Sunday, February 18, 2007

Steve, Kay and Sea Lady


Finally, we are off to Mazatlan

We finally received the new autopilot that was ordered just after Christmas. It arrived Monday Feb 12 and it took Steve a few days to install and run the dock side test. Yesterday, Saturday, we took Sea Lady out to program the autopilot and everything went well.

Our plan is to leave early tomorrow morning, Monday, sail to Los Muertos and anchor there for the night. Then we will take off early the following morning for the crossing to Mazatlan. The crossing should take about 27 hours, calculating a hull speed of about 6.5 to 7 knots per hour. The weather report is for light winds Monday and Tuesday with the winds picking up to about 15-18 kts and seas picking up to 4 feet on Wednesday. I'm so excited to finally be able to go after having spent over 7 weeks just waiting for the autopilot arrival.

It's carneval time here in La Paz for which La Paz is very famous and proud of. It began Feb 15 and runs through Fat Tuesday, Feb 20. It seems to be a combination of county fair and street fair, similar to the Asian night market in Vancouver BC and just packed with people. There are rides and food stands, booths selling toys, dishes, clothes, blankets and whatnot's, and several stages with very loud bands. There is a King and Queen and her court dressed in spectacular costumes attended by Mexican Naval officers in full dress whites. They set off fire works Friday night directly over head of the crowd along the malecon (street fronting the sea) and will have parades each night Sunday through Tuesday. Beer distributors, banks, cell phone companies and dairy products are featured, similar in flavor to the sponser hype connected to the Tour de France. It is wild and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

A great on-line e-zine for life here in La Paz is www.bajainsider.com. The author lives on his boat, along with his dog Abby, here in Marina Costabaja. So....we are ready to go I just need to bake some bread and muffins before we take off. Happy sails to me.............