We were pretty excited to stay in Barra de Potosí for a couple of weeks. We arrived in the morning, ready to relax and visit with family, but evening through a wrench in those plans.

Our masttop light is a combination anchor light/navigation lights from Marine Beam. The anchor light has a daylight sensor which is awesome, and saves a lot of power. Fortunately we could see the boat anchored from where we were staying on land. Unfortunately, while the sunset presented with beautiful colors, our anchor light did not come on.

Back in La Cruz, we sent Charles up the mast because we had problems with this light, It was changing from nav lights to anchor light underway from Isla Isabel, so at anchor we sent Charles up the mast to fix the loose wire. When the swell and wind picked up, we got him down with it functional but provisional, knowing it was likely we would need to spend more time on it in flat water. Unsurprisingly but unfortunately, it stopped working all together in Potosi.

We were hopeful that we had just forgotten to flip the anchor light switch, but expected it could be more complicated. So Charles and his dad kayaked out for a status check. Indeed, the switch was on, so the light was broken. Charles turned on the steaming light as a safety light for overnight, and we decided to move the boat to the marina and Ixtapa to be able to safely go up the mast and get it fixed for good.

Trip Summary – 03/25/2023

Pulled up anchor at Barra de Potosí at 08:35 on 3/25, docked at Marina Ixtapa at 13:25. We started with 70% of our 48-volt bank and ended with 55%.

We had a nice breakfast at the house, took the dingy to the boat, and picked up anchor under motor. Motor. There was basically no wind, we got the mainsail up for good measure and stability. Charles called Marina Ixtapa to get a slip, and we found out that the dredger is working all day, so we needed to arrive between 13:00 and 14:00 or after 18:00 to be able to navigate the channel. We started the day at 70% on our 48 volt bank, which is lower than we normally start. With extremely light wind, it quickly became a game of whether or not we could make it without using so much battery that we wouldn’t be able to navigate inside the marina and still hit the 13:00 and 14:00 timeline.

We got out our motor math calculator and started running calculations about every 15 minutes to see how fast we could go. How long we could go that fast for and what our final battery percentage would be when we got there. Different factors impacted how quickly we are going. Like when we got out of Bahia Potosi we ended up in a slightly different current so we slowed down, then the wind picked up and we got to go a little bit faster. The solar angle got better, and we started getting more power from the solar panels, allowing us to go more quickly. At one point we considered rowing, but we actually started to get some speed around that point from the wind.

We got to see a race start coming out of the anchorage at Zihuatanejo, plenty of turtles, and some tiny tiny fish that swim with us for a really long time. I think for some of it they would have been able to go faster than us but they were enjoying drafting off our speed. We saw Dorado swim by, beautifully turquoise in the water, but fishing was not on our agenda, so we simply admired its presence and wished it well.

In the end, we absolutely nailed the timing, and our power situation was better than we expected. We wanted to arrive with at least 35%, and we ended up arriving at the marina entrance at 12:50 with 57%, right as the dredger stopped working, and were able to scoot right in. Ended on the dock at 13:35 with 55% of our battery remaining. As usual, we ended up using much less power than we calculated for thanks to the wind!