You know what the first rule of sailing is? Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘verse, but you take a boat to the sea you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her cruising when she oughta ground, tells you she’s hurting ‘fore she keens. Makes her a home.”

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds

Listened in on the 8:00 AM Cruiser’s Net on VHF channel 69 – every morning except Sunday. It’s a well organized little chat between boaters of various marinas and anchorages (and a good way to make sure your VHF is working!). Going by boat names, you can chime in if you want, or just listen in. Things discussed today included the Baja 1000 that’s this weekend, a potluck dinner at another marina (confused about the name, Seaport Village or Cruiseport village?), and a few comments on the weather (someone was making a comment about which way the flag wasn’t blowing and that the seas are calm).

I also spent the morning at Starbucks for its good WiFi, which is funny since I didn’t use it and instead I took over a large table and went over charts, marked anchorages that I plan to use.

Puerto Santo Tomas at N 30º 32.57′, W 116º 40.64′ is about 8 hours out of Ensenada (assuming I average 3 knots of speed). If I leave on Friday morning, 22 NOV 19, I should be there before sunset. Again, this time of year the sun rises at 6:15 AM and sets at 4:47 PM. Assuming it isn’t foggy, there should also be about 30-minutes of useful twilight before and afterward, too. That gives me a little over 11.5 hours of light to visually navigate by. As I am coastal sailing, being able to see an anchorage is a concern. If I decide to jump ahead several anchorages, (Say, Puerto Santo Tomas to Bahia San Quintin, which is about 80 nautical miles south, that would take me about (still assuming that I am only averaging 3 knots) 26-hours. This means an overnight sail and dropping the hook in the early afternoon. If the weather looks nice I am liking this plan.

The second possible anchorage is Punta Colonet (Colnet?) at N 30º 56.54′, W 116º 17.2′ and about 40-miles south of Peurto Santo Tomas. It’s about 13-hours of sailing, so I would leave before dawn to help ensure a daylight arrival. Short of that, weather permitting, of course, I’d bypass it and sail another 40-miles to Bahia San Quintin (adding another 13-hours), but that anchorage is wide and by all accounts easy to navigate via depth contours if it’s a nighttime arrival.

Then there’s Bahia San Quintin at N 30º 22.40′, W 115º 57.55′, with it’s two main anchorages. That’s the first location I hope to stay anchored at for a few days.

If all goes well, I will depart Ensenada at dawn on Friday and anchor at Puerto Santo Tomas that evening. Depart Saturday morning, again before dawn, say 4:00 AM, and sail south to Punta Colonet. Hopefully arriving before sunset Saturday. If the sailing is great, I may bypass Punta Colonet and sail the remaining 40-miles to Bahia San Quintin for a Sunday morning, early afternoon arrival.

The weather is a slight concern as a low-pressure front will be coming through Ensenada Wednesday 20 NOV 19, or Thursday 21 NOV 19, and I hope to ride the settled winds behind it. Of course, any forecast more than 3-days out is always a concern. I will now when it’s time to leave as the winds will shift from being out of the south (a nice 10-mile beam reach across the bay to the first turn, by then the winds should shift to being out of the west, so another reach as I head south 13 more miles to Puerto Santo Tomas (a little less than 8-hours of sailing).

So, that’s what’s going through my mind these mornings as I drink coffee in Sine Metu’s cockpit each morning. I know that I will not be able to post such a float plan in the future as WiFi south of here is a rare breed of thing to find. With my Google Fe phone, I can write simple posts and post them whenever I have cell and data service.

So, if you want to know where Waldo is, feel free to check-in on me next weekend! https://sailingsinemetu.com/wheres-waldo/

Today’s To-Do List:

• Scan all Mexican entry paperwork with the phone’s CS CamScanner app. I like to keep a digital copy in the cloud and with K. (DONE!)
• Update paper logbook since I didn’t do a great job of doing that on the way south from San Diego. I will keep it honest and note that these are after-the-fact remembrances and not current observations. (DONE!)
• And clean up all of the other items I didn’t get to this week:
  • Try my hand at baking hardtack with the solar oven.
  • Clean up the cabin.
  • Keep working on waypoints and anchorages every 40-miles or so (day sails) south to Bahia Tortuga. (DONE through Bahia San Quintin)Add them to both the B&G (Not Done) and InReach systems (DONE!)