Bahia Santa Maria

It blew hard most of the night, but by morning the wind died and was replaced by more fog.  I woke up before dawn and started getting the boat ready to travel. We had planned to spend a couple of days here but the cold temperatures are driving us south. By 0600 we were once again groping through the fog as we slowly motored out of the bay. About 5 nm out the fog began to lift, but there was still very little breeze. I started the watermaker around 1000hrs, which makes about 4 gallons of pure water per hour. It’s easy to tell the boats that have watermakers aboard. Those that don’t, usually have as many blue jerry jugs tied down on deck as they can, and maintain constant water discipline. Aboard the Honcho we have plenty of pure water.  It’s a luxury for a small boat that saves me the hassle of finding, buying and, worse, lugging 5 gallon jugs of water from shore to boat wherever we go. Without a watermaker,  water is a big deal.

A fish story:

 For most of this voyage Lisa has been trolling with a cedar plug in hopes of catching a dorado. As far as I could tell, we were just towing the thing from Ensenada to Cabo, without a fish so much as looking at it. This morning she changed it to a pink trolling lure, then went below to take a nap.  Half an hour later the reel lit up.  I quickly grabbed the rod because it looked like the fish was going to take it with him.  A couple of minutes later we had our first fish aboard, a five pound skipjack. Lisa came on deck toting a half gallon of rotgut rum. Maybe she thought I needed a shot of courage before I bashed in the head of the fish that was flapping around in the cockpit. Instead she poured a double shot down his gullet. With a couple of stiff ones under his belt, the fish relaxed in the back of the cockpit, then died in his sleep. I really don’t know jack about fishing, but I sure like the idea of standing any fish we bring aboard to a drink instead of beating him to a bloody pulp with a winch handle.  

Ten minutes later, Lisa had a couple of fillets carved using our specially engraved "Honcho" filleting knife by Messermeister, and I had the cockpit cleaned up. The knife was a gift from our friends, Steve and Deb. Deb owns Messermeister, and thanks to her, we are very well knived. I think the cleaver is Lisa’s favorite.  Thanks, Deb!!