Dylan and Jim’s Bali Hai Surfventure Episode 2

by Dylan and Ian Gill-Vallance on 27 May 2007
Dylan and Jim’s Bali Hai Surfventure Episode 2 - Channel Islands California To Turtle Bay Mexico.

Having sailed from Morro Bay CA to Santa Cruz Island with a Morro Bay local mate, Monkey, the boys say goodbye to Monkey and now set sail for the Channel Islands, San Diego and down to Turtle Bay Mexico where they plan to set sail for The Marquesas Islands French Polynesia in the North Pacific Ocean. The leg from Turtle Bay to The Marquesas Islands is one of the longest open ocean crossings in the world, so they will need to prepare, plan and stock the boat for 25 to 35 days alone at sea.

Dylan and Jim's Journal Entries:

In the morning we headed out to check a surf spot on Santa Cruz Island (name and location withheld) but had no luck with it, the swell was too small. We headed straight into Santa Barbara to call into the marine store and get some phone reception, my mate Monkey from Morro bay headed off to the train station to go home. We were now really alone! The next day we headed out to the Channel Islands marina in Oxnard, we managed to get a nights sleep for free on the dock of a local restaurant. We got up early but not early enough due to an alarm clock malfunction (possibly human error). We were headed out to Catalina Island, in order to get to our anchorage in daylight we wanted to leave at 5am instead of the 7am that eventuated. Luckily we made a closer anchorage just before dark on Catalina Island and settled in for the night. Catalina Island, although quite spectacular was not for us budget sailors, so next day we sailed around to the main town and paid the ridiculous anchorage fees for a couple of hours and hung out before having dinner and leaving for San Diego harbour.

I had some interesting times with the shipping traffic on the way in, at one point around 1 or 2am I had 4 ships coming at me from all directions I had to find my way around them all at once, the radar proved to be worth it’s weight in gold a big help would be an understatement.

That puts me in San Diego now, I think I will be leaving here tomorrow for Ensenada Mexico but that depends on whether my long overdue parts come in today. The weather is kinda gnarly right now but is looking like settling down tonight. I have all my weather fax system and email working directly from the boat now, so that is a huge help in planning moves. Well we should be crossing the border Sunday night sometime. The original plan was to leave tonight, but we bought a ton of food and it is taking us forever to store it properly. We met some people from Dylan's part of the world today, a couple from New Zealand. They came over and bought a boat to fix up and sail back sometime in the next year.

Mexico and Mexico 'take two' and a Warm Reception from US Customs.
Well Mexico sure is a nice place to spend a little more than a half day. We even got some more free fish. The trip down to Mexico was quite an interesting sail. We had poured a nip of tequila each for the border crossing moment, and checked the GPS coordinates for the exact moment of the crossing. Of course, as we crossed the border, there were multiple vessels on the radar within a half a mile at some points. Only we could see no lights from any boats on the horizon. We figured they were either Mexico or U.S. boats patrolling so we enjoyed our agave beverages anyway. Beyond that, we enjoyed an interesting taxi ride in a small port just south of Ensenada. The highlight was when the driver shouted 'Muy Loco!', back to us as he gassed it passed a big Rig running toward us. We refilled the propane and found a free anchorage for a night anyways. That night we discovered the sideband radio (email radio service) was not working. The next morning we only had email contact with anyone through my cell phone, and luckily my brother responded with much haste. Although, none of the footwork he did for us actually got us to our fix. So we were forced to head back to San Diego. The trip back to Southern California was uneventful, until we entered San Diego Harbor. We were boarded by U.S. customs on the fly. They searched our boat and our bodies as we motored into the police dock. Fortunately they didn’t find the 30 illegal aliens we had stowed in the bilge. Overall it was helpful because Dylan’s visa had just run out, and they gave us a week to get back out of the country. So today we restocked all the bacon we had eaten in the last few days. We also bought some more beer because somebody drank some of ours in Mexico. I don’t know who that could have been. We are fully prepared to head out tomorrow.

Well I am almost ready for my second customs clearance and border crossing into Mexico. Got kinda side tracked by some rum and a spa last night, then headed out for a surf with my new found kiwi buddy Mike this morning at Point Loma. So now I am all ready to go and do the check out drill again, I should be getting under way tonight/early morning and go for Mexico mach II. We should be dropping the hook in the afternoon, then I will send an email to make sure I am online and have my little buddy the grib weather file at hand.
OK I am off for customs now, just to show off I will send this email via the Florida sail mail station.

Mexico at Last.

This is a shot from the deck in the Ensenada anchorage. We have had a few rolly nights since we left Ensenada for the second time. We went around the corner about 20 miles to an anchorage called Puerto Tomas (31'32.5'N, 116'42'W), this place sucked for some where to keep the boat, we were getting thrown around the boat until I managed to get the dinghy into the water and pull the stern of the boat around so we were facing into the swell with my small danforth anchor. It required constant attention throughout the night to stay nose into the swell. At one point at 3 in the morning I had been adjusting the anchor lines when I noticed the water glowing just off the bow, the phosphorescence does this when there is anything in the water. I got the spot light out to see what it was in the water, expecting to see a large animal I was shocked to see the dinghy floating away about 50 meters off the bow. So at three in the morning I jumped down the companion way and started rummaging around for my boardshorts, I woke Jim up to hold the spotlight on the skiff as I dove off the cabin roof and into the ocean after the runaway boat, once I got to the thing I climbed in started it up and got back to Bali Hai where I securely tied it off before going to bed wet and salty.

We have each caught some tuna now, about half a meter long or more and weighing in at just 3kg. It seems too easy to catch, we are actually rationing out how often we put the lines in the water as they are so efficient at catching them. So the fish is mouth wateringly good right now, although I would prefer a little more of a challenge bringing them in.

After we left the anchorage at Punta Tomas we went down to San Quintin (30'21'N, 115'58'W), we were planning to stop at an intermediate anchorage at Cabo Colnet (30'56'N, 116'20'W) but it sucked so we kept going and sailed on till about 2-3 that night when we got to San Quintin. It is an open bay to the south but 'protected' from the North West, the problem is that it is very shallow for a long time leading up to the beach. You can only anchor about 3 miles offshore where the swell is standing up already and the chop has had 3 miles to build to about 2-3 foot. The next 2 days and night there were quite rolly and the wind was up over 20 knots so the skiff ride to the beach would have been very long and wet.

After San Quintin we headed down to Punta Baja (29'56'N, 115'49'W) where there was a nice anchorage, the charts looked like there would be surf also but this wasn't the case. However, we did have a great nights sleep and didn't roll much with the stern anchor out to