The eagle has landed! I arrived this afternoon in San Jose del Cabo at about 3pm today, a short 19 miles north of Cabo San Lucas on the east cape of the Baja peninsula. I left Bahia Frailes this morning around 8:15am and had a great sail heading south in about 10 knots of wind. Unfortunately the wind changed from it's normal northerly flow to coming from the south today. So I had to tack a bit because my destination was directly upwind. All good though as I only had about 28 miles to cover which I did in about 7 hours.
The theme lately...whales! Lots and lots of whales. Yesterday in anchorage I saw several whales 1-3 miles off in the distance pretty much all day long. I didn't have any whales talking to me last night but today's passage made up for that. During the sail I probably saw 15-20 whales through the course of the day. I'm pretty sure all or most were humpbacks and most sightings were somewhat distant, maybe 1/2 to 1 mile away or so. Many of them jumping almost completely out of the water and then many sitings of them just breaching seeing their massive head come out of the water to blow air and salt water then the curling of their backs and finally their massive tails vertically up out of the water to then either be slapped back down on the water or silently disappear without even as much as a splash like an olympic diver. The highlight of the day was a pod of 5 or 6 humpbacks, all mature adults that were about the size of my boat, that were directly in front of the bow a mere 20 yards away! Words can't even describe how magnificent these animals are. The are huge...and graceful. The 5 or 6 stayed within 20-30 yards of my bow or beam for about 5 minutes before heading off in another direction. I was actually afraid I might hit one as I was under full sail and a quick diversion move to miss one was not possible. I was able to capture some amazing GoPro footage of them while they were close.
I was also visited by a couple of large dolphins that played in the wake of the bow for about 10 minutes and have some pretty cool footage of them, in and out of the water, taken with my GoPro that was on an extension pole which put the camera within 2-3 feet of them while they were under the bow. Pretty cool. Yes, today was another day for the memory bank. One to remember.
I am happy to be here in Cabo and have internet access. I immediately Facetimed Tanner, Karla and Aven and it was SO good to talk to them. I tried to call Tallen but the little man is tough to get a hold of. haha. Well, another great day in the books and I'm stoked to have company aboard tomorrow. Ciao for now.
Bret
SV Liahona
No comments:
Post a Comment