After our adventurous trip up the river, it was quite easy to follow our own GPS track in the reverse direction. We had no depth problems whatsoever and we safely reached Boca Chica town in two days where we anchored for the night. The next challenge for the morning would be to go under the powerline.
A little while after we anchored in the evening, Marie got a text from Moisés, the port captain in Pedregal. Apparently, we anchored in the middle of a channel and we should go out and anchor where all the other sailboats are. Well, we did not anchor here by choice really, it was because of the powerline. We told him we will move first thing in the morning, with low tide.
During that night, we experienced the most intense current we have ever anchored in. We stressed our ground tackle pretty hard. Our trusty anchor held fine and we trust it even more at this point. Once it's set, it holds us pretty well.
Trust does not prevent verification though. When the tidal currents changed at night, we were on watch, making sure that the anchor was set again in the new direction. We went back to bed after seeing the tension on the anchor line. We were not dragging.
The morning mission was again nerve racking. Even though we had passed under this powerline once, it was still hard.
After the powerline, we anchored in Boca Chica at the right place where all the other pleasure crafts are and spent some time getting ready to go back out in the ocean. We hoisted the sail to check everything, after lubricating its track. It's been a really long time since we heard it luff around with a light breeze.
We left Boca Chica at around 15:00. We were a bit undecided about where to go. The closest anchorage was Isla Gomez, where we anchored before. But we also wanted to go to Isla Secas and the forecast showed decreasing winds for the next days. When we got out of the bay, we realized that the wind was quite promising to go to Isla Secas. It was about 15 knots and was directly coming from Isla Gomez. We decided to set sail and head towards Isla Secas, 16 nautical miles of beam reaching (instead of 7 nautical miles of beating up that would take us to Isla Gomez).
We usually set the mainsail while the electric autopilot is driving the boat under engine power against the wind. The main halyard is easier to deal with when both of us work together. This time though, our trusty autopilot did not keep the course. It looked like the display unit that had the buttons on it just stopped working. We hoped it was just some loose connections somewhere in the system. Not a problem for today, hand steering in this lovely breeze was something that we both missed.
We arrived right after the sunset, before it was completely dark. The more protected part of Isla Secas required a daylight approach as it is full of rocks and corals. It is not even recommended if the sun is low and behind the hills. So we anchored at the waypoint which is named "after-dark approach". No luck with fishing this time...