Our anchorage for three-and-a-half weeks in San Diego was next to the Coast Guard Academy, one block away from the airport, across the bay from the Navy base and about one mile from downtown. It was a hornet’s nest of activity, a thunderstorm of noise and we figured we’d never see anything like it again.

No doubt about it, this Costa Rican estuary that sucks in and spits out a sea of water twice each day is far different from San Diego Bay in almost every aspect, but it just might be as busy and it certainly is less predictable.

Hours before sunrise the first fishing boats steam past us down river. Between the noise of the engines and the Spanish flying back and forth fast and furious, it’s enough to get us up from our bunk and into the cockpit, where we sip coffee and take in the show. Every one who passes gives us a friendly wave, and when we pull out the camera it nets us enthusiastic thumbs-up, hello-how-are-you two-armed gestures and very big smiles.

Boats aren’t the only thing we could sit and watch all day in the Estero Chicarita and the Rio Ciruelitas that feeds it. The wildlife here is diverse and plentiful. The sky is always full of an assortment of pelicans, frigates, hawks, turkey vultures, terns, spoonbills, herons, and other birds we can’t identify. Lots of wee critters live in the mangroves and somewhere up the river are those elusive crocodiles. Big ones, they tell me.

We’ve never tired of the nonstop activity, but the clock is ticking and we know we need to get our show back on the road. The owner of the catamaran captained by our new friend, Allan, has arrived and invited us to join them at Bahia Ballena – a coastal area to the south -- for a few days. So, we’ll take the boat out there until after New Year’s.

Bruce and Jan

We are celebrating this holiday in a most unusual way here in Costa Rica, but keeping all of you close in our thoughts. The yacht club we’re anchored near is full of friendly locals who have helped both of us with many things, especially our Spanish. Tonight we will join some other cruisers in town for a Chinese dinner (apparently the only restaurant open tonight) and tomorrow we will swim in the club's newly painted and filled pool. That just might cool off some of this 90 degree heat.

Bruce has decided I just might be the source of bad weather, since while I was home in Gig Harbor, WA, the strongest windstorm since 1962 hit the northwest. I'm thinking of changing my name to Hurricane Heine! Hopefully we've seen the end of that business.

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We will be in Costa Rica for several more days or even a week.

Jan and Bruce

After crying, laughing and sharing a lot of memories of my Father with my family – plus an amazing dinner at the Seattle Bahama Breeze -- I left the States on 12/19 and arrived back in Costa Rica on the 20th. Bruce has been busy here helping one of our new cruiser friends, Allan, who helped us when we arrived. The 4-year-old catamaran he runs for his brother-in-law has some serious rigging problems and he's delighted Bruce is able to help him. We will stay here through Christmas and then head to Panama.

Jan

Dear Friends – Our son, Kess, called us Friday, 12/1, to tell us Jan’s Dad died Thursday night, 11/30, back in Seattle. He had taken a fall at home and the neighbor found him unconscious. He died at the hospital with Jan’s brother, Pete, his dearest cousin Ken and his wife, Bev, at his side. We are so thankful that he wasn't alone. Kess got to the hospital a while later.

This feels like another hurricane out here. We are motor-sailing as fast as we can to the northern part of Costa Rica. Bruce will stay with the boat and Jan will take a bus to San Jose and fly home from there. We will determine services later as we can.

Dad had just met his first great grandchild on Thanksgiving. He celebrated it at Pete's house, happily surrounded by his family.

We already feel your love and support and thank you for it. We’re especially thankful again for this satellite phone, so we were able to hear about this so soon.

Love, Bruce & Jan

12.40 north, 92.56 west.

For 27 days Bruce has been saying, "a painless 5, let's have a painless 5," like it's his new mantra. What he means is sailing at 5 knots off the wind without hurting the boat or the crew. I've assured him numerous times it’s nothing more than an oxymoron. Doesn't exist. Just won't happen. No way.

But there we were yesterday, halfway through the Gulf of Tehuantepec, doing not a painless 5, but a joyful 6, an exhilarating 7! The speedo was even hitting 8 and we were running with the wind off our port quarter, scurrying off the short, following seas. We're not greedy, but we certainly feel we deserved a day like that! It's the kind of day that hooks novice sailors for life.

For us, it's a giant “eraser,” slowly removing some of the less-than-pleasant memories from this month. Ahhhhh.

Jan and Bruce

We’re at 13.20 north, 94.20 west.

I was looking at the November calendar hanging in the galley and realized we’ll be at sea all but two of those days. The time before Acapulco has turned to black and white in my memory, and from the moment we motored into the bay it's been full Technicolor. We're not in Kansas anymore.

As bad as it was before the break, conditions since have been great. Good, clear weather and calmer seas. We motored non-stop for the first 60 hours and just last night began to sail with good speed. It’s difficult to start the countdown to Panama again when we felt so close before. I keep reminding myself this is not a leisurely cruise but a delivery, taking us and this boat back to the place we love most ... the Eastern Caribbean. Boy, am I going to celebrate then!

Jan

We’re back on the high seas at 15.25 degrees north, 98.02 degrees west.

We spent 48 hours in Acapulco and jam-packed it with wacky little adventures. Our very rusty Spanish got us through, for the most part. Restaurant menus seem to be our downfall. We had a bite last evening with another cruiser, and he ended up ordering an onion (cooked, of course). Bruce had a bowl of hot, greasy cheese, which he poured onto tortillas. And I (the smartest one) stuck with tacos.

We've got a few weeks out here before we get to Panama, which will give us a chance to practice the language before we get into some serious trouble.

We met two other boats who left San Diego when we did. They each told us they had 8 nights ashore, while we were out dueling a hurricane. One of the boats is owned by a retired guy who’s taking his boat to Belize and building a bed and breakfast observatory in Bolivia. He loves the night-watches so he can look at the light show in the sky.

It's a bit hard to get going again, especially after the beating we took at sea. There’s a new weather system we're watching carefully, because the next hurdle is the Gulf of Tehuantepec, an enormous bay famous for wicked winds that blow from the land. We're hoping for no wind so we can motor past the place at high speed for two days.

It's turtle-town out here. I bet we saw 30 jumbo sea turtles yesterday, and that's just in the tiny path of our boat.

Panama here we come ...

Jan and Bruce

So, we made it through lightning storms, a hurricane and torrential rains. Do we get a break now? NO! The weather has softened a bit, but we’re still getting wind and waves from the east-southeast. We were sure the next day they would be softer still, but no, they were both still turned on full-force, coming from the direction in which we need to go.

We tried going upwind, but we could only point south-southwest, toward Pitcairn Island or something. The waves yesterday were the size of a one-story house and were tight together. Every 20th one would slap us, sending spray every which way. So, at noon we decided to turn north and seek some Mexican shelter until the wind resumes what it’s supposed to do this time of year ... light northerlies.

Today is pretty much the same as yesterday. Very obnoxious motion. We are days away from Acapulco, slowed by this mess we're getting from El Nino … or, as I call it, La Ninja. Our track on the chart looks like a bunch of confused ants moving in all directions. The good news is, we are well and optimistic (although this message might not sound like it). We’re just tired of bad weather!

Jan and Bruce

We wanted to let everyone know we’re fine and in good shape after finding ourselves a little too close to Hurricane Sergio, which became Tropical Storm Sergio. We were 100 miles from the center of the hurricane on Thursday, then 60 miles away as it was downgraded. We had gale-force winds for over 3 days. I was going to repeat what I said last week, that we weren't getting a break out here, but now we feel we got the biggest break of all ... not being run down by the beast!

We only made 90 miles in three days – we’re stuck at the half-way point. The wind has been right on our nose consistently for 5 days now. This boat is a tough vessel, but I think we should change her name from Woodwind (meaning it takes a good wind to make her move) to Gentle Breezes.

Yesterday we had torrential rains all day … from Sergio, of course. We are so looking forward to sailing without healing over, so we can continue to clean up this place.

Jan and Bruce

Today we're at 15 degrees north, 102 degrees west, 150 miles off the coast of Acapulco. Half-way, with 70 hours on the engine.

There’s a “whole lotta nothin’” going on out here for the most part, punctuated now and again by the smallest event, which we turn into excitement. A piece of flotsam (or jetsom?) passing by causes us to run for our binoculars to identify and classify it, as if we’re a couple of garbage-ologists.

We just spotted the first ship we’ve seen in a week – a car-carrier. Right on time, as we pass over the “Balboa to Honolulu” shipping line on the chart. We called them on the VHF radio, just as we had the last ship, but no one was home, I guess. Ships have answered us after a 10-minute pause, apparently after sending a runner to find an English-speaking crewmate.

Calling that ship today was just out of curiosity, but one winter in the Atlantic Ocean, on our way from Bermuda to St. Martin, the call was to request a course alteration to avoid a collision. My call that evening consisted of, “Southwest-bound ship, southwest-bound ship, this is the south-bound vessel, Woodwind, on your starboard bow.” I repeated myself several times, anxiously waiting, until a French-accented voice came back to us with, “Sailing vessel, Woodwind, this is the southwest-bound ship. Do you need assistance?”

I answered, “Sir, we do not need assistance but we would like you to alter course.”

“No problem, madam, we will make the turn to port. Have a good evening.”

Whew!

If this car-carrier, just 12 miles away, had answered us today, we’d have asked for an updated weather report. Just about everything we’ve been getting out here -- winds, sea-state and direction -- is all wrong for this time of year. We’re plotting our course on the same chart we used 11 years ago when we sailed from Costa Rica north to Washington -- a 52-day event. If we’d had these conditions then, we would have made it home before the butter melted.

Everyday the booby birds bring us a diversion. They visit us often out here, showing off their flying finesse as they swoop around the boat, looking for an offering. They are amazingly graceful in the air, but that disappears the instant they pull out those big blue feet and land. Yesterday morning a jet-fighter booby dive-bombed the boat repeatedly before landing on the pilothouse roof, just 2 feet from my head. It stumbled forward, nearly tripping over itself. After a few seconds, it turned and saw me, made a startled squawk and took off. We watched him land in the water just ahead of us, certain it was planning its next attack. But on the way back to our landing craft it took a turn away and landed feet flat out on the water. We couldn’t believe it was standing on the water … and, of course, it wasn’t. It was resting on the back of a large tortoise!

Each time they come to entertain us, I can’t help but think of the “Erin Brockovich” movie line, “They call ’em boobs, Bob.”

The Ibuprofen Error -- Many people have asked us, “What do you do out there all day on that little boat?” Having just left a full-time job and a life that had me racking up too many miles on my car each month, in stark contrast to life on this boat, I totally understand the question.

Each day out here is segmented by either on-watch or off-watch. On-watch means you’re keeping an eye out for ships and trouble … maybe cooking, cleaning, even a bit of reading between lookouts. The person off watch is usually trying to sleep, but when that quota has been met for the day, other odd jobs can fill the time.

Sail changes seem to eat up time, as does maintenance to every little thing on board. Today the radar needed attention because it kept saying “No heading pulse,” which meant it was giving us a peek at the world around us but not necessarily right-side-up. Bruce had to climb the mizzen rigging armed with tools, unbolt the beast and lower it to the deck. He took the radar apart and we stared at it for a while, not knowing what was wrong or how to make it right.

Yesterday we tithed our last peanut butter cup to Neptune in an attempt to change the weather … and it worked! We figured, why not try it on the radar? I took two pieces of rock red candy and passed them ceremoniously around the ailing unit three times (three’s a good number, right?), hoping for a miracle fix. Miracle fixes are famous on Woodwind. We celebrate each one that comes our way.

Bruce bolted the dome back to the bottom tray, hauled it back to the top of the mizzen mast and re-tied the ropes and cords that keep it there. Back down for the test, and ... it worked! Let’s hope we don’t run out of candy.

A few days ago, just after our first duel with bad weather, we ripped the boat apart looking for the jumbo bottle of Ibuprofen we knew was on board. Headaches are frequent out here, brought on by broken sleep and violent motion. Also, in bad weather we forego our caffeine consumption, which can also cause a headache.

During a mega-provisioning trip to Costco in May, Bruce grabbed a double jumbo-pack of Ibuprofen. It seemed an excessive quantity, so I scoffed at him and convinced him to put it back, promising to get a small bottle later. After combing though every conceivable locker, nook, cranny and hole on Woodwind, we came up with only a half-empty mini-bottle, with a total of 15 capsules to last us until Panama. I was doubly disappointed, because I hadn’t followed through on my promise and it took the rest of the day to put the boat back together.

Each day somehow melts into the next. Some slip by quickly … those are generally the tame days. Others -- the ugly weather days -- seem to last a week. Somehow we manage to keep ’em full as the miles move under us, inching ever closer to Panama.

Tomorrow the Spanish lessons begin, which just might be the next headache coming our way!

We haven't had much of a break in the 13 days we've been out here. We did have about 4 days of calm last week, but the past 4 days we've been in a system that seemed as big as this ocean. Clouds of every kind filled the sky, with whipping winds, rain squalls and lightning. We took down all the sails on Saturday and moved 15 miles backward. Twice we had to disconnect our electrical system and ground the boat, so if we were hit by lightning it would jump into the water before cooking our rigging, electronics and us. On Sunday we decided we needed to appease Neptune and threw our last Reese's peanut butter cup into the ocean (I wanted to give him a piece of crummy hard candy, but Bruce thought we should go for the real deal).

The good days are just that ... and today is one of them. We have lots of visitors of the bird variety. Several little feathered friends have hitchhiked with us for a day. The Blue-footed Booby birds are good entertainment, until they try to catch our fishing lure or land on the boat and mess up the place.

We're at 16 degrees north, 105 degrees west with 1500 miles on the log. We're almost due west of Acapulco, 150 miles offshore.

Jan and Bruce

Skid on Squid – We’re starting to see flying fish again. Usually they bust out of the sea and fly away from the boat, sometimes there are 5 and sometimes 500. Some are 3 inches long and some are 13. The speed of the boat seems to scare them up -- the faster the boat, the more flying fish. I used to sail a bit on a trimaran that had a large deck and was, of course, faster than Woodwind. Some mornings after an overnight sailing we’d have a dozen or so flying fish on deck. Seems at night they are just as likely to fly at the boat as away from it.

I recently heard about a lady who got stabbed at sea by a needlefish, sort of a giant flying fish. Dang thing flew right up on the boat and stuck it’s needle nose right between her ribs and punctured a lung. It’s not dangerous enough out here already? I have another friend who always goes below deck when he sails under a bridge, expecting to get brained by chunks of exhaust pipe or cement or whatever. No bridges out here, though.

Two days ago I found 15 to 20 small squid on deck. I stepped on one and went for a skid. More danger! As soon as the sun hits them they dry up, and by the end of the day all that’s left is something that looks like a small peace of inky Saran wrap. Some people eat them … and I’m not talkin’ about calamari from a fine restaurant like Bahama Breeze, I’m talking about a goofy bug-eyed mini-monster from the deep, that’s equivalent to the bugs smashed on your car’s grill after driving cross-country.

We knew some Canadian cruisers who ate everything! Deck squid, sea cucumber, sea urchin. I was happy to go over to their schooner for a beer, but I was not too quick to eat their experimental seafood. I’ll stick with a steamed filet of freshly caught fish … fish with one tail! Throw in some garlic and, bango, that’s good eatin’!

Speaking of eating freshly caught fish, we cooked up the flying fish a few times on the trimaran, but not on Woodwind. By the time she’s going fast enough to scare them onto the boat, there’s usually white water sweeping over the decks and washing them right off again.

Bruce

Special on Bananas Today, Ma’am -- Cruisers take provisioning so seriously they’ve turned it into a science. In any anchorage there is a grapevine oozing stories, tips, and insider information on where to get the best selection and best bargain on food that hopefully won’t have to be hauled too far. On our last stop in the U.S. before heading south we encountered the most frenetic shoppers. Many think they’ll never find American style cheese or peanut butter again, not to mention rice without weevils. They know American beer is a great trading tool in Mexico and a bottle of scotch can be a valuable payoff to unfriendly officials south of the border.

We’re not immune to this overzealous shopping frenzy. During September in San Diego, we rowed around the anchorage swapping discoveries with our new cruiser best friends, who in turn would swing by Woodwind after a foray into town with hot news-flashes about stores we just had to visit. On one of our last days, we boarded the local bus 6 times, visiting 7 stores in an effort to place the last layer of food on a boat already laden with provisions. We probably have enough on board to make the trip to Panama and back numerous times. It might sound like gluttony, but it’s simply insurance and safety.

The last time we made a long passage, from Costa Rica north to Washington State, we topped off our canned and packaged stores with an entire dinghy load of fresh fruit and veggies from the local outdoor market. Bunches of bananas, papaya, oranges, plantain, melon and roots galore kept us in fresh food all the way home. One day on that sail, I went on deck to grab some items for dinner and out flew a moth the size of my head. That food was indeed fresh from the jungle!

We have a dilemma today, though. Almost every fresh item we purchased in San Diego was ready to be eaten yesterday. We questioned buying produce that’s been kept in cold storage for long periods, since we don’t have any chilled storage onboard. It was a risk we took and a risk we’ll eat.

The bananas are the most ripe -- the ones I specifically hunted down in their green and starchy state. In their mushy but not yet rotten condition, we’ve turned them into faux milkshakes and pancake sauce and combined them with peanut butter to fill a sandwich. Dealing with ripe bananas isn’t new for us.

Almost 3 decades ago, when we began sailing together in the Caribbean aboard a 21-ft. engine-less island sloop, we frequented the island of Dominica. Back then, bananas ruled this small country and the Geest Company was king. Every once in a while a Geest ship would encounter a delay. The cases of bananas stacked sky high on shore couldn’t wait for the vessel to arrive, and knowing that a ship full of rotting bananas could bring rodents and insects, the workers would simply launch the cases into the sea. For those of us anchored off the island, we’d have our pick of boxes, as literally hundreds floated by.

But our favorite banana caper happened on the island of St. Barts (long before Gucci and Buffett discovered it.) Back then, island boats would sail into the inner harbor, tie stern to the tiny quay, and the ladies on board would sit onshore under a jumbo umbrella selling their gardens’ best. (St. Barts’ inner harbor is now totally surrounded by cement quays lined with mega-yachts; no island boats there, mon.)

Artist and sailor, Buck Smith, had just arrived from Dominica for the 4th annual St. Barths Sailing Regatta, organized by Lou Lou Magras, owner and proprietor of Lou Lou’s Marine Store. In Dominica, Buck and his wife, Becky, had experienced the floating banana crates and couldn’t take just one. They filled their boat inside and out and sailed to St. Barts as fast as they could, then offered their treasure to the Regatta, so every entrant would leave with a prize ... a case of bananas!

After the 3rd and final day of racing and consumption, Lou Lou stood on a platform outside his store next to the quay where several sailboats were moored. The cases of bananas were neatly stacked behind him. He was in the middle of a ceremony, honoring his many friends with jokes and jibes, when a Bertram-like stinkpot (a vessel with no sails) began noisily backing down toward the crowd, attempting to tie to the one empty spot left at the quay. The skipper and crew of the encroaching vessel seemed totally oblivious to the now riled crowd. Shouts of “Get outta here,” went unnoticed. Apparently, the skipper couldn’t hear the crowd over his engines and just kept coming closer and closer. It looked like trouble was about to erupt when it happened …

One lone banana flew from the stage area and hit the boat’s deck. In seconds, the air turned the most lovely shade of yellow, as a torrent of bananas flew at the Bertram, covering it with a thick layer of gooey smashed fruit. The crew on board tried shielding themselves from the onslaught until, finally, the captain shoved the engines into forward and shot the boat away from the pier and out to the harbor. The crowd, of course, went crazy. The bananas were gone, but the story still lives on.

Jan

So, we’re about to end day 7 at sea since leaving San Diego, with 915 land miles on the log. We're 120 miles due west of Cabo. By day 3 the weather had lumped up and we were running with only our small stays'l. Seas were 10 feet and terribly uncomfortable. By day 5 we wondered if it would ever end. Even Bruce said, "This isn't what I signed on for."

Yesterday the seas began to shrink and within an hour we went from being too cold to too hot. This morning we bucketed down with warm sea water, flying fish are dancing around us and 3 pilot whales gave us a visit. It's all good. I'm happy to have my sea legs again and be back in the galley cooking all the fresh produce that went ripe at the same time. Those canned peas will be lookin' good all too soon.

Jan and Bruce

Whoa. Twentieth day southbound from Seattle and "tings" finally got hot today. We’re beginning to feel clammy laying in the bunk, and after 15 minutes of working on some mindless, neverending boat task. I’m sitting here in a T-shirt and safety harness at 8 p.m. writing about clamminess.

We're at 22 degrees north, about 3/4 of the way down Baja. We will cross the 21st parallel tomorrow, also known as the Tropic of Cancer. That, my friends, is the official tropics. 21 degrees north to 21 degrees south.

For the past 11 years the only real heat on this boat has come from a bag of firewood or a lump of coal. You'd be amazed how fast a 50-lb. sack of wood can go up a 3" stovepipe at 48 degrees north. And 10 minutes after the fire goes out, the boat is cold again.

The 13 years before the recent eleven were Hot, Hot, Hot. Somewhere deep inside I can recall bad feelings about the too-hot heat of those years sailing in the tropics. But it’s pretty deep down right now. I’m not complaining about this new hotness, this sweat dripping off my forehead.

No, for now I’m happy as a clam … a hot, clammy clam … to be back in the tropics.

We're dong 5½ knots on a flatish sea, headed south and east, and it's gonna be hotter tomorrow.

We’re using a towing generator to supplement the power we get from Woodwind’s solar cells. It’s a small propeller on a 5-foot steel shaft, with 50 or 100 feet of line tied to a generator. You tow the propeller behind the boat and as it spins … viola, electricity!

It's a 1980s-vintage gizmo, heavy, noisy and inefficient by modern standards, but it works well, with a few idiosyncrasies.

The biggest problem is stopping the propeller from turning so we can bring it in. One way is to stop the boat, but that’s easier said than done, especially at sea. So, the preferred technique is to send down a cone shaped "something" along the line. Also easier said than done. We've used cut-up buckets, old cut-up road pylons, cut-up pieces of heavy rubber. Some work better than others, but even when you have a good system you still have to devise more, because the “cone chokers” have a way of dropping overboard while you’re fumbling with a wing-nut and hanging off the stern, or popping right off at the propeller end.

Once the “wing-nut skipper” has the charging gizmo working, there’s no listening to the shortwave radio due to electrical interference. Also, there’s no fishing while that spinning prop is chopping up the water behind the boat. So, it's get the batteries all charged up, set the cone choker, pull in the spinning dervish and set a fishing line. Then we hope to catch a small tuna, sierra, dorado, or mackerel before the batteries go down. Easier said than done.

Bruce

During our last weekend in San Diego, we filled part of a day by hopping a bus to the sort of famous (or infamous) Kobey's Swap Meet. One just never knows what sort of must-have items a cruising sailor might find there. The spring clamps, fishing line and fresh peaches all fell into that category. But the electric bullhorn? It was love at first sight for Bruce. "I've always wanted one," he insisted. Unfortunately, the price was right.

Once back on the boat with these great scores, our Canadian cruiser friend, Betty, rowed by. She took one look at our haul, laughed out loud and said what I'd been thinking all day: "Oh no, that looks like trouble to me." So far, the bullhorn’s main use has been calling to the “sea gods” and “goddesses” to please lay off with the big waves. Perhaps they heard, because just now the seas are rolling lower, crashing less frequently and giving my legs a chance to “sea-up.”

Bruce has been tending to most everything so far. Apparently he learned to cook this summer while in San Francisco, so I've given him this gnarly past few days to show me some of his new “tricks." According to him, it's all about the olive oil and how you smash the garlic. Food cooked at sea is simple and usually comes from one pot. Dancing with a swinging stove and using ingredients that literally jump off the counter make this daily job a labor of love. Somehow the extra effort makes the stuff taste better.

For four days we've been dragging a flashy silver lure behind the boat that apparently was warning all fish to KEEP BACK … DANGER! An hour after Bruce replaced it with one of our homemade PVC lures (the most inexpensive, sure-fire fish-getting devices ever invented), dinner arrived. Just as we were beginning to think this ocean was empty, Charlie tuna appears. This will provide Bruce another wonderful opportunity to teach me some new cooking tips, while I quietly ignore him and get back to my book.

Tuna are great looking silver-colored fish. The deep-red meat turns white when cooked and will be tasty after days of vegetarian fare and popcorn. Plus, it gets me out of eating the new sandwich the “Earl of sandwich” just invented!

Jan

The rolling motion continues. I have moved my bunk to the sole (floor or deck) to minimize the thrashing, but even here it feels like a bad carnival ride. It’s the price we pay for making 150 land miles in a day.

To torment myself I think about the “Baha Haha Rally” yachts just now pulling into Turtle Bay. That sleepy little fishing village will come to life with over 500 sailing tourists visiting for three days. Minus us.

I'm also thinking about the 27-foot vessel that came alongside us Monday morning so Bruce could help the new yacht owner with his self-steering vane. Turned out the gear was seized up and non-functional, so these two guys had to hand-steer that little boat 300 miles to Turtle Bay. That lessens my misery, but only a little.

It's 7 a.m. and we're just leaving Guadalupe Island to stern, 140 miles off the Baja Coast. The boat is still rolling like a pig in the mud but we're able to sit outside for a carefully made cup of coffee and relive the stop we once made to this desolate island …

On our last passage south, Bruce wanted to go to Guadalupe Island, perhaps because no one else would or maybe because Harry Pigeon had gone there to sea-test his boat. It's a huge rock in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, we anchored close to the island, under steep hills looming above us. It was pretty desolate, except for a colony of the world’s largest sea lions. After our three-day bashing to get there, I thought I should "run the baby" — meaning our son, Kess, who was 18 months old at the time -- so I rowed him ashore.

We didn't get far, though, before the barking blubber on shore let me know the beach was spoken for. Not wanting to test them, we retreated toward Woodwind. Just then a high-speed Panga boat full of military men approached our mothership … and they weren't smiling. This was our first stop in Mexico and I cold only imagine what rules we had broken. Turned out it was just a case of curiosity. The island's only inhabitants were the Mexican Navy and some thirsty fishermen. They came aboard, checked our papers and wished us well. Our second visitors, the fishermen, wanted to trade "bugs" (lobsters) for American beer. We obliged and they started hauling the largest lobsters I'd ever seen out of their Panga’s bilge.

Holy cow! Who would have thought this trip would start out with rough weather? As we left the anchorage on Tuesday our friend from Chile said, "There's no wind out there." Boy, was he wrong! Just after I sent my first e-mail, the weather picked up and up, until we started reducing sail.

Wednesday we reefed the main (which means we reduced the size of the main sail, which we’ve done only a handful of times) and by that night we were down to using the staysail only. The seas were 10 feet (according to who measures seas) and rolling this crate every which way.

I haven't found my sea legs yet, but I keep putting off using Scopalamine for motion sickness because I'm SURE the weather will improve any moment. Oh, and here's a good one ... when we were at a store provisioning the boat in Washington, Bruce had a combo pack of 1,000 Ibuprofen in his hands. "We don't need that much," I assured him, since we rarely take medication. "I'll pick up a small bottle." Now I don't recall ever doing that, and all we've found on board are 14 precious Advil. And now that we're out here not drinking coffee, getting slammed all over the place and finding only broken bits of sleep, we've got jumbo headaches. Dang.

I awoke just before midnight to see that Bruce, in the galley, had shaved his head. Bald. I thought Mr. Clean had come to trick or treat. But, no, Bruce just wanted to have one less thing to deal with on this trip. I have assured him I will not take part in this ritual. He spent most of his watch looking for a knit cap because his head was so cold.

We motored out of the anchorage in San Diego Bay this morning. As we passed our cruising buddies, we tossed candy onto their decks, yelling, "Trick or treat!" Since most of them aren’t American it might have scared them a little, but they waved us off enthusiastically. They’ll depart soon themselves to sail to the Line Islands, Mexico and the Marquesas.

One last stop to top off the fuel tank and fuel jugs, and to fill every bucket and container we have with fresh water … for laundry and sweet water rinses.

Woodwind feels like someone who stayed too long at the Thanksgiving dinner table. The jaunty movements she normally makes plowing through the sea have been replaced with a slow, sluggish effort. "She full, mon" … and working hard to make some miles.

We were on the cell phone with our son, Kess, as we cleared the last buoy that marks the entrance to San Diego Bay, and were cut off in the middle of the call. No more “bars” on the phone. "Guess this is it, skip."

So, place your bets, friends. It's 3,000 miles to Panama, give or take 500. We've got 13 miles on the log. Tijuana is off our port bow, the Coronado Islands to starboard. It might take 30 days; could take 50. If necessary, we’re prepared to stop in Mexico or Costa Rica, but we're hoping "the big ditch" (Panama Canal) will be our next adventure.

Jan