Position: 19 degrees 18 minutes North, 110 degrees 48 minutes West
347 Miles out of Mexico, 2508 miles to go to Hilo, Hawaii
After some tearful goodbyes, we finally sailed out of Punta Mita on Saturday afternoon. Or we should say we sailed around Punta Mita for a few hours... and then kicked off our stowaway (Jason, Tim's best surf buddy, who had paddled out and ended up jumping on and helping with final preparations - thanks much!!), and THEN sailed away to the West. We've had a good shakedown, as the winds were honking 20-30 knots steady for the first 36 hours, and we were taking seas over the bow continually. We almost lost an anchor line (who knows how long we towed that sea anchor!) and our boat hook overboard, but luckily caught both in time. We had our first wildlife visitor -- an beautiful dove that was really tired landed on deck. It finally calmed down during the day on Monday. Monday we had a call on the VHF from a passing cargo ship heading to Mexico to pick up iron ore to deliver to China -- the captain was Iranian and called us "our heroes on the little sailboat off our port." We think that crew was stir crazy after voyaging from China to reach Mexico!
Midnight Blue is doing great, but her crew is very tired. Lori was seasick the first two days, but feels almost all better now. Jane only had minor seasickness, and Tim's just adjusting to his offshore no-sleep routine. Today, we pulled into Isla Benedicto (part of the Islas Revillagigedos, otherwise know as the Socorros -- the Galapagos of Mexico). It's an awesome sight -- an old cinder cone volcanic island - very imposing and inhospitable looking. We almost didn't stop, until we got on the net and got a waypoint for a good anchorage here from another boat that had been here before. Today we'll rest and recuperate, then plan to set sail again tomorrow after a good nights sleep. A few equipment failures so far - stopped a leak through our propane locker, our new AIS ship tracker won't work meaning we're back to visual observation to determine the type and course of approaching ships (and so of course we've had lots of ships crossing our path from all directions making night watches more interesting!), and our water pump seems to be getting airlocks a lot. We'll get those sorted out and luckily they're not show-stoppers.
Jane has started checking in on the Pacific Seafarers ham net which is on the SSB on 14300 USB at 10:25 pm Central time... we heard a rumor that you can listen to it online, and they post our daily position online (not sure but I think it's www.pacsea.net).
