, we have, we have so much baseball gear to give out that we’re actually going to take some of it to our next stop so that the people from San Carlos, the little village near our next stop have some gear as well. Oh, that’s really great. Yeah. That’s awesome. So.

26:07

Like go back for some ha ha history. So yesterday if you guys were on or not Chuck, this is Chuck’s knife This is the 30th run of the ha ha. So correct. I know Richard’s done it 30 times. I don’t know if there’s anyone else Well, yeah, Donya’s done it all but one I think and we were talking about this boat because they did it on the Ocean 65 I think it is they did that on Big O they did it

26:34

a couple of three ha ha’s before they did this boat. This is the 57th coastal trip for this catamaran. Wow, that’s incredible. That’s really incredible. Yeah, it’s really incredible. So was this always the trajectory for the ha ha when it started? Yes, yeah, we always came to Turtle Bay and then Bahia Santa Maria. And one year we did a secondary stop. We took one day out of Bahia Santa Maria and went to Mag Bay and then down. But…

27:04

It was such a short trip. It was more like just pulling your anchor up, going for six hours and stopping again. So it didn’t save any time going to Cabo. So we pulled that one back out. Okay, interesting. So this morning during roll call, do you have anything interesting to share with us from the fleet? Any news? Yeah, it was really interesting. Some of the young kids on a boat that had to sail upwind in 20 knots thought that was the time of their life sailing and they thought that was the most incredible. I don’t know that the parents…

27:33

who would probably stood watch all night long thought it was as fun as the kids thought it was. But that was fun. There’s very little mechanical issues. I’ve got three sail repairs to do, which is really good considering the wind picked up and there was some 30 knot winds last night. The thing that I really noticed was we didn’t catch any fish of keeper size, but the amount of huge tunas that these people are catching anywhere from close to 100 pounds down to

28:01

know 50 pound tuna which I don’t remember any haha that people caught fish that big so tomorrow during our beach barbecue I think there’s going to be a lot of fish there. Yeah I saw some pictures on Richard’s Facebook it’s a very large fish. Yes it’s huge. Yeah which is great. Awesome so how’s the crew doing? How’s your crew? Everybody’s doing good we have the we have the store open right now where we sell all the haha gear.

28:30

We’ve got a couple guests on board that were coming to buy. People love to come and talk to us because there’s so many of us. But everybody’s doing great. We’re all looking forward to the baseball game. We already fueled up this morning here and got ice and we’re pretty much set to make it all the way to Cabo now without having to get anything else. And we have, like I said, just idyllic weather. It’s so clear. We’re looking forward to it. So they…

28:56

They postponed that rocket launch from SpaceX, so we’re looking forward to tonight to be able to see that SpaceX rocket launch. Oh, is it going to be tonight? It’s supposed to be tonight, yes. And you guys have a good vantage point, I understand. Oh my God, yeah, this is going to be spectacular. The sky is so clear here and there’s no ambient light, basically, because this is the town of Turtle Bay. I don’t know if you can see it well. There’s houses over here. This is the town. And then there’s a church and then a little fish processing thing here. And that’s the town.

29:27

That’s it. And this is about an eight mile, eight hour trip off of the main highway to get to this spot. So it’s very remote if you tried to get here by car. Wow. Well, that’s awesome. It’s probably better to visit by boat anyways. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a way that we recommend visiting, of course, the tradition of stopping in Turtle Bay. So there’s some routes there. Yes. There’s a few boats that don’t join the haha that kind of tag along with the haha. And they were coming down and

29:56

When that wind picked up, they stopped in at Cedros Island, which is maybe possibly a smaller stop than it is a smaller stop than Turtle Bay. And the port captains in Mexico have authority over each port and he thought the wind was too much so he closed the port and he doesn’t want to open until Saturday. So those poor boats that stopped there cannot get out of there until Saturday. Oh, that’s… Yeah. So I’m glad we’re all here in Turtle Bay.

30:25

Yeah, definitely. And you so you’ll you’re in Turtle Bay for all day today. One more day tomorrow and then you’ll take off. Yeah, at 9 a.m. that next day we take off and it’s usually we have a contest to see who gets a spinnaker up first pre-start and crosses the line. They get a free pizza in Cabo. Oh, that’s fun. Yeah, and we take off and the sailing and fishing from here is spectacular. The water actually is only

30:54

low 60s here, which is a little cooler than normal. But I’m kind of glad because it would be a really hot day here. It’s like mid 70s right now and it would probably be in the 80s if the water was warm. Sounds lovely. You guys will check in all the boats at the next stop then, correct? Yeah. So we have set up a temporary office on the back edge of the profligate that area I showed you yesterday.

31:21

that where everyone gathers and where the store is today. We set up the immigration officer comes set has a table and the person from mag bay outfitters that works is the sort of liaison between the boaters and the immigrations sits there and people come up alongside on one side drop off their passports they go to our other hull we give them back to them as they go through and get stamped and we did the whole fleet last year in less than two and a half hours.

31:50

It’s unbelievable. We had no confidence or next to no confidence that that system was going to work. You know, because things in Mexico just aren’t always as they seem, you know. And we said, oh, this is going to be a disaster. And it was way smoother than trying to go through it in Cabo in the bigger city. It was really nice. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’d imagine anyways, then there’s so many more boats in traffic and just so much more in Cabo, right? So nice to get it out of the way. Yeah, it’s…

32:20

I don’t know for those watchers that have been to Cabo, but Cabo is a little crazy. It’s really, it’s become more of a high-end sport fisher stop than a person in a cruising lifestyle stop. And so it’s just, it’s a big city, lots goes on, big money, and it’s changed the place from a Mexican village to kind of a tourist destination. So it has its pluses and minuses. But

32:48

When you think of the cruising lifestyles, you don’t think of what you’re gonna see in Cabo is that answer. Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. So when will you guys head over and get ready for the baseball game? So we’re gonna hit the shore about 1.30. People gather at the stadium around two and we go for about two and a half hours there and it just gets better and better as it goes on because we learn a little bit about each player and we.

33:16

make these announcements and have little inside jokes on each person. And we do the wave, we have enough people in the stands, we actually do the wave. And it’s just a blast. And then the melee when we give out the stuff at the end is hilarious. You got all these kids from age like three to 13 or 14 lined up to get the baseball donations and we try to get the little kids in first and they are just gathered around, they’re pushing.

33:43

kind of nudging elbows, we have to kind of keep them in line. And then that stuff disappears pretty fast. Pretty awesome. I’m sure, I mean, something they look forward to and awesome that you have fun with the community. Yes. You know, give back. Yeah, one of the Ponga drivers came up earlier and he has, I think, six kids. And he’s like, they’re all going to be at the baseball game. Awesome. I mean, what a fun thing for a small community as well. Yeah. This community probably does OK on the fishing.

34:13

market, especially now that communication is a little better. They have sport fisher groups that come out of here in Pongas and they have a pretty lucrative lobster and tuna fishery that they process out of here. But short of that, there’s nothing else that goes on here. So this is their Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s all wrapped into one. They get to make some money, they get to cook tacos, they get to meet a bunch of people and have fun.

34:41

We only invade their town for two days and they all tend to enjoy it. They’re all really excited to see us when we get here. That’s awesome. Well, it sounds like a fun time for kids and for the adults and a nice little boost to the economy. And that’s always great, right? Absolutely. Awesome. So how many boats? If you’ve got 20, you got so maybe, you know. So there’s probably 90 boats in the bay right now. Yes. And let’s try around maybe 100.

35:10

You know, I’m going to go up on top of the boat and give you a better view. So where I’m going to show you first is the town. This is the pier. This is the pier where people refuel and the beach to the left is generally the beach landing. If you’re going to the town, they have all the entrepreneurial kids. They help you pull your dinghy up and store it up at height for high tide line and then help you launch it for a small fee. Some people tie off to a little sand line on the pier and go up 

35:39

a ladder that would not be legal in the US. And then this town, and then you go over here and there’s this beautiful bluffs. And where we have the beach party is on this little sand beach on the other side of these bluffs over here. And you can walk, it’s about a two hour walk over these mountains to get to there. And it’s about a 40 minute drive around to get to them. So it’s really not connected to the town. It’s a very remote area.

36:07

And then if you now you can kind of see the anchored boats in the bay. And this bay is huge. We’re in one little, we’re probably in a 10th of the bay and we, we probably have. 80, 90 boats here and the bay goes clear over. That’s actually a sandbar that connects that island to that peninsula. So that’s still part of the bay. And then this is the opening to the bay that goes out in the Pacific ocean. And so this opening, as we found out last year, cause we measured them is a 10th of a mile wider than the Golden gate.

36:37

So it’s a nice big entrance in, but we’re protected from winds from everything except for a southwest wind, which is really rare. It takes like a cyclone behavior, like a hurricane to get any wind from that direction here. Then you come over. This is the pier and we have no idea whose house this is, but that’s probably the nicest place in Turtle Bay. And then there’s a little housing community up on the hill there. And then we’re all the way back to where we started the tour. Awesome.

37:07

Very cool. Well, thanks for showing us around. You got anything else you want to share with our audience today? No, I don’t think so. I mean, I will go from there and then we’ll report on all the advancements that we hear at the baseball game. When you people get a little radio shy, so you sometimes don’t hear all the stories of of their adventures on the way down the coast. And then when you see them in person, they’re like, oh, my God, you know, we did this or we caught this or we ran over a fishing line or, you know, all those stories start coming out up there. So.

37:36

You may be asking, how can I find my own copy of Latitude 38 magazine? Well, it can be as simple as walking into your marina, a marine store, yacht club, or any California waterfront business. You’ll likely connect with sailors when you walk in the door, and you’ll also find many more sailors as you read through the pages of Latitude 38. Bringing home a copy of Latitude 38 is also a great way to redecorate your coffee table, and reading one will help you unwind.

38:06

from the distractions of the day. It’s almost as good as a day of sailing itself. To find a copy of Latitude 38 near you, go to latitude38.com and click on find the magazine at the top of the page. Then go out and meet some sailors.

38:23

Hello Latitude Nation, this is Nicki Bennett. We are back with Chuck Skewes from Ulman Sails aboard Profligate. It is Friday and he’s gonna give us a rundown on what’s going on. Currently the fleet is in Turtle Bay. They will be leaving tomorrow. We have the legendary Bazeball game and I’ve heard there are quite a few stories to share today. Yeah, it was an interesting day in the Baja Ha Ha.

38:51

everything worked out great we had the uh… the annual baseball game which is always great there’s some very young players there was players batting with a beer in their hand there was uh… about forty or fifty kids from bahia tortuga plane including a uh… all girls baseball team that called the indians that were there and uh… everybody had a great time i believe richard is posted some other drone shots he had a drone flying through a lot of the game

39:20

We narrated, made some jokes about it, had the wave going. It was fantastic. People were raving about it this morning on the net. That’s awesome. Yeah. So then most of the people had a dinner in town last night. You know, it’s really, we have one dinner in Bahia Santa Maria that the fishermen put on. And then today the beach party, which generally you bring your own food to the beach party. So it was like the last opportunity to really have a meal out.

39:50

until we hit Cabo. Everybody had a good time. Then the sun set and we get a radio call from a boat that had had some trouble during the day and they said, you know, we have sail issues and now we’re out of fuel and we’re five miles outside the bay. Oh, wow. Yeah. And the wind, of course, at that time decided to pick up. So now they’re in some wind and drifting out.

40:16

And it was just two people on board, a father and a son, and the son was seasick. So the father had been up for about 40 hours and was completely exhausted, not really able to deal with it. So we spent some time in here and this is what the benefit of really being part of a rally was, is everybody kind of came together. Some people went over and found a lobster boat and tried to get them to go out. And then the port captain closed the port, thought it was too dangerous to go out there because the wind was picking up.

40:43

And so we pulled anchor and started going out there, located another boat, a big 80 foot boat or 70 to 80 foot boat heading down to Cabo, had them divert and come over. And they got there maybe five, 10 minutes before us, gave fuel to them. They started the engine, started coming in, let the boat that diverted head back to Cabo. We started coming in, their engine died again. So that boat turned around since it’s the bigger boat.

41:13

more tow capable, came over and was going to tow them. And then they got the engine restarted and they made it all the way into the bay. And we got into the bay about 2.30 night last night. Wow. They anchored right behind us. We woke up this morning and they weren’t behind us and they were on roll call. So we assumed they moved to another part of the bay. And then they came up on deck and realized that they had drifted back out of the bay. Yeah. Holy moly.

41:43

and hatched a motor back in this morning. Some good Americans on another boat, they went out in their high speed hard bottom inflatable and put a couple people on the boat to come in and help these guys anchor because obviously that father was very, very exhausted. So it was kind of an exciting night. Then I got up at seven this morning to finish all the sale repairs that we have. I have one left and we’re almost done.

42:10

Yeah, so here we are. We’ve got a you know we have about 18 to 20 knots of wind here in Bayia Tortuga or Turtle Bay and we’re going to have the beach party. But where we have the beach party, it’s it’s protected from the breeze and I give you a little tour. We’re since we’re in a different section of the bay that we were yesterday. Yeah, we were anchored over here at the pier yesterday when we did this little tour of the bay and now we’re about a three quarters of a mile over towards the southeast.

42:40

And now they’re right up at there is where we have the beach party. So that beautiful beach over there. Great. So we’re going to move the boat, go in quite close. The wind blows off shore. So you can be pretty close to anchor. It’s great anchorage and it makes it easier for people to get back from the beach party. That’s great. Um, are all the boats in? Is the entire. Yes, I believe everybody is in there. I think there was, uh, yeah, no, I think that we had a hundred percent this morning.

43:08

when we did the roll call. Very cool. Very cool. Well, it looks beautiful there right now, aside from the breeze. It looks like a beautiful day. Yeah, oh it’s gorgeous. Yeah, it’s got to be mid to high 70s. It’ll probably be a little warm on the beach and that’s what we all came for really. So it’s great. Yeah, that’s awesome. So any other fun news from roll call this morning? No, it was mostly about the rescue last night.

43:38

was hardly a rescue, but it was more help. And then there there’s a gentleman that comes on this event and he goes does a celestial navigation course. And so he he has a spot on the beach that has a clear view to the south and he does gives a whole sextant course, which is going on currently. Oh, that’s very cool. Yeah. Paul. Yes, Paul. Yeah, Paul came in. Awesome. He’s got probably 20 people in there doing a sextant course.

44:08

Very cool. Did you guys see the Starlink launch last night? Oh, ironically, we were all excited. Well, since we got to be out here, at least we’re going to get to watch the rocket launch and then they postponed it. So now it’s tonight. Now I’ll probably be too tired to get up and get to watch that. I know, right? Everyone’s got to be a bit tired. Yes. Is one of the best things about

44:31

the community though, right? And sort of certainly the event and starting a cruising lifestyle as a group is that you do have the support of people to help you when things go you know. Oh absolutely. This is the pile of sail repairs I’m doing. I have one small repair left and then everybody’s ready to roll to the next location. Oh that’s awesome. Very awesome. So we’ve got a party this afternoon. Yes.

44:59

We’ll have volleyball, soccer, tug-of-war. We do a fundraiser for a food lunch program in Punahmida where we sell hot dogs. Proficate brings all these hot dogs in and that way not everyone has to bring food in. They donate, some people pay up to $100 for a hot dog to donate to this food lunch, this lunch food program in Punahmida to the underprivileged children over there. And that’s always kind of fun. We have a…

45:28

Congo line, all sorts of fun things that we do over there. That sounds awesome. Yeah, Danya leads the Congo line every year. Can’t get her to stop.

45:39

And how is the crew doing this morning? You guys all good? Everybody’s good. Yeah, everybody’s getting along. It’s a great group. Fantastic group. That’s awesome. I mean, it just looks like you guys have had really great conditions so far. Oh, it’s been ideal. Yeah. What’s the wind forecast for heading off tomorrow? It looks like just a little bit lighter today, but still really, really good sailing for tomorrow. Tomorrow night, you know, 2 to 4 a.m. could be a little bit light.

46:09

and then right back on in the morning and that’ll get us to Bahia Santa Maria. Yeah, how long is the next leg? The next leg is 228 miles. So to get there in time to go through your immigrations that we organize on Propligate, you have to average about four knots. Okay. Which is an easy one. And so we make that announcement in the morning in case some people…

46:35

do their calculation from the previous trip down or want to use less fuel and sail all the way so they could, they have the opportunity to leave tonight. Okay. And some people like to do that, but he has Santa Maria is magical. So the more time you spend there, the better. Yeah. And you guys will leave, you’ll be cruising anyways. Yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to do, we sit back and we run the start, let everybody get out of the Bay and then we put the spinnaker up, try to pass everybody through the fleet, take photos and have a good time.

47:05

It sounds like a good time, certainly not a bad time. And I’m hoping that we get better fishing that the size of the tuna. These people caught on the way down is significantly larger than we normally get on this event. And the ironic part is, is that we didn’t get any. So I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, but hopefully we get some tomorrow. How many boats caught fish on the first leg? God, when we did roll call, I bet there was 20, 25 boats that talked about it. And I’m sure there was more.

47:35

Some people will eat the bonito, but most people don’t like that. But there was probably six or eight boats that caught just absolutely huge tuna, like over 50 pound tunas. Some of them approaching a hundred pounds. Wow. That’s incredible. Yeah. So I have a question. Um, how long does it take to do roll call with all the boats? The whole roll call is about 40 minutes. Uh, and then we have questions, answers, uh,

48:04

people with trouble. So like someone will call in, we’ll say, Hey, anybody have anything that prevents them going on the next leg? And somebody say, Hey, you know, I can’t get my engine started. And I’ve tried this and that. So we send them off to another channel with somebody else in the fleet that might have an idea of what’s going on. Somebody had instrument issues. And so there was another group that was a little more adept at like Ray Marine. And so they went off onto another channel. So we kind of bend these guys off onto other channels.

48:30

and they get their issues taken care of. And I would say that 99% of the issues get taken care of. So that’s awesome. Yeah. Awesome. It’s a very supportive community. Everyone’s got each other’s back. Yeah, I mean, people last night were really good help. Looking for people, helping come up with ideas on how to get them. And then it all worked out really well. Once I got the fuel and once they ran the, got the air out of the system, I guess everything’s good.

49:00

So I trust now that they’re safely anchored and probably resting. Yeah, so when that second group went out with them after their second drag out, they put a couple of people on board and went in and anchored with them just to make sure that they were adept at anchoring correctly. Yeah. Well, I’m sure it was a little harrowing to get into the bay and then to wake up having drug out of the bay. Yeah, I imagine there’d be…

49:27

family issues if you have your only son with you and and and the mothers at home so back to that rescue we contacted the authorities we kind of the coast guard of the mexican navy they set off an inreach which did exactly the same thing we called his wife and then just kept her informed of everything as it was going on just so that she wouldn’t freak out he was there was never a chance that anybody was actually in danger it was just

49:55

fatigue and that they were going to be delayed and make sure that nobody thought anything else. So we stood by and called her and once their anchor was down, we called her this morning and everything was good. Well, that’s great. I’m sure that made her feel a lot better. Yes. Slightly disconcerting to be without fuel and having. I mean, I don’t know their marital relations. Maybe she was disappointed, but she sounded relieved.

50:24

Yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure. Well, I’m glad to hear everything, you know, went smooth and all the boats got safely into the anchorage and and you guys are all planning for a little fun before you head off. And that’s it! Thank you so much for tuning in to the latest episode and a very special episode live from the 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha. If you want to check out any of the video footage or these live streams referenced in this episode,

50:53

you can check out the video on YouTube @Latitude38Magazine or on the Latitude 38 Magazine Facebook page. If you like this podcast, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to Good Jibes with Latitude 38 on your favorite podcast platform. And to get the latest issue, go to Latitude38.com or Follow Latitude38 on social media. Until next time, Happy Sailing!