Just curious. Would you have noticed this had you not looked at the map? Water is water no matter if you are doing circles there, north of there, south of there or east of there. You cant really tell a difference. A sea day is a sea day, especially when the port of call is so close.
Take a look at Radiance over out of Long Beach. It goes between LA and Catalina and Ensenada. That ship basically does circles all day every day just off the coast.