So Long, USA: Three Landlubbers’ Introduction to Ocean Sailing

As we told fellow Seattle cruisers our plans to explore the Sea of Cortez, the one piece of advice we heard from absolutely everyone was: “You HAVE to do the Baja Ha-Ha.” It’s a two-week rally of a hundred-plus boats sailing from San Diego to Cabo, and the unofficial gateway to the famously social cruising grounds of the Sea of Cortez. It felt like the perfect place to start building a little community of our own.

We’d originally planned to do the rally with just the two of us, but the fixed start and finish dates made it feel more like an event, something worth sharing with friends. So, we opened the door to a few brave souls. Enter: Troy, Bethany, and Becca. Collectively zero sailing experience, but packed with enthusiasm and good humor, which honestly counts for a lot offshore.

We met Troy at UMich and he’s been part of our post-college orbit ever since. When he heard about our sailing trip, he was eager to join and started making plans from the start of 2025. We already knew he’d be a solid crew: tidy (verified firsthand in the triathlon-team-house) and handy enough to convert a Ford Transit into a weekend warrior surf-and-mountain-bike rig that he drove as far as Vancouver Island. If anyone could adapt to boat life, it was him. The other two obvious candidates were Becca and Bethany, Seattle friends we’d summited Rainier with the year before. Since we survived being roped together for 19 hours straight, we figured a 43’ boat for two weeks would be a breeze. Their talents include comic relief, relentless grit, and the ability to call each other out lovingly.

Luckily, we snagged a slip at San Diego’s public marina, which by then had been completely overtaken by Ha-Ha participants. Once our full crew arrived, we ran through a proper safety briefing, wrapped up last-minute projects, and started meeting the boats around us. A surprising number of people had never done an offshore passage before; one set of my aunt’s neighbors had never even anchored. When “LA to Catalina” was the most common answer to “What’s your overnight experience?” we felt oddly reassured about our own preparation, even with our motley band of rookies. We capped off the prep week at the rally’s Halloween party dressed as the cast of Finding Nemo where Becca stole the show.

The next day we set off on the first passage, and it was everything we’d hoped offshore sailing would be. Light winds in the beginning, then two nights under an almost-full moon with the gennaker pulling us along. At one point I clocked our top trip speed, 11 knots! No seasickness, easy sleeping, and no fish yet… though we did lose our squid lure to something big enough to steal it clean.

We spent the next three days exploring Bahía Tortugas, waking up each morning to the 9 a.m. cruiser’s net, essentially a floating comedy hour led by the Grand Poobah disguised as a community bulletin. These radio hours became an anthropological experience for Becca who was absolutely floored by both the content and the delivery of basically everything said. In her own words,

“the cruiser community is unlike any other and getting a glimpse into this world was definitely the buffalo of my time aboard Discovery. If you are less familiar with cruisers, here’s what you need to know: 

• Most folks are old(er), have probably never worn or heard of sunscreen, and seem to have all the time in the world.
• People speak their minds. Unapologetically. 
• Despite being seemingly incredibly competent, cruisers ask the wildest questions. Even when the Poobah explicitly says to “not ask those questions”.
• Most cruisers have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a life of big adventure. Enough adventure to make this 30-year-old adventure-seeker jealous! 
• Boats look out for each other. Resources, advice, and information are shared freely and there is a pervasive sense of “we’re all in this together”. Dare I say cruisers embody certain socialist tendencies?? 
• And, finally, if a fellow cruiser asks you what your intentions are, you are probably doing something incredibly dumb. Like I said, this is an unapologetic bunch.

Taken together, the cruising community is this fascinating mix of questionable takes, outrageous brazenness, clear kindness, and a deep desire to keep the party going way past my bedtime.”

Troy immediately found fellow surfers and disappeared for two excellent days of waves, while Bethany established herself as a force on the volleyball court. Meanwhile, Mason dove under a neighbor’s boat, Tallion, to cut polypropylene off their prop, then celebrated by winging laps around the anchorage. The women aboard Tallion were quick to yell, “IS THAT YOU, MASON?!” and he even earned a shout-out on the next morning’s net. There was one lowlight: the increased usage of the head resulted in a serious clog. The toilet-scale flakes + increased TP meant I spent seven hours elbows-deep in boat plumbing. FOUL doesn’t begin to cover it.

Our next passage felt like more of a slog. Light winds and during the boys’ shift the gennaker wrapped itself around the furling line not once, not twice, but three times, each time prompting the collective sentiment of why are we doing this again? Troy announced he was no longer steering when the gennaker was up. When sunrise hit, the girls came on for their shift and with it, a massive dorado. And now, for accuracy, and entertainment, here’s Bethany’s version of the Great Dorado Incident.

“As I climb the three steps from the galley to the cockpit, I spot the frantic fluttering of a fish on the line. This is it, what we’ve been waiting for! I scream in excitement as Becca starts reeling in our treasure. Mason and Troy take one look, decide this is not their circus, and promptly disappear below deck, much to my absolute dismay. How are they missing this?!

Once the fish is safely in the cockpit and officially identified as a dorado, we quickly thank it for its life before Lane takes over. The killing process is… far more gruesome than you’d think – stabbing, hammering, the whole medieval toolkit. We decide the bow is the safest place to filet it, given the mess factor. Lane demonstrates on the first side like the pro she is, then hands me the reins.

I’m not thirty seconds in before the boat suddenly lurches. One moment I’m delicately trimming our fresh catch, and the next I’m clinging to the fish, gripping a massive knife that I’m desperately trying not to stab into myself or Becca, and bracing for dear life. Lane is nowhere in sight. Turns out she’d run below deck to check something and had accidentally turned off the autopilot. Pure chaos. She pops back up and corrects course as if this is all perfectly normal.

Once I recovered from the whiplash, emotional and literal, I finished fileting the rest of the dorado. I tossed the head and carcass overboard for the sharks in what felt like a dramatic, National Geographic offering. All told, it was less than an hour from the first flicker on the line to bagging our beautiful filets.

That night, we ate the best fish tacos I’ve had in ages. The whole experience gave me a new appreciation for what it really means to eat fish and meat. A heartfelt thank you to our brave food processors, this is not a job for the faint of heart.”

Midway through the leg, the fleet’s radios lit up when a solo sailor accidentally triggered his man-overboard alarm. We were thirty miles away and too far to help, but we listened helplessly as nearby boats diverted course towards his boat and MOB position. Eventually the sailor came back on to announce it was a false alarm, and there was a collective exhale across the fleet.

Bahía Santa María itself was remote. Except for a perfect wave, which we’ll get to. Over to Troy, with the surf report:

Bahia Tortugas, Day 4: Another sailor, and fluent Spanish speaker, managed to get in touch with an ice cream shop owner whose daughter (Alejandra) was a local surf guide. 6 of us crammed in her Jeep Cherokee, with 6 boards on the roof and me in the trunk, and bumped for 30 minutes down a dirt road. The wave was a beach break, about 3-4 feet, and it was just us and 2 locals. You could go right or left, and as the tide shifted a better right appeared that behaved more like a point break. We surfed until we were delirious, and then ate what few snacks we had and went home with plans to come back tomorrow with more friends and more snacks. Rating: 4 stars

Bahia Tortugas, Day 5: News of our successful mission had spread. We now had 3 more people interested in joining, and Alejandra recruited a friend with a truck to get the extra people out there. This time the waves were even better, with some 6 foot waves rolling through, and no one else was out there. Just 9 friends sharing a lineup. The session wrapped up with new friend Oliver and I hunting some overhead waves that had started to come through when everyone else had gone in. Rating: 4.5 stars

Bahia Santa Maria, Day 8: You could see a peeling point break a little less than a mile from where we were anchored. This was going to be insane. We shuttled over in a dinghy, cramming 5 people and boards in it on two different trips. This was it. A 3-4 foot wave, breaking in the same spot every time, that rolled for about 30 seconds. The takeoff was a little dicey, near some exposed rocks, but the last 10 seconds of that wave were in clear enough water that you could see fish swimming under you, and you actually couldn’t see the wave, just rocks moving under you as you floated along. Once again, just 9 friends sharing an incredible wave for hours with no one else around. Rating: 5 stars

Bahia Santa Maria, Day 9: Mason finally was tired of winging around the entire bay, impressing the older women, and wanted to get out for a dawn patrol. We dinghied over at sunrise and shared the most incredible hour of surfing of the trip. Perfect shoulder high waves showed up out of nowhere with wide open faces. Surfing a nearly perfect wave with just 1 friend, and seeing other waves roll through untouched with nothing but your imagination to surf them is almost unheard of in the world of surfing. And to then have 8 of your newest friends show up and join in on the fun made it just about the best morning ever. Rating: 5+ stars

The rest of us hiked up a nearby peak that looked like Big Sur had been air-dropped onto the Baja coast. We capped the stop with a beach party where a rock band drove all the way from La Paz. We enjoyed fish tacos and B and I floated over to a neighbor’s cockpit for some recreational apple time. Mason taught the girls how to foil and everyone managed to stand up, though Becca became the star pupil.

For the final overnight passage, Bethany and Becca decided to ditch their scopolamine patches. Within a couple of hours they were both miserably sick. Was it seasickness? The beach-party beers from the night before? A toxic combination of both? Hard to say. While they suffered nobly in their bunk, Troy reeled in our third skipjack tuna, a species widely dismissed in the cruising world as “strictly for pets.” The healthy contingent of the crew agreed it was surprisingly decent. We would, in fact, eat it again.

The sail itself was excellent. There was a steady breeze, warm air, and the kind of star-filled sky you only get miles offshore. At sunset, one cruiser came on the radio and announced, “Baja Fleet Baja Fleet, this has been an absolutely perfect day of sailing.” 3/5 of us couldn’t agree more!

Seeing the arch at Cabo appear at sunrise was awesome. We dropped the hook, dove straight into the water, and then made a beeline for the nearest restaurant with air-conditioning. Every single one of us swayed through the entire meal, Pina Coladas in hand. 

The Cabo anchorage was full, loud, and chaotic. Jet skis buzzed Discovery regularly, the channel had absolutely no rules. Sport Fishman, tourist day trips, and pangas all raced around one another in tight quarters while sea lions jumped on the back of boats! Despite the chaos, we were relieved to have made it, safely and still friends. The cherry on top was that Discovery won her class! Our first piece of hardware.

Lasting thoughts from the crew:

Troy decided he will never own a boat. He compared the whole experience to skydiving: “Cool to do once. Will not initiate doing it again. Will do again if asked.” He’ll miss the blackout-level sleeping conditions, but not the rationed water. He’ll keep building up his surf paddle muscles and plans to track our GPS solely to identify breaks that don’t require spinnaker handling or multi-day passages.

After foiling behind the dinghy like she’d been doing it for years, Becca is now plotting to buy a foil and a tiny motorboat so Bethany can tow her around. She’ll eagerly drive Discovery any day, as long as there are zero hazards abound and she can keep her eyes locked on that compass.

Bethany, ever the competitor, will be sharpening her volleyball and tennis skills so she can better manage subpar teammates (allegedly us). She’s also officially the designated fish filleter, provided someone is actually at the wheel this time. She remains steadfast in her hunt for a husband who will create a meaningful space for her in his life and will continue enlisting 70-year-old men to aid her cause. (P.S. If you know an eligible bachelor, please report directly to the crew for vetting.)

For Mason and me, the Baja Ha-Ha was the perfect first ocean passage with friends. Discovery handled the miles beautifully, even under the strain of five humans packed into forty-three feet, and we ended the two weeks proud and honestly shocked at how gracefully everyone survived such tight quarters. We did learn that we are complete hogs when it comes to power and water though so before round two, we’re scheming ways to cut usage or add more solar.

Huge thanks to our Baja crew – the Nemo cast, the surf addicts, the vomiters, the volleyball stars, the dinghy foilers, and the unexpectedly competent sailors. We couldn’t have asked for a better start to our life outside the USA.