Position: May 23, 9am Hawaii time, 31 degrees 01 minutes North, 147 degrees 55 minutes West
We've got wind in our sails now! For the past two days we've been sailing along to the north quite well. Our next challenge will be to get east - but the easterly winds aren't making this an easy task. We're hoping for a switch to more northerly winds that will help us get east. In any case, sure feels good to be moving and making tracks after the first ten days where we never got further than 500 miles from Hawaii - it felt like the islands didn't want to let us go! And now that we're under complete cloud cover and wearing our long underwear, we sure miss Hawaii!
Next on our agenda as we get to the point where we start heading east is to pick our destination. Will it be Ensenada (a port in Mexico just south of San Diego) or will we risk hurricane season and head south - trying to make landfall at Cabo San Lucas (tip of the Baja peninsula) before heading to Puerto Vallarta? We've studied the history of hurricanes (with help from our weatherdude Jamie on S/v Totem) and while it seems highly unlikely that a named storm would get that far north this early in the season, we know that you can never say never when it comes to hurricanes. And this seems to be an active early season for Mexico with two named storms already since we've been out here. Right now, we're leaning towards a track to Ensenada, although that would mean not going south to Vallarta until the fall after hurricane season. Ensenada would also be much closer, which makes it an attractive choice!
I have to say, we are so indebted to our friend Jamie for giving us invaluable guidance and support daily this trip!!! We knew that understanding the weather out here would be key, and we have the ability to download our own weather charts, but having internet access provides additional info. Knowing that someone onshore is looking out for our route with us gives us so much more confidence and lowers our stress levels immensely. Muchos gracias to Jamie and the Totem crew - who we know because Jamie's wife went to the UW MBA program with me, and we got to hang out in Mexico, although they've sailed far away to Australia now!
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