Sailing the Karina C

Jay is hitting the groove in San Carlos. The stress of route planning is wearing him out.
11/26
I woke up at 0500. From there, I had a fitful rest until 0600 when the alarm went off. We rolled over and snoozed another 20 minutes and then our bladders motivated us to get up.
We had a quick breakfast and then got Karina ready for sea. Water tanks had to be filled, and last minute issues had to be dealt with. We were underway at 0730. I listened to Geary's weather and he was calling for 15-20 from the NW. We didn't get that right way. Instead we had very light winds from off the shore (E).
We then had to remember how Wayne (our self steering) worked. I spent the longest time trying to make him steer from the reverse position that he was engineered to perform. Once I got that figured out, we set Wayne to Puerto Escondido and not to spare the horses.
Eventually the forecast NW did happen and we had a good sail. Right now, we are rolling along at 6.5-7 knots in the short interval slop that you usually see in Georgia Straight, so Karina is feeling at home in this. Anita is below snoozing. I am pecking away on my ipad writing this blog entry.
If all goes as forecast, we will make it to Puerto Escondido just before dawn. We were expecting a slower ride, but will take the gift of good winds and run with it.

11/27
Well run with it we did. In the late afternoon, I missed a sleeping whale by 50 yards. That would have woken both of us up. The wind continued to pick up towards dark. Just before Anita went on watch at 1800, I decided we might like to douse the main as the winds were into the mid teens. Sometimes, after dark, it is harder to deal with reefing issues, so its always prudent to use a little less sail after dark.
Good move.
After dark the winds picked up into the low 20s. Then, to my horror, the furler jammed. This makes it so I couldn't furl it, nor could I release it to bring the genny down. Fortunately, the winds topped out at the high 20s from behind. We barrelled along at 6-8 knots with Wayne faithfully steering us into the darkness. Fortunately, all went well and before dawn, the wind died down enough to release the furler and bring down the genny. I celebrated by motoring for an hour. Then I went up and cleared the jam.
We got to Puerto Escondido around 0730 and Kip was kind enough to guide us to a nearby mooring. We'll stay here for a while and update the blog, fix things that went wrong and then continue our trip S.