We leave Puerto San Jose towards Cabo Colonet around seven thirty in the morning. I’m awoken around eight by Tor yelling “Fish on, fish on!” as loud as possible. I clamber out of my couch bed in the galley up to the top deck where one of the reels is screaming. I immediately start gathering line and working the fish all while trying to wipe my eyes awake. Tor and I manage to hook, reel, land, and dispatch our catch within ten minutes. Every time we get faster and more efficient. Our catch is a skipjack tuna, twenty eight inches in length, and a very muscular fish. These fish have some serious teeth and are real fighters, so we use thick gloves when dealing with them. They have beautiful dark markings streaming down their flanks with blue and green colors all over their bodies. Just as we were finishing off the first fish, the other reel started giving tons of line. I told Tor to start working on the other rod as I finished securing the first fish. Another skipjack tuna, around the same size as the first. I grabbed the gloves and started to hand line the fish to the boat and up onto the deck. Another fish successfully landed. No less than fifteen minutes later the wind took a sharp rise and began gusting to 20 knots. Tor told me to batten down the hatches. As I was walking down the steps, we were hit by a huge gust and thrown sideways. Everything flew off the shelves and came crashing down to the floor. Amelia leapt up from bed and helped secure the boat. Seconds later Gabe came stumbling out of the forward birth saying, “The surfboards just landed on my head, what’s going on.”

We went from cruising at ten knots to being overwhelmed by 30 knots in five minutes.

Gabe and I were called to the top decks and were given orders to put a reef in the jib. Putting a reef in a sail means pulling the sail in to make it grab less wind to be more in control if there is too much wind. It took me and Gabe to pull in the jib only five feet, where it usually is easy with one person. The jib is the sail that hangs over the bow in front of the main sail. After we finished that Tor wanted to put a reef in the main also. We had to heave in order to put the main sail down just a couple of feet. A heave-to is where you point the boat up into the wind and let the jib just slightly pull the boat forward so there isn’t any pressure on the main sail. So while Tor steered, Gabe and I grabbed the sail at the base of the mast and pulled it down about ten feet, secured it, and headed back to the cockpit. Amelia was down below making sure nothing was going to breaking or leaking. As soon as we turned back down wind, gallons of water poured over the bow and streamed along the sides of the boat, soaking everything. We were still too overpowered, even with a reef in each sail, so Tor decided to take the jib away completely. Gabe and I pulled the jib in. We were sailing with just the main and were still going fast but it was manageable. This was a Santa Ana, a strong wind storm that always blows offshore in Southern California and Baja. It took us by surprise. Normally we wouldn’t be out in these conditions, but we all worked together and performed perfectly.

We came around the corner of Cabo Colonet and were relieved to see that it was protected. Exhausted, we set anchor and I began to work on the fish. Four giant fillets were for dinner. We couldn’t finish it all, so tuna for lunch tomorrow.