We're about 71 NM from Mazatlan and we're sailing along on a beam reach in 11Kts of breeze with all the sails up doing just over 5kts.

We should reach Mazatlan just after sunrise. We plan to head to Isla de la Piedra (Stone Island anchorage) just outside old town. Sv Journey left Muertos right before we did -- actually, we left first, came back tightened the stuffing box on the prop shaft and then headed out. They have been about 4 miles ahead of us the whole way. They are also heading to the Stone Island anchorage.

Today we're also experimenting letting the Alpha Marine 3000 autopilot drive the boat instead of the Hydrovane windvane. A bunch of other cruisers have been using their autopilots instead of wind vanes, so I wanted to see how ours does under sail. The autopilot can only steer a compass heading, but the wind is consistent enough right now that its working great. The AMP draw is 9-12amps right now, but the stereo, computer, and NMEA network are also on and the refrigerator (6amps) cycles onoff occasionally as well. With the input from the solar panels we're only actually draining at 4.5Amps. Not too bad. We need more solar for sure...

Just wanted to drop a note to the blog. Dawn wrote a post last night with pics which we'll upload when we reach port.

All is well. Life is good!

Current Location 23°27.60'N 107°40.41'W