Manzanillo

We had a terrific last evening at sea in spite of the haze obscuring any real sense of "land ho." Our good friend Stan greeted us on the VHF radio to arrange a rendezvous for the next day. He didn't even have to identify himself because we recognized his voice as if we'd spoken to him just last week! There were whale backs breaking the bioluminescence and fluking whales off our bow by moonlight. As we entered the anchorage at Carrazol we were treated to the same wonderful scent of flowers that greeted us three years ago. Early the next morning we spoke to our first "live" person in over a month on a boat called Narama from Sydney, Australia.

We were mistaken about the time zone here and had to make one more change to U.S. Central Standard Time to catch up. We hustled over to the actual Port of Manzanillo eight miles away so that John could spend the day waiting in offices for officials to figure out how to process us in to the country. Not too many sailboats clear in here and there were special manuals to be searched for to find the special code for "sailboat" to be entered into the computer. This was after being redirected to about three different offices in search of the right place to begin. But we probably saved a couple of hundred dollars by not using an agent, and John got to spend the day hanging out with Stan while they waited together.

Formalities were finally completed by late afternoon and we motored the short distance back to the other side of the bay to anchor at La Boquita in Santiago Bay. This is a beach where the roads ends at the mouth of a small river. There are lots of beachside palapa restaurants offering all manner of fish lunches with vendors strolling by exhorting you to buy jewelry, woven masks and baskets, brightly painted pottery, wood carvings, beach cover ups and dresses, and assorted gew-gaws. John bought a woven finger pull toy without even blinking at the requested price, and Ziggy now has a new toy. We shared a table with Casey of V'ger and Stan, both of whom made sure John got his fill of Pacifico!

Before going to shore for lunch we spent yesterday setting the boat to rights by undoing all the things we did in preparation for passage making. Our projects were pleasantly interrupted by the appearance of old friends and acquaintances visiting by dinghy to say hello and catch up on news of each other. This is one of the main reasons we're back in Mexico, and it's already fabulous!

Linda

{GMST}19|06.338|N|104|23.722|W|La Boquita|Santiago Bay{GEND}

HI to MX Day LAST!

I'm happy to report that we've arrived safely in Ensenada Carrizol, Manzanillo Bay Mexico. We'll be moving to Manzanillo town later this morning to get checked in.

According to our charting software, we sailed 3445 nautical miles to make a rumbline distance of 2881 nautical miles. It took 34 days 9 hours for an average speed of 4.17 kts. Not our fastest passage by a long shot, but we're here and it was a mostly boring passage which is important.

{GMST}19|05.750|N|104|26.232|W|Hawaii to Mexico Arrival|END{GEND}

HI to MX Day 34

We should arrive early tomorrow morning and none too soon. We've been dealing with ship after ship. I'm not sure if we just happen to be off one of those points on the globe that sees a lot of shipping traffic or if all these ships are going in and out of Manzanillo (I can't imagine the latter, it would make Manzanillo busier than San Francisco).

We had a little extra excitement last night at about 1 am. Linda had started the engine after the wind died and had just put it into gear when BANG! there was a very loud sound. She said 'what was that?!,' and I said 'turn off the motor!' We looked over the side to see if maybe a line had caught in the prop, but saw nothing there. We took the engine cover off and checked the belts and shaft coupling, all good. I checked the oil and it was a little low, but not milky or anything out of the ordinary. Finally I noticed sitting on the floor a small chain that holds up one of our large aft port holes. Ah, that's what it was. These port holes are about 10 inches in diameter and are very heavy. If you drop the opening part from the top, stowed, position it will make a serious BANG. Kind of like slamming a door. Why the chain chose the very moment that Linda put the engine in gear to drop off, we have no idea.

Counting the hours to arrival ...

4:30 PM local time (which converts to MST in the States), Wednesday, February 16. Linda here:

Well, it's been a busy last 48 hours what with all the ships and trying to keep the boat moving. We kept track of all the ships yesterday and last night, but finally gave up entering them into the log book today since there were so many. Closest one was eight tenths of a mile away on John's watch. I had one at 1.5 miles but I turned away quite a bit to increase the distance or it would have been closer than that. Both in the day time so not bad, but with the humid haze we only have about 4 miles of visibility.

So "land ho" became, "yeah, I can sort of see the white guano on those rocks off the coast." We still can't see much more than the outlying rocks and we're only four miles from shore. We've been motoring on a mostly glassy sea all day. I was excited to see my first turtle again, but then I was sad to see that the top of it's shell was dry and it was barely moving on the surface of the water. I thought it must be dying until I saw a dozen more just like it in the space of 20 minutes. Some even had booby birds which had been sitting on them for so long that they had left their "mark" like whitewash all over the shell.

I had a bit of an anxious day yesterday. Maybe the lack of sleep caught up with me, but I find I usually have a brief period of depression during the last 48 hours of a long passage. I think it's partly the thought of re-entry into "normal" life and the small stresses we have to look forward to. We've been in this self-absorbed bubble for so long, entirely focused on sleeping, eating, keeping the boat moving, and entertaining ourselves. So it's somewhat of a transition to get back into shore mode again. And partly the enormity of what we've accomplished finally sinks in, and there is a bit of a let down to think it's finally over.

I'll state here for the record that I have never (and I don't think John has either) experienced the hallucinations of extra crew members or things like that on any of our passages. Many cruisers report vivid experiences of talking to an extra person on board. Maybe we are lacking in imagination, but that's never happened on Nakia.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my captain for bringing me safely across another part of the ocean. John does these passages practically single-handed, doing all the sail handling, navigation, repairs, and maintenance, and I get to come along for the ride. I wouldn't be doing this without John and I can't think of another sailor I'd trust my life with out at sea.

We'll be finishing up this passage just in the nick of time - we only have one page left before we finish our current passage log book and have to start a new one. Hey, John's calling me to come out and watch a pair of whales. And so ends another day at sea.

{GMST}19|08|N|104|48|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 34|Day 34{GEND}

HI to MX Day 33

We're in the home stretch now, less then 200 miles to go. We've had some great wind the last couple days so we should arrive a little ahead of our last estimate. Last night the waves got pretty bumpy for a few hours which made sleeping difficult, but it calmed down this morning so we're getting caught up on rest now. We've really been lucky as far as getting good rest the entire last half of this passage. We're both getting enough sleep that we could easily walk off the boat on arriving in Manzanillo and go for a day in town without collapsing from exhaustion. Normally we're able to do a few things but would be looking forward to getting to bed before 9pm on the arrival day.

We've been able to fly our (asymmetrical spinnaker) quite a bit over the last three days, which has been keeping the boat moving well. The only down side is we have to run the auto pilot when we're sailing under the spinnaker as the wind vane wanders too much, so we use more electricity. We really haven't flown this sail much since we got it 6 years ago, it's normal use is as a big pillow when we're sleeping in the quarter berth on passage, but this passage I've been happy to have it as a sail instead.

The other day I was running the generator to charge the batteries and the battery charger started acting up. I took it apart and found that a teaspoon or so of salt water had gotten into it when that hose broke. The water corroded a resistor so badly the solder connection to the printed circuit board completely disappeared. So now we don't have a battery charger until I can find an electrical parts supplier and replace the resistor. Good thing I got the alternator/regulator working!

Still no fish, and the water clarity continues to decline. I'm keeping the lures out just in case. We still have one onion, half a carrot, 1/4 of a cabbage (we really haven't been going through the cabbage on this passage) and a pound of ground beef so we're not hurting for fresh food. (We also have canned and dry goods for another 2-3 months, just in cast anyone is worried that we have to live on hale a carrot and a pound of ground beef for the next two days).

We've had to turn off the VHF radio so the off watch can sleep. Mexican fisherman just love to talk on the radio, even if there's no one to talk to. When they get tired of talking they sing, when they get tired of singing they do barn yard animal impersonations. It's pretty annoying. We're keeping a hand-held VHF radio on down below so if there's anyone close by calling us we'll hear them.

The wind is supposed to die tonight, so we'll no doubt be motoring the last 100 miles (we have fuel for 200 miles motoring, so we're in good shape there).

{GMST}19|55|N|106|59|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 33|Day 33{GEND}

HI to MX Day 32

This is really too good to be true. Yesterday was a nice day in spite of having to motor all afternoon. It got very clear and calm by the end of the day and John announced good potential for a green flash sunset. Sure enough that last blip of sun turned bright green. Unfortunately John will never know what one looks like since he's slightly color blind.

John shut the engine off at 8 PM and he furled the jib and hoisted the spinnaker an hour later, just in time for my watch. Aside from a few hours early this morning we've been flying it ever since, and have been cooking along at about five knots. There's been some wind chop coming down from the Sea of Cortez to give us a bit of a roll now and then, but otherwise it's a very smooth ride.

The entire night and all of today have been almost eerily crystal clear without a speck of cloud in the sky, for the first time of the entire passage. It's just surreal. And warm! The sea surface temperature rose to 70 degrees at Noon yesterday and has been in the low seventies since then. The only downside to that is that we've lost the beautiful indigo blue of open ocean and now the water is a greener brown that we associate with coastal cruising.

Lots of voice traffic on the VHF today with ships calling port control somewhere. John heard cruising boats hailing the marina in La Cruz (near Puerto Vallarta) so he tried giving Sarana a call, but no joy there. I even heard a boat calling El Cid marina in Mazatlan.

We ate our last chicken breast today and have one package of hamburger left in the freezer. John's had both fishing lines out, but so far has caught only a piece of plastic.

Almost forgot - we took fresh water showers in our head yesterday. How fantastic is that on top of everything else?!

Just a little over 200 miles to go as I write this!

Linda

{GMST}20|33|N|108|24|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 32|Day 32{GEND}

HI to MX Day 31

Sometimes it seems like everything happens at once. Last night we were sailing along under double headsails with the wind slowly shifting to be more on the beam. The double headsail rig is only good for almost dead downwind, so when we were finally 30 degrees off course I decided I had to make a change. Start with the main, hoisting it so the drifter can come down in its lee. Then drop the drifter. Furl the jib. Take down the pole (of course the control line for the pole jammed in the pole mount so I had to get back to that). Move the jib to the starboard side. Finally finish putting away the pole. This is about 20 minutes worth of activity, during which my attention is focused only on NAKIA. After everything was put away I take a look around and right there off our bow is a boat, or at least a light from a boat. It's very bright white, which should mean I'm looking at the stern of the boat but since we're back in Mexican waters the color of the light doesn't mean squat (Mexican fisherman don't seem to carry a copy of the navigation rules). So I do all the things I normally do when there is a boat close; I turn on all the deck lights and start the radar. The radar takes 2.5 minutes to warm up so while I'm waiting I grab the binoculars and go on deck to see if I can tell which way the boat is headed. When I get there, the light is gone! Great, I think, the fisherman has seen me put my deck lights on and figures I see him so he can turn his light off (don't laugh, they actually do this kind of thing). So I start squinting through the binoculars trying to see a boat with a very dim light when I notice a brightly back-lit cloud on the same bearing as the boat. I wait a minute or so and a nice bright planet (probably Venus or Jupiter) comes out from behind a cloud. It wasn't a boat at all, it was this planet rising on a clear horizon! You'd think that after almost 20,000 miles at sea in the last 6 years I'd learn.

{GMST}21|38|N|110|55|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 31|Day 31{GEND}

HI to MX Day 30

Well, John finally took it all off today - his hair that is! He shaved off his beard (except for his original goatee)and took the electric clippers to his head, and now I have my Bruce Willis guy back again. I was off watch for the event so I haven't seen the before and after pictures yet, but we'll post those when we have internet again.

As John already wrote, we've run out of fresh fruit and now it's finally time to break out the Thai banana chips which were a going away gift from Mike and Mon on Windy City (thanks guys!). I've been saving them for last because I knew we'd appreciate them most at the end of our trip. They are a good treat and even with careful rationing I'm sure they won't last more than a few days!

The water temperature has increased slowly but surely over the past few days, giving us hope that we'll soon be back in tropical weather. Last night we didn't see less than 66 degrees for the first time in awhile. I'm not sure we'll be able to re-acclimate in less than a week (after four weeks of feeling like we were freezing!) but hopefully the Mexican mainland winter temps will be easy on us before we have to face the Baja summer.

On Thursday John's fishing line caught a two foot piece of the kelp. We's noticed several floating by the day before. He reeled it in and we put it in the cockpit well for Ziggy's entertainment. It turned out to have the bonus surprise of half a dozen assorted sized "bugs" crawling on it. These closely resembled what we call "beach roaches" but instead of being black, these were kelp colored. Ziggy was completely captivated by the creatures, but when he decided the "toys" made good food, we pitched it back over the side. Of course Ziggy managed to scoot into the cabin below with one last snack. He spent the rest of the afternoon periodically checking the well to make sure he hadn't missed any.

Friday morning at sunrise we had the pleasure of seeing a fishing boat headed in the opposite direction. We had the twin headsails rigged and must have been quite a sight for them with our blue and white striped drifter. They came in for a closer look, but I was disappointed that they never got close enough to wave. Later we heard Asian voices on the VHF so maybe that was them. Now we seem to be getting the fishermen out of Cabo yakking day and night on channel 16.

Of course after John ran the generator to charge our batteries Friday morning the wind completely died by late afternoon and we had to motor until early evening. It never seems to fail that we have to motor after we've already run the generator. Kind of the opposite of the ukulele effect! This seems to be the pattern lately. Windy sail at sunrise, tapering off by lunch. Motor from noon to mid/late afternoon. Sail in extremely variable, and mostly light, winds all night. Repeat.

Hopefully only to be repeated for five more nights (but who's counting)!

Linda

{GMST}22|15|N|112|12|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 30|Day 30{GEND}

HI to MX Day 29

NAKIA is back in the tropics! The nights are still cool (the water temp is still just 66 degrees) but at least we're not freezing every night. I haven't shaved since before we left Hilo so I would have the benefit of warming facial hair. It's been very itchy and I'm ready to trim it back today, after taking a 'before' picture for the blog of course.

We have about 600 miles to go, and with fuel to motor for 250 of that we'll probably keep going on to Manzanillo. The forecast looks a little better in the near future and if we can manage to sail 75% of the time we should make it just fine. Anticipating Thursday, February 17th as our arrival time. We'll see.

We're now out of fresh fruit, the last orange went yesterday.

{GMST}23|3|N|113|58|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 29|Day 29{GEND}

HI to MX Day 28b

We continue to have light winds and had to motor 6 hour yesterday. It seems like the wind comes up a little more at night and we can make good progress with the big poled out to port and the drifter set in the second furler track to starboard (twin head-sails). The main is just in the way with this sail configuration so I just set it with a deep reef to keep it from blanketing the drifter.

Yesterday while motoring, our trusty Yanmar 3QM30 diesel engine ticked over 5000 hours. That's the equivalent of 225,000 miles in a car. A lot of other Hans Christian owners have replaced this motor with newer models, but we're keeping ours until it fails to start at least once. To date it's never given us any major problems (not counting the transmission :-)

It's looking more and more like we'll have to stop in Cabo San Lucas for fuel. We don't really want to as it will be expensive (the marina there is outrageously expensive) but it may not be avoidable if the wind doesn't fill in the next couple of days. Right now we have just enough fuel to motor all the way to Cabo but that's it...

The bread turned out pretty good the other day. This was a new method, where I just mix the ingredients and kneed it a little then place it in the refrigerator in a zip-lock bag over night. The next morning I take it out, kneed a little more then put it in a loaf pan to rise. Once it's risen enough (about three hours) I pop it in the oven and bake. The loaf was much smoother then normal and it rose very well. Also because there was not as much kneeding it was a much cleaner way to bake bread. The only downside is that a gallon zip-lock only holds enough dough for one loaf, so we're going thru it pretty fast. I guess I'll have to make a loaf every other day or so to keep up.

{GMST}23|59|N|115|22|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 28b|Day 28b{GEND}

HI to MX Day 27

John was a little loopy yesterday and read the day of the week as Thu instead of Tu. So we're back to the counting the days correctly today. I'm counting from January 13 at 4:15 PM local Hawaii time, which means today isn't day 27 until 2:15 PM PST. Confused? Half the time, so are we...

The other half of the time we're wishing for more wind! Had to turn the engine on after lunch today for some more motoring in no wind. We really don't want to waste time making a stop just for fuel.

We can't decide whether Ziggy would make a better futbol (soccer) goalie or forward. He makes some great blocking jumps and captures when we toss him his favorite toy - a curled up twist tie. But once he has it on the ground he likes to dribble it forward where he passes it into the 12-inch opening underneath our enclosed toilet. Goal! Right into the bilge. His coach then has to get down on all fours to stick her arm as far as it will go in the aft direction of this cramped opening. Invariably when we go fishing for the most recent "ball" we find two more just like it. The sun has come out a bit more since I started doing email and he's snoozing under the dodger right now soaking up some rays.

John made bread this morning, and otherwise we're just going along with our same old routine and chores.

{GMST}24|48|N|116|39|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 27|Day 27{GEND}

HI to MX Day 28

I'm not sure how it happened, but we got off on our day count somewhere. Today is our 28th day at sea and Linda's birthday as well.

Neptune has given Linda a nice 12 kt breeze out of the NNW and we're running downwind with the big jib polled out to port and a reefed main out to starboard. You'd think with only 12 kts of wind we'd shake out the reef, but the main bangs too much without the reef so we leave it reefed for a quieter boat.

I keep forgetting to give the fresh food report. The other day we had the last of our potatoes (we only had six big ones for baking, but boy were they good). We still have two oranges, half a cabbage, one carrot and 5 onions. Both fishing lines are out now, as we're down to two chicken breasts and a pound of hamburger in the freezer. Today for Linda's B-Day lunch I'm planning to make cruiser pasta (made in one pot, you cook the tomato sauce first, add some water and then cook the pasta in the sauce). We may take showers too.

The weather forecast is for light winds out of the North for the next few days, we're hoping we can keep moving under sail. If we have to motor we'll probably have to stop in Cabo San Lucas for fuel (our projected track takes us within 60 miles of Cabo as it is). We have about 56 hours of motoring time left in the tank and we're expecting to have to use that on the home stretch South of Cabo Corrientes.

{GMST}25|38|N|118|26|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 28|Day 28{GEND}

HI to MX Day 25

Yay, wind! After slatting around for hours last night, we finally got enough breeze to make progress in the right direction at 0500 today. Who would have thought our biggest problem would be no wind?! We have about 950 miles to go to Manzanillo and are really hoping we don't have to make a pit stop in Cabo for fuel. That would just drag it out as far as I'm concerned, but on the other hand I'd like to motor when we need to instead of drifting along listening to the sails bang back and forth! When John got up this morning we dropped the drifter and put our big "Mexico" jib on the furler. We call it the Mexico jib because that's where we got the most use out of it before heading south. It's perfect for all the light air sailing along the coast and up in the Sea of Cortez.

Putting up the big jib seemed to work like a magnet. We got some nice wind all afternoon and even hit six knots once or twice. But the biggest charm in conjuring up the wind has been John's ukulele practice. Twice he's gotten out his uke to play in the cockpit and twice we've had wind afterwards. And we had dolphin visits again! That uke is worth every penny John paid for it.

If I made it sound like Ziggy is now a sweet kitty climbing into bed with us, that is dead wrong. He's just a heat-seeking wild child, and you better not stick your hand out to pet him while he's curled up in that cute little ball or you'll get your skin sliced. John and I both ignored the obvious signs this morning that he was beyond playing and lost in the zone of terror (huge black dilated pupils and swishing tail). John came away with a bloody stump (never use the hand as a toy!) while I was ambushed from behind and got bite marks on my calf through two layers of clothing. John grabbed him and put him outside for a timeout, after which Ziggy had the nerve to come join me in bed! His eyes were a little wide as we looked at each other, but I ignored him and he settled down. Why, oh why, do we keep this crazy cat?!

The San Diego voices on the VHF dropped off last night and we've begun hearing Spanish now. [Later: San Diego came up again late this afternoon. Must be propagation. Same thing for the PacSeaNet. John's been able to check in there the last couple of nights.] Just can't believe we're still so far away from even some place as far north as Cabo. Feels like we should really be farther south by now!

Linda

{GMST}26|19|N|120|07|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 25|Day 25{GEND}

HI to MX Day 24

I guess it's a good thing that the drifter didn't blow up the other day. The wind has all but died and the drifter is the only thing that will fill.

I tried the spinnaker this morning, but the wind is too light and it's too rolly for it to stay full. In the ships log, at 0700 this morning is the following entry:

0700-0815: Pole in (the drifter was poled out); Drifter rolled up; Spinnaker up; Pole up (spinnaker on pole); Pole down; Spinnaker wrapped on forestay; Spinnaker un-wrapped; Spinnaker down; Jibe; Drifter out; Pole up

That is A LOT of sail handling in an hour and 15 minutes, especially with the spinnaker wrap. For those of you who don't know, a spinnaker wrap is when the spinnaker, flopping back and forth in light winds, spins around forestay. The spinnaker will billow out in the middle so that there's no way for it to naturally un-wrap. Think of a hard candy wrapped in cellophane, standing on end. To get the twists out of the cellophane, you pull on both ends. But since the spinnaker is wrapped around the forestay you can't pull on the end, the forestay won't let you. I have no idea if there's a good way to undo a spinnaker wrap, but what works for me is to jibe and wait. For some reason the action that causes the wrap is reversed if you jibe, then you just wait for the wrap to undo itself and quickly take the spinnaker down before it wraps again.

That's enough spinnaker handling for a couple days for me. I'm glad we have that drifter, I just wish it was bigger.

{GMST}27|10|N|121|13|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 24|Day 24{GEND}

HI to MX Day 23

Nice sailing these last 24 hrs. The drifter has remained up even though the wind has been up to 15 kts at times. This is a little much for that old sail, but it will never get replaced if it doesn't blow up and it won't blow up if we don't fly it in too much wind :-)

It's still pretty cold, but the guys on the Chubasco net said it's supposed to warm up in Arizona soon so maybe that will come our way as well.

We caught a glimpse of dolphins one day, but mostly we hear their squeaks and clicks through the hull at night. They don't stick around for long; must just be curious about what we are, and then they go back to whatever it is they were doing somewhere else. [Later in the day: The dolphins hung around for an hour off and on this afternoon. Long enough to identify them as Common dolphins.]

A few days ago we got the binoculars out to confirm that the white albatross we were seeing was a Layson and not the rare short-tailed. This one definitely had a dark colored back.

We heard Coast Guard San Diego and Vessel Assist on the VHF for the first time this morning. You can tell it's the weekend because they've been answering a lot of non life threatening calls from pleasure boaters.

Anyway, we're making good progress for now, though it's supposed to die off later today and stay light for several days.

{GMST}28|26|N|122|57|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 23|Day 23{GEND}

HI to MX Day 22a

(I think John inadvertently skipped day 21, and that today - Feb. 4 - is really day 22.)

John put the drifter (light air sail) up yesterday and we went slow ( < 3 knots) for several hours. He also decided that we probably shouldn't have tacked and made all that northing since the forecast is for light winds all the way to the coast. We don't want to be sailing dead downwind in light air, it would be better to be reaching. So we're sailing a little south of our course today to get into a more favorable position.

As I suspected would happen, we are losing voice communications with the Pacific Seafarers Net. Night before last they couldn't hear John and last night he couldn't hear any of them. But he continues to check-in with them via email so that our position is noted on YOTREPS. This morning he went looking for RSL and RSM on the Baja net, but guess we'll have to wait until we're close enough to get on the Sonrisa net before we can hear them (Hi, Jay and Janice!).

Today we had delicious hamburgers on fresh pita bread buns (thanks Hermy!), and we're enjoying another gorgeous sunny afternoon of easy sailing with better speeds (4.5-5.5 knots; yippee!)

Linda

{GMST}29|23.150|N|124|14.000|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 22a|Day 22a{GEND}

HI to MX Day 22

Well we've been hit by a little contrary wind so we've gone back to Port tack for a day or so. That's ok, we'd rather deal with this then have to deal with the gale force winds blowing in the Sea of Cortez and of the Southern coast of Baja California today and tomorrow. We should be back on Starboard tack by midnight tonight and then slowly getting lifted toward the mainland over the next couple of days.

No more fishing for now. I cooked the Albacore tuna last night and it was very nice, but we still have some meat in the freezer and it's possible Customs may confiscate it when we arrive in MX so we're trying to eat it all up before we arrive.

We changed the clocks last night as we are now in the Pacific Time Zone. We also changed our watch schedule so I can check into the Amigo net . Of course Don Anderson had a few deprecating words about our choice of route from Hawaii to Mexico, according to Don it's wiser to beat straight into the trade winds for 2500 miles then to sail one long tack into the Pacific High and then bear off on the opposite tack for the mainland. Frankly, I'm glad we're not bashing into 25 kts of wind right now (and I'm even more glad that we haven't had to do it for the last three weeks as well) even if we have to sail an extra 500 miles on our chosen route. To each his own I guess.

{GMST}29|58|N|125|33|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 22|Day 22{GEND}

HI to MX Day 20

John forgot to write his usual blog this morning so here we are at 4 PM local time on Wednesday, 2/2. Still having a beautiful sail although in freezing conditions. As I feared, now that we're no longer motoring the cabin temperature is about the same as the water temp - in the low sixties. Although today was sunny so we managed to get some extra warmth. John says we should only have about 4-5 more days of this bitter cold and then it will just be cold. Ziggy continues to climb into our off watch berth to take advantage of our body heat - both day and night! Yesterday John caught a small tuna of some sort. We've seen ships both last night and again today. One was a fishing boat and we're not sure where the one today was headed (somewhere due south). It's nice to be sailing and on course for our destination of Manzanillo!

{GMST}30|30.890|N|126|17.070|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 20|Day 20{GEND}

HI to MX Day 19

Wind! and wet, unfortunately. But in any case it looks like the Pacific High has finally released us and we are on our way. We're not sailing off the wind exactly, but we're not hard on the wind either.

Linda noted that there was some water in the fuel. I think it came from the fuel we got at the fuel dock in the Alawai. So note well our friends in HI, make sure to use a water trap if you get fuel there, or better yet, get your fuel via jerry jugs from the gas station. (strangely enough fuel from the gas station is cheaper then the fuel dock. This is strange because the fuel dock fuel is 'off road use' only and is died red. This means it has no road tax on it, so should be cheaper.)

1600 miles left to go to SolCasa!

{GMST}31|13|N|129|05|W|Hawaii to Mexico Day 19|Day 19{GEND}