Scuppers showing the way.

We made it under the Golden Gate Bridge at 12:01 today and are now just 5 NM from RYC.
The last leg up from Santa Barbara was classic March stuff – cold, NW winds in the 15 – 20 range with the occasional puff to 30 and wet and damp. We stopped for the night in Santa Cruz and left under radar in 200 feet visibility, then another stop in Half Moon Bay for Fish & Chips with Barb and Clark.
We have now put 8,000 NM on our new Tivoli, the last 3,500 mostly motor sailing upwind from Panama in 2 months.. Not that there were not some days of nice brisk sailing, beautiful stars and great stops along the way, but we are looking forward to being home for a while and not have to get up at 11 PM and then again 04 AM for another night watch after putting on thermo undies and foulies. Scuppers says she is looking forward to chasing some rabbits out of the back yard.

Dolphins greeting us near Santa Barbara

Oops, it's been 2 weeks and 800 Miles since the last update, time flies when you are going upwind! And that's all we have done, interrupted only by a fuel stop in Turtle Bay, a checkout of Mexico stop in Ensenada and a rest stop in San Diego.

Overall, we timed most of the trip pretty well around weather and only had some 8 or 10 hours of 'this is really uncomfortable and slow' kind of conditions.....or maybe we are already suppressing memories of how cold and bumpy a few nights were?

We are now a few miles from Santa Barbara where we will tuck in for a couple of days, waiting for some gale conditions on the Central Coast to move out. From there it is only 275 NM or 48 hours to San Francisco Bay if we go non-stop.

Fix it again, Tony!

Having spent 5 nights in La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta area) on near social overload, we left about a week ago for Magdalena Bay or Turtle Bay. La Cruz was a lot of fun, hanging our with cruising friends from over 10 years ago that happened to be in the area. Seem like some of us never stop. Howard and Lynn of Swift Current, Carrie and Tom of Dragons Toy, Cindy and Ed of Cool Change were some of them.

We had a smooth 280 NM ride to Cabo San Lucas where we spent 15 minutes, just enough time to get fuel, before continuing to Mag Bay. The forecast for the rest of the Northbound trip turned windy, so we have now been hanging here on anchor for 3 nights so far, waiting for the 25 knot winds to calm down on the outside. While this is the prime season to watch whales ( there are 2 National Explorer Adventure Cruise ships here ), the conditions have been to rough to do anything like whale watching.

Instead, we have been going down to the regular routine...FIAT combined with organizing, cooking for another several nigh passages, stainless maintenance etc.
It is now the 4th time we have attacked the same stupid leak under the kitchen sink caused by not having quite the right fittings, fixing the same stupid running light that keep being intermittent and some new stupid blockages in the fresh water system. We have also been hunkered down below with the heater on, watching movies and strategizing about how to stretch the last bag of dogfood and dwindling supply of eggs!

Maybe Tuesday morning we can move on!

Approaching Zihuatanejo.

We find ourselves in Bahia Chamela tonight, 40 nm N of Barra de Navidad, 100 NM S of Puerto Vallarta.

The last 10 days have been busy and a lot of fun. We have not only been hanging out with Sis Connie and Steve, but also Darlene and Steve from Copper and Mike of Shenanigans from RYC. Dinners out, impromptu barbeques on the boats, some sailing and last night a fabulous evening in Barra de Navidad with great music and outdoor dining.

We are kinda the odd couple out as we are on a self-imposed schedule to get back to home. We have been gone mostly since June of last year and have some commitments to be home at the end of March. We also are starting to feel the need to reconnect with our house and folks at home. A couple of days ago someone put a note on our front door, asking who did our landscaping because it looked very nice. We are wondering how it looks as well!

So we left Zihuatanejo for Barra de Navidad and spend a few days there. This morning week took off for PV on a reasonable forecast, but - as it turned out - it got a little windy and late afternoon we pulled into Chamela to wait it out. We will dine, sleep and then move on at midnight when the wind hopefully might die down a bit.

We still have about 1,700 NM to Richmond, most of which will be upwind. We are trying to combine patience for good conditions with a need to keep moving. We are also trying to enjoy destinations and friends along the way. With some luck we will make it to PV tomorrow and reconnect with Howard and Lynn, cruising friends from Vancouver that we met over 10 years ago. They have a condo on the beach for the month of February with a washer and dryer, no way we will miss that opportunity!

Celebrating with a game of pickleball at 9 in the morning .

2004 - Torben's 50th birthday
2011 - Judy's 50th birthday big bash
2020 - Torben's 66
2022 - Judy's 61st

Seems we have had more celebrations here than most other spots. We got here after 98 hours from Chiapas and were greeted at the entrance to the Bay by sister Connie/Steve and Kitchi arriving from Ixtapa on their Beneteau 49 Soiree.

Tonight we will celebrate with Connie and Steve and also our next door neighbors from Copper, Darlene and Steve.

20 NM South of Acapulco Sat Night

Short update......we did keep the foot on the beach until 15 NM from Salina Cruz at the 'bottom' of Tehuantepec Bay. We got in some decent sailing combined with motor sailing prior to making the turn for Huatulco. For about 3-4 hours we were deep reaching in 20 knots of breeze, gusting to 30, so not a big deal and it put some diesel free miles under the keel too!

We are now on Saturday at dust 20 NM S of Acapulco and 120 NM S of Zihuatanejo. We have gotten in enough sailing that we have fuel to get us all the way without having to stop in Acapulco - should be coming in Sunday late afternoon after what we think is the longest double handed leg we have done in years, almost 600 NM.