We left on a cool Wednesday afternoon (the 22nd) out of the Long Beach breakwater with our wonderful crew of Jim and Darda Harrison. If you are looking for the best friends, sailors and shipmates, it's them!
As we proceeded we had no wind so the engines ran. We set a rhumb line pretty much for Cedros Island and began watch keeping. By Sunday, we approached Cedros and had 3 notable events, from good to not good:
Once again, Diane's fishing lines did their magic and she pulled in a beautiful yellow fin tuna. Nice! The only challenge was what was going on on the other side of the boat.
So, the second event: Bill was noting that the tachometer for the port engine was operating erratically so opened up the engine compartment to check. To his surprise, there was about 6 - 8 inches of water in the compartment and water splashing everywhere! Wow! He quickly shut down the engine and shut the through-hull supplying cooling water to the engine. Still have water coming in ... why? At that point, Darda noticed that water was streaming from the watermaker. The high pressure joint to the pump failed. We quickly shut that off, drained the water out, T-9'd the whole of the engine compartment, and got under way again. Long story short, the bilge pump had failed at the wrong time contributing to the problem. We lost the starter, but nothing else. Once in Mazatlan, we had everything cleaned and oiled by professionals.
Now for the third event: Also on that day, we saw a Catamaran headed north so Bill hailed them. They were a delivery crew out of South Africa taking a Voyager 44 up to Seattle. After 10 minutes of conversation, we said good-bye thinking we were glad we weren't them. On Dec. 10th their boat was lost off a 100 kt. storm off of Oregon ... just a couple hundred miles from finishing their 7500 mile sail. Wow! The weather reports had noted this storm well in advance so you can't be sure what the decision process was. The skipper was expert, so we'll never know. The real lesson is that sailing is not a completely safe sport. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the crew.
We continued past Cedros as the weather FINALLY began to warm up. As we started to think about relaxing and enjoying the warmth, the weather forecasts started to indicate that a significant Norther was building for the day after we expected to cross the Sea of Cortez. As the crossing from Cabo San Lucas to Mazatlan is 200 miles, if you're in the middle and the weather turns crappy ... you're stuck.
We made the decision to push Wirewalker hard until we got to Cabo San Lucas where we could look at conditions over the next 24 hours and either duck into Cabo or cross. We rounded Cabo about 4:00 pm and decided to go for it. We had about 12 - 24 hours beyond what was needed to cross ... not a lot ... but enough, so we went for it.
Benign is the best way to describe the first 130 miles. About 70 miles off Mazatlan, the wind started to pick up, then pick up more, then more. Within 25 miles of Mazatlan, we had only a reefed headsail up and were doing 9-plus kts.
Now, as we approached the Mazatlan Marina entrance, we had two major considerations: The first was the entry itself. Under the best of conditions, it is a tricky entrance. You can't see the opening as it requires a quick turn to port just before you go onto the reef and/or beach. Then you make a very sharp turn to starboard to stay in the channel. From there, it's easy ... as long as no current is running out the narrow channel. As Bill and Diane had been through this entrance several times over the last year, Bill decided he would do it ... if conditions allowed. So, the crew spent an hour or so rehearsing the route and each person's responsibilities during the entrance to be sure we did right.
The second consideration was the wind. With 25+ kts. blowing, Bill would not enter. However, the wind off-shore is often not the same as the wind on-shore, so we decided to get close enough to check it out before "bailing" out to either Deer island or Mazatlan's old harbor. Sure enough, the wind nearly died completely in the final mile before the entry, so we decided to go to the entrance and check conditions. Again, all good.
We made it into the harbor and tied up alongside the dock at about midnight, Wed/Thur. We have this thing about late night arrivals, I guess. We'd travelled 1100 miles in 7 1/2 days. Next time, we want to set a record by NOT going so fast.
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