26 May 2022 - We slept soundly in Puerto Refugio. Sometime in the middle of the night a trawler came into the bay and anchored, then began launching pangas. I heard their anchor chain going out, just assumed it was another yacht and kept sleeping, but the pangas woke Jimena.

We had decided the night prior that it didn’t make much sense to get an Alpine start on a passage that was going to go over night no matter how we sliced it, so we did not have to get up until about 0700, aIthough I got up at 0500 in any case, anxious to drink coffee and get started. I saw Mars and Jupiter leading the crescent moon and Venus up the eastern morning sky. Jimena also got up early and we readied the boat to go.

We girded our loins, gritted our teeth, hauled up the anchor and got under way about quarter to seven. And, just like that, we were on our way to Puerto Peñasco, 107 NM away.

We motored out for six hours before the wind came up. It was around noon and the wind was out of the ENE, not the best angle for our course, but not the worst either. We sailed for the rest of the passage, the wind gradually veering to more southerly and picking up a little during the afternoon and evening.

Before sunset we put the first reef in the main (we make this policy so that in case the wind gets up quickly we avoid and midnight fire drills) and kept sailing under reefed main and full genoa. We sailed through a relatively calm night with the wind veering from ENE to SE around 10 knots. It was superlative sailing and just the conditions which Jimena likes.

We saw a fleet of shrimp boats off in the distance but they were never factors for us.

In the early morning of 27 May the wind got up around 15 knots and a following sea got up. None of it was big, just bigger than what we had had up til then. It was still superb sailing.

We sailed on until approaching Punta Peñasco then we cranked the engine, drove into the mouth of the channel, furled the genoa and dropped the mainsail then motored into Puerto Peñasco on a 15’ high tide. We found Safe Marina (an odd appellation for a marina, at least by my lights) and were tied up on the end tie facing Astilleres Cabrales, where we would haul out, by 1230.

Puerto Refugio-Puerto Peñasco

Puerto Peñasco - the haulout

Isla Mitlan-Puerto Refugio