Sailing Encore

We are now sitting in Magdalena Bay after 265 rousing miles of sailing and darkness.

Yesterday morning I awoke and had coffee then dressed in layers and prepped the cabin below. Up anchor, raise the main and out the bay entrance at 7am. Pass by fishing trap buoys and decide to add them to the list of ‘call outs’. Like when you see a dolphin and you say ‘dolphin’, the other person is obligated to look and see if they see it too.

The wind is steady from south west at 8 and building. We turn off the engine and at long last we are sailing!

We see another sailboat headed in the same direction. Oh boy, it is a race. But an aft chase is a long race. We name the boat ‘Target’.

One hour of sailing and wind is 15, boat speed 9.5 A bit of rain falls. Vernon goes below to put on his foulies. By the time he is back on deck the wind has dropped to 4. Probably because he put his gear on.

I play cloud images. Piglet laying on its back waiting for belly rub. Morphs into poodle puppy. Next cloud over is an angel with small wings. The poodle morphs into a hydro plane. Don’t ask.

Target looks a little closer. Wind building and we roll out jib to sail. We are below 30 latitude. Two more days and we will hit the tropics. But between that sunshine and warmth are a few more night shifts.

See a cloud of a bear holding her baby cub. Vernon says it looks like Santa with his sack on his back. We both agree on Bert cloud of Sesame Street fame.

Whale spouts in the distance. 1000’s of these leviathans are migrating south from the Pacific north west searching for safe and tranquil  shallows where they can court, mate, give birth and nurse new calves. Some bays have panga boat guides that can take you in up close to see the amazing creatures. I caught some photos but so far not up close.Dolphins pop up and about boat. Too sporadic to get photos.I have a wonderful Nikon camera so fancy it intimidates me. I also have my cell phone camera, which is kind of my go to. And we got a GoPro camera from our co-workers that will be so fun to take snorkeling and use to capture some sailing action. I just always seem to pull them out to late.

Vernon pours over multiple wind predications prior to us setting sail. Hoping to actual get some sailing in instead of motoring, Maybe fly the spinnaker (big colorful sails that are used in reaching winds). Luckily the wind does build to 18-21 knots and Vernon takes the helm for some speeds of 11.5 knots per hour. He is smiling.

Then it dies down and he pulls out our ugly yellow green and orange kite. This sail is the easiest of our big kites for the two of us to sail. Mostly in raising and dropping the sails is where the trouble can happen. I take the helm but fight the wheel due to angle of the wind and swells. It builds up again to 22 knots and we do a perfect douse. Ya!

And we have passed Target and are in the lead.

I realize I am feeling a bit sick with this wind and beam waves and my scopolamine patch is at its’ three day limit. Vernon grabs me a new on but I am pretty miserable the rest of the cold long dark night.

The winds are 20 knots, we put in a reef (shorten the big main sail just in case the wind keeps building). And we sail the boat for the next 16 hours.

The sun is going down and it is pitch black by 7pm. The moon is not going rise till 1 am. The waves are broad side and big and the spray comes up into the boat. It hits my face and my socks and tennis shoes (my foul weather gear keeps my body dry).

Hour after dark hour passes slowly in the true total darkness.

When it is my turn to rest I can’t go below so I curl up in the cockpit and try to shut my eyes. Pretty soon a wave reaches over the boat and slaps me awake. This is the part I hate. Washing machine effect, being tossed about in the cold very dark night. I ask Vernon to call out the hours so I don’t keep looking at my watch. In the pitch black you can see a light on the mast of Target. Way back in the distance.

Come sun up, we are still a bit from the anchorage but we can see and notice that the landscape is changing around us with the hills of Mexico starting to show a bit of green vegetation. The water is definitely bluer too.

We are now at 24 degrees latitude. Just a couple more of the awful overnighters and we will be in the tropics.

We find anchorage at Magdalena Bay after covering 265 nautical miles. We tidy the boat, take warm showers and I put on a summer dress. It is 75 degrees in my boat! Getting closer.

And Target pulls in just as Vernon and I go below for dinner.