Tuesday 10th April 2018 - Sailing 'Epiphany' into Banderas Bay - landfall back in Mexico today.
11am Sky has cleared - blue everywhere! Having to motor NE with the wind just fine on the port bow - near enough on the nose. Genoa had to be furled in. Lovely sunny day with mountain range bordering the south side of Banderas Bay and ending in Cabo Corrientes just seen off to starboard in the low haze ahead.
If the usual afternoon onshore breeze kicks in, I'm hoping we'll end our passage sailing across the Bay to make landfall at La Cruz de Huanacaxtle - maybe into the marina there.
Yesterday and overnight until dawn today, we managed quite a bit of very pleasant sailing in the mainly NNW wind, although with occasional gusts. The wind slowly increased from a steady 6-7 kt all day yesterday to the present veered 12 kt - as forecast. If the wind hadn't veered quite so much, we could have kept sailing nicely this morning but we're trying to get in before dark.
Quite a few boobies kept coming by yesterday - a small group of all-brown ones (juveniles?) would often land as a group in the water well ahead, only to take off, circle around and then land again - all very sociable. They seem to have formed a club!
The batteries have been kept alive over the last week by dint of charging using the motor (mostly in neutral) overnight for 12 hours, with the bright tropical sunshine feeding the solar panels during the day. That has, in turn, kept all electronics, and items needing elecrical power, alive as well but radio use has been minimal - restricted mainly to brief evening Net reporting of position and "All's well on board" and some downloading of a few emails and weather info. Having to change my usual routine and learn to use new software, plus onboard connection problems, have kept me quite busy (and frustrated!) for several days this last week. The curse of tehnology!!
Sad not to have made it to the Marquesas - would have been nice to have got there again - but we've had some lovely relaxed sailing in bright sunshine and relatively calm
seas for the last several days of our return trip, so that has been a bonus and a small compensation - for me, at least, since the plan was to fly north from Tahiti quite soon after arriving in French Polynesia. George and Suzanne are thinking of heading south later in the year and maybe crossing over from Panama - it's all in the melting pot for them now. First the batteries have to be dealt with - and maybe instal a Hydrovane for reliable windsteering and/or a good wind generator...!!
We're now 10 miles NW of Cabo Corrientes and 27 miles SW of La Cruz - ETA there is around sunset.
Position now: 20 45'N, 105 22'W, COG: 065T, SOG: 4.2kt
Wind: N-NNE 13kt - pity we can't bear away - would be perfect for some good sailing