5th Crossing of the Sea of Cortes

It is about 240 nautical miles from La Paz to Mazatlan where we had an appointment to do some work on the boat. The plan was to do the crossing in two stages, the first being the 60 miles from La Paz to the anchorage of Bahia Los Muertos and then leave early in the morning for an overnight crossing to Mazatlan but once we got going the winds were in a great direction and velocity that we decided to take what we had and continue the full distance in one go. We beat our way out of La Paz and then headed almost due east to Mazatlan with 15-20 knots on our port quarter. The seas were a bit confused going through the island channel but once we were in open water a steady rhythm of the swells developed and the winds lightened to 10-15kts and we were making a good speed. Darkness fell and the moon was not yet up so it was pretty dark and no other traffic about. The half moon came up at about 10pm and made for a lovely night crossing. The winds died for a few hours during the following morning and we motored before the winds came up again so that we could sail all the way to Mazatlan where we arrived at dawn, dropping the anchor off Isla Los Pajaros until the marina’s opened for business.