Who is the Winner

By 08:30 in the morning both Intle Breeze and Dilly Dally were free of their anchors and waved Isla Mujers goodbye, setting our heading for some place much more remote, we headed to a quiet and secluded  little anchorage in Punta Allen Mexico which was a 100 nautical mile sale further South.

Both vessels struggled a little in the beginning to find a good point of sale as we had a strong current against us, and not much wind, for this reason sailing close to the coast was going to be the best option, as 2,2 knots of current pushing us the wrong way is not great, hopefully staying close to the coast keeps us out of the worst of the current. For the first couple of hours, we were motors on …. motors off and so it went, until we got into the groove.

We put our main sail up with ease and pulled out the genoa for a little more boost and off we cruised.

As evening approached, I asked my usual question to the captain, “are we going to reef our sails before sunset?” He made a small attempt to consider this option for a split second, before saying, “Nah we will be too slow the wind is not going to pick up.”  Why? Well, my guess is two reasons, the first being he likes speed and the second being, when there is more than 1 boat in the water it is officially a regatta (Boat Race) this seems to be a standard norm among sailors …. Men to be specific. Us girls are usually happy to just float along peacefully under the stars……... Ok maybe this is not 100% true……... we do support the race 😂 probably more than we should.

Naturally Dilly Dally was constantly watching our speed and angle and Intle Breeze was watching theirs equally as closely, both boats certainly having their comments about the others sailing choices along the way. 😜

I left my shift at 21:00, due back at midnight, right before my midnight alarm hysterically screams at me, I am woken by screeching winches and a different movement of the boat, YUP right at that moment I knew the Captain was reefing……mmmm this should have been done before sunset, as if there is any issue it really is not safe to go to the top deck and deal with it, especially since this is a very bouncy ride to say the least. I quietly rejoiced in me being right and the captain knew this based on my smug look, well I never needed to say another word and calmly took over my shift.

Our reef looked horrific, but we got great speed all the way through the night despite the mangle on the boom.

We brought our sails down with ease. It is important to mention, this is actually a  BIG WIN for us as we have come a long way in our learning and experience as sailors, we rarely wanted to use the main sail as it was always a big challenge getting it both up and down, for a number of reason, lack of experience being the main one I think, at the actual sail I am useless, due to a very big  hight disadvantage, as Makyla would say I am compact,  I am not able to reach anything, so I have to helm and Eric has to be at the mast. With experience and practice we have improved and with good communication it works like a charm for the most part now days.

 We dropped Rockness (the new name for our Rocna anchor LOL) like pros at 07:45am and proceeded to take our cheesy shooter photo regardless of the time of day this is the tradition, and we stick to it. It certainly tastes better later in the day compared to right after brushing your teeth 🙄

The big question………who made it to the finish line first Intle Breeze or Dilly Dally? mmm I think this will always be a debate. 😂

We had decided with Jens and Arzum to have breakfast together, so everyone just brings something to share, and we feasted on homemade bread, quiche, veggie mixes, among other things with a very delicious Turkish tea which now is certainly my new favourite after rooibos.

We took a walk around this very tiny and remote village, where everyone looked at us rather curiously, it is to be noted that this anchorage is not a very common one, and if sailors do anchor here I don’t think they bother to go to land. So they are not all to use to tourist. As you may have realized by now, we like the places off the beaten track, the less tourist and the more remote the better. This village has basically no infrastructure, not even cell phone signal, not one tared road. Although they do have way too many dogs and  WIFI which feel may be a rather new addition. Strangely they do have some very expensive looking statues for some reason.         

We had 2 more boats join us in our anchorage, that evening SV Happinez and Sunrise, after going to shore In a dinghy race 😂 we joined our new friends on board for a cocktail, fun fact, how do we make friends out here………VERY MODERN….We meet online most of the time, there are many platforms and forums for sailors where you can see where other boats are and have the ability to ask questions to share sailing information, emergencies, checking in procedures etc and just generally ask about whatever you may need, if the conversation continues you would then part with your mobile number and be able to chat on whats app. We have been out here for less than 2 years so I feel this is new as Starlink truly has been a game changer for sailors, as we are able to have constant contact with our loved ones as well as all safety platforms and easy contact with other sailors.