Today Arnold and I gave the waster maker one last try. I had done my best to remove some kinks in the tow line, put some well designed weights at the head of the unit to hold it down, and introduced a swivel attachment at the back rail to ensure that the tow line would not kink up again.
We towed it for over 2 hours at over 6 knots and did not get one drop of water. So on 24 Feb 2010 at 0015 GMT I unshackled the tow line and sent the water maker to the bottom. For anyone interested in salvage it is located at 23N41.954, 112W14.148 in 2944 meters of water.
In the early evening we became plagued with shipping. At one point we had one ship bearing down on us from the north, running just outside of the continental shelf. We could either keep sailing and cross its path with maybe a half mile to spare or we could gybe. We were headed for two relatively shallow spots (about 45 meters) at the edge of the shelf so we gybed. But that put us near the path of a ship coming up from the south, and then there was that well lit up fishing boat just off our starboard bow that kept starting and stopping in unpredictable ways. We were hemmed in and were forced to do a lot of "shucking & Jiving" to maintain reasonable margins of safety. Arnold found this extremely stressful and when we saw our chance we headed SSW, away from the continental shelf and the shipping. Because of this we had a late meal (pancakes done by Arnold) and I didn't get to sleep until 9 PM.
At midnight Arnold woke me and said that the wind had shifted against us and we should gybe. We were headed SW and tangential to our destination so we gybed back and set the course for Cabo San Lucas. Arnold had not seen one ship during this time. He went to bed while I enjoyed a long cup of coffee in the cockpit protected by the spray dodger, savoring the splendor of sailing at night in relatively calm seas with a 3/4 moon in a clear sky illuminating the world.
But that wasn't to last. Soon AIS reported a cargo vessel (named "Great Praise" but more of a "Great Pain" to me) on a course from the north one hour away on a collision course. I rolled in half of the jib and dropped our boat speed from 6.3 kt to 5.4 kt, giving us a predicted clearance of about 1 nautical. But then there appeared another target, the "Graciela" coming up from the south headed for Ensenada with a 1.5 nm clearance. Fortunately appeared that it too would pass ahead of us. Getting caught in this type of crossfire seems to drive Arnold nuts so I was determined to deal with this quietly, which included avoiding using the VHF radio. We had already lost hours in our efforts to avoid the shipping but from the closeness of these ships passing each other it appeared that the shipping lane was very narrow at this point and if we could get through it we'd have a clear run for Cabo San Lucas. I made sure that the AIS alarm was off because these ships would pass within our 2 mile safety zone and I didn't want it to wake Arnold up.
It soon became apparent that I would cross Graciela's path and she would pass to our stern. If I went too fast I would get too close to Great Praise and if I slowed the boat too much I would get too close to Graciela. I measured the gap between two ships later and it was 1.8 miles. This sounds like a big gap but to a sail boat approaching at right angle to the corridor and dealing with the vagaries of the wind it was a small gap indeed. Eventually I found myself 4 miles directly ahead of Graciela, crossing her path at 6 knots. By then Great Praiss was no danger. I hailed Graciela on the VHF and explained my position. He had a look and said that he could see my green navigation light. I asked him to hold his course and I should clear him by about a mile, but being a sail boat I had only limited control. He said that he'd keep an eye on us. I told him that he was a gentleman and bid him good night. Fortunately Arnold did not wake up because if had seen the lights of that ship perfectly lined up on us from 4 miles away he would have freaked out. I let out more jib to get more speed out of the diminishing wind and set the course to skirt the continental shelf. By then it was 4 AM (Nothing like a drama to shorten a watch.) and I rewarded myself with a Corona out of our rapidly diminishing stock. Dawn would be at 5.30 AM and I expected it to be a good one. I would probably see it in listening to my favorite track in my MP3 player: Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4", which to me was written for a guy waiting for dawn after a hard night on watch ("Waiting for the break of day ... Passing lights against the sky ... Giving up I close my eyes ... Staring blindly into space ... Feeling like I ought to Sleep ... Wanting just to stay awake ... Wondering how much I can take ....")
Arnold took over the watch at 6.30 AM. I woke up at 10.30 AM to find us moving close to 7 knots on a beam reach from an 18 knot northerly wind. Arnold had "tweaked" Jeff and we were nicely following the contour of the continental shelf. The boat seemed a little stressed so we went from full Genoa to a no. 2 on the headsail. Ah, that was better: boat was much more comfortable and Arnold reckoned that we had lost only about half a knot in speed.
At noon we were at 22N49, 111W02, 58 miles west of Punta San Cristobal at the very tip of Baha California. Our noon-noon distance had suffered from our evasive actions in the previous 12 hours and was only 105 miles. We would round Cabo San Lucas at night and head for Bahia Frailes 35 miles up the coast where we hoped to anchor and do some R&R, starting with baths (preferably by swimming).
At noon the solar panels were delivering 8 amps with the wind charger contributing an average of 1 amp in the slakening wind. Our house batteries were at 12.4 volts so we were still in good shape.
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1 comment:
Excellent sea traffic control Pachuca! Fancy your sailor being able to drink a large mug of coffee and I still can't drink any!
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