Day Four - Fast Days - Slow Nights

We left Socorro Island and picked up some great winds. We cranked out almost 100 miles at sunset but then the wind died and we didn't do much during the night. The boat was rolling alot but the waves weren't slamming the hull so we did get some good sleep. A few Chinese freighters passed us in the night. Hoping for fast days to return today.
Cheers, Dave and Booker



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Day Two - The run to Socorro

We did't plan either way to come here. If the winds were favorable, we would go. They were, and we did.
We didn't have much wind last night and it was noisy but had a fast run today under spinnaker all day. We saw the island about 30 miles out. It was in a hazy, foggy, horizon. Kind of reminded me of the island in Jurasic Park.
The afternoon winds picked up and we were doing a sustained 9 knots.
When we stopped to douse the spinnaker, there were 2 whales about 30 ft in front of us. As soon as the chute came down, we stopped, and the whales just kept swimming by. There were other whales flapping, blowing, and breaching right in our backyard.
We were inspected by the Mexican Navy and will be leaving in the morning after a FULL night's rest. Cheers, Dave and Booker


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Day One 21 41 N 109 18 W

We went to get fuel in Los Cabos yesterday and still there was no wind so instead went 25 miles further to Cabo San Lucas. Filled up and left at 1600. Headed around the corner and got slammed by 30 mph winds from SW. Headed 140 for the night to keep things calm. Went 80 miles but gave up 50 to the east. We are under full sail slight broad reach heading 210 averaging in the high 7's in 3-4ft. seas. We are outrunning the chop so it is really not so uncomfortable. Don't know if we'll stop in Socorro. Just depends where we are and where it is. Winds still need to go more north.
Dave and Booker


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Windless

Hi All,
We were heading down highway 109 under spinnaker doing 4 kts in 8 kts of wind, which is not much and then the winds started to get lighter. Then nothing. We downloaded the winds and sure enough, they changed the forecast which now showed 5 days of calm. So we were drifting to the southwest with no sails up, using up water and supplies, and nowhere to motor to to find good wind even if we had extra fuel. If this happened at the equator, we would drift and deal with it. But seeing as we were 40 miles from Cabo San Lucas, we fired up the engines and 8 hours later we were anchored. Here we will wait until Sunday, go get diesel and water, and head down Highway 110.5. In the meantime, we are fixing noises and watching stingrays jumping out of the water. Cheers, Dave and Booker

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Highway 109

We motored alot to get out of La Paz. Probably used 7 gallons. Almost did a takeoff divert to top off fuel in Los Cabos but the wind filled in light and made the plan to go east to 109W. The gribs show decent wind down 109 for a day or more. The area around Cabo is calm and we would have had to use at least another 7 gallons to get away from there. We slept well (at least I did). Rigged for spinnaker yesterday and will use it alot from here on out. Lots of squeaky noises from the boat. Cheers to all.
Dave and Booker

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Heading South

We just spent 2 days in La Paz doing last minute details. My anxiousness has subsided and turned in to just another departure. Whether on this boat or at the airline. We are well prepared, have a better equipped boat than most, and the season is right for the crossing. It's a one way street however. There will be no easy way to come back this way.

We will miss Mexico. Great people, great food. Oh, I will miss the flavors of the chiles.
Cheers, Dave and Booker


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On the Road Again

We are back in the water. 11 months for the boat on land, 153 work days for us living on the hard, and we are finally back where we should be.

This was the launch from hell. The Travelift that belongs to Marina Guaymas is too narrow for us so we have to use one that belongs to the neighboring Shrimp Boat repair facility.  It showed up about 3PM with hoisting straps looked like this, covered with mud.

I was not about to let them touch the boat with those so I made them wash them.   Of course they had to use my pressure washer and were not so happy about this.

The sailboat next to us came in after we did using the small yard lift.  Now there wasn't enough room between our boats to bring the big lift in to get us.  So the small lift had to take them away.

Time is ticking away







Finally we get the big lift in place.  Still dealing with the crap on the straps, with the help of all our boatyard friends, we covered them with plastic.


Notice the long shadows.  It's getting late.  Probably after 5PM by now.

And off we go.  Driving down the road over to the shrimper facility things went fine but the workers were now on overtime and still had to haul out a shrimper after we launched.  Not my problem, but I should have been more wary.

Finally in the water, the engines had trouble starting.  I had replaced all the fuel lines and there were some bubbles in the system that had to work their way out.

Now it's getting real late and these shrimper guys were giving me the bums rush out before I got a good test on the engines.  I thought they were just moving me back further from the lift but the next thing I know it they are pushing me out into the channel.  This is BS.



So I put the engines in reverse and the right engine dies.  I stopped the backward motion with the other engine but now the wind had pushed the back of the boat sideways and it was a mess.  Yelling in Spanish, I finally got the boat back into the slip to deal with the engine.  I was pissed that they did this too me but was so exhausted by this time that it really didn't register.

Now, with everything running properly, I put the engines in reverse, cast off the lines and backed out properly.   Anyway, we picked up a few scratches from this fiasco but nothing that can't be fixed next time around.

This is our last view of Marina Guaymas as we departed the next day.   What a great place it was to get work done and what an incredible community of boaters that are living there in their boats on land making the best of not sailing.  Adios amigos.