At sea again at last!

Trying to catch the green spark

We left Mazatlan early in the day to hit the high tide and to beat a storm front coming into the area. As we navigated the narrow channel down to the fuel dock, the winds began to pick up, but we couldn't avoid getting fuel. 

We pulled in without incident, letting the wind push us to the dock and we fueled up, eyeing the breakwater area, wondering how much more wind would pick up before we could depart. Once fueled, we headed out, struggling a bit against a much stronger headwind that was coming in at about 14 knots and we headed out the breakwater. 

It was a beautiful morning, the clouds from the coast extended out just enough to provide us with nice shade cover for the first part of the morning. We got about 2 miles off coast before setting sails, hoping to take advantage of the headwind and set a port tack to take us northwest along the coastline. We were headed to the east coast of the Baja, where exactly, would be determined by the wind direction since we wanted to motor as little as possible. 

The first day saw great sailing at a calm speed of 5 knots with out needing to tack as we kept our heading throughout the day. The sun rose and the clouds broke and we were getting baked by mid-day. I kept eyeing the water beyond the sugar scoop and wondering if we could stop long enough to jump in. We were in 2500 feet of water at that point and I have to admit, that I still get a bit squeamish about swimming in water that deep. But, we kept going and tried to stay in as much shade on deck as we could...which, without a bimini, was not much. 

About this time, Mike had to take on the task of de-pickling (is that a word?) the water maker and getting some water made. After 3 hours of flushing and checking filters and taking a boost pump apart, we still could not get the water maker to come up to pressure and start making water for us. It had an incredible amount of air in the system, but there was something else wrong. I quickly did a calculation of how much bottled water, juice and boxed milk we had on board to figure what our options were as far as continuing or heading back to Mazatlan. We put Reid at the helm and Mike and I went through the entire system together and were able to finally get her going. Thank goodness! When it is 100 degrees out and you are baking, you really appreciate the importance of having a water maker at sea. 

The stress of that behind us, we got temperature relief in the evening and preceded on our way. Unfortunately, we had no wind at that point and had to motor sail along at 3.5 knots while we made water. 

When the sun came up in the morning, I was on duty at the helm and found that the Booby that had perched on our bow the night before was still there hanging out with us. 

A little friend riding along on the very calm seas

My view to port in the early morning hour with the moon getting ready to set

My view to starboard at the same moment as we continued northwest skirting the mainland about 12 miles off coast

Day two was much better with no water maker issues. Unfortunately, we also had no wind. We tried light sailing off and on. Mangas does very well in light wind. We can generally get 3 to 4 knots off of a 6 knot wind. But on this day, it seemed that every time we saw the wind meter kick up above 5, it would drop just a soon as we pulled out the jib sail. 

Later in the afternoon, after the brutal sun finally crossed and we got some relief, we had a really magical time at sea. We had no view of any land either to the east or the Baja to the west. It was calm as we motor sailed and we set the autopilot and got everyone on deck towards the bow to watch the sunset that was dead ahead. With the speakers out playing Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, we listened to "Buffalo" and searched for the elusive green spark of the setting sun over water. 

The best seat in the house

We had a great dinner of beef shish kabobs on the grill and turned the Sirius to 70's on 7 for a very mellow, very special evening. We have seen no other boats since leaving Mazatlan and it feels like we have the world's oceans just to ourselves.

On night three, we did finally catch that green spark. It was the first one any of us had been able to see. The following morning we saw land as we were coming in just north of La Paz. Still no real winds and yet we had very choppy waves all the way in. I was on duty with everyone else sleeping below when I saw our first boat as a La Paz ferry came barreling down on our position. I really do not think he saw us, and at 2 knots of speed, which is all we could muster in the extreme chop, I had no way to out maneuver him. The only thing I could do was turn a beam to him and show him our broadside. 

Another stowaway

The turn seemed to work and he moved his course, only slightly. He passed us .3 nm to starboard according to the radar. The closest we have ever passed another vessel at sea. 

The wind then caught up with the chop and we set sails for a good 1 hour run towards Isla San Jose, before it died on us. But, the wind direction had finally changed to allow us a downwind course, the first since we left Mazatlan. We decided this was the best time as any to finally break out the gennaker sail. A big parachute sail, the gennaker balloons out from the bow and can really shine in light down winds. After double checking that all the lines were set correctly, we hoisted the sail sock and let her fly. She is truly a thing of beauty and, even better, she provided great shade!

Hard to get a good shot of the gennaker while on the boat - but she is big!

Keira doing school work in the nice shade

Finally, back to our beloved Baja. We anchored in San Evaristo and enjoyed a restful night sleep after 3 nights and 4 days of travel and over 250 nm from La Paz.