Javier was head down in the engine compartment fitting a new shaft coupling. He was quiet for a moment, not unusual because Javier usually goes about his work with quiet competence. But this time was different. He grunted and then said, "It doesn't fit, I have to go back to the machine shop and have this re-machined."
This wasn't the first time that we had a setback on the engine and drive train project we embarked on in July, after I got back from my spring cruise, there had been plenty: parts which were unavailable, replacements which didn't fit. It seemed endless. But we got through it.
Engine work
By the end of August the whole engine project was completed and my car was also finally fixed right. That too was a bit of a struggle.
"I have no more ideas senior, maybe Jose over in Mescales can figure it out." That's the polite way of saying ,"I no want to work on your car any more."
One car mechanic after another thought he knew what was wrong with the engine and transmission only to fix that with no results.
Fair enough, so I trekked over to Jose's shop in Mescales. But eventually, gradually, the car got better.
And there were a ton of other nagging projects to be addressed. I never took time to write about it all, I guess I was just too busy to update my blog. Sorry to leave you in the dark.
But then November rolled around. Racing season was on the horizon.
Time to line up a race crew.
One day Terry stopped by, surprise!
"Hey Terry, great to see you, want to come aboard. What's up?"
It turned out that Terry wanted to rejoin the crew, as fore deck. SUPER! That's one down. Mark and Linda joined. Vicki came back. Then Arjan. The crew came together. A group of women signed on and became good friends and when they helped Terry and Geoff on the bow the began to call themselves "the foredeck bitches"
Racing was good in December and January. When we dominated in the Punta Mita race we all partied hard.
Happy CrewTequila
Sandy came aboard for several weeks as live aboard crew and she and I sailed down south to Tenacatita to participate in a couple races there.
Sandy
Sandy has been great as crew and companion but not the whole crew could make the trip.
I needed a full crew and particularly a
jib trimmer and I didn't have one. At the bar the night before the race that came together too.
Vicki called me over and said, "You should meet Joey, he might want to sail."
"Hi Joey, I'm Fred, I hear you might be interested in sailing?"
"Yeah mate, I might be."
I liked his down-under accent immediately. Auzzie or Kiwi, they are often great sailors. "What do you like to do on the boat?"
"Anything, bow, trim, steer, what ever."
"Great Joey, we are in the anchorage. Be on the boat tomorrow at 11:00."
So that's how we got our jib trimmer and he was really good. We won that race too.
Vicki says, "First Place"
Now we are back in La Cruz. I am sure there are more adventures to come. I'll try not to wait so long to update you.
Cartel WarsUPDATE: FIRES AND DESTUCTION: When we arrived back in La Cruz the whole Banderas Bay area was in shock. The day before the drug cartel had struck back at the government and community for the arrest and death of the drug cartel’s leader. Cars and buses had been burned in the streets and in Puerto Vallarta every OXXO store has been torched and burned to bare bones. People were in lock down, airport was closed and most businesses were closed. The streets were empty.
But by Monday everything was quiet. Traffic had resumed. We got the car started and went to the store. It was busy.
By now things are normal. No civilians or tourists had been killed, but it was a big fight between the government and the cartel. We don’t know who won or what is next. But for now, life goes on as normal.
Fredrick Roswold, SV Wings, Mexico
We were hitting speeds in the high sixes going upwind with 25 knots of wind and big seas and the ride was pretty bad. It would be nice to slow down but Wings, sailing to windward in a strong breeze, doesn’t know slow. Puttin up a small headsail and putting in a reef in the main makes no difference; still too fast. We flew off of wave after wave and landing was like hitting concrete. The noise was deafening. The bow tossed up ocean water like someone throwing buckets, only lots more. The wind then carried it back and it landed on the dock in rivers. The whole boat was continuously covered with salt water. Down below conditions were not so bad but after a day or so things started getting wet there too.
And the pounding continued.
Mp4 102 Rene Stands Watch on the Crossing (to see this video try clicking on the heading and then maybe click "replay")
I knew the boat was strong and over the years I’d been through this before but after a while you just wonder how the hull and rig can keep taking it. But what to do? We really had to go upwind; we were crossing the Sea of Cortez going to La Paz and the route was up wind. So we just kept going, hoping it would be over. Resting down below or on deck huddling behind the dodger we just sat there taking a beating. Rene was stoic and I was glad for her experience and calmness but I was anxious and jumpy.
We tolerated it for two days
Finally I said to Rene, “Let’s try heaving to.”
“OK”
Hove too we were basically stopped, there was no slamming and no noise.
Hove to the boat became quiet and calm. Don’t let anyone tell you a race boat can’t heave to. It can.
We began to relax: “This is nice!”
We resumed sailing the next day and the wind continued.
It was more of the same tough conditions. We hove too again the next night.
By the fifth day we had battled our way across the Sea of Cortez and we anchored in Baja at Los Frailies.
Well that was an quite an experience but it was over.
For the next month Rene and I explored Baja and it was much nicer. After Rene four other great crew members joined me, one by one, and helped me sail. It was fun. In the months after rough crossing there was some great cruising with weeks of sailing every day between the islands and many pleasant nights anchored in quiet harbors.
Mp4 108 Tacking San Jose Channel (to see this video try clicking on the heading and then maybe click "replay")
There were even some overnighters when Dulce and I found ourselves becalmed in the middle of the Sea of Cortez for hours on end but we kept sailing and kept the boat moving. Dulce became a pretty good light air sailor, she had to.
Three months later, on the trip home though, there was more tough sailing. Kelly and I found ourselves in a big squall which ripped the mainsail in half (more on this later) but we survived.
So, that’s sailing I guess.
Boat Work
There were also projects and repairs. Things like starters burning out and leaking water tanks which were wake up calls and needed immediate attention.
Small repairs kept us busy also.
The new dodger
And then there was the dodger. I’ve made dodgers for Wings a few times over the years and the one I made in in Trinidad in 2013 was looking pretty ragged. We were lucky the heavy weather on the way up the Sea didn’t blow it out. Making a new one seemed like a good project to do when I had a few days alone in La Paz after Rene left. I got out my roll of white acrylic cloth and started cutting and sewing. I sweated and worked and made an ungodly mess with cuttings and threads and tools all over the boat. I was glad there was no crew aboard to have to deal with the mess.
For much of the trip we had a big problem with the propellor shaft and had to sail everywhere. The engine was basically useless even though we worked on it every day. When I returned the boat to La Cruz it immediately went into the boat yard for major repairs.
Living in Close Quarters
“What? No door on the toilet? Really? Will you please go on deck for a while? I need some privacy. And maybe you could put on some music.”
I had five crew members on board on this trip. Four single women and one guy, Kelly, who is one of my best friends. They all came individually. The women who dared to venture into this unknown liveaboard sailing thing were all pretty brave individuals, and trusting I guess, because they were going to be alone with me on this small boat and three of them had never met me before. But it worked out. It’s not just the toilet. There are no private quarters and no doors anywhere. Living in close quarters like this on a stripped-out race boat with a total stranger takes some getting used to. We shared the main cabin, changed clothes behind a partition, and everybody got the privacy they needed. We all tolerated each other’s quirks, and if anybody got on anybody’s nerves they never let it show. In any case it all went pretty smoothly.
About the toilet: Well, I told them about that before they signed up but it was still pretty shocking I guess. For the people joining me for the first time to live on Wings for a few weeks it was quite an experience.
Me? I had no problem? I enjoyed it all including the domestic stuff like sharing cooking and cleaning and choosing a wine together to have with dinner, I need the company. In fact I like it so well and am so used to it I think they are still there sleeping on the bunk across the cabin even after they have left. I wake up in the mornings surprised to find nobody there.
After Kallie the next crew change was scheduled in Loretto on the 17 of June and Dulce stepped off the bus right on time as the fourth crew member this year.
Dulce and I also had a lot of fun sailing around the Sea of Cortez including a few nights homeward bound when lack of wind and a broken motor left us sitting for hours.
Finally Dulce flew home from Mazatlán and Kelly arrived, after a grueling bus trip.
Terry had the worst time of it I think. When strong winds kept us hunkered down for several nights we didn’t get to go very far. But we made the best of it: we got to Puerto Balandra and went to the beach during the day for sunbathing and swimming and got back to the boat and got it closed up every night for the strong Coramel winds. If you know the right places to anchor 31 knots all night at is not a problem.
But probably the best thing for my crew was the sailing. Rene and Kelly were old hands but the other three were pretty new to sailing so there was really a lot to learn. It was one long class. At anchor I demonstrated their jobs to them and then we practiced.
And we practiced.
Things like raising the anchor and setting the sails got to be mundane, as did getting the dingy up and down. Even anchoring, which takes some skill and coordination, became ordinary. Charts were studied and navigation was taught. I added nothing that we didn’t need to do on our cruise, but we covered everything, even repairs.
Sailing however, was the real fun.
Putting sails up I work the foredeck and crew tail the halyards and use the autopilot to keep us head to wind.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes”
“Ok, right 10 degrees, then hoist.”
Sometimes it’s hard work and I was glad for my time in the gym the last few months.
Tacking or jibing I am usually steering and handling the mainsail and helping with the running backstays. Sometimes we traded jobs but usually the crew did everything else, releasing, winching and including running forward to skirt the jib.
“OK, Ready to tack?”, I would call.
“Ready”
“Tacking”
Then winches spin and sails fly and three or four jobs have to be completed in quick succession. We did it all. And we did it well. Some days we did it over and over. There were no bad tacks.
MP4 424 Approaching Nopolo
(to see this video try clicking on the heading and then maybe click "replay")
We sailed into tight anchorages and dropped sails on deck then secured them to prevent them from going overboard. Choosing the spot and setting anchor was the next challenge. My crews learned how to judge the bottom with their toe on the chain, how to tell when the anchor was holding and how to decide we were swell set. On their signal I would cut the engine and we would have a cold drink before the task of folding sails.
“It is time to start dinner or do I have time for a swim?” I think I heard that every day.
The Squall
After Dulce left my friend Kelly came for the trip from Mazatlán to La Cruz. I needed the experience he brought. The engine was basically useless and we had to sail out of Mazatlán harbor and of course all the rest of the way home.
We had some good wind and exited the harbor under sail without a problem but the season had changed and there were southerlies, so it was upwind work again.
About 03:30 in the morning I was below and Kelly was sailing close hauled on starboard tack in about 10 knots, using the windvane. The genoa was close hauled and the main boom was prevented out to port to keep it stable in the sort of lumpy seas.
“Hey Fred, something is going on with the wind”. I heard the call from my sleep.
Yep, something was going on all right, 30 knots hit us from the south east and knocked us right down on our starboard side, both sails aback.
I got on the helm, but what to do? I swung the boat around but close hauled on starboard, aside from being way over canvassed, took us to the NE. The other tack was pretty much west and neither was going to be good for the sails which were straining. Reefing the main would require going upwind and the genoa wouldn’t tolerate that, so it had to come down, not easy in this breeze, besides, which of us could go forward to hand the sail? It was one moment when I wished for roller furling.
We left the sails up as they were and I turned downwind. Kelly handled the sheets and I worked the runners and main. It was completely the wrong way to go but the flogging sails settled down and the boat came back under control. I steered by the Windex light at the top of the mast keeping the wind right behind us. Wings took off at 8 plus knots heading pretty much due north. We were glad we had sea room.
That was when the main let go. I heard a tear, then the sail unzipped from the leech to the luff, right across the middle.
Kelly said, “That is not a good sound to hear.”
We were still going 8 knots and steering was a handful. I couldn’t leave the helm and there wasn’t much Kelly could do either, so we just sailed, with the main in tatters.
Finally the wind moderated and I managed to get the windvane on and it took over the steering. Kelly and I went to work, untangling the mess, and put a reef in the main, just above the rip. Then we turned upwind and resumed sail to the south.
March 23, 2025- Banderas Bay regatta and thoughts about the future
wingssail images-vicki westphal
We’ve just finished another Banderas Bay Regatta, the eleventh one we’ve done on Wings since 1997. Last night we went to the Banderas Bay Regatta awards ceremony. We had some good sailing in this regatta (and a lot of hard work) but for the first time in the eleven times we have sailed it, since 1997, Wings was not on the podium. In the past we have typically been 1st or 2nd. Now this year we were forth out of 4 in our class; last place. It is disappointing. But all good things pass into history.
The question was asked, “Can you get back on top?”
Well maybe. It's partially about crew and partially about boat types.
This crew is getting better; they are good. But it takes years of experience to make really great sailors. This bunch will be ok with more practice and experience but even though I have some superstars I need a few more if I want to win. It’s tough to find superstars, and even keeping these people will be hard, some will move on to other things and others will decide the commitment and hard work is too much and I will have to rebuild. It would take two or three years to put together a really great team; we are on the way but it takes time. I know, I've done it before a few times.
Boat types is another challenge. In all three monohull classes this year the winning boats were modern, light weight, faster boats or much bigger boats. All were ones that reach better than Wings. The courses used by Vallarta Yacht Club favor lighter, reaching boats. If I am racing against similar boats, with a great crew, I can get back in top. Tenacatita this year proved that, we were dominant. But that was a different fleet, excellent pick-up-crew, and a course which didn't require fast reaching speeds. We also have one regatta here in the bay which is like that, the Blast, which occurs in December. We always win that. Last December we dominated it, winning by 20 mins in the second race. Wow! What fun.
For the other races the rating system could be changed that might help us older, slower boats, but there is little incentive for the yacht club to change it.
On top of it all it is hard work to keep this boat in racing shape and manage the program by myself. Harder each year as both myself and the boat ages. And expensive. For 38 years it was Judy and I. We were a good team. This year and last I have had crew who came to Vallarta and lived on the boat and helped do the work (a lot of it requires two people). Last year Rhonda was here a lot, she was wonderful. This year it has been Renee and she has been super also. These two women and some others have been close friends, not GF but friends, who were happy to come here and help. Mark, a very loyal crew member, has been a big help too. I have been very fortunate.
Since I have owned this boat I have raced it over 600 times, mostly winning or placing well, in addition to sailing around the world. Now I feel like I need to reassess my life. I will still sail but maybe a full-on, 26 race per year, program needs to be reconsidered. Is it worth it to carry on until the boat's glory years, and mine, are just a fading memory?
Now I will get to work for a week to convert back to a cruising boat and then go into the Sea of Cortez and relax for a few months. Rene, a great sailor who is another really good friend, is going with me for part of it and that will be fun. Then I see what life brings and how I feel about everything. One thing I know: this year was hard, more than anything getting and working up a crew. The boat is hard to sail competitively and these guys from this year are really feeling exhausted right now. I'm not feeling exhausted, not physically or mentally. I feel fine but just not sure it is all doable or worth it going forward.
Or maybe I am just down at the moment after this regatta. We’ll see how I feel in a few weeks.
We’ve jibed over are heading east towards Tenacatita It’s rough and instruments are glaring out the story: we are still seeing over 27 knots of wind out of the north and 7.6 knots of boat speed. We are sailing with just a reefed main and no headsail and the windvane is steering, as it has been all night. Renee has been on deck as I worked on the broken bilge pumps but I finally finished , went on deck, and took over the watch. Renee is getting some rest. It’s about time.
Frankly, we’ve overstood and that’s on me. We should have jibed two hours ago.
Why is it that it aways seems to be stormy and problems happen when we start out on a passage? I can’t tell you how many times on the first night out of port I’ve been head down in the engine compartment trying to get something fixed or something sorted out while outside the wind is howling. Right now it is as dark as the inside of a cow and Wings is sailing fast through the black night. It is pretty scary for the crews I’d guess, they are often new to sailing, especially sailing at night, but they have always turn out to be tough. Renee is.
We don’t plan it that way. Usually we leave port during the day, often by lunch time, but even then things happen.
This time when it got rough we found water in the bilge and the pumps decided not to work. In the end the boat was not found to be leaking, it was just left over water I missed, and after I got the pumps all running we were fine.
We made it to Tenacatia at sunrise.
Tenacatia Bay is beautiful. We had a day of rest and then while Renee did her workout routine and went for a swim I went about lining up some crew for the race.
I keyed the mic on my VHF, “Hi, this is Fred on Wings, may I speak to Dave?”
“Speaking”
“You interested in racing?”
“Yeah, I think so, I’ll let you know.”
Bingo! I got the best guy in the bay. Others good sailors soon followed. By race day I had a full crew and a great one at that. Renee was navigator and everyone else just sort of fell into place. We practiced; it went well. We were ready.
Speeding across the bay in the dingy on race day with the flags for the Race Committee Renee and I must have been a spectacle. Anyhow the pre-race excitement around the fleet was tangible as crews were being ferried to the race boats and those already aboard were busy rigging.
In this race trash talk is encouraged and the teen and pre-teen girls were already into it.
“Hey you guys over there with Jim, look out, we are going to leave you in our wake”
“You just think so, beware we have secret weapons.” Then the water ballons broke out.
But we had none of that, we were serious (in a fun sort of way) and it paid off. While the kids played around with the radio and threw water ballons we sailed with intensity . Renee called the start perfectly, Dave called trim (he was the star) and we all worked as a team. We knew the weather leg in this bay, with its persistent right shift, was similar to the pattern we knew well from Banderas Bay, and it was the key to this race. We played it exactly the same as going to Punta Mita, rounded the top mark first and led the rest of the way around. A great day for Wings.
Next stop Barra. We weren’t so lucky. The race there, the Flamingo Cup, is a very well attended charity event and we were keen for a repeat but we missed the entry deadline and were not allowed to race. Dang!
But Renee and I were invited to sail on John and Donna’s Carmanah, a great custom C&C race boat from the late 70’s with an excellent record. John wanted to work the foredeck so he turned the helm over to me. We sailed hard and finished second, missing a possible first when the spinnaker tack line failed on the final leg. Congratulations to Baja Fog.
After the race we volunteered to pick up some of the inflatable marks. Renee had to fight to get them fully deflated for the ride back to the marina.
I may have cut it a bit fine at the start however and we may have been a second early. I didn’t think so and we were not called by the RC but anyhow a competitor notified the race committee after the race. He was sure we were that we were over early, and he complained, “They should be thrown out.”
The RC asked me, “Fred, were you guys over early?.”
“Could be, it was close”
“Did you go back”
“No, we didn’t hear any radio hail or see any recall flag., so we figured we were good”
That was true, but how could we have heard? The radio was filled with a shouting race announcer and the trash talk was in full force, and there were no flags. We heard nothing so we went on, and I acknowledged that.
It was a deciding moment. We could have been disqualified. But the complaining skipper allowed us to exonerate ourselves by buying him a drink at the bar, Whew!
So that was Tenacatita and Barra this year. All that was left was the sail home to La Cruz.
Renee and I had a good sail then, all night again, with the wind on the nose (wouldn’t you know it?) and a bit more breeze than we wanted but not too bad, and the rounding of Cabo Corrientes in the morning with flat water and a nice brisk cool wind, was glorious.
Merry Christmas to all.
The big spinnaker pulling towards home, 12.7 knots
We just finished the Banderas Bay Blast and we had a Blast! We won!
The crew was excellent, the boat hung together, and the third day we hit a speed record, best since 1987, 12.7 knots on a wild beam reach in 20+ knots of breeze and we didn't break anything in the few round ups we had, the pot of coffee didn't even spill off the stove.
Day one and two weren't bad either.
Second Place on Day 1
After the race we had some bubbly to celebrate our Victory.
Since the Blast we did a Wednesday night Beer Can race, got second place (it was chaos at times) and now the crew have departed and we’re taking a break for the holidays.
Fred with Renee and Rhonda, Great crew and great helpers
This post is all about photos.
Click here to see the whole story including some fun videos;
Springtime sailing is usually good in Banderas Bay and this March and April we’ve had great winds and great competition.
And we’ve done well but it’s taken a bit of work getting ready for it all.
After returning from Tenacatita we had to get the boat set up for Banderas Bay Regatta and that meant getting racing sails on-board, all the cruising equipment off, the bottom cleaned, and the crew roster finalized. It was quite a bit of work in a short time frame, but we got it done.
Then we had some hard practices with a few mistakes and mishaps but generally we were pretty good at our jobs and we worked out the kinks and were ready for the BBR. This year, with the help of the practices like that, our crew has been our strength; we have a boatload of keen racers with lots of experience on board. In the BBR the boat handling was excellent and as well as good boat speed (credit attentive trimming), good starts, and excellent tactics. All in all, we sailed well in BBR. Second place in our class (class #2) was satisfying. Even more so when we compared our times with the boats from class #1, we would have beat most of them too and would have second there as well. We got our trophy at the big awards party and went home happy.
The next (and last) race of the season was a real stunner for the rest of the fleet. It was called a “Saturday Smack Down” intended to resolve a dispute between two bigger boats. The race wasn't about us,
they allowed us to enter just to fill out the ranks.
The race went to Punta Mita and back, non-stop. What a race we had. We blew out of the starting box to an immediate lead, and continued to grow our lead all the way. The big boats lacked the windward performance (and also the local knowledge needed to find the fastest way to Punta Mita). It was fun sailing and we covered the faster boats behind us aggressively. We even felt that we pushed them into tactical mistakes. It was fun. We rounded the windward mark at Punta Mita well ahead.
After rounding we set our biggest kite and beam reached in the strong breezes back to La Cruz. It was beautiful, fast sailing. In the end one boat got past us but only by seconds and we were first place on corrected time. The race “fee” was a bottle wine to be shared afterward and we all told stories and lies and we enjoyed the whole event including paying off the bets we all made against each other where the winners of the bets had to contribute to the Vallarta yacht Club youth sailing program. We paid happily.
After BBR we made a serious effort to convert Wings back to cruising mode, another four days of hard work, so we could be ready for our spring cruise but we were in waiting mode because of some pending doctor appointments and stayed tied to the dock. More on this later.
Other Sailing Action
Meanwhile Fred raced on Greg and Gloria’s Beep Beep with a boat load of good sailors and they won that race too!
Next a delivery from Barra de Navidad. Mike from Honu needed to get his boat back to La Cruz so three of us lucky amigos took a car ride to Barra and sailed Mike’s boat back. Good fun.
We did get Wings out of the marina and we began what was supposed to be our spring cruise by sailing to Punta Mita (again) and anchoring there.
That sail was pretty good but it got off to a chaotic start. The autopilot broke and Judy was left on deck steering while I fixed it and meanwhile the wind piped up over 20 and it was a real handful for her to manage alone. “Fred, get up here", she shouted.
Then the galley lockers opened up and with a loud crash spilled all their contents on the cabin sole. What a mess. So we were dealing with a broken autopilot, the wrong sail set up and a total mess down below. But we got it all squared away and all was good again. We sailed on to the anchorage, and actually managed another good elapsed time despite the chaos.
So now we had some peace and quiet.
Yelapa
But wait! There’s more! The following Saturday was “Spring Fling” to Yelapa, a part of Mike Danielson’s birthday celebrations. Several of our friends were going so we decided to join and we sailed to Yelapa. It’s not a race, but we’ll sailed like it was.
Yelapa was great fun with a good mooring and lots of fun ashore. Sunday’s race home, however, was disappointing. We got a late start, the winds were light, and our cruising sails just didn’t cut it. We were the slowest boat out there, barely nipping two other boats to the finish. Our friends on Beep Beep were first and they asked, “What happened to you guys?”. “Well,” I answered, "for two oldsters we did the best we could”.
Next: Medical Stuff Puts Our Spring Cruise on Hold
We’ve elected to have some medical procedures that are needed, which will delay our cruise this year, (end it, actually). We’re back at the dock in La Cruz and we will most likely be here all summer. We’ll write more later on this subject.
For more photos of Banderas Bay Sailing, Click here
I’m on watch and I’m just sitting on deck, watching. I guess that’s what you do when you are on watch; you watch
It’s midnight and we are running down wind in a strong breeze. We have a reefed mainsail and a small jib polled out on starboard jibe. The windvane is steering. The boat is fast. I’m seeing 10’s on the speedo but I don’t like it. The waves are big and the boat is rolling and swerving and the ride is a bit wild. I’m just waiting for something to break but thankfully so far nothing has.
We need to jibe towards our destination, Barra de Navidad. Judy’s watch is starting and she is getting ready to come up. I tell her, “Turn on the deck light, I have to go forward and we’ll jibe”.
Using the wind vane we turn the boat to the new heading and get the mainsail across. I put the preventer on. Now we need to get the pole over and the jib to the new side as well. I’m going forward to do that. I’m clipped in and I mostly crawl to the foredeck because the motion is wild.I shout directions to Judy. She handles the lines from the cockpit. On my hands and knees I deal with the pole and barely avoid getting conked as it swings around. The motion up here is extreme and it is exhausting just to stay on board, even though it’s only for a few minutes. I compete my task and retreat aft
Now the boat is jibed, the pole is out on the new side, and we settle down, there is 62 miles to go; less than 10 hours. By daylight the wind drops, then shifts to the south. We go close hauled and start tacking. It’s only 10 miles to go now but the wind and a strong current are against us so it is painfully slow. We’re tired and a bit frustrated. It takes three hours to get to Barra.
Judy and Mike from Honu catch our lines. It’s good to see them. Hugs.
The next week goes pretty good. We hang out with our friends and enjoy the Barra de Navidad experience. There are parties and drinks on the Malecon, which prove exceptionally strong and I barely avoid getting tipsy. But we have fun. I am busy planning the races next week for Tenacatita and meanwhile I’ve got to prepare for the single race in Barra, the Flamingo Regatta. I need to line up some crew. I get a bright young guy named Imas to grind and I get a guy named Cliff to do the main. Both are new to racing. Greg and Gloria also join. Greg is my jib trimmer. Gloria is doing halyards.
The Flamingo Regatta doesn’t go exceptionally well for us, 9th place out of 22. We start last, as our start time requires, and pass 15 boats, but the wrong sails for the light air and some weak crew assignments prevent us from doing better. To win we need to pass 22 boats but we don’t. We normally expect to do well and a lot of spectators thought that we would too and they bet heavily on us. We’re sorry we didn’t perform for them but their bets make money for the charity. It’s OK, we have the second highest number of bettors so we made good money for the regatta even if none of the gamblers made out on us.
Next we sail to Tenacatita. It’s supposed to be a rally but the other boats were worried about strong winds and left earlier. We sail alone. Nice sail though; there were no strong winds to worry about. Tenacatita is fantastic. Great anchorage, great weather, and many of our friends are here. The Tenacatita Race Week looks like it will come off as planned except only two races ins
tead of three.
Three days of racing seems to be too much for many of the competitors so we are cancelling the third Race.
But what good racing it is. I’ve wanted to race in this bay for decades; it is beautiful, the wind is nice, and the sailing is outstanding and here we are on the starting line with six boats. A great start gets us off the line at speed and we are first to the top mark (which is the sailboat Karvi). The spinnaker work is good and we romp around to the finish. First Place! >Day two the breeze is up; 19 knots. We set the small jib and again have a good start. Nobody can touch us upwind in this breeze either.
On this beat we get the rare sight of a very near whale encounter. I am steering but due to the people sitting on the high side I can’t see the water off to our side. They start telling me of a whale nearby. Suddenly a large humpback whale breaches within 50 feet of our boat, next to us. After landing it swims directly towards us and then dives under our keel. Within a few feet of us its tail slides out of sight. I half expect to feel our keel hit the whale but it does not.
We put our focus back on sailing and get to the top mark first. We set the big symmetrical kite and head off almost directly downwind. The other boats are sailing higher but we are sailing deep with the pole back and the sail is pulling well. Every minute we are gaining.
Then comes the jibe. We need to jibe to get to the next mark. In the breeze it needs to be well done but the crew is new and we’re short one person. Then I spot a snag at the end of the pole which would be a big complication.
I chicken out and say, “We’ll set the jib, take down the kite, we won’t try to jibe it.
That is successful but we’re much slower without the spinnaker. Now the boats behind who still have spinnakers are catching up. What can we do? Those boats gain inexorably and the group of closes up. Brainwaves, the nearest one, gets by.
We still have the last upwind leg and as we turn the corner toward the finish we again do well and start to regain what we lost but at the finish Brainwaves is still leading and they cross us. We finish second but are in third place on corrected time.
Third place is OK. Two other boats got places ahead of us and they are really happy. We’re happy too, because they are happy. Everyone is a winner, Tenacatita Race Week is a success.
Two days later we are heading home to La Cruz. The weather doesn’t look good. We see projections of brisk northerlies and worse the following several days. Not wanting to be pinned down we head out.
The forecast is wrong. The wind is very strong: 25-29 knots against us. That is true wind. Over the deck we are seeing 34 knots of wind. We only brought the racing mainsail and with one reef it is too much. We are overpowered. The boat is sailing fast and pounds into the waves. In trying to slow it down the sails flog. This is unpleasant. We are passing Chemala at 4:30 PM. We could go in and get out of this rough weather but the next day is forecast to be worse. We decide to carry on. The sailing continues to be very difficult however.
By 10:00 PM we decide to take down the mainsail. This is also difficult and dangerous. Our mainsail is not attached to the mast; only a bolt rope holds it on. When it comes down it comes free of the mast. In this breeze the danger is of losing it overboard, a very big hazard.
I go forward and pull down the main with two hands and try to hold it onboard with my foot. Judy handles the lines aft and controls the helm (and injures her arm when the waves briefly take control and yanks the helm over). But we do it. The main is down and lashed to the boom. We now sail with just the small jib with still over 50 miles to go, all upwind. We are surprised how well the boat sails with just the small jib. It is a lesson we are just now learning after 38 years. Wow!
With this configuration the sailing is much easier and, while the wind does not ease, we carry on with little trouble.
By noon the next day we round Cabo Corrientes and head for La Cruz but the wind is dying and we sail slowly.
We arrive safely in La Cruz at 9:00 PM.
The Tenacatita trip is over, successfully finished.
Sailing in Banderas Bay these days is better than ever. The blue skies, flat water, and steady winds have reminded us how much we love this place.
Saturday (pictured) was fantastic. Sunday was challenging (to say the least) but we survived.
Today, Wednesday, the Beer Can race was so good we stayed out for an hour afterwards having cold drinks and being amazed at how stunningly beautiful it is here.
The crew is great, the boat is fast, and the competition is as tough as ever.
The need to get moving and get to the next place is an itch which has to be scratched.
It doesn’t matter how nice it is where you already are, you still wonder about the next place.
It doesn’t matter how many pictures you’ve seen or how many guide book descriptions you’ve read, you never know what that next place will really be like until you see it for yourself.
And when you have been wondering about that next place for so long that you just have to get going, it has already become an itch.
So you scratch that itch and you get going and when you are finally on the way and the destination draws near there is an excitement and a thrill that you’re finally going to see it.
That excitement and thrill becomes addictive, and even if some of the places don’t turn out to be all that special; they are still new and there is a sense of wonderment at actually being there.
We’ve had that addiction for many years. It was one of the drivers that kept us going all the way around the world.
In fact, we were already hooked back in the 90’s when every year we went on a cruise into Canada and each year we ventured farther to see another new place.
Finally we realized that going 200 miles north into Canada and back in a three week vacation just to get to some place we haven’t seen before was getting a little extreme.
That was when we decided to try a new approach.
We thought, “When there is nowhere else to go, why not go closer to home?”
We realized that for years we had been travelling on our way to those famous distant paradises without stopping at some interesting and nice places nearby.
When we started to cruise closer to home we found many of those little spots that we had been passing for years. Places like Bowman Bay, Mystery Bay and over in Canada, Sooke Harbor, Beecher Bay, and Port Renfrew (a destination all by itself). Of course there were places in the San Juans, the Gulf Islands and even in Puget Sound we visited that we’d never before seen. They were lovely, interesting, and close.
And they were best enjoyed when we stayed longer than just overnight.
Now we are living in La Cruz, Mexico, and we’ve been to all the great places up north in the Sea of Cortez or down south past Barra. They are wonderful places to visit and for sure we’ll go back to Tenacatita and Loreto and other favorites in the years ahead.
But what about going closer to home?
This year we decided to stick closer to La Cruz. Partially it was Covid-19 that influenced our decision, but we also wondered what was nearby that we’ve been missing. So we took a look.
We’ve been out here now for six weeks exploring within 60 miles of La Cruz finding neat anchorages and we still have not been to all of them.
We spent weeks in Punta Mita, then finally we set sail northward.
We visited the Marias islands and found them stunningly beautiful and wild (and protected, we got kicked out) and we look forward to seeing new anchorages there when they are opened to visitors. We stayed for weeks at Matanchen Bay and that was peaceful and beautiful and we took a dingy trip into San Blas for shopping. In Matanchen we had a long running battle with some little birds who were insistent that they were going to build a nest in our boom. (This also happened a couple of years ago in Santiago Bay.) We grew to like these little birds who always tweeted (really tweeted, with their beaks)their daily arrival for nest building, and they in turn became comfortable with our presence and would fly in and out of the boom within inches of our heads as we sat in our chairs in the cockpit. They only gave up on home building when Wings sailed away.
Next we went to Chacala, where we’ve stopped on previous trips but we never stayed long and we never went ashore there. This time we stayed for several days and we took the dingy in and walked all over town. It was quiet.
Two other boats, Summer and Kognita, were in Chacala and we anchored near them. The view from the beach was of three similar boats, all performance cruisers with fin keels and Monitor windvanes on their transom, anchored bow to the waves with stern anchors set. That was an interesting coincidence.
Chacala was beautiful and quiet, and we enjoyed the sounds of birds ashore each morning, though thankful that none tried to move in.
The crews of Summer and Kognita were surfers and each day they dingy’d up the coast to a point break at La Caleta where the waves were big.
One day we took our dingy there and got some photos. It was a good thing that I have a long lens on the Nikon because Judy would not let me get close to the waves.
The season has a lot to do with our ability to do this cruise. In April and May the northerlies have stopped and on this coast we have only light SW winds and daily light thermals. This makes some north facing bays into good anchoring spots. Our stays in these places have been times of relaxing and enjoying the scenery. We haven’t been on the move every day and it’s been nice.
The afternoon thermals though have given us some great sailing. We’ve used very little fuel going from one place to the next and the ocean has always been blue and calm.
After Chacala we spent a few days at Las Ayalas in Jaltembre Bay, the first time we were ever there and we plan to go back. Now we are again in Punta Mita. Tomorrow we’ll go back to La Cruz for supplies, but in a few days after that we’ll head out again for some more “closer to home” exploring.
I am a sailor, born of a nautical tradition passed to me by my father and my Grandfather Alfred. I’ve spent most of life on my passion which is the sea and the vessels which go upon them. I have had many such vessels and now I live on and sail on the sloop WINGS.
which I acquired in 1986 with my wife Judy
who shared my passion. For ten years we lived on Wings in Seattle and sailed, including racing. Then we left the Pacific Northwest and voyaged across the world, across the seven seas, to faraway places, and made them our own.
For thirty-eight years I have lived and loved this life. I still live on Wings, in Mexico, and sail and race often. Judy passed away in June, 2023 and I miss her but you can still join us and sail the seas as we did for all those glorious years. Fred Roswold, SV Wings, Mexico