We're in town.
28 March 2010 | Mazatlan
Bill Hudson
We blew into town earlier this afternoon with winds coming from the West. They had shifted earlier in the day from the Northwest. Having them come from the West made it harder as that was the direction we were coming from and that put the wind right on our stern. Not the best place for it. We had been on a port tack(winds over the port side of the boat)for the entire trip over the Sea of Cortez. I think it is one of the longest single tack trips we have ever made. From what we have read, once you are out there, most of the trips you make are that way. I guess we will see eventually.
Anyhow, we arrived at 1430 after after a slow last few hours of the trip. The forecast had been for winds from the Northeast. So much for accuracy. In total, we covered 238 miles in 54 hours and 55 minutes or about 4.33 nautical miles per hour. A big improvement from the first day where we just limped along with darn little wind. We're now located at 23 10.97N 106 24.326W. We've crossed the Tropic of Cancer again so we are officially back in the tropics again. We also lost an hour of time as Mazatlan is on Central time and will loose another hour this weekend as Mexico goes on daylight savings time. One hour change is bad enough to try and get used to. Now, we will have to get used to another hour loss next weekend.
We saw a few more whales during the last part of the trip and had our first hitchhiker join us. A large bird(Booby we think) landed on the stern rail and stayed with us for quite a while. I approached him with crackers(about 6 inches away) and he wasn't interested at all, nor was he afraid of us. He just sat there and slowly walked along the rail and over the life raft and the seat we have on the stern rail. He'd take off every once in a while and circle Zephyr and then find a new place to land and check out. He was very interested in all the different lines on board and picked up each to see if it was edible.
We finally started the engine about two miles from the anchorage to get us safely past the shrimpers and fishing boats that were coming and going. All in all, an enjoyable trip. Especially with no sound of engine running day and night as it has on some of our previous passages. We only ran it for two hours(if that) to get us past the one lone island we had to get by.
With these last few posts, you have read what it is like while out sailing on a passage. It had it's good and it's bad times. A much closer look at how we did it. I hope you enjoyed our story.
Tomorrow, we expect to go over the the Mazatlan Marina and see if we can get a slip there for a short time so we can explore the town. I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's about time for bed. We've each had maybe 6 hours of sleep in the last 60 hours and are both beat. Good night.