Sailing Encore

1245am “Terri”.  “huh?”.  “It’s time”. I roll out of our bed. I am already dressed in thermal top and thermal long-johns and I add my jeans and foulies, sweater and vest and black jacket. Then my arm light, my head light and my safety harness. We have to set out right after midnight for this passage. We want to arrive in daylight and we have 36 hours of sailing.

Climb up and ready top sides. We had prepped below prior to going to bed including the snack bag and obligatory PBJ sandwiches. It is dark out. We back out of slip and quietly slide out the marina and jetty.We are in the Baja channel in minutes and raise the mainsail, set course and we are off to PV In the darkness.

Once our course is set Vernon lets me go back to bed (gotta love that guy). We motor sail then as the wind builds to 16 knots, he shuts off engine and sails under main and jib for several hours. A big tanker crosses our bow and soon the sun is up. We have a long day and night ahead as we cross the Baja gulf. The wind dies and we are motor sailing under main. Current is pushing us low of course so I adjust the autopilot every now and then. Vernon sleeps. See very little ocean life. A few whale spouts and dolphin. But I keep a look out. The day is warm and sunny. It feels good with my layers of clothes. Vernon goes below and changes out of his warm gear to shorts and T shirt. Great, this causes the weather to immediately changes to overcast.

Lunch and another nap for me. The time passes slowly. 2pm I make a bowl of salty popcorn and we eat and look over the charts.

Three quarters of the way across there are three Islands that are used as prisons. You are supposed to steer clear by 20 miles so we set a waypoint south of them. We should get there about 2am. Then will set waypoint for Banderas Bay. Then, the Paradise Village Marina. Ever since we made plans for this adventure we knew we were going to this marina in Puerto Vallarta. We had listened to a talk about cruising Mexico done by the Harbormaster of the Marina. It has beautiful facilities and there is much to do in the area. We planned on staying put there for one month to just sit in the warm sun and think about the trip, organize the boat and get comfortable with retirement.

The sun is setting and I make a sunset video.

The night is dark and long but we both take turns napping up on deck. We see a large tanker on radar. We are basically on a collision course with it. I say let’s speed up and cross ahead of it. Vernon says No, never try to cross in front. That can be a death sentence if it goes wrong. We slow and let the tanker carry on and it passes ahead of us. That was the whole excitement for the night. Seas are flat, wind is little and dead behind us and we motor along.

Day break comes and I make coffee. So far this passage has been perfect in so much as it has been exactly as predicted by the weather sites and no issues. We sail on towards Banderas Bay. Vernon even put out the fishing rod to troll.

But wait, this is all going too well.

About 1 pm the wind builds again and we are sailing beautifully under the warm sun. We go to turn off the motor but it won’t shut off and the Vernon says the wheel seems tight -hard to steer with a load on the sail. Could be ball bearings in turning gear. May have to haul boat out (ka ching $) We leave the engine on because I am afraid if we turn off manually we will not get it started again when we need it to get into marina.

We spot whales and dolphin jumping around our boat.

As we sail into Banderas Bay (think San Francisco Bay size) and as we approach marina we roll up jib and drop main. We notice that two of the main sail cars are dislodged from track. Note to look into that later. It is 4pm local time and we are finally here at Paradise Village Marina. After 1200 miles and 5 dark exciting overnighters, we have reached our “starting point”. I had talked with the marina crew a couple days prior and confirmed they have a slip for us to stay one month. They said to notify them when we are outside the marina in the bay.

I call up Paradise Marina and ask for our promised Slip number. But instead of giving us a slip they tell us the entrance jetty is too shallow for our 9 foot draft because the tide is out. What? We have come all this way to be turned away… Vernon and I look at each other and I truly want to scream. I can’t tell you how hollow I feel. The marina lady suggests we go anchor 3 miles up the coast and come back tomorrow at 10am at high tide. What are you going do…

We are anchor by La Cruz off the beach. The anchorage is very pretty.

We work on engine ignition and discover the starting battery is dead. Vernon pulls out the generator.  I go to make Tortellini Carbonara and the propane tank quits half way into my cooking. We spend an hour putting new propane tank in place and open a bottle of wine.

I do want to mention something here. Vernon is very knowledgeable sailor. He can fix anything on the boat especially if he has the right tools. He is calm in face of emergency like the main sail getting stuck in our chicken jib the other black night. And he never yells at me when I am the one who pulls the no brainer. He, unlike me, has a true passion for sailing and making the boat perform. And he is very good at it. I am a very good sailor but he truly holds the captain role here. And it is so sad to see him disappointed in this trip. Pour another glass of wine. Eat some tortellini. And watch the sun set on Banderas Bay.

Today we woke up and had coffee in the in the cockpit in La Cruz bay.

Then picked up anchor and motored straight over to Paradise Village Marina entrance arriving at 10am high tide. We motored straight up the middle of the jetty channel and into slip D1.

It is warm and sunny and we have arrived.