Isla San Francisco: Great Sailing, Rolling and Water Leaking

We enjoyed great downwind (yes, that's right, downwind) over the past couple of days. Yesterday the wind blew a steady 20 knots for most of the day which let the jib moves us along at a steady 6.5 knots of relaxed sailing. The wind dropped to 15 knots for a few hours, so we just rolled up the jib and unfurled the Code 0 to keep moving just as fast, just as easily. Our main sail sure has an easy time of it, resting in its stack pack while the foresails do all the work. The lines that hold up the stack pack are called "lazy jacks", an appropriate name for a lazy sail.

We spent the night before last (Saturday night) in Los Gatos, one of our favorite anchorages. The wind in the northern sea had whipped up a decent swell, making the anchorage very rolly all evening and all night. Even a catamaran can get uncomfortable rocking back and forth a foot or so every six seconds. It reminded us of the Thanksgiving we spent in this same anchorage in 2015, when we experienced the same rolling while we ate our roast chicken dinner.

Our starboard engine has been leaking salt water from somewhere. Every time I think I fixed it, Renee would crouch into the engine compartment to mop it out and wipe the engine down with oil. Then the leak would reappear, I would "fix" it, and Renee would mop and wipe again. I think I finally conquered the leak, after three rounds of fighting it. I don't know how Renee did all that mopping and wiping without complaining. Now we have a dry and very, very clean engine compartment and a thrice-oiled engine.

We spent last night at Isla San Francisco, after a nice long hike along the island's ridge and exploring its salt flat. We collected some nice salt from a small pond so that we can season our food with the local stuff.

Today we're heading to Caleta Partida, another favorite anchorage, our last stop before La Paz.