Well, it's the morning after the first leg of the FUBAR Odyssey, the brain child of Bruce Kessler and the Del Rey Yacht Club. Like many things, the attitude you bring to an effort like this can mean everything in how you enjoy or don't enjoy something. One of the things I've learned in life is that expectation setting is key in being able to make others happy or to upset them. You don't tell your buddies in the locker room your nickname is Horse when you've just gotten out of a cold swimming pool. Likewise, if you tell people an event is going to be organized like clockwork and things will flow smoothly without any problems, reality will likely set you up for disappointment. So, aptly named, the FUBAR Odyssey is an exercise in hearing the positioning (and reading the press from professional writers) but realizing the event is really 53 individual boats with a somewhat common goal of getting to La Paz, or someplace thereabouts. Dont get me wrong, Im not complaining or criticizing Bruce or any of the wonderful volunteers in any way. They are working 110% to deliver on everything they promised and they are doing this without any pay, profit or reward at all. My point is that external forces are always at play to mess with reality. An example is the fueling situation in Ensenada. The positioning at pre rally events was that fuel would be completely taken care of and an orderly system of delivery and logistics would be in place. Reality is poor Joe is standing on the fuel dock at 19:00 trying to figure how to deliver thousands of gallons of fuel from 2 of the 3 pumps that work, one of which delivered about a gallon a minute. So, despite the best planning and intentions, the reality of the situation may not match your preconceived notions. Im todays Lucky 7 winner in that a group of rally participants took it upon themselves to organize a queue for getting fuel and guess what they decided to use to establish the order? Alphabetic by boat name. Well, being Alanui, I was delighted to return to from dinner to find a note in the cockpit advising Im number 6 in queue for fuel. Considering I need 900 gallons of fuel and a boat took 3 hours to get 1,000 gallons, I now think there is a reasonable chance I will really get fuel today, rather than my thinking yesterday that Id be here for two or three days waiting in line. So, I lucked out, probably why Im able to write this today, rather than complain about logistics. Anyway, on to more about the event. There was no schedule for departure, so Paloma and Alanui found they were at the tail end of the fleet. We met in the San Diego harbor at 6:00am, thinking we were getting an early start. We were surprise to find many of the fast boats were in fact leaving at 6, while many of the slower boats had left at 4:00am. Even Pacific Escort, the huge Nordhavn with the Leishman family aboard left the night before. I think they needed to make sure the beer was cold, something like that? So we departed Point Loma and set course for Ensenada. Low clouds and fog prevented us from seeing the sun all day, but the seas were flat calm. We pulled into the Coral marina about 16:00 and were quickly tied up. Later I realized there was tremendous surge in the harbor and I reflected on how lucky I was to have landed the boat during a calm period. My next departure and landing will be much more brisk, as I can see the boats easily moving 4 and 5 feet in any direction at a time. Also the fairways are narrow, making docking a bit more challenging. There are empty slips here, much to my surprise as I thought the marina was going to be full? I understand there are 28 FUBAR boats here. One of my big worries about the event was how 53 boats would coordinate leaving, but in fact since there was no scheduled departure time, we only saw a handful of boats the entire day. I think this is a smart way to approach the event, because the more structure you try to put around this, the more expectations and issues youre going to have to set and manage. So in summary, the first passage and arrival in Mexico went without any boat issues Im aware of and the day will mostly be occupied with people waiting to get fuel, worrying about the fuel lasting, planning alternative strategies for getting fuel, or having another cold one and glancing at the fuel dock every so often to see if its empty, then heading over when the mood strikes you! Well, I hope this was worth the expense of sending it? At a minimum you on the PUP list and readers of our web site have a little insight from someone in the fleet thats along for the ride and having the time of his life! Best wishes to all, Scott and Marian Bulger, Alanui, N40II, Seattle Coral Marina, Ensenada MX 31' 51.765 N 116' 39.782 W