10/31/2001   Start of the Baja Haha in San Diego

"SIESTA and the rest of the 100+ sailboats in the Baja Haha Fleet departed San Diego at 11am, with a beautiful showing of spinnaker colors. To add to the spectacle, the aircraft carrier #74, plus a number of other large warships departed the San Diego harbor about the same time. We have plenty of beautiful pictures to post on our web site. A helicopter hired by the Baja Haha Latitude 38 organizers took pictures of all the boats at the start. Most of them had their colorful sails flying. SIESTA's pictures must have come out great, with our new colorful drifter/reacher from Quantum Sails in Point Richmond. Thank you, Jocelyn!

At 6:00 am this morning, we are 125 miles south of San Diego. We had an uneventful day yesterday. We celebrated Daisy's birthday with an arroz con pollo, Cuban style, worthy of licking one's fingers.

Currently we are 27 MILES WEST OF PUNTA COLNETT, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO, expecting to arrive at Turtle Bay, our first Baja Haha stop, Thursday afternoon.

Everybody on board: Hank Delevati, Sid Long, Gary Mayes, and Daisy and I are feeling well, and enjoying the trip. The following seas are rolly, 3-5 feet, but the sun is up after a beautiful full-moon night. All SIESTA systems are working fine.

We will provide an update again tomorrow. You can check our position reports and updates at our web site, following the instructions for REAL-TIME UPDATES AND POSITION REPORTS.

Ed and Daisy aboard the S/V "SIESTA", 27 miles off the Coast of Mexico"

"After a nice freshly-caught mahi-mahi (dorado) meal last night, we settled for the night. The wind came down significantly, and the cloud formation reflecting the passing of a front were seen, in a full moon. We decided to bring in the big jib, avoiding the possibility of sudden higher winds. We found that the furling line was all tangled in the furling drum. I woke up Hank, and both of us untangled the mess on the bow. Back to normal, and back to 3-hours watches, on and off. Daisy and I took the 1-3am watch, and Hank and Sid took the 3 to 6am, which has just been completed.

Our position is 28 degrees, 38 minutes Latitude North, and 115 degrees, 57 minutes, Longitude West. The water temperature is 61.3 degrees Fahrenheit, showing little change since we left San Diego on Tuesday morning. We expect a significant change when we get further south.

We can see several of the other boats coming along with us to Cabo on the Baha Haha, but they are several miles apart. At this point, we are about 55 miles from our first destination, Bahia de Tortugas.

We plan to spend a couple of days there, anchored off a beautiful beach."