We left Asunción for another three-day sail, this time to San Jose del Cabo … if they’d have us. All the marinas we checked with were full, so TBD. At minimum, we needed to find a place to take a proper shower, as the hygiene situation was getting pretty dire. Suffice it to say it was a good thing we didn’t have guests on board and the funk was confined to the family.

Chef T had prepped cranberry muffins, potato leek soup, and clam and garlic pizza for the journey. And when the weather window looked good, a huge pod of seemingly hundreds of dolphins assembled to bid us farewell. The seas were infinitely kinder to us on this passage, and our sailing to motoring ratio is improving. (It’s sooooo nice when the engine is off and everything is quiet.) T also hooked the water maker up. The good news: the install worked. The bad: water’s leaking from multiple hoses. We were running low on water, totally out of Topo Chico, and my eight-glass-a-day intake was taking a hit. So, totally inconvenient timing for that little convenience, but that’s a fix for another day. In the meantime, we were hardy and hydrated enough to eke out a few days of minimal H2O intake.

Night one was relatively (and blessedly) uneventful, with the exception of some drama I slept through: Apparently the pin sheared and fell out of the traveler, so the boom was totally free (no bueno). That said, the boom break mitigated what could have been a total disaster (muy beuno), and Captain T was able to get it under control and save the day (night) yet again. 

On day two, we debuted a new cockpit platform T constructed that gives us more lounging space. Divine. We also set out our fishing line for the first time, eagerly awaiting and discussing the preparation of the catch that never came. Day three was no better. Turns out we lost the lure on the virgin run, but no such excuse for the chaser. I’m sure that big catch is right around the corner, and will be all the more delicious for the wait. Finished Jo Nesbo’s The Leopard and Close to Home by Michael Magee. The former was a little disappointing (gratuitously convoluted), and the latter a good debut read from an unknown (to me, at least) young Irish author. Also finally read one of our daughter’s favorites: Instructions for Dancing, a sweet little love story by Nicola Yoon.

When we finally sailed into San Jose del Cabo, we were shocked by the weather change — like 20 degrees — and quickly changed from long johns to tank tops. This was after we recovered from wanting to kill each other upon arrival (combination of three days of less-than-ideal sleep, no slip reservation, hopeful and finally answered marina calls to check availability, confirmation that best marina option had never received our original documentation, scramble to resend said documentation with uncooperative scanner, wait for call back and ultimate thumbs up on slip availability, plus the ever-present anxiety around docking for fuel, blasé attendants necessitating three boat position changes, then final docking in a new marina slip, trying all along to rush but also not rush …) It was … well … a lot. After all that, the office offered us the option to get picked up for check in, but when we gave the thumbs up they informed us that our ride had run out of batteries. Huh? So we walked for what seemed like an eternity (actually 4,000 steps, but still … really? Just to check in and take a shower??) Turns out there’s a shower right next to our boat, so thank the gawds for that positive future note. We stopped for some extra crunchy (solid euphemism for shingle) fish and chips and ice cold Topo Chico when our business was done, and then made the extremely wise decision (cue the self back pat) to get a golf cart (OK, now the battery issue made sense) ride back. Settled in for some solid makeup sleep almost immediately. And with that, day one was successfully in the bag. Six more to look forward to.