Gulf of California
Dec. 25
07:00 Coffee on deck.
We have a very nice traditional Mexican breakfast and open our little gifts under the mini Christmas tree Brenda packed from Mexico City!
Feels a lot like Christmas out here.
10:30
Anchor is up and we’re off sailing.
Slow getting out of the bay. Very light airs.
Humpback whales, Derado, and Tuna are all visibly scrambling below to get to Christmas dinner.
BECALMED!
No canvas up. No Chug Chug running.
But before we can set our damn course the boat has turned around 90° and (like a complete idiot) my fishing line that was out becomes fouled either on the rudder or even worse the prop?
Since we are stopped, I toss on the goggles with a knife and go under for an inspection. Our 80lb line is wrapped around the prop shaft! About 50 times. With a steak knife the line is cut and brought back up on deck for disposal. That was a close shave! Could have been much worse. The price for that lesson was cheap.
Maxime can’t believe anyone would swim here when there’s so many sharks living in the area!?
Winds start to form and all sails go back up.
By sunset the breeze is freshening up nicely. Seas are becoming choppy and sloppy as promised. We single reef the main, reef the mizzen, we then reef the staysail. Rails are still buried in water… We continue on with fully reefing down the main. Still too much canvas showing. Drop the main completely with mizzen and headsails up only. We settle back down a bit and still continue at 6.5 knots into the darkness.
Poor little Brenda. Her first time ever on a boat is a 200 mile passage across the Gulf of California. She’s very sick.
Double Header pukers down below! 🤢
One lays sprawled out barfing on the floor while he other tries to comfort the other puking into a home depo bucket. Could be true love or could be the end of ones sailing career.
The little new lovebirds share a team puke at the same time!
“Spilling all the cookies”
My 20:00-00:00 watch offers rolling seas, a fair bit of splash, and a neat full circle halo around the full moon.
Dec. 26
Midnight shift change. Very uncomfortable. Violent conditions. Brenda appears pretty rattled and scared. But we are good and safe and we will sail through this one.
Life inside a washing machine!
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
Very little sleep with the slamming and banging against the hull. My bunk turns from a calculated organized mess when leaving to a pile of supplies, boxes, and random boat gear scattered everywhere. King of mess. He really needs a better stowage plan on this baby. Possibly D rings to secure stuff down.
07:00
Small 6”x6” L shaped rip forming 2/3 of the way up the staysail. Drop it and shake out the reef on the mizzen.
Coffee.
Fully reefed main goes back up, mizzen comes down, and the stays’l heads into the sewing sail loft.
Noon to Noon reading says 105 miles sailed.
Max spends his watch hand sewing the sail and I take over adding patches on both sides during my watch. Staysail re enters the workforce the next day! Perfecto
Much more comfortable conditions tonight.
Sails are up but fully reefed. Making 7knots above water and should comfortably ride into Mazatlán at dawn ish.
20 miles of dead zone around Mazatlán.
Dec. 27
14:00
Rock Island anchorage, Mazatlán
Hook is set in 2.5 fathoms of water 12 fathoms of chain out.
Just over 48 hour passage! We are excited to be here.
Unless you plan on using your motor, Don’t ever slow down a sailboat on purpose to plan a dawn arrival! This drives me insane. If you have wind, sail to your destination. Then you can drift when you get outside the harbour walls.
