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Saturday, April 6, 2013

Sea of Cortez - West Bound Crossing

We were a flotilla of three boats, sv Talos IV, sv Zoe and sv Scintilla.  The plan was to leave Mazatlan together, but no one had any obligation to stick together other than periodic radio checks.  That said, we managed to stay within sight of sv Scintilla, but lost sv Zoe almost from the start.  It was a two night crossing.

The wind was up initially, so we hoisted the sails and were make a good 5.5 knots with main and head sail.  As the wind dropped off toward mid day, we furled the jib and dug out the asymmetrical.  We haven't flown that sail since the run down the baja earlier in the trip.  A lot of effort for only about an hour of sailing before the wind just simply died.  It was a motor from that point on.

Sea conditions were light the entire trip, which made for a pleasant crossing.  We also had a nearly full moon,  providing good visibility at night.  The only problem we had is that we were going too fast or maybe just poor planning.  We arrived just outside Isla San Francisco at about 3 AM and not wanting to make the entry into the anchorage at night meant we had to just drift with the winds and currents until day light.  It was a beautiful night and the time went by fairly quick.

Once the sun was up we motored in and dropped our hook.  What a lovely place.  We slept most of the day to get caught up on sleep with plans to do some exploring tomorrow.

Sorry, no photos.  There really isn't a lot to take pictures of when your out in the middle of the sea.

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