Mazatlan Crossing
18 December 2009 | Crossing From Baja to Mainland Mexico
Jodee
Today Dec 17th is our departure for Mazatlan. We are going to break it up into two legs. The first leg will be at Bahia Falsa and from there across to Mazatlan. We should arrive the morning of the 20th. At the anchorage today Russ was in the water two hours cleaning the bottom removing dime size barnacles. Obviously, Sea Hawk Biocide Bottom Paint which is only 90 days old is not happy in the Sea of Cortez. Tonight I will make cookies and pressure cook a chicken for the crossing. I do not cook under way so chicken will be good for sandwiches. It will be finger foods for two days.
We continue our journey to Mazatlan. Departure time was 10:10 am to be exact. This leg will take about forty-eight hours. This leg is an emotional one for me. I still have flash backs of what happened the last time we crossed twenty years ago. We started out with the full main and jib flying. We were making six to seven knots of speed. The seas were about two foot with a slight wind chop. Fishing lines were put out. Prior to reaching the Lorenzo Channel we got headed (winds clocked and came on our nose) winds went to 18 knots we rolled up the jib and put two reefs in the main and motor sailed at a 30 degree angle to four foot white dragons (white caps) every four seconds. Just took the seasickness meds and now lying on the cockpit floor waiting for them to kick in. After clearing the Lorenzo Channel the wind held at about 18 knots and the seas grew to six to ten foot rollers with an occasional breaking. The sea state appears to be left over from the previous four day norther. Hence, never go the first day the wind subsides and never leave any leg of a journey on FRIDAY. Russ still has not learned that lesson. We approached the Island Isla Cerralvo a little too close. The water depth went down to 63 feet under the keel and the white dragons were six to seven feet from all directions with the tops being blown off. It took us about ten to fifteen minutes to go through this and then they opened (wave frequency was farther apart) and the current got real strong and started carrying us into the Island so we corrected our heading and moved in a direction away from the island. These conditions continued until we were half way across. Our speed was about 7-8 knots and at one point we were three hours ahead of our scheduled arrival time. The first twenty-four hours we did not sleep much. I took the first watch starting at 5:00 pm and ended at 10:00 pm and Russ's watch was 10:00 pm to 3:00 am now it is my watch from 3:00 am to 7:00 am. Russ takes over from here and during the day is pretty much a free for all. When I woke up Russ asked me if I saw our little friend on the dingy. I told him no and asked what was on the dingy. It was a squid about five or six inches. Now I don't know about you but I believe that squids are a sea creature and do not fly or live on air. So, either the seas were sloppy enough to slap the side of the boat and deposit him on the dingy or my assumption that they do not fly and breathe air is incorrect. I lay odds on the prior. As the sea state improved the wind decreased and our speed followed. We are now doing 3-5 knots and the arrival time is back to our predicted time. We got a lot more sleep the second night. Arrival time is at 10:00 am. We were in good company on our crossing. We had set up check in times with Windfall. Merri and Jim were great to talk to and we hope to get together with them while here. The boat is tied up to the end tie at Singlar Marina.