March 6

As expected, yesterday was difficult, but unlike the previous day, the wind stayed relatively light until sunset and then began to fill in rapidly. By 8:30pm we had 18k on the nose and the seas began to build as well. Up until sunset we had been motorsailing nicely at 6+ knots with little difficulty and with some comfort. After sunset it was a whole new ballgame.

By midnight we were driving into 4-6ft seas with a 15k wind on the nose and by 3am it was blowing 18 from the NNW with 6-8ft seas. It was a wet ride and we found several new leaks. The decks were constantly awash and several waves crashed into the mid-companionway dodger (spray-shield as the English call it, though in this case it did not function as such) and forced their way under the forward lip and right through the hatch, which does not seal very well apparently.

The wind did not begin to abate until about 4am and by 6am the seas had calmed considerably. By 7am the wind had veered to the North and we let out the genoa and motorsailed at about 35 degrees to the wind at 7.5k for about an hour.

By 9am the wind had returned to the NW and so we rolled up the genoa and continued on motorsailing with just the main making 6.4k over ground on a heading of 315M - almost directly toward our goal.

We seem to have lost our port side bow light - it is just gone. A wire sticks out where the light used to be. I imagine the port jib sheet caught on it and yanked it right off. Of course we have no spare and I will attempt to find one in PV or else have my friend Paul bring one from the States when he comes to visit next week. Its not a major problem since the CG rules allow the use of EITHER the bow and stern lights, OR a tri-color mast mounted light, which is what we use anyway since it draws considerably less power (it is only a single bulb with 3 colored lenses).

We have about 40nm to go now and the wind has dropped to about 4k and the seas are quite calm. We expect to arrive in Manzanillo by 4pm.