Punta Chivato, Baja California Sur
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| Sunset at anchor in Ensenada El Muerto, Punta Chivato |
The wind models and PredictWind routing turned out to be complete busts. I headed 10nm further offshore than the rhumb line between Bahía San Francisquito and Punta Chivato yesterday morning to catch afternoon westerly winds. No such winds materialized. I motored into light southerlies, looking forward to the 10-15 knot westerlies forecasted for the evening and night. All we got were some feeble 5 knot wafts.
Just after midnight, likely due to a combination of boredom and fatigue, I decided that the mainsail had aired out doing nothing long enough and dropped it. Just after I got the sail and lines stowed, the wind piped up to 12 knots for a beautiful beam reach. A few swear words may have got mixed in to my lighthearted chuckling. Up went the sails again, off went the engines and we enjoyed three hours of peaceful sailing. The winds lightened up and we sailed most of the time at under 4 knots, a perfect speed for arriving at the Punta Chivato anchorage after sunrise.
We dropped anchor here at 6:25am. I did some post-passage straightening up and had a snooze until 11:30. After coffee and a light breakfast, I got the boom gooseneck to stop its infernal creaking by shortening the topping lift, then tried to get the outboard to run right. No luck with the latter, but I think it will be good enough to ferry back and forth to docks in La Paz and San Jose de Cabo and to haul fuel jugs on the Baja Bash. That's all it has to do. Maybe I can get Sea Otter Jimmy, the local small engine guru, to look at it in La Paz.
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| Intermezzo's track to-date. Follow at https://share.garmin.com/sjcox/ |
We've sailed 303nm so far and have crossed the halfway point to Cabo. I'm enjoying being back on Intermezzo and in the Sea of Cortez. The weather is lovely, sunny and just-hot in the afternoons, cool enough for a blanket at night. I love the remoteness of this sea and the wildlife. As I keep pressing onward, I remind myself to take it all in, appreciate the beauty, acknowledge that I might never be back, be grateful for how lucky I am.
