- Port of departure: Bahia de Banderas (Banderas Bay) – Nuevo Vallarta
- Departure date and time: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 3:15pm
- Port of arrival: Bahia Tenacatita
- Departure date and time: Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 6:15pm
- Total travel time: 2 days and 3 hours (51 hours)
- Miles traveled: 144 from Nuevo Vallarta to Tenacatita (151 if you include the trip between La Cruz and Nuevo Vallarta)
- Engine hours: 1021.0 – 1035.1 – 14.1 hours
- Forecast: The forecast predicted light and variable winds…which is precisely what we got.
If I thought our last passage was slow, then I was in for a bit of a surprise on this passage. We left La Cruz, as intended, on Monday, but rather than going to Bahia Tenacatita, we decided to pull into Nuevo Vallarta for the night. The reason being that as Jeff was filling our water tanks in La Cruz, it came to his attention that one of our water tanks had a hole (thanks to an exposed screw that we should have taken care of when we installed the tanks). It’s amazing how much water can escape through a seemingly small hole.
Since we only have two water tanks and neither one has a ton of capacity, it’s fairly important to have the both in operation. Limited water supplies can have a huge bearing on travel itineraries. Imagine, if you will, having only 30 gallons of water for two weeks for two people. We’re all about conservation, but we also wanted to take care of this problem as quickly as it had materialized (no point in putting it off). What’s more, in order to do any work on our water tanks, we have to completely tear our boat apart, making it difficult if not impossible to live normally, let alone sail.
Spending the night in Nuevo Vallarta enabled us to fix our leaky tank, refill both tanks with better tasting water (it makes such a big difference), get on the internet one last time, make some new friends on the dock, stock up on cheese, relax in a Jacuzzi, splurge on some Starbucks, take a hot shower and do some tourist watching.
The next day when we left, the wind was blowing in the low teens from the West, where we needed to go. We sailed with our working jib and full main upwind, making very little progress. As night approached, the wind lessened, until it finally died shortly after the sunset. In six hours we had only sailed 14 miles away from the Nuevo Vallarta channel (with all of the tacking we had sailed closer to 26 miles in total). We still had 22 miles to go to get around Cabo Corrientes. We opted to turn on the motor and head right for the cape.
Even with the motor on we were moving at a painfully slow pace. As the sun rose, 10 hours later, we had just barely turned the corner at Cabo Corrientes. 40 miles away from Nuevo Vallarta in 16 hours? Ouch. Once we were past the cape and a couple of miles offshore, we turned the motor off.
The next two days we spent a lot of time waiting for the wind, which would come in small bursts. We sailed primarily with our genoa and full main with the wind at our back, on our bow, from the side…you get the point. Lots of adjustments. Sailing can really test one’s patience.
But, it is amazing how, after bobbing around for a couple hours with no wind, just the slightest breeze makes you giddy with excitement. The benefit of waiting? You see a lot of cool stuff…like sea turtles. These solo creatures amaze me.
On Wednesday afternoon we had a nice W/NW wind that enabled us to make up for some of the bobbing. On Thursday, the wind was much more timid and although Bahia Tenacatita was in sight, our speed wasn’t going to get us there before nightfall. Jeff voiced objections to turning the motor on…I voiced objections to cooking dinner underway. We turned the motor on and arrived right before sunset (that seems to happen a lot). We anchored in 20 feet (sand) and went for a swim to wash off all the accumulated sweat and sunscreen. It’s getting HOT, especially when the wind doesn’t blow.
