It’s the night before our departure and Cabo San Lucas is getting pounded by a very rare tropical downpour, water is running through the streets one foot deep, three of my four crew are hung-over, and the fourth was due in three hours earlier and is nowhere to be found. Well, isn’t this special.
What to do? I had no choice but to let it be what it’s gonna be and hope for the best. Of course, that doesn’t preclude me from expressing an opinion or two. Just as I had that thought my fourth crew member, J.L., walked by the cantina I was hunkered down in while enjoying the storm. Happily, things kept improving from that point on.
Over a fine Mexican dinner, my listless young crew recounted their previous night on the town in an ever-changing convoluted story that included words like: tequila shots, wallet, atm card, id, lost, policia, etc. I decided they were suffering enough and let it drop.
We departed at 6am under clear skies and fair winds. As my young crew turned shades of green throughout the day, I couldn’t help but smile and think of the Sloop John B:
“So hoist up the John B’s sail, See how the mainsail sets
Call for the captain ashore, let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, well I feel so broke up, I wanna go home.”
– Sloop John B, Beach Boys
By early evening, we had 20-30 knots off the stern as we bound across the beautiful Sea of Cortez under a nearly full moon. The consistency of these idyllic sailing conditions held for the second day and was only interrupted by the occasional sighting of grey whales, porpoise, sea turtles, sea lions, and the dorsal fin of a whale shark!
We arrived at Paradise Village Marina, a few miles north of Puerto Vallarta, at 8am on New Years Eve. Thankfully, Shannon is currently rocking comfortably in her slip and the crew is safe, sound and happy to be ashore.