We were originally only going stop in Cabo for a quick restock on food and fuel. The stop turned in to a 5 day long waiting period. We chose to stay the first extra day to walk around and snorkel. That turned in to waiting for wind. Then the day we were finally going to leave we caught “la tourista” 😦 . Unable to get out of bed Capt. Lauducci was in no where near condition to sail. And for that matter neither were us to other adults on the boat. Since only the adults got sick, we are pretty sure it was the “rum horchata” we drank the previous night. Lesson learned, stick to straight up tequila next time! Luckily an (mostly) only 24 hour thing, we were able to leave Cabo on Sunday.
The sail over to Isla Isabella was the first 2 night passage we’ve had this journey. If you don’t know the passage, it’s basically from Cabo straight across to an island just north of Puerto Vallarta. The seas were steep and blowing a gale. Probably our “roughest” weather yet. We hoisted our staysail for the first time ever and double reefed the main. I love our boat, she’s pretty comfortable and strong. Not once did I feel scared. The kids went to bed at their normal hour without a hitch and slept through it all.
I took the first shift, 8p-midnight, and Christian took the midnight to 7am shift. Emma helps throughout. She’s great about offering and she’s always available if we ask her to be. At 5 am I hear a load knock coming from Christian out on deck. Immediately my heart jumps out of my chest. I don’t know why, but I always fear Christian falling off the boat. He’s goof about clipping in with his harness, so I feared he’d fallen off and was knocking on the boat. Thankfully this was not the case. It was however a terrible thing for a cruiser. The auto pilot broke! A weld snapped and was not immediately repairable. So, the rest of the night and the remaining 130 ish miles involved mostly hand steering. Not two days prior, we had ordered a new Hydrovane to replace our Aries windvane, which we discovered did not work adequately with our center cockpit configuration. The Aries was still available, and thankfully the winds were strong enough to steer us another 8 hours. But as the winds d
ied, we only had the option of hand steering. Our watches became more demanding, but everyone managed to do great.
Now we float, anchored at Isla Isabela. This place is amazing. The water is warm and the snorkeling pristine and well worth the hard work to get here. We plan on staying here a few days before heading to Punta Mita (Puerto Vallarta). Hopefully we can weld our auto pilot while we are there and have our Hydrovane delivered!