Posted at Sea
We checked out of Mexico in Nuevo Vallarta. Three officials boarded the boat-two Customs and one Immigration-and a fourth stayed on the dock looking important. One Customs inspector looked quite young, with braces on her teeth. Forms were filled out, documents signed and stamped, hands shaken, and then we were off. Our time in Mexico was over.
We started off in good wind, looking for our sea legs again. But then the wind died. We had a really nice wind on our third day and made 126 miles, but otherwise, with mostly light winds, we’ve been getting around 50 miles per day. That’s not good enough.
Our electrical power consumption has been higher than our power generation. That’s not good either. It’s also been difficult to make and hold a SailMail connection long enough to empty the outbox and download the inbox, so not as much communication as we would like.
On the sixth day we had both improved wind, and got our self-system working adequately. That let us turn off the electronic autopilot, improving on the power consumption.