Finally time to move on. We were ready this morning when the kids got up, and at eight-thirty, just half an hour behind schedule we were ready to take off. A couple of dock workers were there to throw off our lines and we could be on our way. The engine was warmed up and ready, but just before I put the engine in reverse I turned the wheel to center the rudder. And a good thing I did too, because the wheel wouldn’t turn to the left.

Without a clue as to what might cause that to happen I started from the beginning. The inside wheel turned fine and a quick look at the rudder post showed it was indeed turning, so I ruled out the rudder being jammed. Then on to the innards of the steering assembly. First I checked to make sure the hydraulic fluid was full. It was. Second. Oh, there was no second. Beyond that I really had no clue what else could be done. I stared for a couple of minutes while Ali began making new plans for the day. Somehow I don’t think she was as upset about not leaving as I was.

I stared some more and then for absolutely no particular reason I flicked this weird sort of switch located right next to the hydraulic fluid fill. I had no idea what this thing was, but lo and behold it seemed to be some sort of pressure relief valve. We were back on our way.

Lowe is officially a sailor. I should have gotten him a hat.

Two hours across the bay the computer started acting funny. Within a few minutes the Macbook Pro was dead. The hard drive was actually making a clunking noise. Charts, gone. Website, gone. Pictures, gone. Life…

We actually backed up just a couple weeks ago, so it’s not the end of the world as far as that goes, and who knows, it may still be recoverable. And we weren’t actually without charts. Ali’s Macbook Air had the program loaded on to it as well. I plugged in the GPS, fired up the chart program and watched as a blank base map popped on the screen. No depths, no landmarks, no nothing.

I got out our cruising guide and got the waypoints off of that, entered them into the program, and we sailed on, by the looks of things, ten miles up a mountain.

About this time Ouest got sick. She is a seasick baby. Though we haven’t done much to try and head it off. In the future we’re going to try and be a little more proactive in her care as far as the mal de mer goes.

We lost a bucket overboard trying to fill it to clean things up on deck. Filling buckets of water was much easier on the cat.

We motored on in two knots of wind across the thirty miles or so of Banderas Bay and reached the, apparently, dreaded Cabo Corrientes. It’s supposed to be one of those capes where the wind and seas really kick up because of the shape of the land. We motored right around without any issues other than a crappy two knot current slowing us down.

About two hours from our destination the wind picked up a bit and we were able to motorsail with our pretty new yankee pulling us along.

Eventually we pulled in to Punta Ipala which is listed as one seriously horrible anchorage. Fortunately for us the calm seas made it perfectly tenable. We dropped the anchor and began the long process of cleaning up after a long day on the water. A quick dinner, followed by a bucket bath, and the kids were in bed right on time.

So here we are, a sailing family of four, anchored off some dusty, nowhere, Mexican town with a full moon above us. Life is good, though a bit scary. Ali wasn’t shy about admitting what a challenge this is, and is going to be for the forseeable future. We had perfect weather and following seas today and it was still all we could do to keep on top of everything. We both shudder to think about twenty foot seas and forty knot winds. How in the world will we cope? We’ve really got to avoid anything stupid like that for the next couple of years.

Lowe fell off the couch this morning before we left. We were scrambling to get everything ready, he got left on the couch, and seconds later he had rolled himself over and slid feet first to the floor. Feet, followed by head of course. Donk, right on the forehead. We both felt terrible. Ouest was never dropped and now here is Lowe getting the full second kid syndrome. Ali was still feeling sick to her stomach with guilt hours later.

Okay, so a couple of hours after writing this post I popped open the engine compartment to have a look and make sure everything was good down there. That’s when I noticed the drive shaft was not where it was supposed to be. It has slid backwards about four inches. The reason I noticed this was that there are two divots where the set screws from the coupler sink into the drive shaft to hold the whole thing together. Those divots are now out beyond the coupler.

This is not good at all. Back in Cabo when I had this fixed in the first place I had to dive under the boat and hit the shaft with a big five pound mallet. I don’t have a five pound mallet. I have no idea how I’m going to get that shaft to move forward again. I need to sleep on this one.

I can’t wait to spring this on Ali in the morning.

I really hope the weather holds.