Day 20 – Land HO! – 11-10-24

Dale Winson

Nov 10, 2024 • 3 min read

Guadalupe Island, 150 miles off the coast of Baja and abut the size of Catalina.

We finally saw land today after 20 days at sea. As the sun rose this morning we saw Guadalupe Island off in the distance. We spent the entire day sailing past this remote island that is located 150 miles off the coast of Baja. I know, it was just an island, but it was still land and it was a beautiful sight!

We motored most of last night until 4 am when we got enough wind to start sailing. The wind lasted till about 10 am, then it died, so back on went the motor. I don’t think we saw wind over 5 knots the rest of the day. It is like a big lake out here!

Since we have been running the engine so much, we needed to transfer fuel from the jerry cans we have stored on the cabin top into our main fuel tank. It’s a bit of a process using a small 12 volt pump and a siphon hose. It took us about 2 hours to transfer 50 gallons of diesel, but we got it done.

Transfer fuel. Look is using the small 12 volt pump i the orange box.

Using a siphon hose to get the fuel into our tank.

The wind is going to stay light until tomorrow afternoon when it is forecasted to start increasing. It’s supposed to peak at over 20 knots. We are currently sailing the boat towards Ensenada to get closer to shore where the wind should be lighter.

We covered 140 miles yesterday, most of that under power. We have just under 300 miles to go, so we should arrive in Newport late on Tuesday night. We will see what this weather actually brings us...

I was reflecting today on some of the things this voyage has taught me. High on the list is patience. We live in such a fast-paced world, always going places and moving fast. On this passage, we are going to spend over 3 weeks covering 3,000 miles of ocean, averaging about 7.5 miles an hour. A passenger jet does this same route in 6 hours. If your drove a car this distance (yes, on land) you could do it in 5 days if you hustled. So going this slow means you must down shift, hard. I can’t say that I am good at this. I just want to get it done. But you have no choice on a sailboat. You are just going slow. 140 miles a day. Day in. Day out. But you do make progress. And you learn that each day has its own beauty. I don’t think I’ll ever do a passage this long again, but I am so grateful I got to do this one and see every inch of 3,000 miles of seemingly endless ocean. Crazy.

Everyone on board is doing really well. We have become quite the team. I am so thankful that my crew is easy going, eager to learn and to help with whatever needs to be done on the boat. We are excited to be near home, but also sad to be at the end of a great adventure. We have all enjoyed out time together and we will miss it.