MEXICO-COSTA RICA: T-MINUS 1 DAY & COUNTING
Dockside Cabo San Lucas
After the most punctual arrival of a full crew ever yesterday, we’ve managed to get our comprehensive safety briefings done in a very efficient manner. Within a couple of hours we will have slipped lines and will be heading south to Costa Rica!
As always with 59º North, we seem to have an excellent crew, playful ribbing has already started and they’re all ready to cheerfully wave goodbye to Cabo Wabo.
Delaney did a great job of finding a nice joint for dinner last night, made even better when we saw they had mezcal flambé cheese on the menu.
The weather is looking pretty light for the first 24 hours before filling in for hopefully some kite weather. The Tehuantepec winds are the big navigational hazard on this trip. Cold fronts in the Caribbean cross over the isthmus of land south of Oaxaca, funneled through the mountain range before blowing at full force into the Pacific. This can create 40-50 knot constant winds, with even stronger gusts, and an unpleasant sea state of high waves with short intervals. Marvelously for us it looks like we’ll arrive at the gulf of Tehuantepec just as one of these periods ebbs and should be able to make the crossing without being too much of a vomit comet. Keep your fingers crossed that it keeps this way! If not we have plenty of time to loiter waiting for a weather window.
Past there it’s looking light again, before possibly increasing to upwind conditions in 20-25+ knots as we approach Costa Rica due the Papagayo winds - a similar, but slightly less volatile, weather phenomenon as the Tehuano winds. As always, that’s a long range forecast so things may change but always good to be prepared.
If anything I don’t think we’ll be bored this trip!
That said, strict instructions have been left for Mission Control to keep us updated on the Super Bowl and Rugby Six Nations results.
Nos vemos México!!
// Mary
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A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.