Well we just sold the 38' Contender to Mark  Benedetti, really nice boat and I'm sure he'll love it. Part of the deal was we would deliver the boat to Cabo. No big deal really except, Pete and I have never delivered a gas boat to Cabo. Also we were in the middle of several very strong winter storms. So.......Pete starts in on the boat, making sure everything is just right for the trip, fuel curves and all. I am coming up with lists we need of items to bring on the trip, ditch kit, life raft tools, food that kind of stuff. I am also lining up the fuel at Ensenada, Turtle Bay and San Carlos and  watching the weather very, very closely.
About a week ago it looked like we might get a window starting the day after Christmas. A VERY SMALL WINDOW! Right between 2 storms, 3 days tops. Even one problem and we are going to scrub the trip. Several long days and we are ready to go. I had to pre-cook all the meals cause we weren't going to be doin any cookin at 33 knots. We talk Chris Bishop into making the trip with us. Young kid that didn't know better or more likely didn't care.
 We depart at 6 am and arrive in Ensenada at 8am fuel and depart by 9am. I am doin the math on the fuel burn like every 10 minutes. We know what the boat is burnin and know the size of the tanks but we don't know how much is use-able. About 30 miles from San Benitos we make the decision to run to the inside barely making it through the gap between Eugenia and Natividad while it was still light.  You have to go through the gap while it's light because of all the Lobster traps. Just gonna make it on fuel (Got in there with 50 gallons). If we weren't able to make it through in the light it would have changed the whole trip. We would have had to slow down for the dark and would have arrived in Turtle around  2am instead of 6 pm. 
 We get into Turtle Bay and Reuben from the ANNA BELLE meets us. He has just purchased a new fuel hose, at least 400' long, and is waiting with 500 gallons of Gasoline (Gas, so weird). We take 450 gallons and depart Turtle at 9pm. 8.5 knots seems painfully slow. Everytime we slow down the cirrus clouds catch up to us...uh oh. It starts to get a little rough around daylight, but we know we have to get out of there or the Storm from the North is gonna catch us and we are gonna drive into theSouthern storm. I make some coffee and it is time to take off. We had been running at 33 knots the day before so Pete runs it up to 33k and we launch off a pretty good one. Upon our arrival back to earth we slam down pretty good, Chris comes flying out of his chair and does a face plant square into my coffe cup I'm holding like 6' from him. The cup explodes and there is coffee EVERYWHERE. I look at Chris and tell him if he wanted some coffee he just had to ask. He's soaked, I'm soaked, Pete's soaked. Right off we kinda figured we needed to slow down a little. The boat ate it up at 30 k and within about 5 hours we were back out of it again. Back to slick grease weather. We had brought the boomer along to go give the big Tuna a try if the weather permitted but there was no way. One thing for sure, engine room checks with Outboards is a breeze. We were all willing to do them. You just turn around and go.....1....2.....3.....Yep they're all there. 
We arrive  in San Carlos at 2:30 pm. Way ahead of schedule. I called Dianne from Mag Bay outfitters at about 9am hoping she could get ahold of Martin, the Port Captain from Lopez Mateo. Martin was nice enough to drop what he was doing on a Sunday to come take care of us. Bob and Dianne were good enough to help arrange for me get the gas. It took awhile to get the gas as we needed to drive the truck with 4 barrels to the gas station, top them off, dump them in the boat and go back. We got out of Mag at 9pm, 8 knots again. Oh boy.
Uneventful night but at daylight here comes the weather, again. We can see the Southern storm approaching. Red Sky.....Nasty looking clouds. We take off and get out of the wind again in about 100 miles, 3 hours. Find a few Marlin, catch a few Tuna and take off as the rain is rapidly gaining on us. As we turn the corner to the Cape the rain starts hard and steady.
Just finished a nice hot shower, gonna go have a nice meal and go to bed. First I gotta wake these guys up, they're both passed out on the couch in our Condo.
I have to be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect on this trip. Bringing an Outboard boat to Cabo. I have to say now that the trip is behind me I am super pleased with the boats performance and ride. Very,nice boat.
Another one for the books.