Water, water everywhere, and not a drop….

We have finally given up the good life of La Paz and the wonderful El Pescadero and set sail for Never-Never land (well it feels like that anyway). A couple of days sailing down the coast to San Jose del Cabo where we berthed overnight, topped up the fuel and water and fixed the leak we had in one of the fresh water tanks – actually stayed an extra day as we found that the second main water tank also had a small leak.

Finally got away on the morning of May 20, and this water goes on forever!!

We have had reasonably small seas but very confused ones for the past week with the direction of the waves being very variable making travelling quite rough and unpleasant, particularly at night. Lisa has been cooking great meals although Andy might question that as he couldn’t keep them down for the first few days, and then one evening Lisa threw everyone’s dinner on the floor when a wave surprised her. Actually everyone was feeling a bit squeamish for the first couple of days, but have now settled down. A mixture of being at sea, and the trepidation and fear of what was ahead when we finally set sail. We are enjoying it now.

We have plenty of fresh water on board, with two main tanks in the bottom of the boat and a third one high up on the port side, and that one is driving us nuts as the water in it is slopping and crashing around with the waves so the sooner we empty that one the better.

We’ve had a few issues to deal with. One night the preventer rope, which holds the boom down to the deck and limits its movement, broke, but we had a backup already on it and were able to fix it the next day, and also managed to rip the mainsail, so Leslie and Andy got busy and stitched the rip up that day as well. Small incidents just to keep us all busy!!

We have seen very little sun since leaving Cabo, overcast all the time but no rain. There has been a small amount of sea life around, a couple of dolphins one day, but not a lot else. A lot of birdlife though and one large bird with blue feet (we think it is called a blue foot booby) spent 14 hours perched on the bow overnight yesterday and flew off in the morning.

We talk to Andy’s dad on the radio every day and he keeps us up to date with weather reports, etc

We have now been at sea for 1 week and travelled 1000 miles which is 1/3 of the way to The Marquesas, so we are on schedule.

To finish, here are some words of wisdom from the crew:

Carl – Seems like all I do is helm, eat, and sleep
Don – I didn’t think it was going to take this long
Leslie – Patching sails is easy when Andy is around to help
Lisa – I’d give anyone $50 to bring me a ‘whole-wheat everything’ bagel from Brooklyn Bagels
Andy – This is a long way to go for a croissant of questionable quality
Raleigh - Woof (translated - I'd give my next bone for a run in a park)

Till next time, from our happy crew living life on the ocean wave.