We had a good night of sailing under main only, as close to downwind as possible as we came down the last 80 miles from Turtle Bay to Mag Bay. The plan was to stop this morning in Mag Bay, but what we really wanted to do was see the whales, which we'd heard were so abundant at the mouth of Mag Bay that you sometimes had to wait for a gap to pass through. Not the case this time. We did see a few spouts, but we also saw about 20 whale watching boats packed with whale watchers. I felt the still cold and damp air, checked my energy levevl to find I was wide awake, and suggested that if we wanted we could skip Mag Bay and be in Cabo by tomorrow morning. It didn't take a lot of convincing; I think we'd all rather take our nice rest while in 80 degrees rather than the 65 here (not that 65 degrees isn't great, winter-people).
So we got through the entrance to Mag Bay, raised the mainsail again (we'd motored the last 20 miles or so with no wind), and turned back out to sea. We are currently flying at 7 knots 176 degrees (nearly due south) under full main and gennaker, in about 12-17 knots of wind. It's a good ride, but that huge sail makes me very cautious. We'll take it down if we start consistently seeing much more than 15 knots true wind. It's beautiful to look at, and fun to go this fast, but a little stressful out in the ocean. I guess I'm a spinnaker wimp. But the forecast was for these fairly light winds to continue the next 3 days, so I'll try to relax about it. It is staying fairly consistent.
Our watches at night are working out well. Malavika and Denali are comfortable alone on watch, with the AIS and Radar and knowing they can grab me at any time, so we're able to do 2-on, 4-off watches. The nights go by fairly quickly with only two 2-hour watches, and we all seem able to sleep pretty well. Looking forward to crossing the Tropic of Cancer and "going to bed in your foulies and waking up in your swim trunks" as one person said (the same person who said we'd have to wait for an opening to get through the whales at the mouth of Mag Bay).
TT
