LETTERS Steve — Thanks for the heads up. True, the information may be too late for most of this year's Bashers — but not all. We got your email on July 13, and we and Profligate were still in La Cruz with our Bash ahead of us. Here's hoping we have correct change in U.S. currency. By the way, we wondered if you were joking about there being a place called Lotus in California. We Googled it and found out you weren't pulling our leg, because it's right there near Placerville. ⇑⇓THERE'S NO SUCH BEAST . . . YET My husband and I are trying to get our ducks in a row so we can join this year's Baja Ha-Ha. Do you have any info on having a boat trucked back from Cabo to Ensenada or the United States? And what would be the cost and recommended companies? Terry Albrecht Planet Earth Terry — To our knowledge, it's never been done from Cabo or La Paz, although we're not quite sure why. Marina Seca, near San Carlos on the mainland, did it for many years. They would lift out the boat, put it on their truck, and drive it to Tucson, where it would be unloaded and put onto a U.S. carrier. If we remember correctly, it cost about $5,000 to ship a 40-ft boat back to Southern California, but apparently it just wasn't worth the effort, as they stopped the operation a few years ago. However, in early July, after 15 years of battling over the details of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S. and Mexico recently signed an agreement that would finally allow Mexican trucks to deliver goods into the United States and U.S. trucks to deliver goods into Mexico. Perhaps this will encourage somebody to jump into the over-land boat delivery business. Of course, the agreement also has to be passed by the U.S. Congress, so don't hold your breath. Other options are having Dockwise bring the boat from La Paz or Lazaro Cardenas to Ensenada in the spring, or having someone like the author of the following letter deliver the boat back. By the way, if you just want to do the Ha-Ha and get your boat right back, November and December are considered generally good months to Bash.
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Latitude 38
• August, 2011
(510) 815-4420
LATITUDE / ANNIE
RIGGING
⇑⇓"IT'S ONLY A BASH IF YOU MAKE IT ONE" As I write this, I'm in Turtle Bay in the middle of my eighth trip back to San Diego from the Mexican mainland. For me, this year has been a little up and down relative to the weather, but watching the news, it seems the weather has been a bit weird all over. We’ve been bucking marginally high winds, and have had seas ranging from flat calm to 8- to 12-footers with 8- to 10-second intervals. In the past, I Harry Hazzard has plenty of experience 'bash- always contended ing' up the coast on 'Distant Drum'. that traveling north was only a Bash if you made it one. I know there have been books written about it, and different theories thrown from here to there. But just going out there and getting yourself beat up so you'll have something to write or complain about is not quite my cup of tea. I believe that picking weather windows