With reports of the wind picking up, we decided after dinner that it would be best to return to San Pedro or the mainland coast. We wanted another day to test the Tortuga waters, but crossing the Sea of Cortez when the conditions were rough was not the best idea. We thought that we could salvage the remainder of the trip with another good afternoon of fishing at San Pedro. All of the kayaks were brought back aboard that evening. After dinner several of the guys worked at making bait. The bait tank had been fixed and they managed to fill it with a couple dozen large macs.
We got underway early the next morning to make a run across to the mainland. We could tell from the start that it was going to be rough.
We had run short of Dramamine, so large quantities of beer were consumed instead. Odd; I'd never heard of this cure for sea sickness before. It seemed to work until we got out of the lee of the island. By the time we were a mile or two out we started taking some nasty rolls. I guess I neglected to mention any description of the El Duque in my previous posts. The El Duque is a 52', round-bottomed, concrete dive boat. Yes; I did say concrete....you know, that stuff that the mob encases your feet in when they want to sink your body. The Duke is about as stable as a concrete bath tub and the rocking motion is amplified when your on the upper deck. Almost everybody came up topside for the passage.
Soon, we realized that sitting on the deck was the only way to stay put. We were getting tossed around pretty good at this point. Corey lit up a smoke and that was all Mike needed to go into projectile vomit mode. He slid down to the main deck and promptly filled Chris' yak with breakfast.
The waves were getting bigger as we got away from the island. Every couple of minutes we would run into a good set that would violently throw us around. After getting hit by one of these waves we heard a sickening pounding on the hull. You know that sound when a kayak gets slammed into concrete....yeah, that was the sound. Somebody looked over the side and yelled that we were losing a kayak. Just then we got hit by another large wave and Todd's kayak was ripped away from the side.
A quick look astern and we see Todd's yak, bait tank and camera case slipping away. One of the hatches had been blown off by the wave. Amazingly, it was still upright and floating. Alex slowed the El Duque and a quick discussion took place to decide what to do. I was dreading coming about in these seas. This friggin' concrete bath tub was rocking badly enough heading into the seas. I didn't want to find out what she would do with her beam to the swell. In the end, we decided to try to retrieve the yak. Alex managed to come about between sets, but it was still pretty ugly. We heard crashing noise coming from below; everything was getting tossed about in the galley. Corey, Brent and the deckhand, Fernando, were on the stern with a gaff. We made a slow approach and they managed to gaff the yak. Todd's yak was safely on board and we could return to the island to wait out the wind. Well, at least we thought that was the plan. They asked Todd if he wanted to try to get the bait tank and the camera case. He said he didn't care about the tank, but he really wanted to get the camera back. I don't know what sort of pictures were on that camera, but they must have been juicy.
We missed on one pass and had to come around again. That pig really rolled quite a bit and we were tempting fate each time we put our beam to the seas. Fernando was going to use a net to try and catch the camera case. I couldn't believe it when I saw him holding onto the damn bait net. He was going to try to snag a 6" camera case in rough seas with a 3 foot long bait net. Unbelievable. We missed on the first attempt and had to back down on the case. That was fun. At some point, Fernando wound up on the wrong side of the stern. The camera case was coming up on them rapidly and he had Todd's kayak between him and the swim step. Corey picked him up and dropped him on the other side of the yak. He managed to scoop up the case on the next try. With the successful retrieval of the camera, ALEX got greedy and wanted to go for the bait tank. We came around again and were able to gaff it on the next pass. By this time, we were all ready to head back to the island. Fortunately, we were heading the right direction on the last pass and we just kept going. Two hours later we were back at anchor in the lee of the island.
By now, we were resigned to the prospect of staying at Tortuga for the next two days until the wind died down. Our biggest concern was getting word to our relatives that we were not going to be getting home on schedule. Tyler was able to get a signal on his cell phone. Brent got through to the shop and told Brian to make the calls to our next of kin. That was the last communications that we had until we returned to San Carlos.
With nowhere to go, we put the kayaks back in the water and did some more fishing. Conditions were the same as the previous day; windy and choppy.
Seamus went back out for a long free diving excursion. He must have covered several miles and was in the water for hours. When he returned he had an enormous pargo on his float. Chris, Mike, Todd and Brent all got some more diving in.
Fishing was pretty much as it had been the day before. Lots of trigger, cabrilla, and yellow snapper.
Once again, squid was the consistent producer. Fishing picked up again in the afternoon. More fish for the table. This evening, Alex made a fish stew with jalapenos and fish tacos.....muy bueno.
And then we had a real EMERGENCY. We ran out of beer 
WTF? Ten cases just wasn't enough? Holy crap. Mutinous talk filled the night air. Were we going to risk the passage across the Sea of Cortez in search of beer? Should we paddle over to the pangueros who were also stranded out here to see if they had any? Nah. We just went to sleep.
The next morning we contemplated the choppy horizon. It still looked just as bad as the previous day. Nothing to do but fish. Corey, Brent and Todd launched early; eager to troll some live bait. We hoped that the big macs would do the trick. Shortly after launching I heard Todd let out a yell, only to be followed with an anguished cry; Arrrhhhh! His mac got hit by something big, but it immediately busted him off in the rocks. Brent also got a good hit, only to lose it in the rocks after about twenty seconds. It was a good sign, but the rocky bottom was going to make catching anything very difficult. The divers came up with reports of house-sized boulders below us. Todd shifted over to wire leaders, hoping to have a chance. I had one mac that got raked and another that got hit and immediately pulled me down into the rocks. We finally had the right bait and the fish had started to bite, but it was going to take some work to get one of these big fish out of the rocks.
After three days of fighting the wind, this morning, most of us chose to fish from the boat.
We ran across a 42' Cabo that had been stuck at the island for three days. While they weren't very friendly when asked if they had extra beer, they did give us weather updates. It was nice to finally have access to some satellite and buoy weather reports, rather than anecdotal reports from the pangueros. It looked like it was going to lay down in the afternoon. The Cabo was going to make a run for it around noon. We decided that we should also make a run in the afternoon. We got all the kayaks and divers back aboard and had an early lunch. We got most of the kayaks lashed off and it was hoped that they would be out of harm's way. Only two were still in the low sling positions that had been problematic on the first crossing attempt. With all the gear stowed and lashed down, we got underway again.
It was obvious from the start that it was still going to be a rough trip. Fortunately, the wind had calmed enough to make the crossing safe. That isn't to say that we didn't take some pretty good rolls
Chris got launched across the upper deck by one good wave. He crashed into Mike, then hit his face on a bench. He learned to keep his center of gravity low to the deck
My yak took quite a beating on the way back, but it made it across with no major damage. I was worried about it the whole way across. With every big roll to port, the waves would hit it and shove it up into Brad's kayak. Neither was damaged, but they sound of my yak smacking into his every minute or two for 6 hours was somewhat distressing.
The crossing was rough, but we were all glad to see Tortuga sinking down on the horizon.
The only problem that we had was when the engine started to overheat and we had to shut it down. DIW in those sloppy conditions wasn't very fun. The crew stared at the engine for a while until Mike solved the problem. He used HP air from a scuba tank to back flush the sea water cooling intake. After that it was smooth sailing.
The trip back had a few more surprises in store for us. A huge pod of spinner dolphin spotted us and raced to intercept. They were pretty amazing; jumping 10-15 feet out of the water and doing complete flips and spins. They rapidly caught up to us and played in our bow wave for a while. They got bored with our slow speed and left us after a few minutes. Just after they departed, we had a large sperm whale pass close aboard. Another memory from a trip that had provided so many.
After 8 hours we pulled into San Carlos. It was late and we wanted to get some food. We quickly piled everybody into the van. OK, well not everybody. Corey, Todd and Kurt must not have liked the smell of ten guys who hadn't showered in four days. They chose to ride on the trailer. You gotta love Mexico. We got some food and the beer lamp was lit. After a 2-day enforced separation from the amber nectar of life, large quantities were consumed. And the people were happy.
In spite of the long night, we got up early and got all of the gear off the boat. We had the trailer packed and the kayaks loaded within two hours. A final group shot at the marina and we were on our way.
Of course, we couldn't leave Mexico without one more stop at a taco stand. Dos mas tacos carne asada, por favor.
The trip back was somewhat more subdued than our trip down to San Carlos. It had been a long trip and we were all looking forward to getting home. That and everybody needed some sleep.
All in all, it was an excellent trip. We didn't catch the fish that we had hoped for, but we still had lots of fun. About what you would expect for a trip on the the Sea of Cortez in February. I'd love to get back down there in the summer. We had a great group of anglers on this trip and I had a blast. Thanks to all who shared their fishing knowledge with me. Also a big thanks to everybody who took pictures. I have used some from Adi, Kurt and Tyler in these reports. A big thanks goes to Brent and Seamus for making this trip possible.
I can't wait for the Islander trips to start.