No Wind Woes

Remember how we have been fielding questions for nearly a year about "What will you do in big seas? Big wind?" Well, never mind. The real question is what to do when there is no wind.

Here it is, Launch Date, when our plan was to head out from San Jose del Cabo. We're checked out of Mexico in every way possible. We're stocked to the rafters with rapidly rotting produce. We're outfitted, packed up, stowed, stuffed, fueled, braced, rested, and ready. And... there's no wind. In fact, there is no wind today. No wind tomorrow. No wind till Monday maybe.

Loose Pointer has pretty much decided to stay on dock for another day. They have two adults and a 15 year old, but the teen is untrained. It'll take him awhile before they will all feel comfortable with him taking watch. They plan to leave Sunday evening or Monday morning. This is probably the most prudent, seamanlike thing to do. Imagine leaves La Paz today and has at least a day before the Pacific conditions are relevant. They'll ride the tail end of a norther down the coast and just about the time they round the corner, there might be wind.

Don Quixote may leave today despite the strong probability that we will go nowhere fast. Why? Well it seems a bit insane on the surface, but at this point, we're tempted to get off shore for both emotional and practical reasons. Emotionally, we're ready. This holding pattern is somewhat depressing. We're out of patience, out of Mexican cash, and wondering what to do about extending provisioning if we stay on the dock. We'll just spend more money, in other words. On a practical note, if we motor for one day (which requires we load yet another 10 gal of fuel -- fortunately we have the extra containers), we'll be far enough off shore to avoid the local traffic. There we can just bob around for another day or two waiting for the wind to show up. The advantage is that the entire family will be in slow, gentle Pacific swell. We can acclimate our bodies, do school, and begin to get into passage rhythm. And we would have the luxury of doing this in very mild conditions.

And then... as Dean forever notes... the weather forecasts are often wrong.

So the family sat at the salon this morning and debated our options. Mera asked some good questions about food stores. Jaime said she was good with any plan as long as she could sleep until her official watch started. Aeron agreed as long as she could dash over to the tienda to spend her last 15 pesos. So off we go into ... well not much beyonder.