Dawn on Saturday, January 4

We were up early and had Kosmos ready for sea by the time the authorities arrived at 0830. We’d thought it would only be a dog and handler doing a last-minute inspection to make sure we weren’t smuggling anything out. However, a team of four people plus one dog arrived. 

The dog and handler were actually in and out quickly. The other three had extensive paperwork and stayed for over an hour. As they were finishing up, another authority arrived. The late-comer’s paperwork was relatively quick – it seemed that he checked over the paperwork done by the other four, then gave an executive sign off. 

With that last sign off, we were free to exit Mexico. A marina employee stood guard to make sure no one entered or left the boat, and to make sure that we left quickly. We were underway by 1030. Here is a short video of our ride through the canal on our way to the ocean

When we got out to the open ocean, the seas were nice. The wind was light, less than 4 knots, so there was virtually no wind chop. The swells were about 4-feet, at long intervals, coming from the starboard (right side of the boat), making a gentle rocking motion. It was a mostly sunny day with scattered clouds, but it was a bit hazy. The volcanoes were visible, but they were so faint that they didn’t look real — they looked like a watermark overlaid on an image of the shore.    

Sea conditions stayed more or less the same the rest of the day and throughout the night. 

The moon was only about 1/4 full and set early, so we didn’t have much moonlight, but the stars visible between the scattered clouds were vibrant. 

At about 0600 on Sunday morning, the swells switched direction to be on our nose. Even though the wave height and frequency didn’t pick up much, the change in direction took us from gentle rocking to uncomfortable hobby-horsing. Both Eric and Keith got sick. The creaking was back with a vengeance. It was very hot out, and Eric ran the AC to help reduce the overall discomfort.

The worst of it lasted for three-hours, then conditions ever so slowly improved as the swells moved to the front quarter. Even though the wave direction didn’t change very much, it helped a lot to not have the waves directly on our nose. As the day progressed, the wind picked up to about 6 knots, so there were some wind waves. The swells picked up to 5 – 6 feet. It felt a little lurchy, so we think the swells may have been coming from two different directions. 

The group of birds hitchhiking right now seem to be impervious to our scare tactics. Honking, screaming and rattling the rigging is normally a sure-fire ways to get the birds to fly away. But it seems that nothing scares this group!

Dusk was beautiful, with a rainbow of colors.