Episode #176: 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha: LIVE Aboard ‘Profligate’ in Bahia Santa Maria

Tune in as Chuck Skewes of Ullman Sails and the crew of Profligate share more stories, LIVE from the 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally. Good Jibes host Nicki Bennett brings us this episode including livestreams from November 9 & 11, 2024. 

Hear all about the amazing beach parties that make the Baja Ha-Ha so special, a thrilling water drop-off complete with cliff divers, how immigration clearance works on the Baja Ha-Ha, the tradition of the Kids Olympics, and the endless golden sand beaches in Bahia Santa Maria.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll hear in this episode: 

• What kinds of whales are in Bahia Santa Maria?
• How many families with young kids do this leg of the Baja Ha-Ha?
• The infamous beach party backstory
• The logistics of water drop-offs
• What are the benefits of sailing in a fleet?

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 Bahia Santa Maria
  • [0:21] Welcome to Good Jibes with Latitude 38
  • [1:21] Get swept into the sounds of the 30th Annual Baja Ha-Ha with Nicki Bennett & Chuck Skewes!
  • November 9, 2024
  • [1:31] The view
  • [3:26] Did any boats stay behind?
  • [4:52] Where are they in the fleet? And why is fishing so hard today?
  • [5:57] What kinds of whales did the crew see this morning?
  • [7:30] Is roll call during the start or before they leave the bay?
  • [9:55] How many families with young kids do you guys have? How many boats this year?
  • [12:15] What’s the wind forecast?
  • [12:45] 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 
  • Baja Ha-Ha & Immigration
  • [13:38] Will there be a 31st Baja Ha-Ha? 
  • [16:31] What time do they start immigration tomorrow? What happens if people don’t make it in time?
  • [18:19] How long will they be in Bahia Santa Maria before heading to Cabo?
  • [19:18] The mechanics of water drop-offs
  • [21:39] Is she going to swim over to bring the water??
  • [23:30] Who’s turning 50 today? Happy [Belated] Birthday, Yulia!
  • [27:59] Do you have any other boats in the fleet visible on the horizon?
  • [29:48] How many boats are taking off vs. bashing back?
  • [31:00] To find a copy of Latitude 38 near you, go to Latitude38.com
  • November 11, 2024
  • [31:42] Updates from the morning
  • [32:10] What kind of fish were folks catching?
  • [34:01] How was the sail down?
  • [38:26] Are they eating like kings?
  • [40:18] How is the crew getting along?
  • [43:04] What is Chuck going to do after the Baja Ha-Ha?
  • [44:50] Parting thoughts for the audience
  • [47:02] The infamous beach party backstory
  • [49:14] If you want to watch video footage referenced in this episode, check out the Latitude 38 Youtube channel and Facebook page
  • [49:38] 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.

Transcript:

Please note: transcript not 100% accurate.

00:02

I mean, there isn’t many places on the earth you can go where you can’t see civilization. It is one of them.

00:22

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 Cruiser’s Rally. You will hear host Nicki Bennett talk with Chuck Skewes of Ullman Sails live aboard Profligate aka The Mothership. This episode includes livestreams from November 9th and November 11th, 2024, where you’ll hear stories from the amazing beach party and the beautiful Bahia Santa Maria.

01:19

Now, let Nicki and Chuck take you away with the sounds of the 30th annual Baja Ha-Ha.

01:31

All right, Latitude Nation, we are live. Today is Saturday, November 9th. We are jumping aboard Profligate with Chuck’s views from Omen Sails and the rest of the crew. They left Turtle Bay this morning at 9 a.m. and they’re, doesn’t look like doing a lot of sailing. We’ve got some flat comsies. Thanks for joining us, Chuck. Tell us what it’s been like since we saw you yesterday.

01:59

I was great. We had a amazing beach party last night down on that little that little beach just south of the town. I think everybody was there. I don’t think there was anybody that wasn’t there. Great food, music, the locals had bars set up and we had the annual tug-of-war competition for the 17th straight year. The women won the tug-of-war competition. Yeah, no, it was a great time. No injuries that I can that I know of and it all went really well.

02:30

Awesome. It looked fun. I got some videos. Received a couple videos last night. Looked like a good time. What you said yesterday is you wait for everyone to leave and kind of follow the boats out. Correct. But you said a couple stayed behind. Yeah. So one thing that you see that happens on the HaHa is when people realize something’s too much for them, we don’t figure out ways to deal with it. So that boat that drifted, the guy was fatigued.

02:58

Another boat had extra crews, so they’ve sent two crew over to sail with that guy and help him work through the problems on the boat and just make life a little easier on him. So they’re at least going to go through Bahia Santa Maria with them. Okay, great. And they stayed back to work on a couple electrical issues, one of them being the head. Okay. Which is kind of critical, especially now that there’s four of them on the boat. Yeah. Very critical. Yeah. And any other boats stay behind?

03:28

Yeah, I think one other boat turned around shortly after the start to go back and work on some other issue. There is machine shops and auto parts stuff in Turtle Bay. There’s not a lot. There’s no banks, pretty small fishing village, but they do have resources because since it’s a fishing village, they can fix things on boats and that type of thing is kind of helpful. Yeah, definitely.

03:53

One of the boats left this morning and realized they had some issue in their water tank strain. So now we’re on our way to chase them down and drop off water with them. And they’re right now about half a mile ahead of us. OK, great. This is the Pacific Ocean right now, and it’s it’s

04:23

It’s about as Pacific as an ocean can be. It’s pretty darn glassy this morning. So we do a thing called a rolling start where we don’t want people to just sit out here and drift like you would if you were a racer. So we have everybody motor towards the destination and then we make an announcement on the radio when the actual sailing part of the event starts. That way if the wind doesn’t pick up, you still get there or you at least close distance to the destination before we start sailing. Yeah, totally.

04:52

So where are you guys at in the fleet right now? I haven’t looked at the tracker today. We obviously we waited behind everybody and left and now we’re almost caught up to all the people who left early because we’re motoring a little faster just to catch up and give these guys water. And we thought maybe a different speed would give us better luck fishing being that it appears we’re the only ones not catching fish. We haven’t, we’ve only got Bonita. We haven’t caught anything else. It’s.

05:20

Well, maybe today’s the day. We’ve been going through fish boils. We’ve had dolphins. We’ve had whales. We’ve had everything this morning except for a tuna.

05:30

Well, maybe, maybe it’s your luck is about to change. Yeah, I hope so. And right here, right where we’re passing right here is San Anasio Lagoon, which is where the Pacific gray whales go in to give birth and mate. So there’s just a tremendous amount of gray whales that, that come down here. And they come down here about this time of year, they just start showing up. And then they hang out till about April and head back north. Okay.

05:57

So you said you’d seen whales this morning. Was it gray whales? Yeah, gray whales, yeah. Right next to us, actually. Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah. I was hoping that during our live that it wouldn’t show up. I keep looking around. That’s why the background’s spinning on you. So how is the crew this morning? Everybody’s great. Everybody’s in a good mood. We had a lot of good laughs last night, had a guest over for dinner.

06:26

Somebody gave us tuna, they felt sorry for our fishing abilities and gave us tuna. So now we’re having a poke today. Oh, that’s yummy. Yeah. Yes. It’s, uh, but everything’s going really smooth as far as most people on the rally getting along really well and having a great time. There’s a, you know, a few first timers that were just could not believe how nice the beach party was yesterday and how beautiful it was.

06:52

And I can’t imagine what their reaction is going to be at our next stop, because the next stop is the total place that’s like surreal. Well, that’s exciting. So how long do you think it’s going to take you guys to get down there? Obviously, it depends on the wind. Yeah, usually, usually it takes us about 40 hours somewhere in that neighborhood. Not quite two days being that we’re motoring pretty fast here in this smooth water, catching up to this guy to give him water.

07:20

that’ll take a huge chunk out of it. And hopefully we get that thermal sea breeze starting here pretty soon, and then we’ll sail into the night.

07:30

Well, that sounds good. So do you guys do the roll call during the start, or did you do it before you left the bay this morning? Yeah, just before we leave the bay. We start the roll call an hour beforehand, and not one boat came on with problems that wouldn’t allow them to go to the next destination, which is almost a first. Usually there’s somebody that’s going to stay behind. It ends up two boats end up going back and staying behind, but very few mechanical problems out of a fleet of this size. And so we did the roll call at 8 AM.

08:00

And then did the start at nine, which was a rolling start because there wasn’t quite enough wind to sail. Some boats sailed anyway, because why not? Then the wind died completely and here we are. Great. So you’re back to your watch schedule. Yes, we are. Yeah. Everyone’s still getting along well. No one’s jump ship. No one has even attempted to jump ship. It’s, it’s pretty nice. Yeah. We, uh,

08:27

Everything’s gone amazingly smooth. It’s been, it’s been a really enjoyable trip. Yeah. It’s a pretty nice boat. It’s very comfortable and well equipped. Yeah. And if you, if you’re not getting along, we have separation quarters. You can go off onto your little private corner of the boat and be left alone. Anecdotally, I had a friend do the haha a few years ago and she, um, she jumped in turtle Bay and then she jumped in Bahia Santa Maria. And then she.

08:56

took another boat from Cabo to La Paz. So she ended up on four boats. Oh, wow. Which was, you know, she had a really interesting experience. So it was pretty, it was pretty cool. I met one of my best friends on Ahaha. I think it was around 2015. They, him and his, this gal jumped ship in Turtle Bay. They were gonna take a bus home. And we said, hey, why don’t you come on with us? And we were already semi-crowded, limited on food, but they hopped on and.

09:25

We’ve been great friends ever since. So it’s amazing. I’d never met them before we got to Turtle Bay. Oh, that’s amazing. I mean, I think that that is really one of the benefits of doing the haw haw, right? Is that you get people and make lifelong friends, whether that’s for sailing or for other things. And certainly when people are starting their cruising life. Yeah, and to just…

09:50

experience how beautiful Baja is with other people is absolutely amazing. How many families with young kids do you guys have? How many boats this year? I don’t have the exact number and I’ll try to get that for you for tomorrow, but I think it’s about 12 boats. There is so many kids this year and one of the boats has four kids on board and a couple with two. They have their own little radio net. They kind of…

10:17

They call each other on the radio and they get they switch channels and all talk about stuff at the beach party. They organized a toy swap between some boats. So kids had new toys. They were somebody else’s old toys and they gave up their old toys and every all the kids were excited this morning about using their new toys. Oh, that’s exciting. Yeah, I definitely I know that’s one of the really cool things about the kids that do it. The families that start their, you know, cruising adventures, you know, and sort of create this.

10:46

connections with other families and kids. But I noticed personally just at the events that we hold the crew party and the kickoff party that there was significantly more seems like more families this year. Yes absolutely and I have a feeling Starlink has something to do with that. It’s way easier to educate your children now. Totally. They can actually attend Zoom classes of all things you know. Interesting. That is interesting kids going to school and sailing

11:16

I have a pretty good life, I think. Yeah, I think these kids all have a good life. But they’re all really well-behaved. They all seem to be realizing that they have a good thing going. It’s really amazing how great the kids are and how much fun they’re having. Yeah. I mean, I think that there are few lifestyles that compare to cruising as far as kids and the way they grow up and the relationship to nature and the world around them. It’s really unique. Yeah. Certainly the community aspect as well.

11:46

Like, you know, I still feel like I’m 12 years old doing this. So, I mean, that’s the secret to staying young is never growing up. Right. That’s right. And sailing on the ha ha apparently. Yeah. Sailing on the ha ha. I look forward to it every year and it never disappoints. I mean, this is, uh, even though we’re motoring today, I mean, the scenery, I don’t know if the camera will pick it up as it’s far enough away is just, just beautiful, beautiful Baja peninsula. And the temperature is.

12:15

you know, mid 70s, I’m guessing. And just, I mean, we’re not catching fish, but you know, with whales and dolphins around, it just really doesn’t matter. Yeah. It looks like a beautiful day. You guys are. Hopefully you’ll get a little wind so you can get a nice sail. Yeah. Get some. What does the wind forecast look like? It was supposed to blow 12 to 15 later this afternoon, later this evening. And so that would be ideal. You know, nothing too hard, but just enough to keep you going hull speed.

12:45

Yeah, definitely. Latitude 38 here. 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.

13:13

Of course, there’s tons of resources out there, but Latitude38 does have a page in our website called Heading South. And we also have Latitude38’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 Latitude38.com is a good place to start.

13:38

So I’ve got a burning question. This might be one that you have to circle back on. Obviously the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk of the haha not continuing. I know some of that has to do with immigration, but a number of people in the comments have stated that they’ve always wanted to do it and they hope it continues. Do you think we’re gonna get to 31? I think the odds are very high of being 31. Whether it’s Richard or not, we’ll.

14:06

talk about it, but he has not said he’s not doing it. And he kind of talks about, if we do it again next year, this is what’s going to happen. And I’ll give it a strong 50-50 right now. OK, strong 50-50. I feel like it’s stronger than 50-50, but we’ll see. It probably is, but I don’t want Richard. We got to go through immigrations tomorrow, tomorrow night. And that’s often a make or break. Last year, it was the easiest immigrations the HaHa’s ever had.

14:35

So what we thought was going to be a complete bluster turned out to just be super easy, went super smooth. We actually enjoyed doing it here on Propagate. The crew lined up in the back, took the passports, got them through immigration, handed them right back, and it was just seamless. And if that can happen, it’s almost another surreal situation because for the viewers that don’t know, Bahia Santa Maria, when you’re in Bahia Santa Maria, there is no civilization.

15:05

even that close. You can’t see civilization, you don’t see any sign of man anywhere. It’s this amazingly beautiful bay and this boat comes in from San Carlos, which is in Mag Bay, so they travel up the coast just a little way out of this bay and they bring an immigration officer over and he sits in the back of our boat and processes all the stuff and then he has to spend the night because it gets late. He spends the night in this little cement block hut up on the bluff.

15:33

And then that next night we have a band drives out from La Paz. They have to drive on low tide beach and it takes them like 16 to 18 hours to get to this location. They bring a portable generator. They play rock and roll music. So we’re in this bay, just stunningly beautiful bay with beautiful sand beaches and a big deserty rock bluff on one side, mangroves on the other. And then you’re dancing to rock and roll music and the fishermen cook up a

16:02

a fish meal that you can, you know, they do it for a little bit of money and they serve beer and it’s just, it’s surreal. It’s, it’s amazing situation. Sounds very incredible to have that experience in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of your best friends. Yes, exactly. Sounds fun. I mean, there isn’t many places on the earth you can go where you can’t see civilization and it’s one of them. That’s pretty awesome.

16:31

It’s great that that is, I mean, the immigration stuff. It’s great that it’s still a stop on the ha ha. What time will you guys start immigration tomorrow? I think 5 p.m. tomorrow night. I think is what our goal is. That’s great. It seems like that was a really great pivot to a problem. Yeah. Yeah, so it’s a good one. I know that you have to average about four knots from Turtle Bay to get to Bahia Santa Maria in time for our immigrations. That’s why a lot of people

17:01

are left early this morning. Awesome. And what happens if people don’t make it in time? So there’s a secondary plan where, but they have to go into mag bay, which is it about a six hour trip from Bahia, Santa Maria into mag bay. And that’s where the office is that the guy comes from. Okay. And so they’ll go in there and get it all taken care of. Yeah. Because they’re already all registered through there and it’ll be fairly simple. It just be one more stop for them. So they’ll

17:30

they’ll have to leave Bahia Santa Maria early. Awesome. I mean, not awesome, because it sounds like a place that you really don’t want to leave early. No, better fact, there have been years when I was on other boats of the Ha-Ha. I’m like, maybe we’ll skip Turtle Bay and just meet up with the fleet in Bahia Santa Maria. Just go spend a little extra time there. Exactly. But then you’d miss the beach party and the peaceful day. Oh, I know. I know. So you have to be there for that. It’s just got incredible beach combing. It’s got a it’s.

17:59

The water actually gets warm there so you can swim and, and there’s a surf there. It’s a good hiking. That’s great. So how long total you got about 40 hours ish to get down there. And then how long will you be in Bahia Santa Maria before you head South to Cabo? We’re about two and three quarter days, basically.

18:22

And then the last, the last, when we leave Bahia, Santa Maria, we leave at basically daybreak, like 7 a.m. our time, which is 6 a.m. your time. That way it gets everybody into Cabo in time for our little squid row bash, where we take people twice the age or three times the age of most of people in squid row, but we go early. So you do squid row as a blue hair special. Exactly. Yeah, it’s like it’s just…

18:51

It’s really fun. There’s been this one DJ guy that retired like four years ago, but he comes and DJs the party just to Because he loves a bah ha ha crowd. That’s awesome That is awesome well, uh Why don’t I’d love to just see your surroundings one more time and okay You got anything else to share with our audience today?

19:18

Well, this is the boat we’re dropping water off on right here. So we’re going to trail a line behind with a water bottle. They’ll scoop it out of there and they’ll have their water. That’s the thing. So here’s our front net where people spend most of the day reading and sunbathing. This is the chef, the secondary chef, Chris. Hi, Chris. Do you know the others? Do you know another chef? Okay. I see the boat. Yeah.

19:47

We have Jim here coming up with the water that we’re going to drop off to this. But it looks like you guys will be live while we do this. Okay, fun. Yeah, yeah, when he dives off the daggerboard with a bottle of water.

20:06

Yeah, good. Yeah. So Richard just Richard just announced the fleet that we’re live streaming the water drop off. We are. So this is Ebenezer three. We don’t know what happened with their water. I don’t know whether it was just an oversight or if they actually had leak in their tanks. Okay. The next stop, there’s no supplies. You know, like I said, it’s about as desolate as you can get so they’re all sudden concerned. And so we said we’d bring them water.

20:36

That’s nice. One of the many benefits of traveling with a fleet of boats. 100%. I mean all these things can happen to you when you travel by yourself but being with a fleet of boats it’s awesome. All right we’re getting an inside look at a water drop off.

21:02

You guys say hello to latitude 38 we’re live with latitude 38

21:09

They just stopped off at the Pacific Ocean water drop off spot. The Pacific Ocean water drop off. This is the water drop off spot in case you guys didn’t know. Oh, this is hilarious. I don’t exactly know exactly what the plan is. I was going to oversee it, but the time just came. It’s time for me to.

21:39

Is she going to swim over? No. Oh, really? Oh my gosh. Someone wanted to go swimming. I don’t know that the water’s warm enough for me to go swimming. Oh my gosh. I’m getting out of the way of this. Get up on top. So you guys have a better view of this. We’ve got some action happening here on the five feet. Not sure this is OSHA approved.

22:07

Get up on the cabin talking to step here. Why don’t we? OK, why don’t we drop the water in? We boat her forward. They use a boat hook and then once they have the line, we give them the line. They give us all back at Pia Santa Maria.

22:24

doing this. We got some problem solving happening out here. I had the more conservative trip there. There’s a different plan in place. This is Mitch, a veteran of latitude 38 that is doing this. I don’t know. Quite sure how this might be the last you see of Mitch. I hope not.

22:54

There’s a t-shirt there for you. Oh, there he goes. Wow!

23:01

He didn’t come up gasping. That’s good. Don, turn the engines off. Turn the starboard engine off. So now I’m going over here? Yes. Starboard engine off. What are you doing? Lower that. I’ll wait till they can film you. I’m going to phone you to Obama. Down, down, down, down, down. You know what I’m doing? No, stop. We don’t do this for just everybody, by the way. Yeah. Today we are. Today you are. You come into the rescue. You’re taking us along.

23:30

It’s whose 50th birthday? Yeah, okay. Happy birthday. Thank you. Oh, it’s her 50th birthday. Very cool. Happy birthday. What’s her name? What’s it? What’s your name? Yulia. Happy birthday, Yulia. From Ebenezer. 50th birthday. She’s not only getting water, she’s getting a show very similar to the Clip Divers of Acapulco.

24:03

What a special show for her. That’s amazing. Yeah. What’s the water temperature. Yeah. That before you jumped in. Now the negotiations start.

24:32

No, they give us to us to be here Santa Maria. You’re all done, Mitch. I don’t think we’re going to get Mitch out of the water. I think he likes it. I’m going to go forward a little bit. He’s having a hard time. He hasn’t even tried yet. He has a lot of friends. Thank you so much. Have a safe trip.

24:56

I’m a puppet ahead. Through the ghosts of Baja.

25:01

If you’re just jumping on, we’ve got propagate delivering water to Ebenezer. They had a critical water issue. Yeah, we’re about 20 miles south of Turtle Bay is my guess. Okay. You, Vicki could probably look it up and give me more accurate. Yeah, I could look up the tracker, but I don’t know that I’m going to be able to.

25:29

We have to get them over to the port side of the boat. We’re running the starboard engine. We don’t really want to, no, we don’t want to make this a dramatic situation. No, not at all. For anyone who wants to track the fleet as well, if you go to the Baja Ha Ha website, the tracking link is right on the homepage. It’s very easy to find. Yeah. And I think it’s a predict wind tracking site and it’s about half the boats are on it or 30 boats or something. I can’t remember.

25:59

I’m out.

26:04

Yeah. Well, it’s a good sign for what the water temperature will be and when we get to Bahia Santa Maria, if he can be in the water here. Yeah, absolutely.

26:16

Kevin easier to get out of the way please. You want to live. They’re doing that. They’re back. Okay. We’re getting video of this swimming action. We’re going live. It’ll be on. Got it alive. It’s on Facebook. You want to live Mitch or no? No. There’s the pooh bah under in command center. All right Mitch you did it.

26:44

No, I know. Right? He earned it. He did. He earned it. Oh, he said the water is cold.

26:56

That might be an excuse for what we’re about to see, but. Let’s all give Mitch a hand.

27:14

We’re gonna lift him or like… Ha ha ha! We’ll get him before we lost him. Ha ha ha! We’ll just get him on board and… There’s a gap!

27:28

Get the gap. There we go. He’s aboard. Bravo. All right. Well, nice work, you guys. That’s the biggest action of the day. You got the most exciting thing of the day for it. We had just thrown a whale in there and maybe. Exactly. I’m still. It would have just sent it over the edge. I’m still looking for the whale. It’s.

27:54

Can’t get it. We do have a sea line right here. It’s following Ebenezer now. That’s how calm it is. You can spot these guys a mile away right now. That’s amazing. Do you have any other boats in the fleet visible on the horizon? Yeah, we have, let me go over to the starboard here. Most of the fleet is back here and you probably can’t see them because they’re even small for me. There’s probably 15 or 20 boats there.

28:21

We have two boats outside us here. One’s only about a quarter mile away. The other one’s a mile. And then we have two that are about two miles right here. And then Ebenezer, obviously. And then there’s somebody sneaking up the shore here. One of the non-comprende division, the power boats over here. Oh. Yeah. How many no comprende division? That’s hilarious. Yeah. How many power boats are doing the ha-

28:48

I think there’s five. It’s like we’re the biggest amount of power boats. See that power boat right there is part of our group too. They’ve stopped several times catching fish right in front of us just to kind of flaunt that they’re catching fish. But yeah, they they went out on the radio this morning. They go, it’s absolutely perfect. Sorry for all you guys, but this is perfect for us because it’s so calm out here. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, I’m sure. That’s interesting though. Yeah, I saw them leaving, you know.

29:18

San Diego and it seemed like there was a big fleet. So I’m sure it’s exact number. Yeah, we got some of the biggest boats and got more power boats this year and definitely probably the most amount of families I think that we’ve ever had. That’s awesome. Well, it’s good. We just love people, see people doing it. Do you know, have any idea how many boats are taking off to start cruising and how many are bashing back? I don’t know right now, but generally it’s

29:48

There’s only about maybe 10% of the boats bash back right away. And then another, you know, 30% stay down for a month or two, then bash back. And then the rest generally stay down for at least a year. And then about 20 to 25% of them take off and do the South Pacific, do the puddle jump and, and, uh, go through some French Polynesia and on. Awesome.

30:13

Awesome. Well, we will be excited to, you know, read in changes and Latitude 38 where everyone heads off to. And I appreciate you bringing us on today on this exciting, uh, sort of unexpected adventure. Anything else to share today? I don’t think so. I think we’ve got it fairly well covered. I just double checking that I’m not seeing a whale on the horizon for you guys, but that would be nice. I see a big shiny thing, but I don’t can’t tell if that’s a whale.

30:44

No, no whales. So I guess we’ll hope for a whale tomorrow. We’ll hope for a whale tomorrow. We’ll hope you catch a fish between now and then. That’s right. Hopefully we have some some good news on the roll call tomorrow morning. 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.

31:13

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 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.

31:42

Today we had roll call this morning and there was about 30 boats that weren’t in the bay and I think almost all of them are in the bay now. We had about 50% sailing but the sailing was extremely good and once again the fish that these people are catching are just massive fish. As opposed to any other year these fish are at least twice the size, if not four times the size of previous ha ha fish catches.

32:10

We thought people were exaggerating, but they’re sending photos over. Some people are actually weighing the fish and they’re anywhere from 40 to 110 pounds. So, yeah, we’re we unfortunately all we got was a bunch of straight hooks and broken lures. So we didn’t get any. We once again didn’t board a single fish. What kind of fish? They’re yellowfin tuna has been the most most common caught fish.

32:37

Few people keep the Bonita, you know, and good for them, but it’s, it’s just not that great a eating. So we don’t keep those. We caught those, but we, uh, we didn’t catch any tuna yet. All right. One boat actually landed a Marlin and released it. Okay. So that’s, that’s impressive because usually these people are on handlines. So I don’t know what they had for, they must’ve had a pole because I can’t imagine bringing a Marlin in on a handline. Well, so you got some boats in the fleet that are eating well is what you’re saying.

33:05

Oh my gosh, yeah. Everyone’s handing over more fish. Like we just, uh, right here in the dinghy next to us, as you can see, this is Patsy Barahulon. Patsy, Nikki’s saying hi. We’re live on latitude. So she’s saying hi. Good to see you. Good to see you too. It’s all going well. We missed you. Yeah, I missed you guys too.

33:31

So right now we have what we call the ship store open. Okay. And so we’re selling all the t-shirts and hats and burgies and sunshirts and the like. It usually runs for about an hour every day. We didn’t do the second day in Turtle Bay because of that rescue operation. It put us too far out to boats to be able to get to us easy. So we waited till we came to Bahia Santa Maria.

34:01

postcard perfect conditions here today. Yeah. So how was the sail down? Let’s just do a little catch up since we did think, we did miss yesterday. I was unable to be on internet yesterday morning. So thanks for letting me camp. Absolutely. Yeah. So we took off at a rolling start because there wasn’t very much wind and about three hours, four hours in the wind came up and it came up a really nice. And it was

34:29

We were sailing, we sailed well into the night, probably with 12, maybe 18 knots at the peak, wind, just ideal, smooth water sailing. Everyone was having a great time. And then it died in the middle of the night. And I think it died for us around 2.30 a.m. And we motored for a while. And then we had made such good track sailing that we were almost at Bahia Santa Maria. So when we got here…

34:58

We put the spinnaker up basically at what the finish line is. And then the ha ha, we have the finish line several miles out from the Bay so that people aren’t racing to come into the Bay. It caused chaos. You got, you have five or six miles from the finish line until you get into the anchor spot. And we set the spinnaker then with Kalea, the other big catamaran, and we both sailed side by side and we got some great drone footage of both the boats sailing with spinnakers up just.

35:27

easy, easy sailing, beautiful conditions. That’s awesome. So coming down, did anyone have any issues in the fleet? So the boat that had the big issues the other day, if you remember, there was a boat that got stuck outside. We rescued them and then they drifted out one more time. Then they had some electrical issues. So they’ve actually returned to Turtle Bay and are going to go back to San Diego. Then there was a couple boats that had charging issues, small issues like that.

35:56

On the net, the first thing we start with on the net is medical emergencies or mechanical issues. And somebody needed an Albuterol inhaler and another boat had that. And then another boat needed help with their Rain Man Water Maker. Another boat had the information they needed. And then one more boat had a issue with their instruments and a guy with, I think it was their depth sounder.

36:22

And another boat had exactly the part they needed. So we were 100% problem solved this morning. It was really nice. That’s awesome. And now have you done immigration yet or is that happening? No, that happens tonight. That happens at five o’clock in five o’clock Mexican time tonight, which it means hopefully tonight. OK. Hopefully tonight. Hopefully it’s smooth. Yes. Yeah, it went so smooth last year. I mean, they started later than they were going to, but they got through.

36:52

10 times faster than we thought we were going to. So on the schedule today is the ship store we do. It’s a free day for people to walk around on the beach and do whatever they want. There’s these mountains behind us. Yeah. Let’s see where my hand is. You can hike up to the top of these mountains and out to this point. And then over here is the mangroves. Oh wow. And you can take a jingy inside just where you see those breaking waves. You go inside.

37:20

And some years there’s almost several miles of mangroves you can dingy through. Some years it’s not as much because it changes year to year, depending on how much rain they get. And then if you… I’m going to follow you around the bay here. This, from this point all the way as far as you can see is golden sand beaches. Oh, wow. You can see them beyond your sight down there. It’s…

37:49

pretty much unlimited with the shell hunting, the amount of sand dollars and shells and stuff for people who like to collect that sort of thing. It’s unlimited down that beach. And it blows just enough that the sand is always just, there’s no footprints in the sand. You feel like you’re the first person that was ever there. Now that’s amazing. Yeah, and the water this morning was between 70 and 73. So not particularly warm, but warm enough that…

38:16

I think our whole crew is going to do a in the water shower and rinse off. And so we all smell good tonight. Very nice.

38:26

very, very nice. So are you guys still eating like kings? Ah, totally. And tonight we have what we call, we call it the Kids Olympics at three o’clock today where all the young kids, so it was, it’s 12 boats with families and kids from the age of I think three up to about 12 or 13. And they come over and we have a diving competition and we give them candy for prizes and it’s, it’s really fun. Richard does a great job emceeing it and encouraging kids to.

38:56

do creative jumps into the water off the back end of Proficate. Oh, that’s awesome. That’s really fun. So you guys have that going on today. When do you officially take off? Do you have one more day? Yeah, one more day. Tomorrow is the infamous beach party. Great. So this is the civilization. Remember I said there’s really no civilization here. Those little structures are the civilization here but here’s Santa Maria. Okay.

39:23

there was somebody talking on the radio this morning, hey, we need to go to the grocery store. And we’re like, well, that’s about 25 miles and through some channels to get there. Yeah. Even though you explain this over and over, people have a hard time in this day and age going to a place that’s this remote. Yeah. And then so the band shows up there and we have that party tomorrow between noon and about 4 p.m. And then everybody comes back and we take off early. It’s like a 7 a.m. start tomorrow because it’s about

39:52

24 hours for us and it’s a little bit slower for the slow boats, obviously. And we want to get everybody in, in daylight and in time to go to Squid Row. Thank God we made it party. Yeah. Cheated death again, I think is what Richard calls it. Cheated death again. I like that. Awesome. So how’s the crew hanging in there? How’s your crew getting along?

40:21

It’s been a really good trip. I think we only heard of one boat that’s having crew issues and they took on somebody either in Turtle Bay or just before the start. They weren’t getting along and that’s about the only, they ended up going off to Cabo to kind of, you know, they said, okay, we got to get this person off the boat that’s not getting along with everybody. And then, but that’s it. Out of a hundred some boats, that’s it.

40:49

And everybody else appears to be having a great time. It’s really good to hear. I mean, that’s the goal, right? Absolutely. Life’s too short. If you’re not having a good time doing this, then you should go to Middle America and check out corn mazes or something.

41:08

Oh, I don’t know if I’ve ever been to middle America and checked out a cord maze. I’ll add that to my bucket list. I just have a visualization in my mind when it’s like, maybe there’s wonderful things to do in middle America, but my whole life is at sea level and doing this. Well, it seems like you picked a pretty good path, if you ask me. Yeah. Well, I am jealous of your weather. Currently, we’ve got a rainstorm here. It’s rainstorm day here.

41:36

Yeah, I mean, we we got a couple of wispy clouds on the edge and that’s the most we’ve seen. You know, we don’t it’s been the weather has been spectacular strip. It’s probably the smoothest haha on record as far as, you know, swell. There’s not been many swells, simple passage, very few mechanical issues, very few issues. It’s been really nice. Short of that one boat. It’s been almost flawless. That’s easy. Yes.

42:05

And you’re seeing younger people, I think, this year than most years. And I think that’s due to the Starlink connection. And then we’ll find out how immigration goes tonight, then that’ll increase the odds of another haha, if it goes smooth. OK, so we’ll have a report back on that tomorrow. Yes. And Richard wants to do kind of a crew introduction and we’ll tour the inside of the boat tomorrow and all that. And then and then at that time, we’ll all head in for our beach party and

42:35

And unless I brought one of our starlings, we have a mini and maybe we can bring that in and show live from the beach party. But I’ll talk to you a little bit more about that, because that that is the pinnacle of the entire is this beautiful beach and surrounding areas that you’re really desolate and the great hikes you do today and that tomorrow to have classic rock and roll playing and people dancing and and the fishermen putting on a fish dinner on this bluff overlooking all these anchored boats.

43:04

Had no civilization around. It’s pretty spectacular. Sounds amazing. So Chuck, what are you going to do after this? I’m going to spend a couple of days in Cabo and then I’m going to fly home. I’ve got another trip to Puerto Vallarta I have to do in a couple of weeks. And then, um, there’s a small chance I’ll fly to Amsterdam for a conference, but I think I’m going to have to not do it. I need to spend some time at home. I got it. I can get the house ready for, uh, you know, the San Diego winter, which means it might rain. And so, uh,

43:35

uh little things like that so pretty much uh be business as usual i’ll do trips to the pacific northwest which i do almost uh monthly and then i’ll do uh i got two more trips to porto viarda before the end of the year and then i got a trip to capetown south africa in the early next year very cool yes and where will profligate go profligate lives in porto viarda in la cruz uh which is not porto viada proper but it’s in banderas bay

44:05

It lives in Puerto Vallarta, so they’ll leave Cabo. It’ll take them two and a half days to get across to La Cruz. And then Richard and Donya will stay in their condo. And the boat will be kind of mothballed until it comes north next year. OK.

44:22

Good life. Yeah, they have a good life. They worked hard for it, but they have a good life. So now you just need to plan your trip next year and see who else in the group is going to come. And I have a feeling if we do this next year, the fleet will be quite large because we don’t know how many more of these will happen. We’ll just live stream. That’s right. From the boat. Yeah, you’ll be able to do all your work from the boat. So there you go.

44:50

That’s awesome. Do you have any parting thoughts for our audience? I just can’t express enough how important this is. If you’re planning on going cruising to Mexico, how important it is to be part of a rally or a group like this. Just how easy it is to solve the problems that come up to the camaraderie, the things you learn.

45:13

It’s really, it’s really simple. I mean, there’s people that have done other ha-has and they still learn stuff or need parts from other boats. Doing this on your own, if you had any sort of issue, it would be just… Small issues become monstrous if you can’t have the facilities to take care of them. But when you have a group of boats with everybody sort of in the same mind, all these things take care of themselves and you just enjoy yourself a lot more. And that’s why you do it. You don’t…

45:42

We don’t go cruising to Mexico for stress and turmoil. We do it because it’s an incredible lifestyle. And so being able to do that and stay relaxed like you are when you plan to leave is, I think, key. Well, the backdrop is just stunning. Yeah, this may be one of my… I mean, you can’t fly here, so I don’t know if I call it my favorite place on Earth because I only come here once a year, but…

46:08

This is one of my favorite places out of every place I’ve been on Earth. It is never disappointed. Last year we actually had a major thunderstorm come through here, which I’ve never seen before or since. But it’s just usually the weather is spectacular. We do a major beach hike. We have a pongo take us down two or three miles down the beach, and we walk back and just kind of shell hunt and look at, you know, there’s all sorts of fish skeletons and all sorts of different things on the beach.

46:37

and then end up at a rock and roll party at the end of their long walk. It sounds perfect. Yes. Like my kind of party. Exactly. And it ends at four o’clock. So, you know, it’s not like you’re up late. Yeah. Even more. Yeah. I mean, there is a funny backstory to here is that I’m guessing is 15 years ago.

47:03

This place is just beach landing only. So when the surf is up, we all generally take pongas in. The fishermen know that we’re here. They kind of take that day off from fishing and they ferry people in. Well, they know exactly how to get in and out of the surf break down here, but the surf during the party escalated and escalated and escalated. And it finally got to a point where they didn’t feel safe coming out. So 40 people had to spend the night on shore.

47:33

not planning to spend the night on shore. They didn’t have jackets. And of course, in the middle of the night, when you’re trying to sleep, even here it gets old. And so the 40 people were tucked away in these little cement block things. I showed you a couple of parked cars from the band and sleeping out in the open. And they had to be there till early in the morning till the swell had died and then came back. So it’s a legendary, legendary experience. You heard me. What was that?

48:00

I think it was 15 years ago. So it was right around 2007, 2008, somewhere around there. That’s hilarious. Well, I hope no one gets stuck on the beach. I don’t think it’s gonna happen this year. This is very calm seas right now and I’d have a hard time believing that in one day it’s gonna pick up to anything big because we haven’t seen any weather issues. So it should just be an ideal situation. But that story is gonna come out tomorrow and people are gonna laugh about it.

48:28

I bet 10 of those people are even on this haha. That’s awesome. One of them was Donya, believe it or not. Oh, she had to spend the night. She had to spend the night. She got to spend the night in the cab of a pickup truck. Oh wow. I mean, that’s a memorable story. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s when you don’t forget. Well, it seems like the whole trip is a memorable story.

48:56

Yeah, this has been a very good trip and you know, it’s more, it’s more common this than it isn’t, but this has been a really easy, really nice trip. I almost hate to see it end other than getting back with my girlfriend in Cabo. So that’s awesome.

49:14

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 livestreams referenced in this episode, 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.

49:42

And to get the latest issue, go to Latitude38.com or follow Latitude 38 on social media. Until next time, Happy Sailing!