Salacia in ancient Roman Mythology

In ancient Roman mythology, Salacia was the female divinity of the sea, worshipped as the goddess of salt water who presided over the depths of the ocean. She was the wife and queen of Neptune, god of the sea and water.

The god Neptune wanted to marry Salacia, but she was in great awe of her distinguished suitor, and with grace and celerity she managed to glide out of his sight, and hid from him in the Atlantic Ocean. The grieving Neptune sent a dolphin to look for her and persuade the fair nymph to come back and share his throne. Salacia agreed to marry Neptune and the King of the Deep was so overjoyed at these good tidings that the dolphin was awarded a place in the heavens, where he now forms a well known constellation Delphinus.

Salacia was the personification of the calm and sunlit aspect of the sea. Derived from Latin sal meaning "salt", the name Salacia denotes the wide, open sea, and is sometimes literally translated to mean sensational.

We have been converting Salacia back to cruising mode and we are taking the opportunity to look around.
We have been working Ron, Ross and Dian pretty hard.
The US contingent of Jeff, Erik, John and Kyle have gone home to San Diego. They did a fantastic job of helping prepare Salacia for the race, ensuring that she performed well during the race and then putting her back to cruising mode for the trip back to Australia.

We had a scare with the tsunami warning and we decided to be cautious and left the marina for the morning for the deep water of the bay off Puerto Vallarta.Fortunately there was only a relatively small swell here at PV, with a lot of whirl pools and visually strong currents and we are told by the marina manager that 4 metres of silt went out to sea with the surge.
We became aware from Naomi and then Cherie at 0530 in the morning, who phoned, sms’d and emailed us until we “got the message”.

We were greeted at the dock by the yacht club with Tequila in gorgeous hand made cups. This definitely set the mood for the party and the wonderful hospitality.




The Mexican Navy Patrol boat was the finishing boat. They welcomed us with a tasting feast of Mexican beer. Corona, Pacifico, Negro, Corn chips and dips. We had the Australian flag and the RQYS ensign flying proudly.




Jeff and John




Stephen is definitely NOT tippling




Jeff and Kyle sure can party




After arriving in Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday morning we partied for the next three days. This culminated in an award dinner on Saturday night. Great food and music with fantastic atmosphere. No more margaritas please.

Our hosts at both the San Diego YC and PV Yacht Club have been fantastic. We thoroughly recommend this area as a cruising destination.

Balmy weather, blue skies, light sea breezes in the afternoon.

We were the only boat to catch a Yellow Fin Tuna and a Yellow Tail Tuna. Kyle pulled out his "Crocodile Dundee knife" and not a drop of blood was spilt on the deck. The sashimi with soy and wasabi was a great hit.

Salacia's Maiden Voyage

It was a record run for the race with several yachts breaking the race records.
1,100 nm in 4.5 days. We certainly gave Salacia a shake down.
Our damage was a blown out reaching spinnaker, one halyard, one spinnaker sheet and two tack lines. We were leading the race until all of this gear failed.
It was great trip with lots of US versus Australian rivalry among the crew.
5 Australian sailors vs 4 US sailors.
The US guys bought their DVDs and fishing lines so we taught them how to sail  Thanks guys. You were all brilliant and made Salacia’s maiden voyage memorable in many ways. Your hospitality and generosity of spirit really made the whole experience of the race something none of us will forget.
Unfortunately the US won the top speed at 22.4 knots but there were many speeds in the low 20’s!!! Pretty exciting for a boat this size with a washer/dryer and 3 airconditioners. We had 30 + knots of wind at the time.
This was when the light racing boats took off and surfed home and our ranking dropped from 1st because we were down to jibs (no spinnakers). Overall we impressed a lot of people with the performance of the J160 with all of the cruising gear on board.