Kevin likes to get an early start for his passages, spurning the wind that we sailors like in favor of flat water, so we woke the next day to Andante's stern headed out of the bay. In a couple of hours Friday and Mabrouka also said goodbye to Cool Change and headed out to catch the mild, late morning breeze lilting in from the north. This time we motored away from our anchor, but shut off our engines and set the sails within a few hundred yards of departure.

It was nice to sail in company with Friday, watching the set of their spinnaker and enjoying our own flying above Mabrouka's foredeck. After an hour or so Friday peeled off for a night's anchorage on Espiritu Santo while we kept on south in a broad reach for La Paz. The wind rose and fell as we sailed down the west coast of the island, past Canal San Lorenzo, and down the eastern shores of Bahia de La Paz toward the harbor entrance.

The breeze died with the waning day and we approached the lighted buoys in the dark. The channel is at least four miles long, its first two miles jogging lazily along just inside a shoal that lies hidden beneath apparently open sea. Red and green lighted buoys placed about every five hundred define the channel on each side, so we felt our way along with Mitch up at the bow spotting and me at the wheel steering nervously in the dark according to our mutual sightings.



We made it safely back to anchor across the channel from Marina La Paz and hustled our way ashore to join Kevin for dinner and a recap of our foray to the islands over happy-hour margaritas.

The next morning I secured a slip in the marina so that we could pay some much-needed attention to Mabrouka. She was in dire need of shedding her coating of crystalized ocean with a freshwater wash down and refilling her water tanks. Laundry needed doing and a few odd chores were calling for attention.

Not long after securing her dock lines and connecting to shore power, I was approached by a man looking for work. His English was pretty good, so it was relatively easy for Antonio to sell me on his services to complete my experiment of oiling/sealing Mabrouka's freshly stripped teak trim. While he worked away at a modest $8/hour, I went about my other business. By the middle of the next afternoon the boat was sporting her new, less maintenance-intensive look. I much prefer varnish, but the upkeep it requires threatens to take too much away from my enjoyment of the exotic places planned for my itinerary.