I wright this post almost a month late and there are many excuses but I think the best is I have just been “Busy”.
At 8:30 am I went to get Billy who was to be Kimi’s stand in for the passage to Mazatlan. I left Flo at anchore in san carlos bay full of the provisions and fuel she would need for the 400 mile passage and headed to the dock in the dingy with the last of the garbage from the days earlier. Driving the dingy as I normally do (at full throttle) I looked down to see some of my garbage trying to fly away and just as I reached to catch it the dingy went sideways and i went flying out. I had on my exit some how slowed the throttle and put it in neutral and my backpack/dry bag with my Ipad worked well as flotation. Dingy Diana came back for me but not with out a bit of swimming on my part. Soaked to the top of my head I now needed to come up with a good story for Billy on why i was wet that would not shake the trust in his captian who he was to trust his life with for 4oo miles. He may have believed me when I said i was chasing my pocket knife into the water… This was not the first sign of a tough passage to come but the 3rd.
First sign: San Carlos boat yard took to long and Kimi had to take a bus to Mazatlan to catch a pre-planned flight.
Second sign: My dad who was excited to be my first mate in place of Kimi slipped getting off a bus and broke a rib (found out much later it was 3 ribs broken) just one week before departure and my captian self made the tough call to tell him he was scratched from the crew list.
Weather was to be just as predicted and we had all down wind sailing with the first day building to 28 knots and us doing in excess of 8 knots and sometimes seeing 10.7 Kts on the down hill side of an 8-12′ wave. Flo handled it well and it was only about 6 hours total of hand steering as the seas got to big for the auto pilot. This coincided with night watch and Billy being a bit sea sick but it all worked out. We anchored just outside the harbor in Mazatlan at 2:30 am and woke to a beautifull city view at 8 am. We were just 1500 yards off the beach and the Condo that My Dad and Betti call home 3 months out of the past 16 years.
Back story….
Mazatlan was by far the most important port for me to pull into. At 18 my Sister had an adventure with my dad and Betti to Mazatlan that I had hoped to repeat when I turned 18. As life goes it did’nt work out for many reasons but as life also goes an 18 year old does not understand “why” all the time. I was not resentful but deturmand to do it on my own. 26 years it took for me to realize my feelings and when I was hand steering in 8-12′ seas at night when Billy was sleeping I was able to cry about it and understand myself a bit more. Later explaining this to my dad and Betti the reason was simply timing and a rough financial patch. Simple …. like many challenges but understanding can take some time.
