I Sail Away

Perhaps it was the way the we had prepared for the trip. Perhaps it was the delivery down to San Diego. Regardless, I had all sorts of expectations about this trip and none of them included the “party” functions from the official Baja Ha-ha calendar.

Our first full day of rest included this 1pm blip on the radar of a potluck party with all of the other boats and crew. It barely registered anything at all.

That morning, at 7:30am, during the morning roll-call of ships and ship positions, we spent an extraordinary amount of time on the “potluck” rules for cruisers. Time-tested favorites like, “bring more than you intend to eat,” and “no silverware, cups or utensils will be provided, so unless you intend to eat with your hands, you will need to bring some,” gave me a peek into the “cruiser” world . . . .

I had drempt about a way to cook lasagna on-board that wouldn’t be too painful and would be our contribution. But, somewhere along the way, the grocery list actualized in a way that deviated from how it was potentialized. In short, I sent it too late and some of the items got omitted from the list: namely, all the lasagna ingredients.

So, we punted. Where there was one loaf of bread on the shopping list, we ended up with three loaves on-board. We had eggs, some ham, bell peppers and onions–as well as milk and cheese. All the ingredients for quiche lorraine. Real men may not eat quiche, but I discovered that sailors at a potluck will (in fact, it was gone quickly enough to where I didn’t get to sample it myself–I’ll have to make it again so I can be sure of the success or failure of the recipe).

We hailed one of Enrique’s water taxi drivers and motored over to the East side of the harbor to a HUGE party on the beach. To explain the enormity of the event let’s talk some numbers. This year, there were approximately 200 boats. One boat hit a whale and sunk (everyone and the whale was fine–it wasn’t a whale ramming like the news reported, but rather it was most likely a sleeping whale in a wave and two giant things in the same place at the same time that caused damage to the boat’s rudder, which caused it to fill up with water fast–AND, they got into their life raft and were picked up by coast gaurd immediately), but other than that–the fleet had mostly arrived. And, roughly 1000 sailors were lined up on the beach to participate in this potluck. The locals provided beer for sale, a portable toilet, and some REALLY loud music . . . and voila–we had a party! It was great.

We drank, talked, danced, and ate until roughly sun-down when the water taxis ferried us back to our boats. Well done, Baja Ha-ha organizers. THAT was a great party!

We waited a few hours, regrouped, and . . . then organized a “scouting” party into town to see about the Dia de los Muertos celebration in the town zocalo and to see if there was any more dancing at the Hotel Veracruz . . . .