Waiting for Wind

We’ve been waiting for wind to allow us to make the southern Sea of Cortez crossing by sail as opposed to motor.  We have done so little sailing that I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how.  We thought this would be a ‘sailing’ trip but the truth is that you simply live on your boat most of the time, and then use it to go from point A to point B every 10 to 30 days or so.  And whenever we’ve moved our boat, the wind has either been on our nose, or there’s been no wind at all (for those non-sailors, you cannot sail into the wind).  Michael’s joke is that when we’ve even taken a day trip out to an island, the wind’s been on our nose on our way there, and then switches around to be on our nose again on the way back. 

We were supposed to make the crossing two days after we got back from Toronto but that was over a week ago.  Then we thought for sure we’d leave last Wednesday and so did our major provisioning to keep us going for four weeks (not that the crossing takes four weeks but we wanted to have the option of not going into La Paz until mid-July if we so choose).  Five days later, we’re still here – and with loads of groceries on board.  It’s actually been nice to have the extra days – sort of like when I am preparing for company for dinner and I always wish I had an extra hour. But this has given us many extra hours...

Not that it's been a problem. We’ve been spending the days homeschooling (only ten more days to the official homeschool program, although we'll continue with 'extras' over the summer), swimming at the El Cid Marina and Resort which has great slides and an even greater Happy Hour (we’ve befriended the waiters so that some days Happy Hour has become Happy Day).  We’ve been to the market, we’ve been biking, we’ve tried to get into the Pacifico Brewery tour but couldn’t, we’ve been to an amazing free outdoor concert last weekend and also an amazing free outdoor dance tribute to Michael Jackson this weekend.  Michael’s been running again and I’ve been doing yoga every morning.  We had a relaxing Fathers Day sans homeschooling (Michael got several items he’s happy with including a spear gun for fishing in the Sea, some fishing gear, some clothes, and a new waterproof wallet so he can stop using a Ziplock bag for his money). We’ve spent much of our time with our friends Vicki and Larry Byers (s/v Rocinante) – we’ve become quite close and feel as though they are family. Mazatlan has been very good to us.

They are forecasting 10-15 knots of wind for tomorrow so we’re out of here tomorrow at 8 a.m.  We’ll be buddy boating across the Sea with Rocinante – it will be comforting to know they’ll be close by.  Am feeling the excitement of a long passage as we wash down our boat (dock water), charge everything that needs charging (dock power), empty garbage cans, and stow everything away. 

We’ll see you on the other side, as they say.

-Barbara (from Mazatlan - this time it's really for the last time)