and Santa Cruz can get really mean. It's a pretty good training ground. If you can sail there consistently and successfully you've had some pretty good training. I made it through the gulf of Tajuanapeac when it was like a lake. I used an old Cruising World Magazine article (back when they actually dealt with Cruising) by Capt. John Rains who explained how to get the weather on the East Coast at the top of the hour and then dial your SSB over to the weather on the West Coast and pick up the end of that weather broadcast. Then you would look at the pressure gradients on the Caribbean side, compare it with the pacific and if it was the same or less, run like hell. It was kind of stone age stuff but the weather info back then was a bit thin. It didn't work so well for the Papaguyao's. When I got to Play Del Coca and I noticed that some of the doors were missing at the local bar. It turned out that they had been recent victims of the wind so I was a happy camper that we hadn't suffered any damage. We had taken a bunch of hits and the boat was pretty wet on the inside but nothing a good cleaning didn't put right.