Well, we finally made it out of La Paz harbour yesterday afternoon. After finishing off a couple items in town that needed our attention before leaving, Khulula and crew sailed/motored out of the harbour at 2:30 pm yesterday. Ryan and Hugh were on board while I hitched a ride with a couple folks from the marina that had helped us out so much over the past two months.
Our last two days in the marina were filled with non-stop trips to the grocery store for more supplies and provisions and sorting through everything we had collected to ensure we were only carrying exactly what we needed. Ryan was able to get the last posting up just hours before we pulled out.
As we waved goodbye to our good friends, Chris and Kristi, I was filled with a sense of elation that we were finally moving but not without a stomach filled with butterflies and a thousand doubts in my head. I am not a sailor. I can’t even call myself a day sailor much less a blue water cruiser, so why was a I doing this? How did this happen?
But as with everything in life, you just need to start. Need to get the wheels moving and things start to get smoother and you realize you need not worry so much. This is what I keep telling myself at least. Saying goodbye to my folks and Jess a couple days ago was not easy at all and I feel the need to move, to go, to start, to begin, and the need to leave La Paz.
It is about 10:30pm right now, the sun has been down for a couple hours and the small Mexico puebla lights are sparkling in the distance. We are trying to make it to Cabo San Lucas by tomorrow evening so are going to keep on moving all night. The night is dead calm, just a faint breeze to ruffle the ocean surface. Hugh is up on the helm, not only watching for ships but enjoying the bright sprays of phosphorescence as we slice through the small slow moving swell.
Ryan has headed off for bed as he will be awake at midnight to take his turn. I am on standby right now to help Hugh with anything that might arise. He just shouted down to me thinking that he had seen some dolphins playing in the wake, but it was just a patch of unusually bright phosphorescence. Such a beautiful night.
Despite not being at dock, today we were busy. Busy finishing things we didn’t finish before leaving. Packing the Ditch Kit, Fixing the Stove pot holders, Building Life raft covers, etc… We also had a couple fun jobs. Kevin at New England Ropes was kind enough to send us some new lines for Khulula and we spend many hours today planning them out, splicing in new eyes, whipping the ends and generally getting them all ready to be used asap. They really are going to make Khulula look good, as make us feel a little more secure too…
Last night, we had a very interesting conversation about ocean pollution and our garbage situation during our crossing. On board we have a lot of canned food and other items, which will become refuse as we continue our trip. We were trying to decide the best method of dealing with all this garbage. We can store it all until we reach the Marquesas Islands, but do they have facilities to deal with thousands of boats garbage on their tiny islands? Do we have space to carry it all until we make a land fall that has the correct facilities to deal with it ? It has been recommended to us that certain items are unlikely to have any negative effects if we throw them into the ocean, but our knowledge of this is limited. Hence why I am bringing this up. If anyone who has good credible knowledge or readings on this subject, please contact us. Either through comments on our site, through our facebook page, twitter, or via e-mail. We are all very interested in learning more and luckily have a lot of time on our hands to read through it all.
I think it might be tea time now…