This article was previously written by Rachel Messerschmidt for and published by Vancouver Family Magazine in May 2022.
We are cautious sailors. No matter how long we live on this boat, we’ll never take for granted that this is our home, and that we’re traveling with our kids aboard who are trusting us to keep them safe. I know just how much is at stake here.
So, when we found ourselves trying to get headed back North from Barra de Navidad and up into the Sea of Cortez, we had to round Mexico’s most notorious west coast cape: Cabo Corrientes. Cabo Corrientes translates as Cape of Currents and it is known for a strong northbound current clashing with winds headed south. Wind opposing current is recipe for big waves which can make the inside of your sailboat seem like the inside of a washing machine.
Even though we’d had an easy time getting around Cabo Corrientes on our way south a couple months earlier, we’d heard horror stories of boats getting beaten up pretty badly on their northbound journeys, so we wanted to wait for a really nice weather window to make the jump. We needed a minimum of 18 hours of good weather, meaning no big northerly winds blowing at the cape, in order for us to get from our staging bay up and safely around the cape.
So, we waited. And we waited. And we waited.
There were a couple of small, potential weather windows during our time waiting. We chatted daily with other boats in the anchorage, and we watched twice as others decided to ‘go’ on short windows while we still decided to stay. We’ve come to accept this as normal for us.
It’s said that a cruiser’s biggest enemy is having a schedule. If you have to be somewhere at a certain time, you’re more likely to make routing and passage decisions that you might otherwise not make. Thus, potentially putting yourself or your boat into unfavorable or even dangerous situations.
We were on a bit of a schedule and so we were even more aware of the time ticking by and trying to balance not being overly cautious while still being smart.
Most cruisers that visit Mexico are allowed into the country for 6 months at a time. We were nearing the end of our 6-month visas and so we were trying to get up to Mazatlan in order to fly back to the United States to renew our visas. We’d already booked flights and we were starting to worry about not getting to Mazatlan in time.
Thankfully, a weather window finally developed, and we were ready to go! On a Thursday morning at dawn, we finally motor-sailed out of Bahia Chamela headed north. Our weather window rewarded us for our patience and extended for several days around Cabo Corrientes and even stretched north all the way to Mazatlan for a solid 5-6 days.
We took advantage of it all and traveled north for 5 days straight. For the first 3 days and nights, we traveled from dawn to dusk, only stopping each night to anchor and get some sleep. On our final leg of the journey, there were no good anchorages for a 130-mile stretch of coastline, so we had to handle an overnight passage. That final leg was a straight 30-hours of non-stop travel.
By the end of those 5 days, we were pretty exhausted, but also very glad to have arrived at Mazatlan and feel the sense of accomplishment for having made it to our destination, safe and sound, and with a week to spare.
Rachel Messerschmidt and her family are Clark County natives living and cruising full time aboard their 40-foot sailboat, Mosaic. In the fall and winter of 2021, they traveled down the US West Coast and Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Crossing the Sea of Cortez in December, they continued south down the Mexican mainland coast until February. Rachel shares her family’s adventures on her blog at www.mosaicvoyage.com and on Facebook and Instagram (at)mosaicvoyage. She writes a monthly column in Vancouver Family Magazine.