With one-third of the trip north completed, the good news is that we haven't really been 'bashed' much at all. The closest we've came was the passage around Cabo Falso early Saturday AM which Jeff described in his last post. As he mentioned, once that was behind us, it was all motoring in calm seas with 4-8 knots of breeze. Under those conditions Journey made very good time. The other boats we were traveling with chose to stop at Mag Bay/Santa Maria on Sunday morning, but the predictions for the next 24 hours were still good, so we opted to continue on to San Juanico. Again, we had calm conditions and light winds. In the late afternoon a westerly kicked up at 10-15 knots and we had a nice sail for most of the evening. By 2:00 AM we'd dropped the hook here in San Juanico. The weather window is supposed to slam shut for the next few days, so we'll be staying put for a bit.

Meanwhile the surf is up here, but Jeff is having to work at convincing himself to brave the 59 degree water. (When we left Cabo the water temp was 84!)

The cold is one thing we haven't been able to avoid during this version of the bash. We haven't seen the sun since we left Cabo and I've gone from lounging in swimming suits and sundresses to bundling up in jeans, thermal underwear, fleece jackets and foul-weather gear.

The other down-side we had to face was some sleep deprivation coming from only two people sharing watches on a 45 hour passage. Some friends offered to fly down and help out as crew for the bash, but that would have forced us into a time-frame that doesn't always allow for waiting out the bad weather. So we made the choice to go it alone. We won't know until the end of the passage whether we made the right call, but either way it's been a good start for this year's bash.