Sailing the Sea of Cortez

Cabo San Lucas to Mazatlan

Back in December Cam was talking about sailing across the sea to explore the mainland coast of Mexico. A 36 hour sail in open water, alone. He mentioned, casually. Possibly longer depending on the sea. No where to stop and not a human in sight.
Cam not only makes these things seem possible, he makes them seem like he has done it a million times before. No big deal. I’m sure if you ask him now he will say the same thing. Da nada.
Not until you inquire more deeply do you learn from his stories a continuous and remarkable ability to pass as close as possible to death as you can and still survive. He had already done so at least once during this current trip.
I, of course, I have no such ability. And therefore do little sailing. Nonetheless I was heading down for a visit at that time and hoped to help make his first crossing a little more safe by providing night watch. My sailing skill would only have made things worse so I stayed away from the tiller.
This is how I found myself late into the night staring at the blackness wondering if the light dead ahead was a large star or a boat we were about to sail into.
“Should I wake him?” I wondered. He had just got to sleep and was snoring in the cabin. I went back to reading my book. Either it would get closer and I’d know for sure or it wouldn’t and there was nothing to worry about.

Cam is especially fond of his boat- Dream Chaser. Its a 32 foot Trimaran, F something or other. A pretty boat in my opinion- white, slick and streamlined. People always walk up to us in the marina and ask about it. Ooo, I bet its fast, they all say. To which the reply is- yes, yes it is. In fact, under the right conditions, the boat can sail faster than wind speed. Which, because I’m not a sailor or physicist boggles my mind. How is that possible?
The wind pushes the boat, not the other way around, I keep thinking to myself. Its made of fiberglass and is very light in comparison to other boats. The relationship between the weight of the boat and the size of the sails is what makes the speed possible, under the right conditions.
Unfortunately for us we had been under motor for nearly twenty hours because we had chosen a night of dead calm to cross the sea. This was not intentional. The “forecast” had been for light winds in the right direction (from the north). Sadly, we had no wind to speak of. I kept thinking of my friends at home all wishing us safety had gone a little overboard.
Someone later had joked to us at the marina that all you needed to sail the boat was to blow on the sails. I have to report that is not true. You don’t need a lot of wind but you still need some.
Earlier in the day when the wind went dead, the stillness of the water was both exquisite and eerie. The sea is a dark green blue by day and in the stillness reflects absolute calm. There is nothing else to reflect. No birds, no trees, no tall buildings or hillside- just itself and the sky. I enjoyed breathing in the fresh smell of the water. The air clean and clear.
I knew that the sea was full of life. In the distance we could see large whales spouting water into the air. We had an accompaniment of dolphins following us for a short while who returned to fishing in another direction.
Beneath us must have been sea life of great and strange variety but where the water meets the sky little seemed to be happening.
Cam started the engine after getting the sails where he wanted them. Never a man to waste time. We had a place to be and we weren’t getting there at this rate. He set the motor for five knots which would get us to Mazatlan 36 hours after our departure from Cabo.
We were both very happy to leave Cabo. I’m sure its a delight for some people but not to me. The place is a desert but it has fully manicured golf courses among the gigantic resorts, the flashy tourist malls. It disturbs me. We spent the night anchored out listening to the Mexican tourist music as we drifted to sleep. In the morning we said goodbye to the banana boats, the tequila soaked tourists. Folks, of course, admired and watched as the boat sailed right out of the harbour.

We had made about 5 or 6 knots sailing for 6 hours before subcoming to to the calm and starting the engine.

Shortly after the sunset Cam went to sleep in the cabin- with all his gear still on- pfd, jacket, pants, no shoes, of course, and I settled in to watch the water.
I had my own head lamp on so I could read and see around the boat but all I wanted to do was watch the darkness as the boat swiftly parted the water. Motoring the boat like this was both exhilarating and terrifying. The heavy darkness is worrisome because there is no foresight. The immediacy of the boat, the places where my headlamp reached and my own body drew my mind inwards, became my only world. I could hear the engine running and the water splashing over the hulls and nets. And very little else.
By eleven thirty I realised I was starting to drift and if I stayed awake much longer the boat would not be in safekeeping. I looked down at Cam and he opened his eyes. He came up out of the cabin and I swiftly curled up in the warm bed, closed my eyes and let the rhythmn of the boat pull me into sleep.
Before I knew it Cam was looking down at me with the same hopeful look. I looked up and him and he said, “Oh, good.” He looked like he was about to fall asleep. It was 4:30am. He’d let me sleep a long time. The fresh cool air gave me a lift to wake up and I crawled back up out of the cabin. The same blackness, the same immediacy of awareness overcame me. But this time the stars were enormous, bright and too numerous to count. I could barely distinguish the constellations with so many stars blurring the spaces between them. There really is little darkness in our galaxy when it is possible to see into space.

And so it was only half an hour later that I found myself pondering the bright light ahead which could so easily have been just another star. After finishing the chapter of my book, I stood up and peered in the darkness. I was quite certain it was a boat, or at the very least a lighted buoy. Something, at any rate, to be avoided.
During our journey of 190 nautical miles we encountered only one boat. We had literally no other human contact the entire time. And this one boat in the whole sea we were headed straight for. Miraculous and odd.
I reached down to Cam lying in bed and touched him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes. “We’re headed for a boat straight ahead”
“How close?” he asked. A good question but I couldn’t honestly say. How close is a light in the blackness? Can you honestly know? Even if you aren’t at sea- can you answer this question? I stepped back so he could take a look.
He didn’t say much. I apologized for waking him. He noted that this was the point of a watch. I had, happily, done my job and proven my usefulness. I sat and watched as Cam changed our heading. It was very difficult to tell if we were passing the boat or going nowhere. The light did not seem to change in size or direction. This is the problem with watching the darkness, there is so little to compare relative size and distance.
Eventually Cam seemed satisfied with the course correction and went back to sleep.
I stared out into the darkness with my binoculars and waited. Eventually we passed the light and I could see. It was a shrimp boat with its nets out. Without the course correction we would have gone straight into them.
I crawled out to the bow of the boat and waited feeling the sea spit spray my face. We had accidentally caught some shrimp on the nets as we passed through the water. No doubt this was a part of the sea streaming with life.
As I sat on the bow suddenly, as if it had always been there, light drifted on to the nets. A gentle calm moved my heart. The sky was opening to blue. I sang my morning sutras and practiced my sitting meditation. The water brightened and the sun rose.
We had made it through the night.

As the morning opened up the wind also picked up. I looked down at Cam again. We could be sailing I thought. And once he was awake and I was making breakfast we picked up a great wind and sailed 10 knots for eight hours to find ourselves earlier than expected in Mazatlan.
What a gift to know the water and the wind in this way. I am grateful that Cam continues to carry me on his journeys and happy to know that he is still living the adventure.