N 24 09 W 110 19 Anchored in La Paz We are working on our preparation for the long passage to Hawaii from here. After years of gunkholing the Caribbean and our trip up the western side of Central America Swan song need to be put into long passage mode. The pictures come off the cabin sides, the crystal gets stowed far below, the book cases in the saloon get emptied, all the "stuff" we usually have near to our fingertips will be stowed and all the fiddles installed. She is beginning to look more like a boat and less like the home she is has been and will be again once we get to Hawaii. Wow what a lot of stuff has accumulated. Lets see; the cockpit chairs/table, flowers and linens are sacked in favor of the liferaft, drogues and their deployment gear, harnesses/tether appear where fru fru used to be....."Oh" says Nancy, "what happened to my beautiful cockpit"? It looks more beautiful to me everyday as the hand-woven rugs are gone replaced with a washable sole that always was there just covered ;-) A working man's cockpit I'd say....don't want that fish blood on all that finery ;-) Another couple of weeks and we'll have the final product ready for sea. Our fuel capacity is up to ~1750 gallons to insure a decent reserve on the ~2800 nm run. We expect to have somewhat bigger following seas crossing at ~N21 degrees as we are well south of the Pacific high. I expect we'll see real world usage of the drogues we have. We have a large Shark, from Florentino, which will work well to keep us aligned with the seas yet still make decent way. It should really help the steering and the comfort level. We also have a 49" Seabrake, from Burke, which should provide a higher level of drag if the conditions require it. Putting the Shark and the Seabrake in tandem will really slow us down and dampen those big following seas. I certainly hope that this isn't necessary. If we do deploy them we hope to be able to video their use. Lots on info re sailboat usage but precious little on trawler usage. While we are here in La Paz we have good internet so we can ask/answer questions. Once we are clear of the coast we'll be reporting once a day on our progress via an Iridium phone. After many years of being a Globalstar customer with about $3500 in satcom gear they will no longer be of use. Between their satellite issues where they do have coverage and our route where they have none our system is "bricked". aka worthless. We will be a crew of two with a possible 3rd if an old buddy shows up. Nancy is not going as her knee is on its last leg...ha ha. She will fly over to have the champagne cold. So that what we've been up to and will continue Swan Song's transformation from cruise mode to passagemaking mode this month. Cheers Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58 Limin in La Paz