STARTING OFF EASY
07 February 2008 | N 26 46.34" W 110 32.58" Sea of Cortez
Bright sunshine with 3 hours heavy fog in the afternoon
Leaving San Carlos promptly at 2 am, we crept past the Mohawk, the rock formation at the opening of the anchorage and turned south. Destination Mazatlan.
It's been a remarkably calm ride, these past sixteen hours , with almost glassy seas. The morning was partly cloudy, then clear. And then we headed into a low fog bank and had to depend on our radar for at least three hours. We could see our buddy boat "Sol Mate," but, otherwise we had the Sea to ourselves.
We've kept our VHF radio on channel 18, and check in now and then. "Sol Mate" reported they saw a large pod of dolphins this morning, but we were below putting the boat in order and missed it.
Around 3pm I looked out and the fogbank was off to the west of us, with Sol Mate silhouetted against it. We've had enough wind to power the mainsail most of the day, but we've been motoring since we left San Carlos. We're on a course of 135 degrees, making an average of a little over 5 knots. We had been at about 4.5 knots, but the Capt figured out at that speed we would be passing Topolobampo at sunset. Because of the rat's nest of fishing nets around the channel mouth at Topo, we didn't want to be passing there in the dark. I've heard from two different cruisers who had to be led through the labyrinth of nets by pangas because they were trying to get through at night. One had a net caught in his propellor. So we increased our speed and now expect to pass Topo around noon. Amazing the difference a half-knot can make.
We're traveling without refrigeration this time, as our unit failed and it would cost more to fix it than we paid for it. We're using a Coleman Extreme cooler with a five-pound bag of ice and several containers of frozen food, and so far the cooler has maintained 32 degrees. If we never had to open it, we could probably maintain that temp for a couple of days at least, but we do have an icemaker on board, so we will try to augment our supply since we're motoring anyway and we have plenty of electricity.