Friday, 8 November 2013 – With everything checked out we were ready to Sail South. We have spent the days since the launch preparing Hilbre for the trip south to Mazatlán. Everything is back in its original location, the boat is clean, sanitized and ready to leave. A nice weather window is opening up for the 3 day sail to Mazatlán. As usual, we have enjoyed our time in San Carlos as well as the company of other cruisers. The weather has been wonderful; in the 80’s each day, sometimes with a nice breeze to keep us cool while we were working. We were anxious to be off on our travels.

We started the engine at 5:45 a.m. and were underway by 6:05 a.m. By 7:10 a.m. some wind had come up so we managed to sail until 8:45 a.m. when we went back to motor sailing. We had small lumpy seas with fickle winds from the NE off the land until about 2:00 p.m. when it switched to the W/NW at 8-11 Knots. By 3:17 pm. we were off Isla Lobos and altered course continuing to sail south until 7:00 p.m. The wind then died and we went back to motor sailing.

At 9:15 p.m. when I started the official night watch we had covered just over 64 NM. We continued motoring and by midnight we had covered just over 77 NM when Anita took over the watch.