Position: 15°58'N 097°58'W
Underway toward Acapulco 1 day out or Zihuatanejo 2 days out
Day 1695
Miles YTD: 3094
Miles since day 1: 29318
A big thank you to Brant Milligan for joining us on our voyage through the Panama canal and the thousand plus miles sailing north. Brant was awesome to have onboard and one of those people who are always looking for ways to contribute. A huge thank you again to Brant for all the cooking lessons, cleaning of fish and of course standing an equal share of night watches. Safe travels Bro.
We hit the Port Captains office at Puerto Escondido to get our paperwork straight as Brant needed to be officially taken off our crew list. This was quick, free, and conveniently the Port Captains office is located on the beach at the dinghy landing. Brant, unfortunatly has to get back to reality! After the paperwork we were looking for a beer when we met Martin Mora a friendly local who having spent many years working in LA spoke fluent English. He suggested we head up to the corner market to hang with the local fishermen and have a beer. So we did just that and hung out on the sidewalk and drank a few beers. The local guys were pretty cool and most had stories of working in the USA at some point in their lives. All agreed that the US economy was in the dumps as there was no work and they choose to head home to wait for the recovery. Martin offered to help us run some errands so we jumped in his vintage and nearly stock 1980 Dodge Valiant 2 door with a slant 6 auto transmission and bumping stereo wailing some sweet reggae tunes. Driving up the winding streets of Puerto Escondido Martin seemed to know everyone along the way. We hit a few stores looking for a fuel jug then the gas station then back down the hill to the corner grocery store for a few more beers. Good times. If you want to go sport fishing in Puerto Escondido be sure to look up Martin Mora for a great experience. Martin has a nice boat and is one of the few locals whom offers offshore sport fishing trips.
This morning we got a bit of a slow start, but finally made it off the boat and down the beach to Cafecito for breakfast. Brant had been to Escondido about 12 years ago and wanted to check out the goings on of one of his favorite restaurants from back in the day. It turns out Escondido is not the surfing secret it once was and everything seems to have grown, Cafecito included, which has doubled in size and based on the crowd was still serving great food. We all had various tasty traditional Mexican dishes for breakfast as we watched the 'Mexican Pipeline', the reputed 3rd best pipe break in the world. We then wished Brant safe travels as we headed our separate ways. Kathy and I ran a few errands looking for oil filters and engine oil and then set sail, but not until nearly 2PM.
Contrary wind and current are making it a slow bash and we've really been racking up the engine hours with little sailing with exception of the diurnal land and sea breeze which usually give us a sailable angle. We knew this would be a tough trip in terms of lots of motoring, but so far the motoring aspect has exceeded my expectations. Of all the thousands of miles we sailed our motor to sail ratio has been lousy these last weeks. The bad part is the boat is much slower under power than sail so it seems we are just barely creeping along. Especially of late with adverse current taking a bite out of our speed over ground.
It seems our goal of 4th of July in Roche Harbor of Washington States San Juan Islands is definitely possible if we keep pushing everyday. The significant reduction in lazy days is definitely the downside of setting such an ambitions goal to travel many thousands of miles against wind and sea. A Pacific Northwest summer is unbeatable and very scarce so we push onward.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment