215 miles from Los Frailes across the Sea of Cortez to Isla Isabella. At 5 knots average, that’s 43 hours. Common sense shouts “arrive at noon” which means leaving at 17:00. Except that I get antsy during the day of departure and up anchor at 11:00. Hey, I can always slow down if needed! A beautiful wind surges CV out of the bay and we start out at 7 knots.

As my first sunset beckons, I shorten sail to keep the nighttime gremlins asleep. Nicely slow to 6 knots. On the radio nets “watch for floating long line fish traps near the Island. They are 100s of feet long with only pop bottles to keep them afloat and visible”. Great. Keeping a sharp lookout in daytime is the order of the day. Nighttime? Pray to Neptune. Or at least share a bit of gin and tonic with the aquatic god.
With that complete, I settle down for my first 45 minute sleep. At least 15 minutes of that is spent anxiously awaiting the crunch that will come when I hit another boat. No boat is visible on the horizon, on the radar, or on the AIS (Automatic Identification System) but many ghost ships float into my consciousness as I lay in my bunk.

Sleep comes and so does the alarm. A quick search finds nothing but darkness again but what now. Seems odd to go back to sleep again so I stay up for an hour. Bad idea as I need to go through a quieting to get back to sleep again. This I repeat many times until I figure out I don’t need to stay awake. 5 minutes up on deck and at the instruments quickly proves no intruders and then back to sleep again is the life for me.

Unless, I do spot something, like three ships off the port bow. Oddly enough, in my planning, I didn’t consider what happens when I see a ship! I needed to stay up long enough to determine if they might come aligned with me. That takes about an hour, but all is well and the dawn breaks on a new day. Out goes the fishing line, which yields up a nice 6 lb Dorado. And I am still kicking along at 6 knots so I leave the night reef in the sails. The morning radio net informs me that the wind usually dies as the mainland approaches so my excessive speed is probably not a problem.

Another beautiful day and night pass without a problem. Indeed, the wind becomes a breeze and I look to arrive at 10:00. Motoring the last two hours to charge the batteries, I arrive on time, anchor down, and head down for a good nap. Mission accomplished, skills learned, and no harm done.