Position: North 23 degrees, 30 Minutes, West 107 Degrees, 55 Minutes
We’re heading due East in about 12 knots of wind doing 5 or so knots boatspeed with a Northwesterly cross swell of 3-4 feet, making it a little rolly-polly, but not uncomfortable. It’s just after dinner right now and we’re settling down to our watches. I’ll take the first one from 2000 to 2300 and Ann will come up for 2300 to 0200 and so on through the night at 3 hour intervals.
Dinner was kind of fun to make as it was so easy, yet delicious. We are testing dried bean mixes for our longer trip. This one was about a cup and a half of mixed dried beans, lentils and split peas. I soaked them a couple hours this afternoon and cut up carrots, celery and onions and sautéed them in olive oil in a pressure cooker, then just left them for later. About 1630 I just threw the beans and some water in the cooker with the vegetables and added some diced cabbage and cooked for 10 minutes under pressure then turned off the heat and left it on the stove. At 1800 when we were ready for dinner so was the soup! Yum. Very hearty and easy. And lots of leftovers for other dishes. Tonight’s sky is similar to last nights in that there’s not a cloud in the sky. 360 degrees of stars right down to the water. Just tremendous. We never tire of just sitting and watching-and seeing the shooting stars as Ann just did. Jupiter is also so bright I can see a bunch of its moons with the binocs, but the boat is rolling so much I can’t quite count. I think it’s a record (for me) of five that I see, but am not quite sure. Fun to try though. Last night the La Paz to Mazatlan Ferry boat was on the same course as we were. We were under sail of course, so had the right of way, but when a boat that big comes by you never know if they see you or not. As I was watching his lights I could see his range lights were consistently showing he would pass slightly to our starboard. “Slightly” in this case is the operative word. There was very little wind at the point we converged so we weren’t very maneuverable. Since his range lights were so consistent I thought for sure he saw us and was avoiding us. However, the closer he got, the closer he got. I tried to call on the radio, but no answer. Finally I hit the strobe light on the masthead. I think that got his attention as he seemed to turn a bit, but he passed less than 100 yards on our port side. So close I could hear someone up on the deck (about 50 feet above us) whistle. I think he whistled to let us know they saw us. Anyway, not fun. We’ll watch for them again tonight and stay much further away! That’s our day. If this wind holds, we should be in Mazatlan mid-day tomorrow. Hasta Manana.