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We are preparing to get underway from La Paz, Baja. Next stop is San Diego on our way to Alaska. It was a wonderful, challenging, exciting and sublime winter in the Sea of Cortez. And now Westward and Catalyst are heading north for Alaska.

As I prepared myself for my first Baja charter season I acquired as many writings about the region as possible. From beautiful large format photo journals to intertidal organism identification books to awkward, self-published accounts of personal adventures. As I have read through this eclectic collection each one has allowed me to ink in an area on my personal Baja chart where before was written only Terra Incognito. Several of these books address the history, biological make up and current challenges facing Baja’s three gray whale birthing and breeding lagoons. The northernmost of these three lagoons was, until recently, named Scammon’s Lagoon, for the whaling ship captain that discovered it’s labyrinthine entrance, and then exploited his discovery until the whales who sheltered within were thought completely exterminated. This took less than ten years. Scammon had more than the lagoon’s complicated entrance…

We had anchored in Puerto Gato, a beautiful shallow bay that lies on the eastern shore of the Baja peninsula, about midway between the fishing villages of San Evaristo and Agua Verde. Northerly winds had been whipping up the Gulf for the past few days, and the resulting wind swell was wrapping around the point…

Westward is now moored in La Paz after a breezy voyage south from Loreto. We saw blue and humpback whales, common and bottle nose dolphins, newly hatched frigate bird chicks, jumping Dorado and many beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We depart soon to return to Loreto, and I am eager for our next Sea of Cortes encounters.

Dear Friends: Westward and Baja Status: June 24, 2015 I hauled Westward this morning in Port Townsend. She will be here on the hard getting a short list of projects taken care of while I go back to Catalyst in Alaska. And then…… Five and a half months in the life of Westward. December 20,…

Flying home from Baja for Christmas I was on the afternoon flight from Los Cabos. Due to the prevailing seasonal winds our plane took off toward the north, and that meant that we flew over the Sierra de la Giganta mountains and had a view of La Paz and the islands in the Gulf of…

Rounding Cabo Falso, Cabo San Lucas at dawn today after a smooth 4 day passage from San Diego. We will arrive in La Paz either late tonight or early Thursday. Water temp 76, 15 degrees warmer than it was in San Diego! 1,100 journey from Seattle.

We are now 3 miles from the harbor buoy, and will be moored by 7:30. What a trip! One note of significance, when we tie up in San Diego Westward will have completed a round trip from San Diego to Seattle and back again on one load of fuel! Not many modern off shore cruisers…

It is now 0500 on Monday, January 4. Westward is about 9 miles NW of Palos Verde and is 99 miles from the San Diego Harbor entrance buoy. We sailed from Port Townsend, Washington last Monday night at 2200, and since then have traversed all but 99 miles of the west coast. With the exception…

We left the dock in Port Townsend at 2200 Monday night (Dec. 23rd), and just passed Dungeness Spit off of Squim. Everything is running fine and we hope to be in San Diego on January 3rd. We will spend 2 days there before continuing on to La Paz, Baja California Sur, where we will begin…

We launch Monday, December 20th and then begin final preparation for our repositioning run from Port Townsend to La Paz, Baja Sur. We have been longer than planned here in the boatyard, and spent more than budgeted, but things are coming together and Westward is in better shape than she has been in 75 years…

We encountered amazing bear viewing at Pack Creek yesterday and stayed past our planned departure time. Today’s schedule didn’t allow any room for flexibility, so we traveled through dinner last night and arrived at our anchorage in the late evening. The only illumination as we anchored was a waxing moon, so we couldn’t see if…