Asunción to Mag Bay to Cabo
We woke up at 2 am Sunday to check the wind. It was calm enough but we were tired and decided to re-start at 3. Anchor up and coffee made we set off for Bahia Magdalena. It would be 40 hours ish, and we had a few alternate anchorages if we ended up going too fast or too slow. The morning was cold and dark. The moon had already set but the Milky Way is incredible with absolutely no light pollution aside from our running lights.
Early Monday morning we caught a bonito and although not as large as our last one (maybe 9 lbs) we had hooked it agressively and opted to keep and fillet her. We switched to a barbless hook after that and caught a few more large ones. They’re aptly named ‘bonito’ but it’s hard to get a good picture on a catch-and-release without feeling like they’ll die. But maybe we’re conditioned on sensitive trout, and ocean fish are much heartier? Any ichthyologists feel free to chime in.
Monday made for good sailing. We had 15 knots on and off all day and a gentle following swell. We motored a little but kept the sail up. We made some dumb decisions here. I tied a preventer line onto a handrail to keep the boom from swinging wildly in the light air. But I didn’t make it tight enough, so it was able to shock load a couple times and we ripped off the stainless steel handrail. Then later we found out one of our sliding boom shackles was tangled against a reef line and as we reefed in the afternoon winds, we cranked a big rip in the bottom edge of the sail. So we have some repairs waiting in Cabo and probably won’t be able to hoist full sail for a few days.
The night shift was uncomfortable as the swell backed to the west and hit us more on the side than we prefer. We still found a few hours of sleep here and there.
The next day required some motoring but things went smoothly and we dropped the anchor in Bahia Magdalena at 7 pm Sunday night. We saw a few late season Gray Whales milling about in the bay so that boosted our energy. We cleaned, refueled using our Jerry cans, cooked the fish, celebrated the leg with a mojito and promptly fell asleep.
The next stretch could be another 40 hour leg, this time with no wind in the forecast.