We knew we were in for it when we left Ensenada but, damn it, we're on a schedule. We don't want Christine's family showing up in Puerto Vallarta and having to wait several days for us to arrive. So we Ensenada at about 8am on the 9th knowing there was a small craft advisory. We consider Architeuthis to be more of a medium craft. What she lacks in size is made up for in seaworthy-ness. So we motored out past Isla Todos Santos, a famous big wave surf spot (we didn't actually go in sight of the break though), and around Punta Banda before we got some wind. The swell was decent sized (around 5 to 7 feet) but the wind was pretty mild (10 - 15 knots). We couldn't really make the direct southerly course we wanted because we couldn't keep the sails filled with the swell right on our beam so we headed southwest and further offshore (it's good to have sea room if there's gonna be stinky weather anyway).
It got kind of yucky out there. The seas got up around around 10ft or so with lots of confused wind chop and general crappyness and stayed that way for around 2 days. Winds probably reached 25 knots or more. It was an uncomfortable couple of days. It was tough to sleep, tough to eat, tough to just move around on the boat and do anything. On the up side, Architeuthis handled it like a champ. The autopilot was always able to steer the course we set but did eat up a lot of electricity doing it. Our dinghy and surfboards started to get a little loose on deck but we were able to crawl out there and snug them down before they got away. We didn't take any significant whitewater on deck despite the breaking waves around us. The other good news was that we were making over 6 knots almost the whole time.
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