It occurred to me this morning, day 11 of our trip, that the last time I bashed from La Paz to San Diego I was able to make the trip in 12 days! That was with crew and on the more typical "Vacation from Work Bash Schedule" but the slower pace of this trip north seems more like our typical pace of slow cruising than bashing. We plan to leave here Sunday at noon for the 93 mile trip to San Juanico and if the weather forecast can be trusted at all (always dubious) then we should be able to sail all the way, but I'm not placing any bets. The problem we see coming is that starting next Thursday/Friday it will start blowing hard on the Northern 1/3 of Baja, so wherever we end up by Wednesday could be where we stay for another hand full of days. Hopefully we will be fortunate enough to have internet access with the TelCel Banda air Card so I can work while we wait.

After resting and "work" working yesterday, I started working on boat repairs this morning. First I had to tighten the alternator belt, then next up on today's repair list are:
1. Get the Bow Navigation lights working
2. Add some oil to the hydrolic steering system at the helm
3. Pull someone up the mast try and fix our Genoa halyard/sail attachment.

The story of why we need to go up the mast starts as we were sailing from Man-O-war cove to Punta Belcher. We were please without selves for sailing the entire way and were just about to enter the anchorage and were making preparations to roll in the Genoa when we were hit by a 25kt wind gust. We healed over a bit more and the crew was watching our speed shoot from 6.5kts up to 8kts. Feeling a little over powered with the huge Genoa up we were just starting to turn into the wind to roll up the sail when...Pop...ping....splash. With the splash of the Genoa shackle overboard (or something from atop the mast we don't know for sure yet) the Genoa slid down the roller furler a few feet and that's when the fire drill started. We started the engine, turned into the wind and when I tried to roll in the Genoa it wouldn't move! So in 25kts of wind the Genoa was flogging away as I "calmly and politely" asked Lori to fall back off the wind and refill the Genoa so I could figure out how to deal with the situation.

The sail needed to be rolled in so I went up on the bow to try and help roll it by hand while Jason put the furler line on the winch and Lori pointed our bow back into the 25kts of wind. It wasn't easy rolling up the baggy Genoa but we finally got it in and dropped anchor next to Hurrah and Sea Raven, who I'm sure were trying to figure out what we were doing.

At this point we are not sure if the sail attachment point tore or what caused the Genoa to come lose from the halyard and slide down the roller furler, but with any luck we can get it repaired at anchor here in Bahia Santa Maria along with our running lights that stopped working on our pre-dawn departure from Punta Blecher. Just another day in paradise.

Boat projects won't stop our little flotilla from having a good time. Tonight we are having a pizza party aboard THIRD DAY, we all have our priorities and good food and cruiser pot lucks easily trumps boat projects.