Across the Sea of Cortes, again

After splashing and getting ourselves pulled off the reef AND spending several days working on the rudder—getting it to move freely again, we left Guaymas on a Friday, heading in the direction of Punta Chivato just northeast of Bahia Conception. Now some superstitious sailors would recommend not leaving on a Friday, so we asked Ray, a fellow NW sailor, and he said “being superstitious about leaving on a Friday depends on what religion ya believe in”, and since we didn’t have one, we left. Besides, we had a 36-hour window of favorable weather before a stiff norther was predicted to blow and we wanted to be in the protective bays of Conception before that happened. So off we went with some trepidation. (We still had a twinge of that superstition nagging in the backs of our minds) After all it had been 9 months since we had sailed and we had a lot of new stuff to get used to! We were basically on a shakedown test run across the 90 or so miles of this portion of the Sea of Cortes.

Yes, I had better mention that we also had Marjean along with us as a visitor this time. As some of you may remember we had a third crewmember when we sailed down the coast to San Francisco, and it was she! You will see her in the pictures that are published here.

Off we went sailing well after dark, making such good time that we arrived at Punta Chivato by full moonlight at midnight. Anchoring in the dark is not recommended in Mexico, but with the light so bright, and by using our radar to make certain that we were a prudent distance from the nearby islands and the shore, we settled into our calm anchorage for a brief sleep. After 6 hours of sleep we up anchored and headed into Bahia Conception, once again visiting some of the anchorages we scoped out last year.