The Disco boys, and good breeze at last!
What a night! As you probably gathered from the last report, our first evening out was a little bit eventful. Certainly not the start we were hoping for. Once confidence had been gained in our second engine fuel line fix we turned our attention to the generator in the hope of making two for two on the repair scoreboard. Sadly, all we were able make were some big sparks and the sort of noises that generators shouldn’t make. With an engine working and tired crew, it became a tomorrow job.
With the wind angles available to us, the night became a motoring affair, Ben Lecricket providing the backing track to the otherwise monotonous tone of the 6 cylinder marine diesel engine doing its thing.
As mentioned before, Acapulco saw a big crew change-around for us. We were always going to lose a large percentage of the team before arriving in San Diego due to the US visas requirements for arriving by private boat, and it worked out well for everyone to do it now, rather than make another stop much further north. Our happy crew of ten is now a equally happy but much reduced number of 5.
Our wonderful hitch hikers Anna and Anto are off the explore Mexico with the beauty that is travelling without a plan. Lots of adventures ahead for them no doubt. Our fastest learner (except where coffee and tea are concerned) Landon is off back home, but has a great plan to come and work in a bar in San Diego so he can still be close to us. Looking forward to it already buddy. Number 1 Basque Andrea has also gone off on some additional travels, and we will all miss having no one to loudly shout “hello” through the happy hatch. We still shout it, but it’s just not the same. Then there’s the infamous engineer, or Engo, JPEG, or his personal favourite, Shady J. He is now on a top secret international diplomacy mission. That’s all I can say in that. We will miss not having the saloon populated by a one man mission to fill up every square on an excel spreadsheet.
They had all become an integral part of our team since Antigua, and will be much missed.
In their absence, the wheels are well and truly off. Disco is left with a crack team of 5 boys, an average age jumped up to the dizzy heights of 25.8, and even the boat is protesting. While you might imagine that this situation can only lead to chaos, the truth is far from. We have stocked up on a menu plan of pesto pasta, pretty much every day until San Diego. There are also burritos, crisps, and cookies. See, all completely under control. Our mothers would be proud, we’re real grownups now.
Today has seen a morning of light and fickle breeze, but at about lunchtime the much fabled phenomenon of ‘wind’ rocked up and made our day. Full sail was up in seconds, and before we knew it we were smashing along at 7 to 8kts, making the best angle I could realistically hope for. This presented another bit of work for us to do, as it’s the first time we’ve been hard on the wind and powered up in a good while. Some of our newer standing rigging had obviously done some more ‘bedding in’, and a quick look up the rig presented us with the need to break out the biggest spanners. Got to love big spanner time on a bouncy foredeck. A few tweaks later and we were back on it, making good progress up the coast.
It’s great to be sailing again. Despite the fridge falling open and emptying itself into the saloon!
NAV STATION
Date: 15th March 2017
Time: 2300z
Position: 17 36.7N 101 46.8W
COG: 320T
SOG: 7kts
Wind: W 4-5
Swell: SW 2-4ft
Sky: 1/8 cumulus
Weather: Fair
With the support of our partner Weather Routing Inc.
