199 nm to Zihuatanejo
2,118 nm cumulative
We decided it was less important to leave at 3am than to be well rested, so we departed Manzanillo around 9am, rather than the planned 3am. I’m glad we did, because we had to deal with a few additional long lines in the water. There were two other boats, Crescendo and Iris, sailing just ahead of us. The three of us stayed in radio contact throughout most of the passage, and shared observations and info about where we saw long lines or floats.
We passed 3 or 4 long lines, and at one point, sailed directly over one intentionally. I identified two floats and tried to center the boat between them to cross the longline at what, in theory would be where the line was lowest in the water. Well, it wasn’t very low!
I watched as we crossed over the line, and it dragged along the hull, catching on the keel. We were sailing and the props weren’t turning, so I wasn’t worried. As the boat continued forward, the line pulled down and cleared the keels. Next, it snagged on the rudders. Same thing - it pulled down and cleared off the rudders without incident. No issue with props, and we were clear!
Unfortunately, in the hectic environment that ensued while Meghan and I tried to watch the longlines, I forgot to set the damn autopilot when I stepped away from the helm to watch the lines go under the boat. After we had cleared the lines, the boat rounded up into the wind and now we were sailing BACK across the same damn line. UGHHHHHHH.
I don’t try to pretend I’m perfect, and I share mistakes here because it helps me learn and keeps me humble. That was an easy but dumb mistake, and now I was tangling with the same line AGAIN. I did not want to start the motors and foul the props, so I wrestled with the sails and changed course to sail off the line and back. But now I was back on the wrong side of the line yet again!! Geez.
Once I was clear, I changed course and sailed back toward shore until I was confident I was clear of the line and then turned back southward. Frustrating, but I learned…
We kept watch for more lines as we sailed and saw several, but never had to cross directly over one again. Once we were into the late afternoon, we didn’t see any more, which was good news because I really didn’t want to worry about those lines while sailing at night!!!
Wind was OK, not great and we had 9-10 kn throughout most of the day, but downwind that only gives boat speed of 4-5 kn.
We sailed overnight with Meghan taking a three hour shift. I’ve found that as long as I can get three hours of sleep somewhere around 2am, I can generally get through the night and stay awake reliably. But to be careful, if I’m drowsy at all I set my alarm to ring every 30 minutes, just to make sure!
If we’re well offshore, and the radar and AIS shows no vessels for 24+ miles, I’ll use the same trick to grab a little sleep. If we are clear for 24 miles ahead, I have at least an hour to respond to any vessel showing up on the radar, even in the worst case scenario. Cargo ships run at 16-18 knots and very few boats move faster than that on the open ocean. So, at 18 knots if a ship is closing on me directly, and I’m doing 6 kn, then the “closing speed” is 24 knots. If he’s at least 24 nm away, that gives me an hour to deal with him from the first time I sight him.
That lets me safely set an alarm for 30 minutes and grab a little sleep. I further enhance my safety using PredictWind “Over the Horizon” AIS that lets me see ALL vessels everywhere. With this, I can see any vessel running AIS (required on commercial ships) for hundreds of miles.
Using these procedures, I can develop a very high degree of confidence that there are no vessels representing any collision risk to us for long distances. If I’m well offshore, this gives a lot of safety and lets me sleep in short bursts. And I’ve found that 20 minutes of sleep is game-changing when trying to keep your eyes open on a long night watch.
The wind totally died somewhere around 3am so I fired up the damn diesels again. I really hate motoring! Primarily because I have to change the oil and filters every 100-150 hours and diesel is expensive! Wind is free. Well, sorta free anyway, after you paid a king’s ransom to buy and maintain a sailboat!!!! Hahaha.
At this point, I was doing math. If we couldn’t maintain a speed of at least 6 kn, we would not arrive in Zihuatanejo before sunset. We really weren’t interested in doing another overnight, and arriving in darkness is a bad idea when it can be avoided, so motoring was the only choice. We motored through the rest of the night and arrived into Zihuatanejo about 5pm on Friday, Feb 6.
We anchored in the bay, just off Playa La Principal, the main beach in the town. The beach is covered with dozens of pangas, showing that fishing is still the primary activity in this little town. As we cruised into the bay, we saw a constant stream of pangas running from the Municipal Pier back and forth to Playa Las Gatos on the other side of the bay. It was busy! Probably 10-15 boats were running back and forth, all acting as water taxis for tourists - the vast majority of which were Mexican (one of the things we loved about this town - it’s a very “local” place).
The anchor went down in about 25 feet of water and only about 1,000 feet from the beach. There was a spot wide open in the middle of the anchorage and we had plenty of room to swing on the anchor chain and clear all the other boats. There were a total of 18 boats anchored in the marina, along with dozens or maybe hundreds of pangas swinging on mooring lines probably installed by their owners and marked with an old detergent jug or similar “buoy.” It was a busy place!