Thursday, 1 May 2014 – When I came on watch at Midnight, we had covered almost 41 Nautical Miles. George relived me at 3:00 a.m. and by 7:00 a.m. we had covered 76 miles. We were still motoring as there was no wind. During the night we made our closest approach to the shore at a mere one and a half miles, navigation here has no room for error and while GPS is useful, it is dependent upon old maps and I had already found errors in these.
Sunrise brought sunshine and warmth, so we dried out and enjoyed the continuing light seas. With continuing favorable weather, we were able to catch up on some sleep after the night watches. At 3:24 p.m. we were about 25 miles short of Isla Santa Margarita, the outer island chain protecting Magdalena Bay and had covered 124 miles. A sea mist was settling in around us.
At this point, we had a visit from a curious whale who played around the boat for almost 40 minutes. The Whale came alongside the boat turning over on its back and showing the white of its stomach. Frequently, it dived under the boat and crossed our bow showering water on the deck from its blow hole. It would then fall back about a half mile and then come charging through the waves to parallel our course about 50 yards off the boat. Dare I say it; he was having a whale of a time with us. I was less concerned about him being close to us as he was clearly aware of us, but Anita was not too happy. We slowed down and held our course during this entounter.
Shortly after the whale visit the wind swung around to our nose and the seas increased. Within a short time, we were enveloped by a heavy sea mist and were bashing into large waves and 20 knot winds. With our speed slowed to under 4 knots by the wind and waves, it seemed to take forever to reach the end of Santa Margarita which we finally did about 8:00 pm. Fortunately, the wind and waves had begun to subside by then, so we again made progress north at over five knots close to the shore, but still in a heavy sea mist.
By midnight we had covered 162 Nautical Miles and were approaching the entrance to Magdalena Bay. At that time, we were just 1.7 miles from the shore. The fog was so intense, everything was dripping inside and outside the boat as was the rigging. Everything had become very damp and due to the fog, we were running with the RADAR regularly checking our position using the GPS and RADAR.
Once or twice a day I perform an engine checkout. This consists of removing the engine cover and looking at the drive belt, the raw water impeller, checking all cables and looking for any leaks or belt dust. It takes only a couple of minutes but it is important to catch any minor issues before they become a major problem.