Waiting for a good weather window for rounding a major cape is always a guessing game. Sure, with all the technology to forecast the weather these days, you would think that it would be as close to 100% accurate as you can get. Here in Mexico, one of our main sources of Mexico is Don Anderson (his boat is Summer Passage). Don has been a long time cruiser but now lives in Oxnard, CA and does weather forecasting which he briefs cruisers through several Ham and SSB radio nets. We all know that even with all his experience, it is still a best "guesstimate". We also rely on Geary's weather report on the Sonrisa Ham Net every morning. Both of these guys put together a pretty substantial forecast for the Outside of the Baja, the Sea of Cortez, and the Mexican Coast. So we try to listen in as much as every day to "keep an eye on the weather". In this particular case, we were looking for a weather window to round Cabo Corrientes into Banderas Bay where Puerto Vallarta is. Since the wind and swell comes generally from the NW and we are heading north, we obviously want to see some calm winds and seas so we don't get into some nasty conditions. While at Chamela, we also had a wifi connection so we supplemented Don and Geary's weather with Passageweather.com and Bouyweather.com forecasts as well as down loaded GRIB files. The forecast was for calm winds in the morning building to typical afternoon sea breeze of 10 - 15 knots...very doable even if we would be beating into it. We decided to break the 93 mile passage into 2 legs with a 52 mile leg to Punta Ipala and a 41 mile passage from Ipala to La Cruz. We left this morning at 04:45 am, about an hour and a half before sunrise. There is no moon at the moment so getting the anchor up and getting under way is all done in the dark under the stars. The wind and sea were calm for the first 5 hours of our passage, motoring all the way. About 11 am the wind started to build and with in an hour we had 18 - 22 knots of wind from the NW and 6-8 foot seas on our nose. It was a very bumpy and wet ride the rest of the way into Ipala. We are anchored now in a very rough anchorage...the locals have many pangas on moorings as well as fish pens in the best and most sheltered part of the anchorage leaving us cruisers to anchor where there is not much protection from the swell. We are protected from the wind but we still have screaming gusts blasting the boat from over the bluff in front of us. There are 5 other boats here as well, some heading north like us and some heading south. We are hoping it will go flat calm again tonight as is the norm and we will weigh anchor at "o dark thirty" in the morning and be on our way to round Cabo Corrientes. Stay tuned for the results!