A DASH SOUTH

Our plan now called for us to travel 2,300 nautical miles to join a group of fellow sailors traveling the coast of Central America as part of the Panama Posse, which would leave Barra de Navidad Mexico at the end of November. With this target in mind, we departed Bamfield BC on a clear September 4th morning with a destination of San Francisco, California. For the next 6 days we stayed 40-60 nautical miles off the Pacific Coast of the United States and on September 9th we pulled into Bodega Bay, California for a quick stop as the tides were not in our favor if we sailed directly to San Francisco bay. After checking off our bucket list item of sailing under the Golden Gate bridge, we started down the California coast and made several interesting stops along the way. Monterey, Morro Bay and the Channel Islands were all wonderful havens with a final stop in San Diego to get ready for the next big hop south. November 12th, we headed to Ensenada to check into Mexico, a quick overnight sail. Our next big hop would be the sail down the Baja to Cabo San Lucas for a quick stop to re-provision, rest and make much needed repairs to our deep freeze. As the clock was ticking down to the start of the Panama Posse Rally we sailed across the entrance of the Sea of Cortez to Mexico’s Golden Coast. Following a fast 3-day passage in heavy seas we had finally arrived in the Tropics! The entire crew including the cats needed to acclimatize to the suddenly hot and humid weather but after spending the coldest summer of our lives in Alaska there were no complaints. The Panama Posse would be our first sailing rally and we were excited to meet other cruisers and gain knowledge on our upcoming 1,800 nautical mile sail through Central America to Panama!

See our Pacific Coast Playlist on YouTube to see anchorages and journeys.