We weighed anchor off of La Cruz at 0930 and motored away under calm conditions under mostly cloudy skies. There were lots of whales about, so we set about watch them rather than steer our rhumbline course.
I'm not sure what sort of whales were were seeing, but I'm guessing they are humpbacks based on the ones I saw breaching in the distance later. They slowly surfaced in a graceful arc to blow and then take a big breath of air, diving down with their tail flukes in the air.
We saw a large group of whale-watching boats off in the distance and then whales breaching around them, their heads coming out of the water and then re-entering with a great splash. We made our way quickly over to the action but, alas, the whales had done whatever number of breaches they had agreed to with the tour operators and were back to their graceful feeding routine when we got there.
We got back on our course and motored towards Cabo Corriente where around 1500 the wind piped up, we raised the sails and shut down the engine.
It's now 1700 and we've rounded the cape and are sailing nicely on a deep broad reach in 15 knots of wind under full main and jib, loping along at around six knots in a gentle swell. The weather forecast is calling for winds to build a bit until midnight and then steadily fade by morning. We'll probably be motoring the final few hours. I'm estimating our arrival in Chamela at around sunrise.
All is well. Boat is happy. Captain and crew doing well. Boat feels a bit empty without Dan.
