Yes, I AM going to get out of Cabo. On Wednesday, no less. It’s spring break here. Music all night, tequila shots, dopey sombreros and drunk girls persuaded to show off their tits is getting a bit old.
My son Doug came down, partly to bring me parts and partly to see if I was really in Cabo. I was immensely grateful to him for coming down. If you are 53 and want to go to a spring break bar, you sort of need a 25 year old to legitimize you. But even more important, I was lonely. Or having trouble getting out of the singlehander’s psychic cacoon. I’ll try to write more about that later, but basically what I mean is that it is easy to go nuts when there is no one around to tell you that you are going nuts.
In any case, the boat is ready. More or less. My nav light is working. It’s a long story, but the short version is that I climbed the mast 12 or 13 times during the past several days. Thank God for all that physical training before I left. I always wondered what good being able to do 20 pull-ups would be. Now I know.
By the way, for you sailors out there, I can HIGHLY recommend the Topclimber by ATN for going up the mast. Steve Fedde, a friend from Ventura, gave me one before I left and it has turned out to be one of the most valuable pieces of kit on the boat. It makes going up fairly easy, and most important, once at the top, it enables me to stand up and look down on the masthead. You can’t do that with a traditional bosun’s chair. No singlehander should be without one.
There is supposed to be wind south of here for the next few days. Not much wind, but enough to sail. I sure hope so. The passage to Panama from here is about 2,200 miles, and I expect lots of very light or contrary winds. So it may take me another 25 or 30 days to get to Panama.
I’ll write more when I get to sea and things settle down. It will be nice to get away from the noise, the booze and the feeling that I am treading water to the point of exhaustion in roiling waves of over-modulated pleasure.
Talk to you when the sails are up,
David