Asuncion and searching for Laundry
25 November 2010 | 20 miles south of Asuncion
Ellen
We left Turtle Bay on Wednesday the 24th enroute to Asuncion which is 50 miles south. We had light and variable winds for the first 3 or 4 hours and then around noon they steadied out on a NE direction at about 15 knots. Nice. As the afternoon progressed, so did our boat speed and the size of the swells. Around 2 we put in a reef (for my non sailing friends and family, a reef is a way to make you sail smaller and therefore you have more control of the boat, kinda like putting on the brakes) as we were hitting speeds of over 7 knots and the wind was still building. Our friends Les and Pat really enjoyed the sail as they are both sailboat racers on the Kootney lakes and don't often get to see those kinds of waves. Around 2:30 we put in the second reef and with the staysail and the double reefed main we raced along on a good sail at a comfortable 6 to 6.5 knots the rest of the day. We arrived at our destination just as the sun was setting and got the anchor down as darkness fell. We seem to be good at arriving in the dark which is not such a great thing to do. After a lazy morning on the boat we went ashore to explore the small town. Mostly it was dusty and dry, but the people were quite friendly and we found a nice family run restaraunt to have some fish tacos and a cerveza. Cost us a whole 4 dollars each including the tip. We decided to head out on the next leg of our trip once we got back to the boat. We upped anchor at 4pm and set off in about 12 knots on the beam.... nice! It only lasted about an hour and died so we have to use the engine again. At the moment as I write this, Ian is on watch and I am up next. Pat and Les are asleep and all is good. We are motorsailing in light winds. Our next destination which is Magdalena Bay or Mag Bay, is 178 miles from Asuncion. We hope we timed it right to arrive in the daylight this time. We are actually on a quest at the moment for our 'clean' laundry that got given to another cruiser in Turtle Bay. We had taken our laundry in to town to have done (there is no laundry mat) and about an hour later another cruiser took theirs in. We had talked with the other cruisers at the internet cafe and found out their names and boat name etc. Next morning our laundry gets delivered to us by panga as well as the other boats laundry too. Well wouldn't you know it they were leaving right away and we had planned to stay one more day. By the time we went through our laundry and sorted out on our boat who's was who's we realized we had a pair of pants and a tshirt that wasn't ours. And we were missing 3 pair of pants and 2 socks! I tried to hail the other boat on the VHF and finally got them when they were already 9 miles out. They hadn't checked their laundry yet and hadn't realized the mix up. They told us if we don't run into each other they will leave it with a port captain in Mag Bay or Cabo. So we are on the hunt so to speak for them. Just another day in the life of a cruising sailboat.