Turtle Bay to Santa Maria Bay Nov. 19th & 20th 2009

First light is between 5:45am and 6:30am so everyone is up by 5:15am we have 228 nautical miles to go from Turtle Bay to Santa Maria Bay. Not many of us are excited about another overnight, not because of fear, mostly the lack of good sleep and confinement on the boat for that many hours. I must note that NuMoon is running well and just purring along. Although noisy, all her engine temps are consistent. Alexus and I are extremely pleased as NuMoon has never run this many hours continuously. Seas are a little bigger today 5-8 foot swells and the wind is sill out of the north at about 10-15 knots. There are parts of the ride where we have some “quartering” and it makes the boat roll more than our last run. We are running about 2000 rpm to reduce fuel burn. We plan to average 7.5 knots and it looks like we will.

Through out the day we mostly snack and eat simply, peanut butter and toast, cereal, and sandwiches for lunch. With everyone taking on their shift it makes meal planning a challenge, but no one is starving. Tonight is not as dark or as clear. We seem to have a little marine layer and the moon is a small sliver that will be around until 10:45pm. The seas calm down later at night and the hours seem long and boring, which is what we like. Watching the radar for fishing boats, pangas and other fleet members is the only pastime when on watch. Sometime around 2:30am a cruise ship seemed to be moving in close to the fleet. We were only about 10miles from the coast and the fleet that was out 15 miles had to manage around the cruise ship. The communications officer on the ship was extremely unprofessional and claimed that the fleet was under the influence of alcohol, and the cruise ship would not provide a bearing or intention of how they would pass the fleet. I noted the MMSI number, hailing identification, date, time, and the lat. and long. All 43 vessels agreed to file a complaint with Princess Cruises regarding the response from the Sapphire Princess. Other than that, the time passed and we arrived at Santa Maria Bay around 3:30pm and dropped anchor.

It was another panga adventure and another taco night. I think we are all tired of tacos. Lori stayed aboard and had hot dogs, actually a good choice. The panga here will take us in as running to shore is a challenge with the surf are skilled boat handlers and they make their way up the channel were the lagoon runs out into Santa Maria Bay. The panga drivers are local fishermen and they are very skilled and we are able to disembark from the panga off the side on a raised sand bank. Lori was right, tacos again, oh boy! The village is very small and mostly made up of fish camps. After a short period we head back to the pangas and head for the boat. Speaking of fish, we have been trolling and not caught a thing. Lori has been giving me a hard time as I promised we would catch fish. Oh well maybe next leg of the trip. Tomorrow is a short day from Santa Maria Bay to Magdalena Bay and Man of War Cove, only 30 nautical miles, the crew is happy about the shorter run tomorrow.