At Latitude 20°

We’ve come a long way since we left Newport Oregon 4 months ago and headed south into winter.  2170 nautical miles and 24° of latitude to be precise.  We are now at the same latitude as Hawaii.  When we sailed out of Oregon at night, I would wear three layers of clothing under heavy foul weather gear plus two warm hats, boots and gloves.  Now at Latitude 20°, shorts and T-shirts are the uniform of the day & night too.  And best of all the water is full 25° warmer here, now in January than it was when we left Oregon last September.  It feel like we’ve been given a magical reprieve from winter with the added bonus that our “extra” summer time seems to be on super tropical steroids and flavored with margaritas…

Longitude wise we’ve traveled a surprising distance too, a full 19° eastward, advancing us into Mountain Standard Time, roughly the same longitude of Boulder Colorado.  All this distance we’ve traveled is kind of amazing to me.  In many ways it seems further than the miles would indicate, this part of Mexico is so tropical and exotic.  In other ways, traveling as slowly as we do at a mere 6 or 7 nmph it’s hard to believe that we’ve traveled any significant distance at all.   But here we are.  

We plan to enjoy Banderas Bay for a while, entertain a few guest that we are expecting form the states, reconnect with some sailing friends and travel back to the states ourselves.  After all that we are going to leave all this tropical lushness and head up into the Sea of Cortez along the Baja for some more ocean/desert magical sailing.

What does it all mean?  This seems like a good place to reflect upon any meaning that I might gleam from this overall experience.  We’ve covered a lot of miles, had many strong experiences and met lots of wonderful folks.  So we’ll go forward with many of warm memories, some new friends and greater appreciation of our home and community back in Eugene.  As wonderful and delicious as this place is, it’s truly is like Dorthy said: “There’s no place like home.” and that’s the truth!