Trim to Win
Dec.6
I was up on deck for my first watch at 04:00. We have been becalmed in absolutely no wind all night and the sails are tucked away with even the covers on! This really means we aren’t going anywhere. Max says I can just sleep through my four hour watch since no wind is expected until noon. I stay up and look out at the moonlit glassy water. It feels like we are on a lake. We can hear whales around the boat and we swear we could smell the breath of a big breach right beside the boat!
After an hour I retire to my Vberth bunk and set my alarm for 1 hour. I check for hazards at 06:00 and get up again at 07:00. Bonus 2 hours of rest!
Coffee and oats on deck. We fix the gps which has been cutting in and out all passage. It was due to a power saving mode on Skippers laptop. 11:00 and the breeze starts and by noon (as predicted) we were sailing with all 4 sails up. The mood on deck is excited and optimistic. We quickly hit 5 knots of speed on a perfect beam reach. We are headed in the Ensenada direction once again. 110 miles to go.
Throughout the day we got a true feel for how Le Patriote handles wind. Everything slowly increases incrementally through the day. Right before sunset at 16:40 we decide to reef down the staysail, main, uand the mizzen. Shortly after dinner we go up on deck to fully reef down the main! So we are heading into the night with all sails up but reefed right down.
Smoooth sailing.
18:15 crossed the big red imaginary line on the water into Mexico! This is my first time sailing in Mexico and my 9th country I’ve sailed in.
“Two guys make it three times faster”
*Spoiler (we were both up most of the night fighting to build a balanced vessel)
Dec.7
Last night felt like a real learning curve for both Max and I. It felt like we were both up most of the night fighting the wind angle that was coming directly behind us!
At 22:00 last night the wind was flipping all the sails over the deck so I decided to gybe the boat and slowly turn the angle to the east. This eventually made things worse as we slipped out of the wind streaming down the coast! We then both worked all the lines over and gybed back to a southerly course. An hour later we were back on the “treadmill of wind” I know max is still learning the best way to handle this sweetheart in a dead run.
Great sailing conditions on the beam all morning. We both got a chance to grab a few good hours of rest.
14:20 we are 20nm from Ensenada! Mountains appear from the mist and the sun pops out to give a Spanish Hola! Not too sure what the wind speeds are but we are gliding along at 6-7 knots for hours with a very steady boat. No drinks in 6 days so we are ready for a cerveza or 100!
5 days 5 hours. Longest 160 mile passage from LA to Ensenada Mexico probably ever recorded! And we’re okay with that. We seen things you don’t see while zipping by under motor power. We started our engine to leave and enter the harbours we were in. What an amazing learning opportunity for myself to be on. Just going with the winds and learning new things around every new corner. Unbelievable.
