Against the wind.

Winter is here. There are days that we must shelter from fierce northerly winds which are whipping up the Sea of Cortez into a white capped expanse of blue. The water may still look Caribbean, but it feels cold like Alaska. Diving underneath O2 to scrape off the barnacles has become an ordeal now. With the hulls scraped clean, My Captain bravely rises back to the surface looking like a weird marine creature in his 5-millimeter black wetsuit which is crawling with krill. Only a hot shower followed by several cups of steaming hot tea can bring some relief. 

Because of the cold we are starting to second guess our planned sea passage from Hawaii to Alaska. From sunset to quite some time past sunrise we now need (bed) socks and hoodies to keep warm. Will we be able to brave the cold during our night watches as we are reaching higher latitudes? While in San Diego, we did buy some heavy-duty crab fishing gloves, though. They might come to the rescue.

Whenever the Northerlies give us a break, we immediately raise the sails to continue our journey against the wind higher up into The Sea. On one of those occasions, as we were raising the main sail, the halyard (= the rope used for raising and lowering the main sail) got stuck and then tore one of the gliders right out of the mast with a big bang. The “sock” covering the dyneema core (= heavy duty rope able to pull 4,5 ton and which remained intact) had snapped and was all rumpled up inside the mast, causing the blockage and the consequent bang. 

With the snapped halyard already replaced by the spare we had on board and the glider drilled back onto the mast, all that needs to be done now is figure out what happened to prevent it from happening again. As long as we are not sure about the root cause, we go easy on the electrical winch. (Raising the mainsail manually is not an option. It is a triangle of 15-meter high with a 6-meter base. I am 1 meter 60 and my joints do get blocked occasionally, too. God forbid they snap.)

On our way North, we docked in Santa Rosalía: a mining town of old which was run by the French El Boleo company starting in the 1880’s. Now it is a South Korean company that is delving for copper, cobalt and zinc sulfate. This time around the company vouched not to bring misery, disease, and death to the miners but a good and safe livelihood instead. We are not so sure about the “safe” part at the moment. And neither are the present-day miners, judging from the protest banners demanding a solution for the contamination. 

Lonely Planet:”Designed and erected for Paris’1889 World’s Fair, disassembled and stored in Brussels, intended for West Africa, Gustave Eiffel’s (Yes, of Eiffel Tower Fame)prefabricated Iglesia Santa Bárbara was shipped to Santa Rosalía when a Boleo Company directed signed for its delivery to the town in 1895.” It is still in use today.

The little town of Santa Rosalia itself looks neat enough but its soil and shores are polluted by toxic minerals and sulfate, which are blown all over the place by the same Northerlies that chill our bones. This came as a serious shock to us and was in painful contrast to the blue paradise we have gotten used to. You won’t find seafood on our plate while in Santa Rosalia. 

What also came as a shock was the total lack of crisp baguettes, which were promised to us by the Lonely Planet. Apparently, the baguettes left the scene together with the French, all those years ago. The only thing still standing is the El Boleo bakery itself, filled with the usual sugar goodies and sweet cottony loaves of bread being the opposite of crisp. In tortilla country, finding bread to our tasting has proved to be quite the challenge.

The next day, we left O2 behind to take the bus to the oasis of San Ignacio. There the Misión de San Ignacio de Kadakaamán was beautiful enough to temporarily put us into a milder mood towards the missionary exploits of bygone days.  

We were lucky to be shown around by the American-Mexican couple who are investing all of their spare time in getting the place back into shape and who happened to be around. They were also in the process of setting up an original fundraising scheme. Paris-Dakar-like motorcycle trips are being organized down the Baja Peninsula and one of the pit stops will be on the mission’s premises, which are undergoing a minor makeover to that purpose. This certainly rang true to My Captain who used to be a Motorcycle Boy himself. 

From San Ignacio, another bus ride took us to the Pacific Coast to a place called Guerrero Negro, which is Spanish for Black Warrior. The Black Warrior after whom the place is named was a 231- ton weighing whaling ship built in Massachusetts in 1825. In December 1857, she ran aground (at last!) at the entrance of the lagoon which she annually frequented to slaughter the gathered whales by the thousands. For their oil. We are glad to confirm that we have been forgiven. Now the whales are protected, and no harm can come to them in the “Reserva de la Biosfera El Vizcaíno. There are no longer gatherings of 20 000 individuals, but hundreds of gray whales are still a sight to behold. There are spouts wherever you look underscored by the soundtrack of powerful snorts as they exhale through their blowholes. 

These wild marine giants have covered over 5000 miles to reach the Mexican lagoons in order to mate and calve. And here they are, swimming up to the pangas filled with tourists, waiting for a cuddle so it seems. At first, we thought they just wanted to rub their itch away against the wood of the pangas. Or maybe they mistook our boat as one of their own. But no, they spy hopped their huge head out of the water, took a look around and then swam right up to us. 

Whenever they were getting a bit overly enthusiastic, making our panga to wobble, the panga driver carefully motored away, more often than not with the gray whales in tow. And always a new group presented itself, eager for our touch. So, we scratched and rubbed them, these 30-ton weighing wild animals who were behaving like oversized pets.

We could never have imagined that scratching an animal the size of a submarine behind its ear (or the spot we think its ear could have been) would trigger such an overwhelming emotional response in every single person on board. But it did. Never mind that gray whales don’t look fluffy and cute like teddy bears do, or that their mottled, spotty skin is covered in icky barnacles. They are also completely bereft of the swag and style that the gorgeous humpbacks radiate. (How we looove the humpbacks, though.)

Meeting the grays is not so much about adrenaline. It’s all about zen. And their skin feels surprisingly pleasant and bouncy like the soft leather that is stretched over a djembe drum.They are inscrutable animals who choose to interact with us, humans. Out of their own free will. As one of the Mexican girls on board exclaimed “ Me emocioné demasiado.”