3.45pm / 2045 GMT Hope UK & US friends are enjoying their holiday!
Beautiful gentle sailing with main on preventer and genoa poled out goose-winged with afternoon onshore breeze enhancing what little wind there would be otherwise - so nice to lose the noise of the motor! Took time organising lines for the pole - having not used it for quite some time, uphaul and downhaul were only present on port side so switched them over to starboard. Was easiest to pole out the genoa but I really should get out the asymmetric at some point - been a long time since I used that!
Apparent wind is from W, around 10 kt but we're making around 5 kt ESE so true wind is likely to be about 14kt.
Acapulco is 188ml off still - looks like ETA of Wed around dawn if present speed kept up - daylight arrival always best.
Made a lot of radio contacts on 7163 around 4:30am - spoke to Guam, Kiritimati, Hawaii and Papeete, as well as many on or near US East coast. Later, spoke on 40m to West coast, Arizona and Mexico, with Australian stations also coming in well - one from Norfolk Island. Timing very dependent on time of local sunrise for good propagation and 40m band seems to be very noisy at present, so not always easy to make contact - but fun to try! Many radio friends I've never met face-to-face but have chatted with for a few years now.
I'll wait for wind to die down towards evening before starting the motor again. I'm enjoying the pleasant sail with only slight swell now... it's so relaxing! Time for food...
Lazaro Cardenas 45 n.ml. ENE, Zihuatanejo 80 n.ml. E