Although we said we weren't going to Loreto Fest, plans change.

After looking at the weather forecast for Friday, we decided we should skip the anchorage at Agua Verde and go straight to Puerto Escondido to find shelter for the big northerly wind forecasted for Saturday through Tuesday. The northerlies can really blow in the Sea and there are not many places to hide north of La Paz.

We left Los Gatos at 7:00am and immediately had 20 knots from the northwest. Uh oh, did we make a mistake and were a day late to make the trek north? Were the big northerlies coming in early?? With a double reefed main and reefed jib, the boat was pretty comfortable. The swell was favorable so there was no pounding. So Inclined and us were the only boats out on the water which made us a little nervous. But we were making good time doing between 7 and 8 knots and Puerto Escondido was only 40 miles away.

The wind shifted left and lifted us to the rhumb line. Then at around noon the wind shut down completely. Time for lunch and as soon as we had cleaned up the wind shifted to the southeast. We had a nice beam reach all the way to Puerto Escondido. This trip turned out to be the best sailing we've had since we've been here in Mexico. It was sort of like lake sailing though. Wind up, wind down, wind east, wind west. We learned something too.

As soon as we hooked up to our buoy, of which there are over 100 here in the bay, we went ashore to see what Loreto Fest was about. I guess Sirocco and So Inclined got the last 2 buoys. The bay is full of boats. After dinner a band played that was reported to play some great music but Lee and I went back to the boat to turn in early. We both have colds now and feel miserable.

This morning the wind piped up just as forecasted. It's blowing a steady 25-30 and a couple boats that anchored have dragged. We're here ashore and there are big whitecaps on the bay. Hmm, do we want to go back to the boat?I'm so glad we are on a buoy and decided to come in yesterday! Tomorrow we plan to go into the town of Loreto.