A hundred boats leave San Diego on one November morning, stop twice at anchorages with no road to them, and finish in Cabo eleven days later.
That is the Baja Ha-Ha, and it has been running since 1994. It is not a race that anyone takes seriously, and it is not a delivery either. It is the friendliest way to take a boat into Mexico for the first time, with a fleet around you the whole way down and a party at the end of every leg.
Limelight is a 2024 Bavaria C38 out of Shilshole, in Seattle. She came down the coast this autumn. In November she goes to Mexico, and in December she starts a charter season in the islands off La Paz.
The start · Oct 31 to Nov 2
San Diego
Anchored in Glorietta Bay with the fleet, burgee up, dinghy in the water, and a hundred boats doing the same three things you are doing.
Crew fly in on the 31st. Sunday is the mandatory skippers meeting at West Marine and a costume party that nobody warns you about properly. Monday morning is the parade out of the bay at ten, and at eleven the whole fleet crosses a start line off Coronado Roads and turns south. It is the only moment of the trip when every boat is in the same place, pointed the same way.
360 miles
The long one. Land goes away past Ensenada and stays away for three nights. The watch rotation stops feeling like a spreadsheet somewhere in the second night, the water changes colour, and by the time Isla Cedros is abeam this has stopped being a plan and started being a passage.
Stop one · Nov 5 to 7
Turtle Bay
A dusty fishing town of three thousand people, a beach picnic, and a baseball game against the locals that the fleet loses every year.
We arrive before dawn on the fifth, which is a decision rather than an accident: either we slow down and come in with the light, or we go in on radar. Then two days of not moving. Fuel comes out to you in a panga, or you go alongside a pier that has seen better decades.
This is the only fuel between San Diego and Cabo, and it is cash only.
240 miles
Two nights, warmer every hour, and the wind finally behind us. New moon falls on the ninth, so these are the darkest nights of the trip and the best ones for the sky. Most of the fleet flies something colourful and slow down this stretch.
Stop two · Nov 9 to 12
Bahía Santa María
No town, no fuel, no signal. A fish camp on the bluff, a mangrove lagoon behind the beach, and a band trucked over the hill to play for the fleet.
You anchor off a long sand spit with sixty other boats and the swell wrapping in around the point. There is a surf landing, a hike up the headland that is worth the effort, and on the tenth the beach party where Mexican immigration officials clear the entire fleet into the country between plates of fish tacos.
Ask a Ha-Ha veteran which stop they would go back for. Most of them say this one.
180 miles
One night at sea. Round Cabo Falso in the morning with the wind funnelling over the cape, then in past the arch by mid-afternoon into a harbour full of boats that all just did the same thing you did.
The finish · Nov 13 to 14
Cabo San Lucas
Eleven days after the start line, you round the rocks at Land's End and the whole thing is behind you.
The dance party at Squid Roe is on the thirteenth. Awards at Mango Deck on the fourteenth, where the categories are invented on the spot and the trophies mean nothing and everyone turns up anyway. Somewhere in there is the first shower in six days and a plate of something you did not cook underway.
Crew flying home leave from San José del Cabo. Anyone staying aboard keeps going north.
After the finish · Nov 16 to 20
Cabo is the finish line. La Paz is the point.
Three hops up the East Cape and into the Sea of Cortez: Los Frailes, Bahía de los Muertos, then the San Lorenzo channel and La Paz on the nineteenth, in time for the Ha-Ha beach party at La Costa on the twentieth.
Then Limelight stays. From December to mid-March she works the islands off La Paz: Espíritu Santo, Isla Partida, Balandra, water clear enough to read the anchor at four fathoms, whale sharks in the bay through the winter, and anchorages you have to yourself on a Tuesday. This is the reason the boat went south in the first place. Charter her in La Paz.
Life aboard
Nobody owns 0300
The watch bill is still open. Whatever we settle on, it staggers, so the overnight slot walks through the crew instead of belonging to one person for eleven days.
The grid gets printed and taped up at the nav station, because nobody can do rotation arithmetic at three in the morning. Three hot meals a day. Lasagna the first night out, ginger chews within reach of every bunk, and half a gallon of water per person per day before anyone starts talking about a shower.
Two people on deck at all times, tethers after dark, red lights in the cockpit, and quiet in the galley when the off watch is sleeping.
Logistics
What it takes to be on the boat
Getting there
Fly into San Diego by October 31. Out of San José del Cabo from November 14, or stay aboard to La Paz and fly out of LAP.
Papers
Passport and a Mexican tourist card. The rally files a crew list for the fleet, and immigration clears us in at the Bahía Santa María beach party on November 10.
Money
US dollars in cash for Turtle Bay fuel and the towns. Cards work in Cabo and La Paz and almost nowhere in between.
Gear
PFD with leg straps, tether, a red headlamp, foul weather gear that keeps water out, and seasickness medication started a day or two before we sail, not when you feel it.
Signal
Starlink aboard, nothing at Bahía Santa María, patchy at Turtle Bay. Tell people at home they will hear from you properly in Cabo.
Following along
The boat carries AIS and a tracker, so anyone ashore can watch us move down the coast. The live track will be on Where's Limelight before we leave.
Standing orders
- Don't fall in.
- Don't hit anything.
- When in doubt, inform or ask the skipper.
- Ask questions.
- Think. THINK. Then act.
- Two persons on deck at all times.
- Tethers at night. No alcohol under way.
- Priorities: safety, then comfort, then fun.
How this boat runs
Don't fall in. Don't hit anything.
Everything else is commentary. Crew get the long version in the briefing pack: watch bill, station bill, emergency procedures, the full gear list, and what happens at three in the morning when something goes wrong.
You do not need offshore experience. You need to turn up on time, take your watch seriously, and be someone the rest of us want to be in a small boat with for two weeks.
Your skipper
Mark Alcazar
Twenty-five years of getting complicated things to work, and a 2024 Bavaria C38 that has already brought us down from Seattle. The boat is Limelight, out of Shilshole, and that page has the full spec if you want it. This one is about where she is going.
Crew of five, and still a berth or two for the right people. If that sounds like you, meet the crew and get in touch.