Counting Down

Counting down to the 1st of March, our target date to leave the dock in Puerto Vallarta.

Actual departure date will be weather-dependent – or more specifically, wind dependent. Once we get to the trade winds, we will meet the easy sailing conditions that make the Pacific pacific. The trade winds blow in a steady direction, not too strong and not too light. When sailing east to west, the angle that the trades will hit our sails should make for fast and comfortable sailing conditions, all the way to the Marquesas and beyond. Sailors call it running and reaching, and it’s a good thing!

However … getting from here to the trades is a different story. Sometimes the wind is very light or non-existent here near the coast, which means having to motor or go slow for the first several days. Much better if we can catch some stronger northerlies coming down from the Baja, because that would give us a good push off from Mexico.

To give you an idea, Bill has been watching on our PredictWind, as if we are leaving today to start our Pacific Crossing. PredictWind is a nifty weather service that not only forecasts wind speed and direction between your starting point and destination, but also makes suggestions for the best route to follow, and tells you how long it will take to complete your crossing – all using best available weather models from around the world.

In our case, Bill has been looking at conditions from here to our first landfall in the Marquesas. I’m so surprised how much the duration varies. Could be as short as 17 days, or as long as 23 days! And most of that difference is about the wind when we leave Mexico – the wind that we’ll have, or not have, between here and meeting up with the trade winds. So, it’s entirely possible that we could delay our departure by a few days, if it means we can expect to catch a nice strong northerly on our way out. That could cut our crossing time by as much as 5 days!

The point is, we’re counting down. It’s just a little unclear what day we’re counting down to.

By the way, the map that you can see on this website, showing our position along the way, is part of the PredictWind suite of services. Right now, we are that stationary red dot in Puerto Vallarta.

– Sharon