I awoke at 6:00 AM and showered. I then prepared the boat to depart from La Paz by re-installing the jack lines and the jib sheet snatch blocks which I had stowed away while in La Paz. After turning in my marina card keys and getting my card key deposit back, I departed the marina at 7:00 AM bound for Mazatlán by way of Ensenada del Los Muertos and Bahia Frailes. I decided to stop in Los Muertos and Bahia Frailes for two reasons.
First, I am single handing on this trip because I have no crew at the moment. Mary Campell, who was going to join me as crew in early February, sprained her ankle very badly while travelling in Indonesia. As a result, so had to postpone her trip to join me here in Mexico. She will be delayed for at least six weeks. Since I am travelling alone I wanted to break up the trip to Mazatlán into three shorter stages, hence the stops in Ensenada del Los Muertos and Bahia Frailes before crossing the Sea of Cortes to Mazatlán.
The second reason for making the extra stops is to test whether the autopilot is now working correctly. If the autopilot fails during the first or second day, I can return to La Paz to do further work on it. I depend on the autopilot to steer the boat while the diesel engine is running.
The conditions were good. The wind built to about 15 knots in the afternoon and I was able to motor sail at between 6.2 and 7.0 knots on either a close reach or a beam reach.
The autopilot worked properly all day.
I arrived at Ensenada del Los Muertos at 4:00 PM and set the anchor in 30 feet of water. There is one other boat in the anchorage. The anchorage is very rolly this evening. I hope it will smooth out later this evening to make it easier to sleep.
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