We have arrived save and sound in Bahia Santa Maria and were the 13th boat in the anchorage. It's about 9:00pm and we are enjoying a nightcap.

Now that we have been sailing for a week, the crew has developed pet names for items on the boat. So the rest of you can follow along in the blog, here is the reference dictionary:

Little Red: Sirocco's smaller spinnaker, but still quite large considering it's 1800 square feet Hot Lips: Sirocco's larger yellow spinnaker. Most of you know why it has this nickname Katy: The Katadyne watermaker Milt: The 18volt Milwaukee drill The Twins: the two solar panels Otto: the autopilot Wilbur: I'll introduce him later

Yesterday we had glorious sailing most of the day. Wind was 18-20 and we had Little Red up all afternoon and evening. Swells were about 6-8 feet. Sirocco just loves these conditions. She is very well balanced and easy to drive; in fact almost drivers herself. We averaged between 8 and 10 knots for about 6 hours. Mike is now the man; he hit 12.8 knots. Whoa hoo! But then the wind shut down in the middle of the night and we had to motor through the night. Today the wind came back some but it was right on the nose so we had to motor anyway. We were rammed by fish, but no whales.

Last night we had a visitor. A small bird flew on the boat, in the boat and then hung out on the coiled halyards all night. Poor guy, he was exhausted. We had Santa Anas last night so he must have been blown out to sea. We named him Wilbur. He left a present for Mike on his backpack.

All the equipment is working perfectly. The Twins put out about 13 amps per hour during the afternoon so we have had no energy issues. The guys want to work on the smart charger that runs off the alternator. I guess it's programmed to shut off too early and we don't get the batteries fullly charged when we are motoring. The solar panels make up the difference so it hasn't been an issue but Mike and Bill want it working the right way. Katy made about 8 gallons of water for us today; we have used less than 50% of the 120 gallons of water in the tanks. Not bad for 6 people for 8 days. But don't ask me how we all smell.... Otto drives the boat better than any of us.

We had a fishing derby this afternoon. The guys were catching so much fish they had to catch and release. We still haven't finished all the fish Bill caught. Tonight we had fresh yellow fin tuna.

We also listened to the Charger game on Sirius radio. Thought they were going to blow it again but they came through.

Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009 Time: 9:40 pm Baja Time Position: N 24 46.5, W 112 15.2