Lunar eclipse tonight

February 20, 2008 Cabo San Lucas

After the solitude of the past week and a half, we were more than a little nervous about coming into Cabo. However, we needed diesel and a calm place for Mark to do a little mechanical work, so we rounded the Cape and prepared for madness... but we never found it. It was about 11 a.m. and the fuel dock was totally quiet, so we filled the tank (at the miraculously low price of $2.54 per gallon!), bought some more lube oil and were out of there in under 20 minutes. Wow. Then we called the Marina for our slip assignment, and headed to G-25. While I went up to register and do a few loads of laundry, Mark started on the projects. Our beautiful old engine has some leaky seals, and running it for about 150 hours over the past two weeks put a fair bit of lube oil in the drain pan, so clean up was in order. Although this marina is ridiculously expensive, it’s got great facilities and it was really nice to clean up a bit. We spent the afternoon cleaning the boat top to bottom, then enjoyed some amazing water pressure at the marina showers. Shortly before sunset, we headed up to the Whale Watcher Bar at the Hotel Finisterra (remember Cinco de Mayo 2001?) for a margarita, and watched the Sea Bird head north to Magdalena Bay. Dinner was delicious, and we were sound asleep by 8 p.m. Not your typical Cabo visitor...

We’re planning to leave around noon, and head north into the Gulf. It sounds like the seas should be calm, and the winds light for the next few days. Our Astronomical Calendar says that there’s supposed to be a total lunar eclipse tonight, so I’m really looking forward to watching it from sea. Check out NASA’s Lunar Eclipse website (in the Links list to the right), for the eclipse times in your part of the world. It’s between sunset and midnight for most of North America, so most of you should be able to see at least a little of it. Plus, it’s the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010... so check it out.

We’re still formulating our plan for the next few days, depending on what we find for sea conditions around the corner, but tonight will be our last overnight passage. I’ll miss the stars, sunrises and solitude, but not the lack of sleep! I've added some photos to our earlier posts, so you might want to go back and look at them again -- especially the Fish On! post.
~ Michelle