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
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
View more passage logs
Hat overboard!
On June 4, we reviewed our passage plan before our departure from the marina in Hjellested.
Departure from Bergen!
The crew on the women’s sail training on Isbjorn is settling into a great routine for managing the boat and life onboard.
The sun sets on another journey
The hardest part of sailing across French Polynesia wasn't the night watches, the heat, or the open ocean — it was the prospect of being trapped on a small boat with a group of strangers. First-timer Natalie boards as a self-described land crab and discovers that the sea has a way of reshaping both your sea legs and your assumptions. What follows is dolphins, sharks, the Milky Way in full technicolour, and a crew that somehow made the whole thing better than she ever imagined.