We sailed slowly during the night until the wind went down to nearly nothing about 13 miles from our destination. We motored quietly on at low rpms trying to time our arrival for first light. As the sun rose, the entrance became clear and we began to head in.

Putting fishing gear away in the early dawn I managed to run into a net in the water. We had already seen several of these with small buoys low in the water. The boat slowed to about 1 knot until, thankfully, this one popped right off.

The bay had a fairly wide entrance and we probably would have been okay, but charts in Mexico are not always accurate. One cannot always trust that we actually are where the iPad or chartplotter says we are. So being able to see the entrance was important.

We anchored, and pretty soon a panga came out and a man offered to sell us fuel. He took our order and then went in to add some to his tank. He returned a while later. There was no gauge on his pump so we have no idea how much we were putting in. All in all, with tips and everything, we paid slightly over $10 US per gallon for diesel. Expensive, but we have peace of mind that we will likely get to Cabo San Lucas without worry. However, that would depend completely on wind.

As if on cue, the wind did pick up to about 16-18 knots from the north. And within two hours of leaving, we had both reefs in the main and still doing almost 6 knots through the water. We ended up carrying on like that until late in the evening making good speed and flying through the water.

The uptick in speed had another benefit. Fish became interested in our lures just when I had begun to despair that our little handline system was not going to work. First, as we left Bahia de Tortugas, several small Bonitos asked if they could become sashimi. We rejected them on the basis of size although the first might have made a couple of small fillets. Then further on, a slightly larger Bonito decided he liked the look of our lure. We had no sooner gotten him cleaned and filleted then a Big Eye Tuna volunteered to be our dinner. He was about 14 to 16 pounds at least and yielded a fair amount of meat.

I have never claimed to be a fisherman and I never claimed to be smart either. Andrew discovered why I should probably leave fishing to professionals. I had left the little protective plastic sleeve on the hook of one of the lures we were using.

For dinner, I made some basmati rice as a bed for thin slices of quickly pan seared tuna that I dredged though a sauce of lime juice, Tapatia, and soy sauce. The tuna was tasty and tender. Everyone aboard was disappointed that we failed to bring along some wasabi.

We made about 65 miles before the wind slackened and went east on us. As I came on watch, John and I fired up the engine and put away the spinnaker pole that we had on the jib and shook one of the reefs out of the mainsail. We began motorsailing, still making about 5 knots.