As John wrote almost a month ago we had one of our best passages ever when we crossed from Mazatlan to La Paz. The stats are:
Sailed: 36.5 hours (31 of those were consecutive)
Motored: 12.5 hours
Total elapsed time: 49 hours
Fastest hour (by GPS): 7.6 kt (a favorable current helped)
Slowest hour: 3.2 kt
We had eleven consecutive hours of sailing at a 6+ kt average.
It was a blast!
We then spent a week anchored off the Naval Base before moving to Marina Palmira to use up the last of our five nights of credit left over from last year. We enjoyed catching up with friends on Milagro and Ceilidh and giving the boat one final wash before moving back out to El Magote (the anchorage across from the town at the sand spit) on 4/21. The weather was very changeable with mostly strong coromuel winds at night, often continuing a little lighter on into the day time. We had a few days of minimal breeze which made for pleasant beach walking and shelling. The nights and mornings were unseasonably cool and John eventually had to fix a small problem with our Webasto heater so that we could warm up the boat a little. Swinging with the tides (which prevail over the wind in that anchorage) meant our solar panels were pointed at the sun all day and kept our batteries fully charged which was a nice bonus.
On 4/29 we sailed here to Caleta Partida. We managed to sail the entire way (25 nm in nine hours), waiting patiently for the wind to return every time it died (which was at least 4-5 times). We tacked into the bay and anchored under sail, earning us a placard with "10" held up for us to see from John and Debby on Lovely Reta. We moved to Ensenada Grande on 5/1 to meet Flying Free after their passage from Mazatlan and had a beautiful afternoon/early evening for cocktails on Nakia. Our guests left at 8 PM, the wind came up straight out of the west, and by 9:30 PM I was taking something for sea sickness (just in case). We were completely exposed to the 2-3' chop that rolled straight into the anchorage and caused us to stuff the bow sprit several times during the night. Fortunately we managed to get the dinghy up on deck before it worsened leaving us with one less thing to have to worry about. No one slept well that night, and all but one boat departed for the safety of Caleta Partida the next morning. That evening, while we had dinner and played cards on Flying Free, we all listened for any indication of the wind revving up again but of course that night stayed flat calm and glassy. This time John woke up in the middle of the night disoriented because he thought he was back in a marina!
The water in the shallow areas here is swimming pool blue and crystal clear. It's so gorgeous you ache to jump in, but with the temps still in the low 70's it's still too cold to stay in for very long.
The gang was on Nakia again last night for drinks, and with only two ballenas of beer left we may have to make a run back to La Paz for supplies soon! That's okay though because we're in no particular hurry to go north this summer.
Linda and John