Counting Down to the 30th Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally, and Surfing!

It’s official! With the passing of the solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is now sailing through summer. Here in the Bay Area we’ve been enjoying some beautifully warm weather, interspersed with some cooler moments, depending on where you happen to be standing. But none of that has stopped our looking ahead to the latter part of the year when sailors start to head south, particularly this year, as the Ha-Ha turns 30. Right now, again, depending on where you’re standing, there are only 133 days until the Kick-Off Parade in San Diego.

At the time of this writing, 80 boats and their crews had signed up for this annual cruising rally to Mexico. That’s a minimum of 160 sailors, all heading to party it up amid the warm, sunny bays and beaches that comprise the official Ha-Ha stops. One of the activities that awaits sailors post-Ha-Ha is surfing — for boards, not boats.

Here’s the Poobah’s official word on the Ha-Ha and surfing:

As all surfers know, catching good waves is always a hit-and-miss thing. It’s even more so when there is limited time, such as during the Ha-Ha. So there are no guarantees.

However, over the years, Ha-Ha participants have sometimes caught excellent surf at the point at Bahia Santa Maria (BSM), the sometime home of a fly-in surf camp. In some years, there has also been interesting surf at the bar on the way into the mangroves at BSM.

Not nearly as often, sailor-surfers have met up with other surfers in Turtle Bay to drive to a break a few miles up the coast.

Isla Natividad, just north of Turtle Bay, is known to have great surf, but we’re not sure how one would approach that.

Scorpion Bay, on the middle reach of Baja, is probably the best-known and most reliable break along the Baja coast. But in order to hit that, a Ha-Ha-er would have to either leave Turtle Bay a day earlier than the rest of the fleet or arrive in Bahia Santa Maria a day later than most of the fleet.

There are also well-known surf spots once the fleet gets to Cabo.

After the Ha-Ha, there are many fine breaks on the mainland. There is great surf at a number of places in Mazatlán. And San Blas is known not just for mosquitoes but also for long, mellow, beginner rides.

Sayulita is an international surfing mecca, and you can paddle in to the break. The downsides are that it’s often crowded with beginners and locals, and it’s an open-roadstead anchorage.

The sailor/surfer’s paradise on mainland Mexico is just inside the northwest corner of Banderas Bay, where in the space of just a couple of miles there are five or six great breaks, from El Faro to Burros.

There’s more info to be had, too much to share here, so head on over to Baja Ha-Ha XXX for the full surf report.

And while you’re there, sign up and join the fleet for one of the most fun cruising rallies you’ll ever experience.