Organized fleets offer a sense of safety in their sheer numbers, and they may also furnish a doctor or other medical professional aboard one or two of the boats who carries a defibrillator in the gear bag.
SHARED KNOWLEDGE “The Bakers speak pretty good Spanish,” Able said. “We’re counting on them to interpret for us at any fuel docks where they don’t speak English.”
My husband and I speak pretty good Spanish, so we don’t mind talking to merchants at the fuel dock, mechanic shop, etc. But the skipper of one buddy boat we traveled with insisted that we try to haggle a cheaper price for him on everything — from labor after a craftsman reshaped and rebalanced his dinged prop, to his grocery bill at family-run tiendas in little villages. It embarrassed us enough that we parted ways ahead of schedule.
NEEDY BUDDY My early cruising experience with buddy boating in Mexico was an eye opener. The other boat had only one person capable of standing watch, and after its engine failed halfway down Baja, they expected us to tow them to shore every sunset so the helmsman could sleep. Unfortunately, Baja doesn’t have overnight anchorages conveniently spaced out like that, so we spent quite a few nights towing our buddies south so they could sleep without fear of drifting onto the rocks.
When we got to Cabo San Lucas, I gladly rounded up a mechanic and all his tools and gave him a ride out to our buddy at anchor. Still, they begged us to curtail our travel plans and wait to accompany them to La Paz. We declined, with polite regrets.
PILEUP “Don’t everyone head for the turning waypoint at the same time.” Those instructions were written and repeated to the group of powerboaters. But, sure enough, pileups nearly occurred, as heard loudly on VHF.
Many of the less-experienced mariners didn’t know how to disengage their autopilot or how to reset their chartplotter’s course for a second waypoint a few miles away before they actually got to the first one. They thought they had to wait for the autopilot to do that course change for them.
In one instance, the turning waypoint given to the fleet (off Cabo San Lazaro north of Mag Bay) also happened to be a turning waypoint for northbound cruise ships. Can you imagine what it’s like to see a wall of 20 yachts blocking your path, all trying to get around one corner at the same time you are?