Sleepless in Seattle, Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally and fred fair

Hussein in the Membrane: Making Lemonade in Iraq
1776 reads as if January 9, 2007 17:53.
We commented [Fred Fair.... for visibility reasons, of course.

----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Fair
To: payne payne
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 5:18 PM
Subject: Fwd: Roleplay (for adults)

Begin forwarded message:
From: Panama Billy
Date: January 4, 2007 4:52:33 PM MST
To: fredfair@TaosNet.com
Subject: Fwd: Fw: Roleplay (for adults)

Fred, this one you'll like when you get back!

http://www.glumbert.com/media/roleplay

----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Fair" To: "payne payne" Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 11:50 AM Subject: visit Bill: be leaving for Denver early tomorrow and back by 4pm so any time after that. My place: go about three miles north of plaza and look for Atilano Rd on left(just past a mail box cluster) - if you pass the El Prado post office you went too far. Go down Atilano jog slightly right on Atilano Ln (sign on Rumsfeld fence) - that's my drive way - cross 4 cattle guards and a couple 90 degree turns - it's a two story territorial with a red tin roof in a pasture all by itself - a smaller one story guest house will be at the opposite end of the pasture. My phone, when you get lost, is 758 9331 or cell which I never answer is 613 0653. See you tomorrow. Regards, Photo of Rumsfeld's Taos fence taken Tuesday September 28, 2006 Fred is Taos, NM neighbor, friend, and sometime business partner of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Fair To: bill payne Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 3:08 PM Subject: Re: rummy Bill: I just order the new bio. on Rumsfeld by Cockburn. I rather think it is unflattering. Hubris???? On Feb 15, 2007, at 9:03 PM, bill payne wrote: http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IB16Aa01.html ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Fair To: payne Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 3:23 PM Subject: Rumsfeld Bill: did I ever send this to you before? Regards, Trip to Oz We were off to Nixon’s funeral in a sleek Citation, chartered by my friends Don and Joyce. Originally we were flying out in the ancient but elegant Aero Commander Don and I owned. The weather had turned sour, but early enough for Don to arrange for the jet so we saved ourselves the horror of thundering out in four hours. Instead we whispered across the Southwest at 36,000 feet in two hours. Don had gotten me an invitation to the funeral. This was probably no easy feat; it was the number one power junkie event of the week. The day of the funeral, a Wednesday, began with a full winter snowstorm in Taos. We were scheduled to leave at noon. By 10:00 a.m. it appeared we would have to drive to Santa Fe to pick up the jet because of the snow. But 15 minutes later, the snow had tapered off and the crew of the charter jet decided on a Taos pick up. I was ready in my new second-hand suit purchased in Austin. I could use it for a wedding coming up and also my own internment some day. My normally windblown hair was plastered down with hair spray for the solemn occasion. It was still spitting snow at the Taos airport but the Citation landed on time and took right off again; we were quickly en route to the Orange County airport. I resisted the urge to kibitz with the pilots in the cockpit. Don was churning through several newspapers and magazines, dumping them on my lap so that I might be as current as he was regarding the mass of editorializing about Nixon’s past. Since his reading and retention rate were greater than mine, I left the unread editorials in a pile when we landed in Orange County. The local FBO was buried in what pilots describe as “heavy iron”--mostly Gulfstream III’s and IV’s which towered over our little Citation. All were there for the funeral. A limousine waited at the plane’s door. First, we were whisked off for a quick lunch and then driven 20 miles to Yerba Linda where the funeral was being held at the Nixon library. Our first stop was for credentials which turned out to be a little purple button with “R.N.” slashed across the face. I was not on the master invitee list but Don quickly arranged for my button and we were off again in the limo for the six-block ride through a modest neighborhood, now cordoned off to keep the public at bay. People were lined up on the sidewalks, some holding placards. I wondered if they were protesters although it seemed a bit after the fact. The street in front of the library was clogged with massive media vans and antennas. I imagine that getting out of the limo was as close as I was ever going to get to a state function. There were crowds of people standing around, hoping for a look at someone famous. My face would puzzle a power groupie. It was 3:00 pm and the service was set to begin at 4:00. We walked with an amorphous crowd through a security check which opened into the court where the ceremony was to be held. It looked packed already with a grand stand set up at the rear. Long rows of chairs seated around 1500. The place was milling with recognizable faces from the current administration, the congress and the Nixon/Watergate era. It was a kaleidoscope of recent American history and events. Each face evoked mental subtitles, descriptions of who and when, and were they indicted/convicted and for what. Don and Joyce slowly waded through the crowd with me in tow. Sometimes they would stop and press flesh with old friends and political cronies. I was introduced and for a moment pulled out of the newsreel environment of recognizable faces. The funeral was “ground zero” for the world that afternoon. I came face to face with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their “football”-- the device for launching a full-scale nuclear attack on anybody, anywhere, carried by a mere colonel. They, and we in turn, were completely surrounded by the Congress of the United States and various other levels of factotemry all trying to find their respective levels of notoriety in the seating/pecking order. Don was to be seated with Nixon’s old cabinet in the second row, but he broke for air and we ended up sitting behind the congressional delegation. We were sitting next to one of his retired, congressional friends from Michigan. Next to me was a Wyoming senator. In front of us was the blue-black wrinkled mass of the congress. In front of them, popping into view from time to time, were three past and current presidents. Publicity-seeking wannabes jockeyed for coveted seating. The bulk of the Watergate era passed into view over the next 30 minutes as we waited for the ceremony to begin. Thunder rolled in the not far-off distance. “Will it rain?” was a common refrain of new arrivals sitting around us. Security helicopters hovered in the darkening sky. Behind were bleachers filled with the untermensch, probably the press, or those with mere yellow buttons. They were not entitled to the reception to follow in the Nixon library. Their lot was to press their noses against the windows and look in or hang around outside to get some verbal pearls from us, the purple button set, after the ceremony. At 4:00 sharp the Marine band, which faced us from podium’s left, began playing military school music. Directly behind the podium was the old Nixon family home which resembled a Sears catalog home circa turn of the century. It was set attractively with some mature landscaping dominated by a great live oak. From behind the old home came the casket carried by ten young men from the various branches of the armed forces. They must have been chosen as a result of steroid ingestion and their ability to lift and carry a heavy object. They somehow managed, in lock step, to carry the heavy casket around corners, and up several steps, where they then deposited the casket on the stand by podium. Had they been able to rehearse the march with Dick, I wondered, or had they had to do it as a dry run, so to speak? It suddenly fell silent, all except for the wind and the distant thunder. The casket sat alone; we all stared. Billy Graham lurched up to the podium for a short introduction and prayer and a peevish reminder to “follow the program.” The band, this time accompanied by the Navy choir, played and sang what I guessed were Nixon’s old favorites. They were familiar to me also from my past military school ceremonies. Over the next hour, Kissinger, Dole, Pete Wilson and President Clinton all gave eulogies. All were appropriate and thankfully short. Kissinger was mumbly and faintly emotional. He performed a touching pivot towards the casket at his arrival and departure, a short gesture of respect and farewell. The image of Kissinger and Nixon on the Oval Room rug praying together during the dark moments of Watergate always made me think that a politically expedient trade had been made between the two. Was Kissinger, at that moment before the casket, thinking of those bleak moments and the dark history they had shared? Dole repeated his “that’s American” phrase about Nixon four or five times. At the end, a rising tide of emotion carried him off the speaker’s podium with a final and barely audible “God Bless America.” Wilson was articulate; Clinton, presidential. More songs followed, and more Billy Graham with the Lord’s Prayer, and “Amen.” Then it was all over. The fine strong young men offered a 21-gun salute and Nixon was carried away for internment somewhere behind the old family home. Three beautiful brass canons were fired, one after another, a hundred yards away. Fortunately the muzzles were pointed towards the suburbs just across the street. I watched the smoke rings blow out the barrels after each firing and wondered how the neighbors felt about being down muzzle. They had all probably been evicted from their homes for the ceremony. If not they were all going to need hearing aids. After the interment, which we listened to over a loudspeaker, the entire assembly moved en masse to the library for libations. We were cheek to jowl with every one of the purple buttons inside the library. Don, Joyce and I continued through the pack. Every couple of feet we would stop for introductions. I met George Schultz, George McGovern, Mr. Speaker, Al Haig, the British Defense Minister and several of Don’s congressional alumni en route to the hors d’oeuvres. There was a reception line to express condolences to Nixon’s daughters. I sidestepped that to arrange for our limo to pick us up. The former presidents were leaving; the reception and security and television crews were ubiquitous just outside the entrance. I reveled at the sight of TV cameras swiveling to follow me as I left the entrance. Might I be spotted by friends and neighbors back in Taos on the evening news? Clinton stayed at the reception until the very end and was easily accessible. I was tempted to go over and say hello and mention S. Ross and Kay, his old Oxford buddies from New Mexico but a set of pastries got in the way. Don and Joyce and were finally headed for the door where they were once again entrapped by old friends and for the next half hour acted like hosts at the end of a party, standing by the front door waving good bye to the departing guests. Our limo was parked just outside the library entrance; suddenly were whisked out of the pack and off to the airport for the return to Taos. On the way to the airport we rehashed the highlights of the afternoon. Who spoke the best? Dole, we decided, but he lost credibility for excess emotion. Who had the most to gain politically from his podium appearance? Pete Wilson, we thought. Clinton, fortunately, was unanimously voted “most presidential.” We stopped at a liquor store for a celebratory bottle of wine for the flight back, congratulating ourselves that we weren't going to be aboard ol’ Thunder for a three hour bump and grind back to Taos. The limo dropped us at the door of our Citation and we settled comfortably into its cabin while the crew got us airborne. A moist red sunset glowed over the L.A. basin, followed by a light dinner salad served with an appropriate wine. Just about the time we had finished, we landed back in Taos, where thick white snow was still falling in perfect silence. “We must get our message across to the masses of the nation and break the media siege imposed on the jihad movement. This is an independent battle that we must launch side by side with the military battle.” — AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI “Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but . . . our country has not. . . . ” —DONALD RUMSFELD Rumsfeld Gets Icy Treatment from PAGE A1 of his war." On Thursday, workers at the ski area were blasé about Rumsfeld and his appearances there. "He was here at the hotel for lunch, maybe a month ago, wearing a baseball cap," said Greg Jaramillo, who who was working the grill on the outdoor deck at the St. Bernard lodge. "People here aren't psyched be lives here, but I don't know that anybody really notices him much." His coworker, John Woolery, added, "I think there's people in Iraq who'd like to talk to him. But that's why he likes this place - nobody cares." Over at Crossroads Plaza at the ski area, Molly Mainelli was chopping bell peppers, recalling an incident three years ago when she was working at Tim's Stray Dog. "He came in and asked for a hot chocolate without whipped cream," she said. "The The bartender said, "No, I'm not going to serve you," said Mainelli, but then another bartender stepped in and made the drink for him. Rumsfeld didn't seem upset, she said. "He was like, 'Whatever, give me my damn hot chocolate.'" In the town of Taos, owner/baker Karen Todd of the Dragonfly Cafe, says it's not just Taos residents who are being more vocal in their displeasure with Rumsfeld. "It's a reflection of how people feel nationally. We're just a microcosm of the country. People are getting more and more knowledgeable of Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush." But Todd said she had two minds about criticism. When she heard that someone said "he hoped Rumsfeld rotted in prison," she thought, "Aren't we opposed to people rotting in prison. But then, he should be accountable for this actions." A waiter at the Dragonfly Cafe said, "Getting more vocal? We burned him in effigy north of town last year." At Brodsky Bookshop, owner Rick Smith was a bit more circumspect. "If he wanted a book, I'd help him, "he said. "I want people to respect my private space, so I have to respect theirs. I don't agree with confronting him in public." Smith echoed other locals who said that Taos allows people to be who they are. "At meetings here, they go on forever," he said, "because they let everybody talk." Smith said that if Rumsfeld ever came into his store he might recommend the new book "Blood and Thunder," about Kit Carson. "It's ostensibly about Kit Carson and the subjugation of the Indians but there are a lot of about respect for indigenous peoples. To not have respect for history is probably the biggest mistake he's (Rumsfeld's) made." Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Rumsfeld was praised as "a good listener" (p 76), also revealing, according to a former Iraqi intelligence officer, that behind that famous handshake photo that inundated the Web in early 2003, all Rumsfeld wanted to talk about with Saddam was business deals, such as an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba, Jordan, in which Bechtel was tremendously interested. When Rumsfeld went back to Baghdad in 1984, Saddam's army had already unleashed mustard gas on Iranian troops. But, as Cockburn writes (p 77), Rumsfeld "was apparently happy to reassure his hosts that they should not take objections to what would one day be called weapons of mass destruction personally. He was certainly enthusiastic in promoting business deals between Saddam and Israel." [R]elaxation on his own spread in Taos, New Mexico, was "to go out and chainsaw the lower branches of trees". ----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Fair To: payne Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:44 PM Subject: Fwd: pilot story Begin forwarded message: From: sagewalker@comcast.net Date: March 20, 2007 4:30:24 PM MDT To: Fred Fair Subject: pilot story Here you go. I'm still planning on coming to Regina Saturday if I can't get there Friday. Subject: near death and survival Tony/Steve: as a neophyte pilots you will be stunned and astounded by the following tale of flight stupidity that occurred yesterday. Actually, the take off from the ranch, which should be included as a near weekly stupid act, but is not because I do it weekly. I was en-route to Los Alamos for an oil change and had turned back towards the mountains. As always, aware of the cost per hour, I was planning on flying direct which would, in a couple miles, require that I climb 3000' to clear the San Pedros. The wind was blowing about fifteen to twenty from the usual southwesterly quadrant so I planned on picking up lift from the windward side of the San Pedro range. Imbued with the desire to fly as direct as possible, I closed on the ridge at a mere 8000' and immediately started picking up a good 1000' per minute ascent rate. I was traversing south across my GPS direct route to Los Alamos so I tuned a tight 180 degrees to pick up a good lift spot off a ridge. By now I was ove r 9000'. I had turned away from the range but then turned 180 degrees back towards the range to pick up that ridge line again and when I rolled out of the tight turn, I was just inside the steep and tiny valley, much like what we had walked down several summers ago. I had just barely passed the ridge line that defined the valley. A quarter mile south from that ridge was another ridge, slightly higher. It was too high to climb over and the valley, the two ridges formed, was too narrow to get out of; ie, no room to do a tight diving 180 as I was already close to a stall having tried to maintain my altitude in the last 180 degree turn. I had also misjudged my position over the ridge where the lift was - I had passed it and I was getting the effect of a slight lee side down draft from the approaching ridge line. My options were exhausted if I ever had any. I was right on the stall - the stall warning light was a deadly and steady red. I had a slight right bank, taking me slightly away from the range. I was precariously balanced between a full loss of control stall and as the near ridge got closer, the larger trees on the ridge top were filling the view through the windshield two or three hundred feet directly ahead. Out of the right corner of my eye I would see the ridge dropping away giving me that dramatic view across the San Juan basin, 3000' below me. But I could'nt increase my rate of turn. Any increase in the turn rate would end in the right wing dropping into a twisting turn and a spin into the trees. I heard myself saying out loud several times, "do it baby!, do it baby!. Slowly, it seemed, the ridge started disappearing under my right wing just as it seemed my left wing would be into the trees. I think, only because the left wing was slightly lifted in my gentle turn, that it missed the trees. I slid off the top of the ridge into gratuitous lift and the full and open view of the basin flashed into full view ahead with the prehistoric Cabezon Peak in the the center of my windshield like a site. I don't think I was on the critical edge for more than twenty seconds but along with hearing myself involuntarily saying "do it baby!" I was also rehashing the stupidity of it all and that I would finally be a CAP and GADO statistic. Oh, the shame! I won't go into the next two events, certainly diminished by the first but I would like to reserve some attention to the role that the new VGs I installed at the last annual, played in those twenty critical seconds. Regards, Begin forwarded message: From: "Geo" Date: March 1, 2007 3:40:23 PM MST To: "Ben" , "Fred Fair" Subject: Fw: The Rape of Europe The Rape of Europe By Paul Belien The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant" (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin , Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: "We are watching the world of yesterday." Europe is turning Muslim. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate himself. "I am too old," he said. However, he urged young people to get out and "move to Australia or New Zealand . That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable." Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder's advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. It is expected to double in twenty years . By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for new-born boys in Brussels , Amsterdam, Rotterdam , and other major European cities. Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose islamization. "The dominant ethos ," he told De Volkskrant, "is perfectly voiced by the stupid blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting . She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death." In a recent op-ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard (23 October) the Dutch (gay and self-declared "humanist") author Oscar Van den Boogaard refers to Broder's interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the islamization of Europe is like "a process of mourning." He is overwhelmed by a "feeling of sadness." "I am not a warrior," he says, "but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." As Tom Bethell wrote in this month's American Spectator: "Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working." But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to "enjoy" freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight . Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist. "If faith collapses, civilization goes with it," says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe. Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means "submission" and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it. Some of the people I meet in the U.S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe . They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit . This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European "islamophobes" who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission ( Islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission - just like in former days when they preferred to be red rather than dead. ----------------------------------------------------- Europeans apparently never read John Stuart Mill: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse . A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. Wally Nash 25th District Republican Party Leader 13408 110th St Ct E, Puyallup WA, 98374, USA Tel: 253 864 6401 Cell: 253 318 9474 Payne and lawyer Jay Jones discussed in detail dismissal of paid for 12 person jury trial lawsuit by a judge and voiding judgments two and from Taos. Below photo location is about 200 yards southwest of Rumsfeld's Taos home. Jay [ a lawyer - bio] , Kathe, and Fred Fair [red shirt] Monday September 24, 2006 in Fred's home in Taos. Fair forwards below link January 3, 2007. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4332830819848713435&hl=en

Technology, of course, is making our legal project possible.

Payne got a email from Pepe Escobar with a question about Rumsfeld's home in Taos. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pepe Escobar" To: "bill payne" Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 9:48 PM Subject: Re: Rumsfeld Taos neighbor Fred Fair Hi Bill, Thanks for that wonderful Taos file. I've been to Taos myself a few times when I lived in California - and it's one of my favorite places not only in the US but globally. [REDACTED] All the best, Pepe/Asia Times Payne answered question. Payne responds to Escobar a third time. ----- Original Message ----- From: bill payne To: Pepe Escobar Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 4:57 PM Subject: one word on what happened genocide larry everest advised, "spead the word." regards

----- Original Message ----- From: Fred Fair To: payne payne Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 1:53 PM Subject: another story Baja Unlike most boat owners or yachties as we exboat owners refer to (in sympathy and derision) having “been there and done that” and having paid the price, I started off with a fifty footer then a sixty and backwards slowly to a forty four, and finally a modest thirty eight. Finally, with no shame I ended my dubious history of boating with an elderly 43 Hatteras powered by two huge diesels, air conditioned, a floating house. I loved it. It was sunk in hurricane “Floyd” in 99 in the Abacos. Now I’m merely a “boat bitch” on friend’s boats. In those early days I entertained thoughts of sailing adventures but after twenty years I can sum it up with the adage, “never sail out of sight of a good restaurant!”. This is the event, the demise of adventure in favor of a good dock and restaurant. I started my sailing experience in a Gulfstar 50' partnership. It was crewed and would spend the summer around Long Island and the winters in the Caribbean. As a partner, I used it in both locations, with and without the crew. The crew usually consisted of a live a board handyman cum cook. Some times the live aboard would up grade to the term captain if he were able to attract a squeeze that could cook, “Admiral” if she could really cook! After several years without a boat my need for another boat, a west coast boat, grew. Several clear signs, early warning symptoms, could have led to early therapy in the local “boat anonymous” group. Any town has an intense group of would be boat owners that would benefit from some kind of boat anonymous therapy. The first sign that you need help is when you catch yourself picking up Yachting magazine and reading the classified for sale section. That alone is the first lesson. Everyone that owns a boat is desperately selling. Ignoring the signs leads to boat self abuse wherein the afflicted calls the broker, the same broker that screwed you when you accepted his clients ridiculous offer for your last boat. An offer that didn’t even cover the mortgage and left you owing him a commission along with the balance of the mortgage. Soon I was reading the listings of boats in my price range and then making offers. Miraculously, I found the boat of my dreams, owned by someone almost as desperate as I had been to sell. Within a couple days I had formed a boat partnership. I had by this time learned the lessens of ownership. There are never too many owners to a yacht! I had found the requisite four or five partners or, as we referred to ourselves, "the fools". Ownership obligation had two rules, don’t bounce your monthly check and don’t sink the boat in shallow water. The boat was in San Diego. The plan was to sail it down to Australia. The preparation or shake down was to sail it to Cabo San Lucas and enjoy the Sea of Cortez for awhile. In preparation for Baja, I hired a young skipper from Gloucester, Mass. Anyone from Gloucester sails, so I felt secure that at least I wouldn't have to feel responsible for anchor watches and I could order someone around for grocery shopping in exotic ports. Preparations for provisioning were carried out an hour prior to departure by the expedient of giving everyone a shopping cart at Safeway and telling them to meet back at the checkout counter in ten minutes. As a backup to provisioning, I had stuffed the bilges with canned food. No quiche for this crew! We left San Diego at midnight and motored down to Ensenada, Mexico to clear customs and have lunch. Later in the afternoon, we sailed out to anchor for the night in one of several tight anchorages at Todos Santos Island. The next morning we woke with the wind blowing strongly from the northwest and rain showers all quadrants. It was ideal sailing with the large Genoa and main sail up. Evening came with the winds increasing to a steady twenty knots. I was on the verge of asking the skipper about reducing sails for the night when, with the arrival of pork chops for dinner, the skipper lunged from the cockpit to the scuppers and started vomiting. So much for professional leadership. It was apparent that we were on our own for the night. With darkness, the wind and following seas picked up. We were paralleling the coast five miles offshore with only one navigational hazard ahead, the "Sacramento Reef", named for the steamer of the same name that went up on the reef en route from Panama during the California gold rush. My sailing guide vividly described the storm condition on the reef: "seas breaking wildly, spray hundred of feet in the air", etc. I was in command. The skipper had finally dragged himself below; not to reappear for three days. My main concern was to stay off the reef, so I corrected our course to seaward - and continued to do so all night until we were running at a right angle to the coast - to compensate for night time paranoia of compass error. Until you experience it, you never know, like a piano lesson, how you will personally handle off shore heavy weather conditions. I would wonder no more. I got extremely cold, miserable and slightly seasick. My teeth chattered all night whether below in a damp sleeping bag or huddled on deck dressed in everything I had aboard. There was no romance at the helm that night. I should have reefed the main and changed the large genoa for a smaller jib but it was more expedient to stay in the cockpit rather than work the fore deck in the dark under those conditions. Wind gusts were as high as 40 knots and blowing a steady 30 knots from the stern quarter. The boat was roaring along; thirty five thousand pounds skidding down the face of huge overtaking waves. We were making ten plus knots through the dark night. Except for the binnacle and chart table light below, the only illumination came from the breaking wave crests which seemed to carry their own illumination. Each functioning member took two hours at the wheel. It was enough time to reduce everyone to serious doubt about his future sailing commitments. When I wasn't in the cockpit or at the chart table, I was in my sodden bunk waiting for the boat to role over at the bottom of a wave we had just skidded down, waiting for us to ride the last big wave onto the Sacramento Reef due to compass error and for the mast to come crashing down from a final wind gust. And I almost didn’t care, I was so miserable. It was a long night! A dirty gray dawn began illuminated the horizon enough to give us an indication of the sea that had built up after dark. If we had started the night with the seas in those conditions, I would have had considerably less faith in our boat's ability to survive the night. By noon the wind had dropped off. Things had dried out and we were starting to think about eating and sleeping. I estimated our position to be about forty miles off shore. We set a new course that would carry us back towards the coast. We wanted to take advantage of Turtle Bay, one of the few safe anchorages on the west coast of Baja. I figured that we would be in Turtle Bay around noon the next day. The wind continued dropping until finally, at dark, we started motoring. What a difference from the night before. This time we had a leisurely dinner in the cockpit. Everyone but the skipper took four hour watches. Except for my usual night time fear of the "Great Squid" ie, being plucked from the wheel by a huge tentacle - the night went well. By dawn, we were cruising between the coast and the eastern shore of Isla Cedros. By late afternoon we were anchored in Turtle Bay. The anchorage is the only thing to commend the village. Under no circumstances would the village of Turtle Bay be an end in itself unless you're desperate for something. And you should be very desperate. We weren't yet, but to celebrate our arrival we elected to go ashore in the dinghy, dressed in our finest. Some things are sacred and taking a dinghy through a shore break is one of them for me. About a hundred feet from shore I noted a diminutive shore break - vicious waves about eight inches in height. Inside the break, the wave action kept the sewage from the village and turtle guts from the turtle rendering plant concentrated in an indescribable porridge washing and heaving against the shore. Undaunted, I sized up the break, and turned in with a small overtaking wave accelerating the dinghy from behind. As the wave overtook us, the dinghy broached, skidded sideways and flipped us all out and into the primordial goo. Fortunately the water was knee deep. Never in the history of maritime experience has such a small wave created such misery. We pulled ourselves from the water dripping sewage, sand and turtle offal, and wandered the only street. Nothing was open so we returned to the boat. It was Super Bowl Sunday somewhere but for us it was a miserable evening in Turtle Bay. The next morning we headed out for a two day sail to Cabo San Lazaro, the western most headland on the west coast of Baja. Navigation error compounded with the currents strong on shore set has littered the beach with wrecks. I planned a dawn arrival but estimated that we would pick up the light house off the cape during the early morning hours. The two-day sail down revived my enthusiasm for the trip. Light winds kept us moving at five knots. We were accompanied frequently by pods of gray whales and porpoise. Night watches were so benign that even the "Great Squid" nightmare was dispelled. The skipper actually showed up on deck. All was well. We picked up the flash of the light from Cabo San Lazaro light house right on the bow just after midnight on the second night. I was greatly admired as a navigator. By 3 am, we could make out the loom of the headlands against the star lit sky. I turned parallel to the coast and we motored until we could identify the anchorage, which was on the south side of the headland. It was a large open bay but gave good protection from northern swells and weather. Although there was little wind, there were large swells running from the northwest. In the anchorage, a mile inshore, we could see the anchor lights of several Mexican shrimp boats. I continued south, well off the point that marked the entrance to the bay. When I judged we were far enough beyond the point we turned in. The sails were lowered and at reduced speed we cautiously motored toward the anchored shrimp boats. Everyone was on deck: the spreader lights were on in anticipation of anchoring. It was incredibly peaceful. In the distance we could hear a shore break against the point. One of the crew, Tim, was at the bow as lookout and playing a spotlight on the water ahead of us. All was calm. Then Tim screamed from the bow, "get out of here!" and started running for the cockpit. At the same moment mist and noise enveloped us. A huge wave broke with a roar almost underneath us. The spreader lights illuminated the wave; a white arch of water breaking into a black void just beside us. We rode the edge of it down like an elevator and struck the bottom with our keel. Everyone was knocked down by the impact. Another towering wave was coming up from behind and it collapsed on top of us in the cockpit. Luckily, the crew had all tumbled into the relative safety of the center cockpit just as we rode the first wave down and nobody was washed overboard. The hatches were wide open and a good part of the water coming down on us had washed into the boat. I was at the wheel holding on for my life. I nearly ripped the throttle from the steering pedestal trying to get power while spinning the wheel hard over. The next wave was coming on us as the bow slowly started responding to power and rudder. Our environment was total confusion, noise and spray. We were in a dark maelstrom of pounding waves. Our world had suddenly gone insane. The boat’s bow slowly turned into the oncoming wave and rose taking the wave directly on the bow. We went up almost vertically before the wave broke over us. This time we took on very little water. Just as suddenly as it started, it was over. Once again we were cruising on a calm, silent sea as if the previous minutes had never happened. Tim, who had been up in the bow, was huddled on the cockpit floor holding his head in his arms and moaning over and over, "oh my God, oh my God!". I thought he had suffered a head injury but it was only aftershock. Everyone was still on board, uninjured, and except for a lot of water and gear strewn below, there was no damage. We headed directly out to sea and spent the next several hours cruising back and forth off the entrance to the anchorage, waiting for dawn. When it came we were able to see our error. The entrance course had been premature and we had been carried over a storm sand bar that had built up off the point. The long swells had built up suddenly as they compressed against the sudden shallowing. The first wave had carried us across the bar sideways and deposited us just inside the bar for the next wave to crash down on us. The third wave, the one we took on the bow, had given us the lift to cross back over the bar and into calm water. Between the bar and the low black lava cliffs a hundred yards inshore was the maelstrom of contradictory seas, smashing against each other and against the low, black lava cliffs. We had been right in the middle of that. We finally entered the bay and anchored. Bedding was strewn over the decks to dry. Had there been a bus we would have ended the trip there. As it was, we dried out and in the afternoon we hiked up the beach north of the point to look at several freighters which had washed up on the beach. Like us, they were victims of navigational errors. Without further incident, we arrived at Cabo several days later. The boat and I spent several seasons cruising in the Sea of Cortez. I had no further sailing traumas but then again, I haven't cruised off shore since that time - nor will I. At night I want to see the warm friendly glow of my favorite restaurants reflected in the waters of a calm marina.