Ensenada, Baja California to Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay)

Jan 1st to Jan 4th: 265 miles averaging 6 knots!

1100 (AM) NEW YEAR'S DAY! January 1, 2004:

Departed Ensenada 215 degrees, 7 knots motoring speed, mostly sunny. Wind 230 degrees at about 5 knots.

1237:  Turned south from Punta Banda to San Tomas heading 165, wind 200 at about 6 knots.

Letitia caught first real fish here. An 11 lb bonita (tuna family). Kelvin enjoying gutting it and throwing guts over!

1900 (PM) LG on watch, heading 175, sailing. Traveling about 5 knots average speed. Slow down worth it to turn off noisy engine! Sailing wing-on-wing, dead down-wind.

2100 (PM) Wind too light. Take down wing-on-wing. Turn on engine.

2200 (PM) Kelvin and Mark on watch until midnight when Kelvin retires and leaves Mark until 0100 when Letitia comes on until 0400 (AM!). Mark makes note that he is abeam Punta Colnett, 14 miles off  at 2220.

JANUARY 2, 2004 0030 (AM) Compass heading 150, distance thus far 77 nautical miles. Clear. Wind out of 330 degrees at about 7 knots. Barometric pressure 1020, temperature 56 degrees outside. Mark on watch.

0300 Letitia on watch from 0100 to 0400. Moon set at 0235 (AM). Survived first night of overnight sailing with first night time watch!

0700 Finally sailing instead of motoring. Wing-on-wing.

0230 Spinnaker downwind sail! All day! Temperature 68 degrees F; Barometric pressure is 1018. Heading is 149 degrees averaging 6.5 knots!

JANUARY 3, 2004

0000  Mark on watch (as always at midnight!). Sailing 131 degrees, averaging 6.5  knots. Have now traveled 227 miles from Ensenada. Under power GPS still down and we are plotting course manually all night with hand held GPS as back-up and visual fixes using hand bearing compass.

0930 ARRIVED in Bahia Tortugas after two nights and two days sailing! Yahoo!

Traveling in a "panga" with a pangueros, from our boat, to the one next door, to pick us up to go to shore at Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay).

Bahia Tortugas is a town surrounding a closed sardine factory. There is no port captain and very little income, except selling us fresh live lobsters at our boat for $2 each and giving us rides into the pier for $1 each each way. We had lunch in town but it was a bit scary to go to a closed up looking restaurant with a lady in it watching t.v. and dusty tables. She made us hamburgers and everyone lived!

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