We crossed 1000 nm since our departure from San Francisco; 1/8 th of our 8000 mile journey is completed in just the first 18 days. We’ve consistly averaged over 8.5 knots / slightly more than 200 miles over 24 hours. In 18 days, we’ve spent 1 day at the dock in Ensenada, we’re very pleased with the battery consumption and power generation.

We’re gaining confidence in picking our weather windows. Between the KVH V7 and our Telcel USB connection here in Mexico, we can download current grib files and NOAA marine forecasts. We deoarted San Francisco ahead of the series of fronts coming out of the North Pacific, road out a gale at anchor in the Channel Islands (definitely have our anchor tackle figured out – not to mention the anchor alarm and GPS track feature). We ran south from Redondo Beach ahead of another front although we had the 10 – 12 foot swells on our Ensenada passage. Now 500 miles south of Ensenada we still have a some NW swell and as forecasted a NE wind which is making things a little sloppy. Last two overnights have had plenty of moonlight – nice to have the horizon in sight.

Targetting 200 mile days, running 1550 rpm we seem to be just under 6pgh. We’ve cross referenced the flowscan and tank tenders – running off several tanks, and will double check this fuel burn when we fill the tanks in La Paz. This seems a little slower than most other 62 oweners run – most targeting 9k, we’re hoping we can run 200 mile days on our crossing to the Marquesas – so vetting our fuel burn at this speed.

We often reflect back to our sailing days, to knock-down 1000nm in 18 days – picking weather windows, and spending 11 days exploring Channel Islands and visiting family in Redondo Beach – would require a lot of waterline (BIG sailboat) or something fast (Santa Cruz 52) which has trade-offs in comfort – not sure two of us could do 1000nm in a Santa Cruz 52 off the coast of California in late December. For passagemeking with small crew – hard to beat voyaging under power for safety and comfort.

We have almost a Terrabyte of music in our music server and are finding the Sonos system plenty of entertainment – building playlists – searching by track / artist / genre – it’s not quite Pandora, but fun to revisit music that hasn’t played in years.

Our track to Mexico.
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