Mazatlan to La Cruz de Haunacaxtle
15 January 2016 | La Cruz de Haunacaxtle, Nayarit, Mexico
Admiral Donna Lou
Captain assessing damaged Autopilot
Mazatlan to La Cruz de Haunacaxtle
Measurable! A little black cloud shadowed us on our continued journey south. After waiting several days for the best weather window in the near future we cut the dock lines and headed back to sea. Mazatlan marina entrance & exit is a 7 shaped channel. We left at sun up & high tide to avoid the monster dredge and the sand bar. What was waiting at the beginning of the channel I can't find words strong enough to convey our surprise. Greeting Magic Carpet & crew as we eased around the channel curve was breaking monster swells! Trapped in the narrow channel with a boat behind us we had no where to go but through the breaking seas. The Admiral flashed back to scenes from the movie San Andreas. As the Captain drove our boat straight into the huge seas, the white water terrified little Z her eyes were like marbles! When we were through the crashing sea's we all felt relived. The weather forecast had indicated swells would be building in the next few days, but the swells beat the projections time line. But that was just the beginning of 37 hours of a hard passage south. The seas were crazy from all directions and much higher and closer together than weather reports had indicated, even the occasional rouge wave keep us super alert. The wind was squirreley from all directions constantly changing. And then the dreaded happened the auto pilot refused to function! We needed to hand steer south by the time we dropped the hook at Puta Mita the northern end of Banderas Bay our limbs throbbed. We had gone from our regular three hours on three hours off watches to two & two. The Admirals toes were even cramping, she had devised a system of 15 minutes per limb steering except when both hands were needed to keep Magic Carpet on course. It was a mussel sore crew that docked here in the Puerto Vallarta area. Raymarine Corporation office has told us there is a dealer & certified repair technician here. That is now our mission fined him! The old ways are not the best for us; we are sold on auto pilots for shorthanded crews. We have thought about Wind Vanes, but Magic Carpet is so light weight that we have ruled that out for now!