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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Day 3 and 4

Day 3 was more of the same, just making our best time in light wind. We have the 'big' jib on so we can make progress in light winds but to this point we haven't had to deploy it entirely. There has been enough wind to keep us going nicely without having 480 sq ft of sail hanging off the forestay.

Day 4 brings some news. We were going to pass within 5 miles of Isla Sororro, a lonely outpost of the Mexican Navy, and have decided to stop and see if they would allow us to stay a couple nights. We called on VHF 16 and they told us to come into Vargas Cove and wait for a boat to come with officials for an inspection. Another sailboat, RED, who also left PV on Wednesday, had also decided to stop. They had to motor 30 mile or so to get here. The crew of RED does not speak Spanish, so after the inspection on NAKIA was complete John was employed on board RED to translate. The formalities took about 30 minutes fore each sailboat and were mostly a survey of safety equipment. After their inspection was complete they presented us with a questionnaire to review their performance, also in Spanish. John's Spanish is pretty good, but understanding the questionnaire would have taken all day and really when you are reviewing the performance of a Lieutenant and a Full Commander the best thing is to do is just check 'MUY BUENO' on each question.

So now we can stay as long as we like, though two days should be sufficient.

{GMST}18|43.792|N|110|57.468|W|Mexico to Marquesas Day 4|Isla Socorro{GEND}