Hopeful Departure

The day began with interesting information from the Amigo Net session. Australians Noel and Jackie on their boat Pyewacket called in stating that they were towing to La Pax a distressed boat named Wind Song that had propeller shaft problems. Apparently they had rounded Cabo San Lucas and came across the boat which had been drifting for over a day. We met Noel and Jackie in San Francisco not long after they purchased their boat in Sausalito. We then saw them again in San Diego and all I knew after that was that they had plans of sailing the boat back to the east coast of Australia soon. Until today I did not know where they were. Anyway, I sent them a message and told them that I hoped to see them in La Paz.

Then it was time to attend to our engine problems. To save wear on my old fingers I have cut 'n pasted a message that I sent to Mark this morning. Persons not interested in details of mechanical problems can skip the following section.

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Hi Mark,

This morning's weather forecast called for generally light winds from the south for the next 2 days. Then we can expect strong NW winds 20-30 kt on Friday and Saturday, with things calming down on Sunday. Arnold and I decided to motor out of this anchorage tomorrow morning if things are calm and take our chances sailing to La Paz, hopefully by motoring all of the way but sailing, even if it means staying out all night. So the task of the morning was to see if we could get the engine started.

The first two tries failed, even when we turned the alternator switch off to reduce the load on the engine. We then ran the starter with the decompression lever up and had another go which looked more promising but still didn't quite make it. Then we had a go with me holding a rag soaked in WD40 over the air inlet pipe. That did not work but I can tell you that there was plenty of air suction up that pipe. (I had to be careful that the rag did not get sucked up the pipe.) We tried one more time, this time with me squirting raw WD40 down along the air inlet pipe so that the vapors would be sucked up by the engine. That did the trick and the engine started OK.

We ran the engine for about an hour watching it and trying different things. The first thing that we noticed was lots of soot on the water, and whenever we gunned the engine heaps of soot would come out along with black smoke. However, when the engine was running steady at 1000 rpm the exhaust was mainly water and steam, with little soot on the water (unless we gunned the engine). We tried a load test to see how the engine would pull against the anchor in reverse. Initially it was dismal: the revs would not climb over about 700 RPM with throttle wide open. However, as time went on and the engine became warmer things got better. After 30 minutes we deliberately shut the engine down and restarted it with no problem. This was very comforting to us because it indicated that if the engine stalled as we are motoring out we have a good chance at restarting it.

We let the engine run for an hour, mainly to make sure that the starter battery bank is charged up for tomorrow's effort. At the end of that hour we performed the load tests and saw that the engine pulled nicely against the anchor with the revs above 1000 and still climbing. I then went forward and asked Arnold to try move the boat forward over the anchor and that was successful, with the revs above 1000 and climbing when I gave the signal to go back to neutral.

At this point I don't think that we have air in the fuel line or a blockage in the air intake, nor probably in the exhaust because the output looked as robust as ever and the engine temperature gauge stayed on or near the low peg; however I am ready to stand corrected on this. But we definitely have an anemic engine with some sort of problem. Could it be injector problem?

Anyway, our plan is to wake up an hour before dawn tomorrow and if the wind is calm we will start the engine and have coffee and prepare ourselves while the engine warms up. If the engine exhibits sufficient pulling power during our load tests it will be Adios Amigo for La Paz. We don't have a lot of choice in the matter, but please let me know if we should minimize engine hours or RPM to avoid engine damage.
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Later in the morning Arnold went off for some snorkeling and I had a beer to celebrate our progress with the engine then lazed out reading a book and napping after a vegemite and cheese sandwich for lunch.

At mid afternoon we went ashore where I visited the tienda. The shop's boat had come in, so to speak. The lady had boxes of fresh produce and other supplies all over the floor. I purchased 2 loaves of Bimbo Bread, 4 bananas, and two really big onions.

Then we headed for the beachside cantina where we ran into a group of about 6 American trail bikers working their way to La Paz. We were introduced to one of the group, Kendall Norman, who has won the Baja 1000, Baja 500, and the San Felipe 250. Motorcycling aficionados will know his name. Chris, the leader of the group, lives in a villa at one of the marinas where he keeps his boat. We followed their example and ordered a meal of fried shrimp and tortillas which we enjoyed very much.

With a good meal and a large beer under our belts we returned to the boat and shipped the Zodiac and ladder onto the foredeck and the Mercury outboard motor to the stern rail to be prepared for an early start if the winds are suitable and the engine cooperates.

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Engine Problem Still With Us

This morning we tried to start the engine hoping that it would start as normal, as it did last thing yesterday afternoon. We were disappointed to experience the same pattern of the engine seeming to start running with a thump thump thump and then gradually die down.

Today at Mark's suggestion I dived under the boat and made sure that the propeller shaft was not fouled with a rope and the propeller turned freely. However, I did find the propeller fouled up with a fuzz of marine growth even though I had the hull cleaned in Ensanada barely a month ago. That growth would certainly have degraded the efficiency of the propeller. I cleaned everything with a green scouring pad.

Mark has taken me a long way with his valuable advice but every remaining possibility that I see involves delving into areas that are beyond my experience and competency. I don't want to fiddle with injector pumps or injectors, and to explore the possibility of a blocked exhaust I would first have to somehow remove two of the four large batteries that block access to the area below the cockpit.

As fate would have it a SE wind has set in. Had it started 2 or 3 days earlier we may have been at Loreto by now. But it did not arrive in time and the engine went on the fritz and just when we need to get back to La Paz we've got the wind on the nose.

Our plan is to sit tight until the north wind returns. If we have to we will sail off the anchor but I'm betting that one way or another I'll coax that engine into life so that we can motor out. A big worry at the La Paz end has been has been removed by a wonderful offer from fellow Aussies (and fellow members of the Fremantle Sailing Club!) Peter and Cheryl Ainsworth of "Stolen Kiss" to tow us up the long La Paz Channel to a safe anchorage. I am confident that it will not come to that but wow, does their offer of help take pressure off my mind!

Assuming that by some miracle the engine problem has not gone away by the time we get to La Paz I see no other option than to engage a professional to diagnose and hopefully fix the problem.

I've been sailing long enough to know that problems like this are part of cruising. In fact, dealing with gear failure is one of the challenges of cruising that can lead to great satisfaction. ("What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.") Having said that, try as I might to be philosophical about this, I must admit that this engine problem has taken the gloss out of our foray into the Sea of Cortez. Arnold is ready to go home and I must admit that I've been thinking that the sooner I get back to Australia the better!

Back to the mundane in Paradise. It was another bright and sunny day with a gentle SE breeze. Arnold and I launched the Zodiac and went ashore with certain objectives in mind. Our starboard water tank was empty because we have been washing dishes in fresh water so we emptied two of our 22 liter reserve containers into the tank and hoped to fill them ashore. We found the water man near the church and soon he came to the desalination plant and filled our containers for only 20 pesos for the two containers. The tienda had no bread ("manana") so I purchased tortillas for only 10 pesos. Then we went to the makeshift cantina and enjoyed two large bottles of ice cold Pacifico cerveza. Work was progressing on the new restaurant behind the cantina and three of the workmen were at a table enjoying cerveza and "toromierda" (That is literally "bullshit" in Spanish, but I'm sure that the Mexicans have a better word for it.) One of the men came to our table and introduced himself and I took delight in telling him that my name is "Roberto". We enjoyed interacting with the three children. I asked the girl if she "vas a la esquela?" She seemed to understand (I'm not sure if "vas" is a word.) and said that she did go to the school. "Que grado?" I wasn't even sure if "grado" was a word but she replied that she was in the third grade. Then we heard her count to 5 in English. What a delight. We coaxed her into counting all the way up to 10 (with some help from us) and at the end we said "Ten, Diez". It was great to communicate with her.

We returned to the boat for lunch and a nap for me. I then did my propeller diving thing while we watched the rest of the procession of boats enter the bay from the south. At mid morning we were the only boat left in the bay. By nightfall there were 6 boats in the bay, with possibly two more approaching in the night.

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Engine Problems

This morning we judged it a good time to head south. The wind was from the north and expected to moderate in the afternoon. (It did nothing of the sort and increased to 18 kt gusting to over 20, but that's another story.)

We got the boat and ourselves ready and when the time came the engine would crank but not start. On the way from La Paz we had been getting instances where the engine would die down at startup even with the throttle wide open. After a second try it would sag then slowly pick up the revolutions and run normally. As I was later to tell Mark Jochems, like a couple of amateurs we proceeded as though nothing had happened hoping that it would all go away. Well it didn't. This morning after four good tries we could not get the engine to start and it looked like fuel starvation.

I slid back the engine cover and looked at the Racor primary fuel filter and was amazed to find about 20mm of water at the bottom of the bowl. I drained this off and we had another go with no success. After thinking things over I flipped the engine decompression lever and asked Arnold to hit the starter for 20 or 30 seconds. The idea was to get the engine to turn over and get the fuel system working without dragging down the starter batteries with cylinder compression. After this exercise we hit the starter again and the engine slowly climbed out of its torpor and went to normal revolutions. I then spent 30 minutes boning up on diesel engines in Nigel Caldar's superb manual. There were several possible causes and several possible measures to take. But which one? I don't know a lot about diesel engines and I wanted to avoid at all costs digging a bigger hole for us. There was only one best course of action. I sent a message to Mark Jochems at Shoreline Marine Diesel in Port Townsend. Mark and his team had done great work on Pachuca's SABB engine and knew it well. While we were awaiting his reply we discovered that although the engine would run to 1600 revs, under load it would basically die. We learned this after weighing anchor and being forced to quickly drop the anchor again 130 meters to the east and in 1 more meter of water. Great! We could recharge our batteries but go nowhere!

Within an hour Mark had responded with suggestions and questions. This started and interaction of three or four messages in which Mark guided me past what was irrelevant and pointed me to what should be investigated. I won't go into the details of that interaction but by the end of the day I think that we had established that the lift pump was working satisfactorily and in checking that out I had in fact bled the system. Along the way I drained samples from the bottom of the main fuel tanks and found a bit of water in each, though Mark assured me that none of this water would have gotten past the Racor primary filter. By nightfall we had the engine where we could start it and it would actually drive the boat against the 18 kt wind with slowly increasing revs, though I would have to throttle back before 1000 revs lest we overrun the anchor.

Our plan is to try to make for Isla del Espiritu Santo if the engine starts and the wind is OK, and sail into an anchorage in Isla de Espiritu Santo if we have to because the engine does not start. That would position us about 20-25 miles from La Paz (depending on which bay we chose) and if we have to we will sail into La Paz with a northerly wind. Arnold is extremely apprehensive about sailing up that long narrow channel to La Paz but I showed him how we could do it under sail with a northerly wind. Having said that, I think that the engine will see us through, but if not we will sail it. I can understand Arnold's apprehension because he is accustomed to the comfort of using the engine for getting in and out of harbors. And along those lines, I must give Arnold great credit for attending with great vigilance to the welfare of this boat. As long as he is on board I know that there is someone who is even more guarded than I am about our situation. I told him that before the 1970's, sail is all that many yachties had, and that the conditions with which we are working aren't that bad. We can do it. We'll have to.

What happens at La Paz? I don't know. Much depends on how the engine behaves and what Mark has to say. I do not mind calling in a diesel mechanic, but I am definitely not prepared to spend weeks waiting for parts. I've got to move on before the hurricane season starts, even if I have to do it with sail only.

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Upturned Zodiac

The day began with an unexpected burst of activity.

Soon after visiting the cockpit to enjoy my second cup of coffee I noticed that the Zodiac was upside down in the water. "We've got problems" I yelled to Arnold. This would mean that the outboard motor would be totally immersed in salt water and the paddles were probably gone. Soon after we began the recovery we were relieved to see that the outboard motor was still fixed to the transom of the Zodiac though inevitably totally immersed in water. We pulled the Zodiac next to the boarding ladder and I stripped down to my underpants and climbed down to try to right the craft. Eventually I got smart enough to let the wind do the work. I lifted the Zodiac's nose off the water from the foredeck by its painter and with some effort got the wind to push the nose of the Zodiac up and over, end for end, flipping it boat right side up. The paddles were indeed gone and Arnold began to grumble under his breath something about "this cursed place".

I had totally immersed in sea water an outboard motor once before, when the tiny pram dinghy that Roland and I were riding to my previous boat Angie at her mooring in Rockingham swamped and flipped over. I took that outboard motor home, immersed it in fresh water for about 2 hours, then left it alone for about three weeks to thoroughly dry out. Afterward that motor showed no adverse effect from its dunking.

But on Pachuca I did not have the luxury of a big vat full of fresh water. I figured that the only option was to try to start the engine immediately. The chances of success were slim: the ignition system was probably flooded and surely the carburetor was full of water. Fortunately we had shut down the fuel system in our usual way and when I looked into the fuel tank I could see no obvious water. I started to crank the motor and boy, was it lumpy at first. I figured that the cylinder head must be full of water, which was not a good sign. Soon the cylinder was clear and I began the usual starting procedures of hard pulls on the cord with plenty of choke and throttle. After several false starts the engine came alive and Arnold was very surprised.

We decided to press our luck and try to recover the paddles. Maybe they had floated and the wind had pushed them to the south end of the bay. Arnold handed down my shorts and T-shirt, one of our two spare paddles, and a pair of old shoes. I told him that if the engine conked out I would paddle cross wind to the beach, search for the paddles, then walk the boat to the north side of the bay and launching it for a downwind run back to Pachuca. I found the first paddle on the beach just past the fishermen's buildings and before the beginning of the rocky outcrop representing the southern arm of the anchorage. I then walked along the rocks along the bottom of the cliff and found the second oar. Zodiacs are French-built and the Frogs had been smart enough to design paddles that float, as I had expected.

I launched the Zodiac and the engine started with the first pull and I had a normal ride back to Pachuca. Arnold told me that once he saw me with the first paddle he had looked ahead and seen the second paddle among the rocks which begs the question of why didn't we think of scanning the shore with the binoculars.

Anyway, time will tell if the Mercury 3.3 HP outboard has suffered any permanent damage. If not then we will have learned another good lesson at a relatively cheap price. From now on we will ship the oars every night. Instead of allowing the Zodiac to hang off the back off a long rope from a side bollard we'll have to try to snuggle it close to the stern on a bridle. This won't be so easy because of the presence of the Monitor wind steering at the stern. We can't have the Zodiac crashing into the back of the unit all night long. But we'll figure something out because we will have to.

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Arnold and I had a discussion about the wind situation. We have had only one good sailing day since leaving La Paz - the day when we made the short crossing from San Francisco Island to this anchorage. Otherwise there has been either no wind or, the majority of the time, northerlies that are frequently strong. We see little to be gained by either staying put here in San Evaristo or working our way north to anchorages such as Timbabiche or Los Gatos or Agua Verde which offer marginal protection from the northerlies. Other boat crews may be contented with hunkering down for 2 days out of 3 waiting for the wind to calm down, just as they may be happy to motor upwind to their destinations; but Arnold and I have other ideas. So have decided that on the next day of calm wind, if it is from the north, we will head south and work our way back to La Paz. Our first stop is likely to be Ensenada el Cardonal on Isla Partide.

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I decided to amuse myself in the afternoon by fixing the navigation station light - a light on a flexible stalk designed for chart work in the dark. With the chart plotter old fashioned paper chart work is no longer required. However, I must have the boat 100% functional in case one day I am forced to fall back to more traditional ways of sailing; in this case poring over a paper chart in a howling gale at night because the chart plotter is on the fritz.

Arnold helped me check out the bulb with the multimeter and it was OK. We then used the instrument to confirm that no power was getting to the light. I then emptied the chart desk to get access to the wiring and soon found that the active wire had broken at a joint due to corrosion. It was a thin wire, probably been there for 20 years, and was not tinned. I found some thin 4-core wire in a sheath - probably Raymarine wiring - and Arnold declared that the wire was thick enough to support the nav light. I split the wires: red and white paired for the active, and black and blue paired for ground. A bit of crimp fitting work and soon the navigation table light was working again. "Soon" is a generous term because the operation took literally hours, requiring the removal of the Trimble and Lowrance GPS's, emptying the chart desk, etc.

Afterwards while we were having our Tequila sundowner Arnold asked if he was correct in thinking that the only thing that was not working on Pachuca was the refrigerator. I knocked on the wooden navigation station desk and said that Yes, that was all that I could think of. He asked if I still planned to have the refrigerator looked at in La Paz and I said yes, particularly if we got back early. From VHF 22 I learned that I can contact a Roger Wise on VHF 22 about the matter.

By 7.30 PM the wind was abating and we were prepared to sail out the following morning if practical.

We did not watch a movie the previous night so we might watch "The Perfect Storm" this night, a somewhat confronting story before setting sail.

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Compass Work and Tequila

The wind started light this morning but by mid day it was blowing at about 15 knots with gusts to 21 and 22.

At about 9 AM I began the work on the compass light switch. The first task was to remove everything from the port quarter berth which turned out to be a relatively easy job with Arnold putting things away as I handed them out. We soon learned that the cockpit anchor winch switch was wired with thick tinned marine grade wire all of the way to the foot switch at the bow. This was the switch that we replaced with one in the cabin several months ago. We cut these cables behind the port settee, tied off the ends of the section that proceeds to the bow, and pulled the aft section back to the main panel at the navigation table. We connected the red wire to the 10-amp "flood light" breaker that services non-existent flood lights. We connected the black wire to the white wire that goes under the cockpit sole and up the binnacle to the compass. Everything went well. We have separated the compass light from the Navman depth sounder and have the switch for the compass light in the cockpit where it belongs, and most of the wiring being tinned marine grade.

Trying to do rational wiring work on an irrational system was challenging. For example, I discovered that the non existent "cockpit light" is wired to the "fans" breaker. The fans are wired through the "cabin light" breakers because whoever installed the fans was too lazy to do a proper job and just piggybacked the fans onto the nearest lights. And of course none of this litany of miserable work has been recorded in the annals of Pachuca, no doubt due to shame. I told Arnold that I'm thinking of drawing up a plan of all of the electrical facilities on Pachuca and engaging a professional in Fremantle as a consultant to guide me in ripping most of the existing wiring out and rewiring it properly on a modern panel. This professional will have to offer me tricks that I don't know: such as, as I have indicated, a modern panel, and proper channeling for the wiring - the kind that we had in the computer industry where you can take the whole side off and gain access to the wires running on several levels. We'll see.

After a celebratory beer I restored the boat to order and we had lunch. Arnold surprised me by having a nap himself. We tasted the water that Arnold had purchased ashore the previous day and it tasted OK to us so we emptied the 15 liters from our containers into the starboard water tank. We then went ashore and eventually wound up in the inner sanctum of the small desalination plant and purchased 20 liters of water for 20 pesos. That's less than ten cents per liter which I consider great value for good pure water. At the tienda we purchased two dozen eggs and a loaf of Bimbo Bread. Then came the disappointment of the day.

Arnold and I quickly got ready and went back out to the rough beach side cantina where the lady had led us to expect other yachties, seafood meals, and beer on this Saturday night. We arrived to see a few locals at the only table not showing any sign of expecting us to come in, probably because there were no spare chairs. The lady we knew was at the back. She eventually came over where Arnold and I were standing around and we asked for two cervezas Pacifico. She said that there was no beer because there had been some sort of party somewhere else the night before and all of the beer was gone. I asked her about comida (food) and she said that she was preparing food for tomorrow's breakfast but there was no food tonight. If we wanted pescado (fish) she suggested a boat that we could approach. This is all well and good, but it was she who had volunteered just a few days previously that Saturday night was the the night when they served food and we could expect a bit of a crowd. We had told her that we would come back on Saturday night. Well, maybe there was a language problem, but it was very disappointing.

The consolation prize was that they could offer bottles of harder stuff so I purchased a bottle of Bacardi Rum and one or El Jimador Tequila. Arnold gave the lady some candy to give to her children, we patted the dogs onelaast time, then we took to the Zodiac where mercifully we did not get seriously wet during the upwind ride back to the boat.

After dark a man visited Pachuca in a Panga offering lobsters at 100 pesos each. They looked small and appeared to be a ripoff to us. We politely declined and we arranged for him to visit with fish the following night. We think that the lady at the makeshift cantina sent him and Arnold and I were not pleased at what we perceived to be an attempt to take advantage of us. I have in the past been generous with my tipping and have been willing to pay more than the asking price if I thought that fairness warranted it, such as when I gave the man 200 pesos for sewing the end of my main halyard when he asked for only 80. But the flip side of that is that my Mediterranean temperament is totally ruthless in reaction to any perception of unfairness.

Last night we watched "The Boat". Tonight we'll probably watch "The Perfect Storm" and will be braced for stronger northerly winds tomorrow, when we expect to be boat bound.

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Compass Work and Snorkeling

There was not a breath of wind this morning. At 4.30 AM the boats were pointing in random directions on their anchors. At 6.30 AM four of the boats closest to us were gone. They had obviously decided to take advantage of the calm wind and seas to motor toward Loreto. At mid morning the boat Dana also left.

Arnold decided to have a go at spear fishing at the rocks on the north side of the bay. I decided to stay on the boat and change one of the two compass lights that had blown. This was a job that I must do before I set off for Costa Rica and I figured that I'd better do it while there was an electrical engineer on board.

Changing the compass light is tricky. In Opua we took the compass into the boat shop to change a light and Bob, a sharp member of the staff, had to telephone the distributor for instructions. I took my time and figured things out without doing any damage but I am a slow worker and it was 4 PM before the job was done.

Arnold returned after two hours and before I took his line I asked him to hand over the fish. There were no fish. He said that the rocks were a fantastic snorkeling site with plenty of bright fish swimming around; but the fish were too small to spear. He rinsed off the salt water, we had lunch, then he took off with our two 10 liter containers in search of water and some sightseeing. By the time he returned with the water my compass light job was finished and the boat was tidy again. I then had a swim in the ocean in my underpants and tee shirt. In the cockpit I had a shampoo and bucket bath and rinsed the underclothes in fresh water and hung them out to dry.

It was going to be a movie night: either "The Perfect Storm" or "The Boat".

Tomorrow I plan to rewire the compass lights so that their switch is the one in the cockpit that used control the anchor winch. At the moment the compass light switch is at the navigation station and it will not be activated unless the "instruments" breaker on the panel is switch on, which also switches on the Navman depth sounder which we want to bring up only if the Raymarine depth sounder fails.

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Forward Planning

A few days ago I took some time to consult "Ocean Passages for the World" to do some forward planning for my return to Australia. I kept running into this problem of clawing my way through prevailing west and south winds hundreds of miles off the Chilean coast in order to make my run for the Horn. "Passages" clearly states that faster passages will be made if a ship of sail proceeds to 600 miles off the coast. I have no doubt that this boat will do this but I have learned to beat to weather because even though it can do 6.5 knots it is hard on the rigging and the cabin gets very damp, making it hard on me. Because of this, because I want to minimize my anchor and port work while sailing solo, and because I feel that I will have done enough touring and will want to return to Australia as quickly and safely as possible, I've done some preliminary planning for sailing non-stop from the Galapagos to Cape Town. This will allow me to utilize the great advantage of being so far west in the Galapagos to make the classical fast and safe approach to the Horn.

The data below outlines my proposal. Cocos and Galapagos would be minor stops where I could expect little provisioning except water, so I would require food for 89 days (plus a safety margin) which should not be a problem, given that Brenda, Arnold, and I ate very well during our 42-day passage between New Zealand to Tahiti, though we managed to get some fish, bread, and fruit during our 11 day stay at Raivavae. I can carry enough water for 90 days but would be confident of capturing rain water along the way. The passage from the Galapagos to Cape Town would take 73 days under the conservative assumption of making only 100 miles per day. Once I am past the Horn I would expect to do much better than that.

The solitude of 73 days at sea? No problem. In fact it is an experience that I would look forward to. And as Arnold has pointed out, I can always stop at the Falklands if the need arises. A visit to the Falklands would present no major deviation from my track to Cape Town, but I would avoid it if possible because from what I've heard it offers a wind-swept anchorage with lots of kelp on the bottom, though I have no doubt that my 50 lb Swarbrick anchor can deal with the kelp. Having said that, things may look much different to me from the other side of the Horn than they do from warm and cozy Mexico.

I have allocated 30 days for the layover at Cape Town. I figure that I would arrive tired and in need of R&R and possibly need of repairs (minor ones, I hope). I would expect Cape Town to offer good and secure marina facilities and I would take my time to explore the area.

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FROM TO DISTANCE NM SAILING DAYS STOPOVER TRAVEL DAYS DEPARTURE DATE ARRIVAL DATE

Costa Rica Cocos 290 4 3 7 09-Nov-01 13-Nov-10
Cocos Galapagos 430 6 3 9 16-Nov-10 22-Nov-10
Galapagos Horn 3600 36 0 36 25-Nov-10 01-Jan-11
Horn Cape Town 3700 37 30 67 01-Jan-11 06-Feb-11
Cape Town Fremantle 4500 45 45 08-Mar-11 22-Apr-11

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Tehuantepec

Yesterday Don Anderson, the weather guru for sailors in this part of the world, had some words to say about the "Tehuantepec".

The Golfo de Tehuantepec is a very narrow part of Central America in southern Mexico near the Guatemalan border. There the land runs east-west and the Tehuantepec is centered on the longitude 94W30. On a small scale map you can spot it easily at the narrowest part of Mexico, right at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, with the Yucatan peninsula hooking to the north at the right. Don described it as the most dangerous coast line between Canada and the Horn and said that the statistics on the number of fishermen lost in this gulf bears him out. The terrain along the Tehuantepec rises to 700 ft, but on either side are mountains rising to 2000 ft. Any northerly winds coming down from the US Gulf Coast gets funneled through this gap giving rise to phenomenal wind speeds along this stretch of coast line while wind speeds on either side of it are normal. It seems like every week there are 1 to 3 days of 65 knot winds blowing through this gap.

The doctrine is to hug the coast (with "one foot on the beach") to avoid the phenomenal waves that build up and have rolled over boats that made the mistake of crossing the Gulf in the middle. But I read in a cruising guide for the Caribbean how one boat hugging the beach with one of these 65 knot winds on the beam was literally sand blasted and the crew was forced to wear snorkeling masks to protect their eyes.

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Visit Ashore

It was windy again today and the fishing Pangas did not go out. Two boats sailed south and one motored north and reported by radio that he was making only 2.5 kt with the engine running at 1800 RPM. Two boats came in from the north.

Arnold and I ventured ashore with the intention to have a good look at the place. We walked along the bay front to the navigation light tower at the southern end of the bay. There we met the crew from a Catalina 38 that is a Sparkman and Stevens design with the identical lines of an S&S 39. They were accompanied by a friend from a neighboring boat who had visited New Zealand and the east coast of Australia in their boat.

We then walked back to the north found the tiny but modern and obviously government funded primary school complete with its solar panels and satellite dish. We then pushed on over the brow of a hill to view the salt harvesting pans just north of the anchorage and look up along the San Jose Channel toward Loreto. I would like to visit Puerto Escondido 50 miles away and Loreto 65 miles away but it all depends on the winds.

On the way back we visited the tienda and purchased rice, instant coffee, and over ripe bananas and tomatoes. We were told that water would be available tomorrow and the price if I heard right is only 30 pesos for 20 liters. Then we pushed on the makeshift cantina where we each had a large bottle of cold Pacifico beer enjoying the splendid views as well as the company of the proprietress, her two young boys, and the two family dogs while we watched her husband and a friend do maintenance on a Panga. The lady told us that Saturday night is the big night there, where they serve sea food and the place is filled with Americans, Canadians, and I presume this Saturday one Australian. Arnold likes this fishing village and he likes the little cantina, so we plan to stay until at least Sunday so that we can whoop it up in town (sort of) on Saturday night.

Last night we watched the fun movie "Mr & Mrs Smith". We'll probably watch another tonight.

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Windy Night and Day

The wind backed to the Northwest last night and gained some strength. At about 10 PM there was a series of 20 kt gusts so I climbed out of the bunk to have a look. I was back down at the navigation station to monitor the numbers when I heard shouting. A Moorings 37 charter boat was slowly dragging anchor and coming down on another boat named "Tatoi" whose crew were shouting and illuminating the dragging boat trying to rouse its crew. I could see the boat moving slowly but steadily down wind. I got out my much brighter spot light and flashed it across their windows. After about ten minutes the man and wife crew woke up and were soon running their engine and weighing their anchor.

Arnold and I had watched this boat arrive in the late afternoon and instead of anchoring on the fringes where there was plenty of room they had decided to drop anchor in a small pocket which very obviously made the skipper of a Scandinavian boat named "Dana" very nervous.

After weighing their anchor they motored around the front of "Dana" and from the sound of chain it appeared that they were planning to drop their anchor directly upwind of Pachuca just about where her anchor lay 38 meters away. It was time to dispense with civility and decorum. "YOU ARE RIGHT OVER MY ANCHOR!" I shouted several times. They then kept moving in a semicircle closer to the shore and dropped their anchor still upwind of Pachuca but clear of my anchor.

This was not good. It was 11 PM and I had a proven anchor dragger just upwind of me in a rising wind. I watched in the moonlight for a while then Arnold had the bright idea of using the radar. He switched on the radar, which was overlayed with the chart on the plotter. Then he reduced the scope of the chart until it did not even show the shoreline. We put the range rings on and the first ring had a diameter of 188 ft, the second 377 ft, and the third one 564 ft. We could clearly see every boat within 1/8 mile of Pachuca and we could tell within 10 feet how close they were to us. The offending boat was 230 ft away and until midnight I watched the radar screen while listening to ABC radio on the short wave set to make sure that the boat got no closer.

Shortly after midnight I set the alarm for 3 AM and went to bed. If fact I was up every 2 hours or so checking the situation, and Arnold did the same thing whenever he woke up. The boat did not drag anchor again and by dawn the wind had veered to the north putting us out of danger. And thanks to Arnold I had a powerful new tool for the future.

I have sympathy for the couple on that boat because I know what it is like to be uncertain about where to drop anchor and have the anchor drag in the middle of the night. But I would have been so worried and embarrassed by such an incident that I would have moved well clear of everyone else, even if it meant deeper water. While our friends were back in their bed snuggled up and snoozing away it was I who had to stay up and watch their boat.

Don Anderson's wind report this morning predicted northerly a wind strengthening to 20-25 knots in the afternoon and going all night, with some relief the following day. We could see that the San Jose Channel was full of white caps and tellingly, none of the fishing Pangas went out. It was a day to stay in and Arnold and I decided not to go ashore. Several boats did leave the anchorage - one of them that Moorings charter boat - but they were all headed south with the wind.

And needless to say, we had made a very wise decision to sail the passage from Isla San Francisco to San Evaristo while the going was good.

By nightfall the wind had calmed to 12 knots. We ate our dinner in the cockpit then made plans for watching a movie in the evening.

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San Evaristo

Over coffee this morning Arnold and I discussed the gentle and favorable southerly wind. I obtained a GRIB file which indicated that we would indeed have southerly winds today and that they would become northerly tomorrow. We decided to take advantage of the fair wind and make for the little fishing village of San Evaristo only 9 miles away, across the San Jose Channel on the Baja peninsula. Once again the engine started with no problem, increasing our confidence that the rewiring of the cockpit starter switch had solved the problem. And the anchor foot switch worked beautifully. But it would, being all clean and dry. Time will tell if I've manage to seal it from the salt water enough to give me at least a few months between "services".

The sail was picture perfect. We motored out of the bay at Isla San Francisco at about 9.30 AM headed west, rolled out the job, and turned the boat downwind once we were sure that we would clear some small islands. The apparent wind was only about 7 knots and we were running almost downwind, but we had a favorable sea and the jib stayed filled most of the time, giving us a speed of about 3.5 knots. With the autopilot doing the steering it was a time to relax and enjoy the changing views, running down the 5-mile wide San Jose Channel with the Baja Peninsula on our left and San Jose Island on our right. We made San Evaristo in the one tack and dropped anchor at 12.15 PM in 5 meters of water, near the center of the bay and not far from the beach and the village.

The cruising guide gives the following description: "San Evaristo is a quiet little fishing village with approximately 20 full time families living there. Pangas come and go throughout the day as fishermen drop off their catch for the local and mainland markets and resupply with ice, fuel and water before heading back to their fishing grounds. Complete with a school, small tienda (store) and desalination plant, San Evaristo is a lovely little community with a dramatic backdrop of the towering Sierra de la Giganta range. The anchorage at San Evaristo is good for nearly all weather with solid holding."

Indeed it is as described in the guide, complete with Pangas (long aluminum boats with big outboards) whizzing in and out doing their thing.

After lunch and a short nap for me we launched the Zodiac hoping to purchase some fish and bread. We found a fisherman in the first open air shed that we came to and he had a selection of about 6 large gutted fresh fish on ice. The one we chose weighed in at 1 kg and he charged us 45 pesos (about $3.60 USD). We then found the tienda which we found well stocked with the basics, including Bimbo Bread and fresh vegetables. However, there was nothing requiring refrigeration because there was no refrigeration. We purchased four bananas and a loaf of bread then headed back to the boat.

I had a 10 minute swim off the boat then rinsed off with fresh water and put on fresh clothes. Arnold and I then resumed our watching of the steady arrival of boats sipping beer in the cool breeze. We had been the 4th boat to arrive. By evening there were 13 boats at anchor, all sail, three of which were catamarans.

I scaled the fish and managed to fillet it without filleting myself and cooked a simple meal of boiled potatoes and fish fried with onions and olive oil.

Our plan was to spend several days in San Evaristo. We were attracted by the safe anchorage, the village, the availability of fresh supplies, and some interesting walks and snorkeling places.

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1st Day at Isla San Francisc

Shortly after dawn I had a look at our surroundings and saw that it was all that we had hoped. The bay was crescent shaped with a nice strip of white sandy beach. There were heghts of several hundred feet at either end of the bay and in front of us was a gap of low terrain. The water was very clear. To the west I could see the Baja Peninsula only 5 miles away. There were 7 boats at the northwestern end of the bay with Pachuca to the southwest 700 meters from the nearest boat.

I told Arnold that I planned to spend the day on the boat doing chores and maintenance. The anchor windlass foot switch had quit working again so I removed it and took it apart. The witch is designed with drains at the bottom to deal with any water that might seep in from above deck. However, I have learned the hard way that the dynamics in Pachuca's anchor well are the reverse of what would be expected: water goes UP the well, not down it. It appears that sailing to windward the anchor well had filled with water again and water had gone up the foot switch drains. When I took the core of the switch apart it was full of a thick green mixture of salt water and corrosion. I cleaned everything and reassembled the switch using silicone sealant to seal those drain holes and the upper part of the switch, being careful not to use too much and cause the switch to stick as it had before. We'll see how this works. If it fails there would be no point in replacing the switch with a new one of the same design.

Then I attended to the six fenders which I had cleaned at Port Townsend but now had a sticky gooey coating on them no doubt from the fuel and oil in marina waters. I used turpentine to break down the coating then cleaned the surface with a mild abrasive. Tomorrow I will clean the amidships sides of the hull which have similar gummy coatings.

We used the sun to dry our wet weather and other clothing as well as Arnold's mattress which had taken some moisture from a the drippy cabin hatch.

At mid afternoon we launched the Zodiac and soon Arnold was on his way to the beach at the southeast end of the bay to try his luck at spear fishing. He saw plenty of targets but they were too small to his liking. I told him that 6 small fish would have made a meal and he promised to bring me one small that I could use as bait.

During the morning 6 of the boats had departed, leaving one small catamaran that moved over to the shallows at our end of the bay. But in mid afternoon new boats began to arrive, including a gigantic sail boat out of London with a 5-spreader rig. Two boats, one from Los Angeles and the other from Tacoma, anchored near us and by 5.30 PM there were 13 boats in the bay, of which 5 were power boats. We had been looking for the Australian boat Stolen Kiss that we thought was headed to Isla San Francisco today but had not sighted her.

It had been a relaxing day for both of us and we were looking forward to a second day here, when I expected to venture ashore and do some hiking and sightseeing.

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At isla San Francisco

Today began with a very pleasant note. I spoke with Greg and Donna Norell of "Magic Carpet" on the HF radio. Brenda and I had met Greg & Donna at the Richmond Yacht Club shortly before they departed for the Sea of Cortez. I managed to miss them when they were under my very nose at the La Paz Marina but there is a chance that we will meet in early April when they will be working their way north and we will be working our way south.

The rest of the day was the reverse of yesterday. Don Anderson the weather guru predicted easing winds today so we set out at 10 AM and pounded the boat and ourselves against a 25 knot wind all day long. If we had not listened to Don at all we would have had a splendid sail yesterday instead of getting beat up today.

Anyway, our target was San Francisco island with a large bay with a white beach and giving good protection from northerly winds, about 24 nm away. Soon after setting off I brought up the double reefed mainsail to give us more drive to windward until the expected wind drop, when I would raise the entire mainsail. This with a no. 2 headsail produced a beautifully balanced boat with just a touch of weather helm. We soon set Jeff up and had him steering the boat with no problem. It was a hard and wet day as we executed 5 tacks trying to claw our way north. The deck was heavily awash and soon the shallow bilge was overflowing due to the heel of the boat.

We had agreed to make it to the bay no matter what time of the night. We expected a half moon and we knew that we could make a safe entry with radar, which turned out to show the outline of the shore and the 6 or 7 anchored boats beautifully. However, at 6 PM we were within 4.5 miles of the bay and we decided that enough was enough so we started the diesel engine and motored into the bay at last light, dropping anchor in 5.5 meters of water at about 7.30 PM.

After we secured the boat I treated myself to a deluxe bucket bath complete with shampoo. I needed it because I was wringing wet with perspiration from all of the exertion while wearing my wet weather gear. It was a good experience: rubadub under the stars with the bay and beach lit up by the half moon.

The cruising guide gives the following description of Isla San Francisco:
"Isla San Francisco is one of the southern Sea of Cortez's most popular anchorages due to its proximity to La Paz and its beautiful crescent shaped bay. Fine, white sand beaches accentuate the crystal blue waters and burnt-red rocky cliffs at Isla San Francisco, which is also part of the National Park system. The picture perfect cove is excellent for hiking, snorkeling, fishing and just lounging on the beach."

We will see if the island lives up to this description tomorrow because we plan to have a "lay day" to rest, dry out the boat and equipment, and lounge around. There are two good snorkeling sites which Arnold is interested in.

Arnold and I agree that so far the Sea of Cortez has been somewhat difficult for us: either no wind or stiff northerlies when we are trying to get to the north. The 600 mile long sea is a corridor along which winds whiz up and down at great speeds. One has to learn how to play the winds according to the season and plan their anchorages carefully according to the expected winds.

And Pachuca hasn't helped. The seas were not That great and yet her decks were awash all the way to the cockpit. I suspect that most cruising boats would have the freeboard and buoyancy to make a passage like today's with a relatively dry deck.. The poor boat is heavily laden and has too much weight in the front I plan to move the 50 lb Swarbrick anchor the the aft section of the boat.

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Ensenada la Gallina Second Day

I had a restful night although I must admit that I was very sensitive to changes in the wind and I was up several times during the night checking the wind and the boat's position. At one time the wind was coming from the south at about 12 kt then it became easterly and at dawn is was from the north at about 15 kt. I am pleased to report that the 45 lb plow anchor must have bedded in because the anchor alarm did not go off and I could see from a record that I had been keeping of our position that the movements of the boat had indeed been within the scope of the anchor. This was a serious concern because dragging only 50 meters would put us in peril from the rocky southern shore of the bay. Arnold had expressed amazement that I had laid out close to 40 m of chain for only 4.5 m of water but we had room for a large scope and Nick back in Western Australia had told me that the chain does no good stowed in the locker and to ... well ... let it all hang out.

We tuned in to Amigo net on HF 8.122 MHz this morning and heard Don Anderson predict north winds of 25 to 30 knots running down the length of the Sea of Cortez starting this afternoon. On that basis Arnold and I decided to stay put at this bay, given that it would provide protection from "northers". Over coffee I mulled things over and decided to deploy the 50 lb Swarbrick "fisherman" anchor. I assembled it and hooked on a 5 meter trip line with a white float, hung it over the starboard roller, fixed the cross piece, and told Arnold that we were ready to drop. At mid morning during a lull in the wind we started the engine (Yep, started with no problem!) and motored just pass the embedded plow anchor and about 30 meters to seaward. I then lowered the Swarbrick and while Arnold backed the boat I carefully laid the 8 meters or so of chain, followed by 25 meters of white rope. Thus I had two anchors out (technically constituting a "mooring") and I knew that I would be able to sleep soundly even if the wind hit 40 knots.

In the afternoon Arnold spotted a huge dark shadow working its way past the boat. It was a dark fish that must have been half the length of Pachuca. It just meandered along peacefully showing no dorsal fin and doing no diving. The only thing that we could think of was Whale Shark because we know that there are plenty around. We saw our friend pass by the other side of the boat later as re worked his way back to where he had come from.

At about this time we were joined in the bay by a small but very modern catamaran flying the Canadian flag.

Then Arnold and I deployed the Zodiac and headed for the end of the bay which was shallow, fringed with mangroves, and full of aquatic birds having a great time diving for fish. We motored to within 100 meters of the shore then paddled in the shallow waters past the collection of different species of birds living in harmony bound by their common goal of feasting on fish. I found the excursion interesting and was pleased at the close look of the bay's shoreline and ecology. However, it was a disappointment from the perspective of spear fishing. The water was shallow, murky, and the only fish that we saw were small ones.

By 6 PM the predicted strong winds had not arrived. Indeed it would have been a pleasant day sailing into a 10-12 knot wind through a calm sea. We decided that if the strong northerly failed to eventuate by the morning we would make one long tack to the Baja Peninsula then tack back and work our way to Isla San Frncisco 24 nm away. This would position us near the beginning of the San Jose Channel between San Jose Island and the Baja peninsula, and the prospects of good snorkeling and spear fishing at San Evaristo and Puerto Los Gatos.

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Departed La Paz

We motored out of La Paz pretty well as planned. We listened to the very entertaining and informative radio sessions at VHF 21 and VHF 22. The weather report was good so we began our final departure preparations at 8.30 AM. I had difficulty raising the Port Captain on VHF 16 in either language so I made a general request to the VHF 22 net for advice. I was told that the Capitania monitors the channel 24x7, that they work only in Spanish (gulp!) and would ask me to go to the working channel VHF 14.

OK, so here goes:

CAPITANIA DE PUERTO, CAPITANIA DE PUERTO (Port Captain, Port Captain)
AQUI VELERO PACHUCA (This is sailboat Pachuca)
QUIERO SALIR DEL PUERTO LA PAZ POR TRES O CUATRO SEMANAS (I want to leave Port La Paz for 3 or 4 weeks)

I got a response this time and he asked me to go to Canal Catorce (Channel 14). On VHF 14 we managed to get through the exchange OK. He wanted to know where we were going. "Las Islas del Norte" I replied. What marina? "No Marina, Fondear en Bahias." How many people? "Dos Personas." He replied that we were Good To Go and wished us a good trip.

Just after 9 AM Arnold hit the "start" button and the engine sprang to life. I winched most of the anchor chain up by hand and finished the job with the electric windlass to try out the foot switch and that worked fine. We then spent more than an hour motoring slowly down the long channel of La Paz, enjoying the sights in that brilliant sunshine. By the time we got clear of the channel we found that the wind which had been blowing at about 10 knots for most of the night died down. We decided to motor to the nearest good and interesting anchorage which was a bay named Ensenada la Gallina on the west side of Espiritu Santo Island, 25 miles from La Paz. The boat moved well through the calm seas and we got a bit of assist much of the way from our headsail.

I started to get really annoyed at the throttle constantly moving back, forcing me to frequently move it forward to maintain the engine revolutions. ("Throttle Creep") I know that there is a proper way to fix this problem but my quickie workaround was to loop the end of an elastic shock cord around the end of the throttle lever and tie the other end to the bottom of the binnacle, with enough forward tension to keep the throttle in place. This worked well - too well, maybe, because this could well be my fix until I return to Australia.

We motored into the bay at 1 PM and crept to the 4 meter mark very slowly because I knew that the bottom rose fast. I turned the boat around and at the 4.5 meter mark dropped the anchor. The water was so clear that I could see when the anchor touched bottom. I asked Arnold go give the boat a touch of reverse then had the pleasure of seeing the chain drop to make a neat line away from the anchor along the bottom.

Arnold and I liked the bay very much. The water was clear enough for us to see fish and one small ray snooping along the bottom. We were enclosed on three sides, protected from the north, east, and south. To the west were two small islands to give some protection. In any event, the Baja peninsula was only 17 miles to the west, limiting somewhat the seas from a strong west wind. I think that I can speak for Arnold when I say that for the first time we felt like we were in the Sea of Cortez that we had traveled all of this way to experience.

But there was no wind to speak of. After sharing a beer with Arnold I put down the boarding ladder and went for my first tropical swim since Hawaii and I must say that it was great. I visited the anchor and found that it had not bedded down but was confident that if the wind came up it would bite. I had 40 meters of chain in 4.5 meters of water and did not expect any trouble. But to be sure to be sure I set the anchor alarm to go off if we exceeded a .04 mile radius.

After lunch Arnold opened a large package of "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures". They are small so I tried three of them. Only in America would somebody think of combining sugary milk chocolate with peanut butter. These miniature belly bombs deliver 220 calories from a serving of 5 of which 110 calories are from fat, and let's not even talk about the carbohydrates and sodium. It must be an acquired taste. After brushing my teeth to get that sickly sweet aftertaste out of my mouth I told Arnold that the rest of that belly cluster bomb was his.

I went for a second swim and did some hull cleaning with a paint scraper. Pachuca is so laden for cruising that her water line is too low, particularly aft. A beard tends to grow on the white paint between the antifouling and the boot topping. Also, I'm not that crazy about "hard" antifouling. Things tend to grow on it too quickly. The "soft" antifouling took me from Australia to Port Townsend with no problems, and this included months in the warm waters of Tahiti and Hawaii. I plan to revert to "soft" or "self ablating" antifouling when I get back to Australia. Anyway, after rinsing myself with fresh water and putting on fresh clothes I stowed the ladder back on top of the upturned Zodiac on the foredeck for a quick getaway at dawn if the wind is blowing.

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Yet One More Night in La Paz

We had the best of intentions of leaving La Paz today but the truth is that we left too many things for our final morning.

We had used much more water than we had estimated largely, no doubt, because we have been washing our dishes with fresh water while at this anchorage. I must have made 5 or 6 trips to the dinghy dock for water. On my last trip for water I saw that the little business that among other things sells permits was open and after discussing with the lady our plans to visit various marine parks she advised that it would be cheaper just purchase annual passes. So I paid 720 pesos for year long passes to all reserves in Mexico. The alternative would have been to anchor at a marine park and wait for the ranger to come around where we would pay 40 pesos each for the night.

But the catch was that I would have to return in two hours to pick up the passes, which meant 2 PM. By the time I returned to the boat it was 2.45 PM and we then spent the next hour lifting the outboard motor onto its bracket at the stern, shipping the Zodiac to the foredeck and lashing it down with the boarding ladder on top.

I could not see much to be gained in motoring out this late in the day and dropping anchor 5 or 10 miles away when we could enjoy the rest of afternoon on the boat here at La Paz and motor out early in the morning. Arnold agreed to go along with this.

It was a hot day today - the hottest day for me since that heat wave in Port Townsend last year. A day ago the weather changed abruptly and we now have clear blue sunny skies and some real heat in the middle of the day. Arnold and I are looking forward to swimming and snorkeling during the next few weeks.

Incidentally, this blog update was made through Sailmail using the internet rather than the HF radio. That wireless dongle that I purchased from Telcel works pretty well - as long as I am within range of a cell phone tower.

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3G Wireless Link

The new 3G wireless dongle seems to be working OK. I am sending this entry from the comfort of Pachuca anchored offshore.

Even though it is "3G" equipment this service puts restrictions of my data. I get throttled down to 128 Kbps if I exceed:

100 MB a day
1 GB a week
1.5 GB in 15 days
3 GB in 30 days

Of course this can all be lifted if I pay more pesos, but I am happy enough with access to email and modest web work from my boat - as long as I am within range of a Telcel tower.

Video of Los Muertos to La Paz

This is my second attempt at publishing a short video that I took during our sail from Bahia de Los Muertos to La Paz.

Dongled Up

Today I made a trip - two actually - to Telcel to get one of those laptop plugin dongles for wireless internet using the mobile telephone network. I found the Telcel building and patiently worked my way to the correct counter to learn something that Rod had not mentioned: I must present my passport. OK. No problems. This was just another character-building Zen experience of a tourist in a foreign country with no transport and a tenuous link to the language. I patiently walked the 6 or so kilometers back to the marina, took the Zodiac to the boat, got my passport, then went back. The price was a bit higher than Rod had said - about 900 pesos - but that still came out to less than $80 USD for the dongle and one month's service. There was good news and bad news. The bad news is that the dongle will not work in Costa Rica, though it does work in some other countries. The good news is that it will not be bound to one computer. We'll be able to plug it in to any of the 3 computers on board. I'll try it out from my boat tonight. (I am sending blog from the pub over a well-earned beer.)

Today is a stunning warm, sunny, clear day with no wind. From Pachuca I was able to see a school of fish swimming by in the clear water. The weather forecast is excellent for the next 5 days or so: light winds from the north for a few days with the prospect of southerly winds after that which would help us sail to the north. On that basis Arnold and I plan to leave La Paz tomorrow (Thursday 18 March). With luck one or two of the anchorages will put me within range of my new wireless internet tool.

Visit by Rod

Rod paid us a visit this morning from his Catalina for a chat and exchange of information. Arnold and I learned as much from him as he did from us.

He demonstrated his 3G dongle and indeed it provided internet service on Pachuca. The cost is about 700 pesos, which includes the first month of use, and no contract. Unfortunately Arnold and I plan to sail out either tomorrow or the day after, so purchasing one would not be cost effective as they say, given that we cannot be sure of access to telephone towers during our planned 3 week foray into the Gulf of Cortez.

The photo is of Rod in front of his laptop with one hand on his dongle.

Video of Motoring into La Paz

Pachuca Provisioned

The forecast was for 15-20 kt winds from the north today. However, after starting strong the wind abated and we decided to take a chance and go ashore to do our food shopping. The worst that could happen was that we would get drenched on the way back to Pachuca.

We stopped by Lopez Marine on the way to a large store called "CCC" where I picked up more outboard motor oil and a spare spark plug. We then walked another 6 or 7 blocks to find that CCC was a large, modern, and very popular department store that had a complete line of grocery items as well as clothes, appliances, etc. Arnold and I had forgotten to bring the trolley but that was just as well. We spent about 1600 pesos (130 USD) and we would have had trouble getting the cargo back to the marina with the trolley. We took a cab which cost us 60 pesos or about $5 USD and it was worth every cent.

By then the wind was up and I volunteered to take the cargo to the boat while Arnold waited. Fortunately I had brought my Gortex coat because the ride to the boat was very wet indeed. I tried to set the boat speed to match the phase of the oncoming waves but once in a while I would hit one the wrong way and a sheet of water hit me in the face. The wind speed was only about 18 or 19 knots but this is such a long and shallow bay that the currents run fast and can interact harshly with the wind. Because of those strong in-and-out currents boats can hang at all sorts of strange angles to the wind, known locally as the "La Paz Waltz". Transferring the groceries to Pachuca was challenging, with Pachuca bucking like a bronco and the Zodiac having its own ideas about how to move. I returned wearing my wet weather jacket over my Gortex and that is what Arnold wore on the trip back.

After a bucket bath, change to dry clothes, lunch and a nap I decided to resolve the issue of the head phones for the HF radio. With my old Kenwood HF (which is stored in my port quarter berth as an emergency backup) as soon as you plugged in the head phone jack the external speakers would go dead: sound came out through the speakers or head phones but not both. But the Kenwood very sensibly had its headphone jack input at the front. The new ICOM has it input jack at the back which is so difficult to get to that it would be impractical to plug and unplug the headphone at will. The only hope was that the ICOM would allow sound simultaneously through the external speakers and the headphone WITH the "mute" button suppressing the external speakers but not affecting the head phones. Fortunately that is exactly how it worked. (Thank You ICOM!). So now I have the head phones permanently jacked into the back of the ICOM. I took pains to route the head phone cable in a sensible manner, which required drilling another hole inside the electrical cabinet. But the result is good. Any time that anybody wants to hear the HF radio without disturbing others they can put on the head phones and hit the external speaker "mute" button.

On the way back from Lopez Marine we ran into the fellow Aussie Rod, who has recently purchased his Catalina "Oceanic Spirit" to sail back to Australia. His friends Les and Ann had flown back to Australia via a stay in the USA and he was not expecting his replacement crew from Australia until early May. Rod plans visit Pachuca tomorrow with his 3G dongle (a stick that you shove into a USB port of a laptop) so that we can show him Pachuca, in particular its electronic setup, discuss our experiences in long distance sailing, and use his dongle to connect to the internet and show him how to access Yotreps and other Web sites. If Rod's dongle performs OK from Pachuca I'll see about getting one, as long as the price is as low (about 700 pesos with the first month of service included) as Rod says.

By nightfall the wind had abated to 11 knots and we were hoping to venture ashore the following afternoon after Rod's visit to have our laundry done, maybe get that dongle, and have a good lunch in town. After that Pachuca would be ready for sailing pending good winds.

Before we leave we must hail the Capitania on VHF 16 informing them that we are departing La Paz Harbor for several weeks. I will not be arrogant and assume that they will speak English, which means that I will have to pre load my brain with the sort of phrases that I will need to get my message across, which is simply that sail boat Pachuca is leaving La Paz to sail north and expects to return in 3 weeks.

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Pachuca Fueled Up

This is Sunday in La Paz and Arnold and I expected to have a quiet day with an internet session and not other plans.

Our 90 minutes at the internet cafe was a study in frustration. The only good thing that came out of it was advice from one of the customers to go to the Italian restaurant and bar across the road from the Marina because the wireless there was free and fairly good. She recommended the food too.

I decided to take advantage of the very calm wind conditions to fuel up the boat. After putting in 40 ml of diesel additive (to inhibit fungal growth and somehow deal with water) I emptied the two 10 liter containers of diesel into the main tanks using for the first time the Baja Filter. That filter worked very well and allowed the fuel to pass through the three filters surprisingly fast. I then put the empty containers in the Zodiac along with the hand trolley and headed for shore and the short walk to the fuel station. The attendant filled the containers past the "full" mark to the very top and the pump claimed that 12 liters had gone into each container, costing 205 pesos. I returned to the boat and emptied those two containers into the main tank. I then returned to the gas station with the two containers and the smaller 4 liter container of outboard motor fuel which was empty except for 80 ml of outboard motor oil. This time it cost 240 pesos. Another 10 liters of this lot of diesel and Pachuca's diesel tanks were full to the brim, leaving about 24 liters in reserve. The Baja filter wound up with a bit of scum and a few bits & pieces on the top filter which I cleaned off The second, finer filter was clean. I didn't bother to check the third, ultra fine filter. Pachuca had average just under 2.3 liters of fuel per hour. However, many of those hours had been hard ones of 1400 rpm instead of the usual 1000 rpm. This suggests 60 hours of motoring for a range of about 300 miles.

By then it was mid afternoon and we went ashore for a visit to the Italian restaurant and bar. Their internet turned out to be very reliable, though not particularly fast. Over two beers I managed to upload a long video to the blog then I took the laptop into the restaurant where I uploaded a second video while we enjoyed sirloin steak dinners. At the end of this two-hour effort I confirmed that the second video had made it to the blog but it looked like the first one had not made it, even though everything seemed to have progressed normally. I agreed with Arnold's suggestion that my future videos will be much shorter to make the upload process easier.

After Skype calls to Australia and a friend in Port Townsend Arnold and I headed back to the boat at last light, satisfied that the refueling task had been taken off the list. A bit of re provisioning and a trip to Lopez marine for a spare spark plug and outboard motor oil, and Pachuca would be ready for sea again.

(Incidentally, we are eating pretty good sliced whole wheat bread with the interesting brand name "Bimbo". But instead of a dumb blonde there is a cute white teddy bear wearing a chef's hat.)

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Video of anchorage on way to La Paz

Solenoid and Visit

Arnold and I had a very successful day with the rewiring of the starter switch.

We were surprised and delighted to learn that the "battery" cable to the solenoid does not come directly from the starter bank of batteries but first passes through the master switch. This solved our "consistency" problem of how to power the starter switch from the "stater" bank of batteries under the control of the "starter bank" master switch.

Our plan immediately became simple: run a wire from the heavy gauge battery connection on the solenoid back to the switch and from the switch run a wire back to the smaller post on the solenoid where the activation takes place. We took great care to make the wiring as resistance free as possible. Arnold used his soldering skills to make make a good and very direct connection between the new 12 gauge marine grade wires and the switch wires. At the engine end I put on "yellow" size crimp on connectors which Arnold finished off with solder. I took pains to sand paper the posts on the solenoids and the nut and washer fasteners.

Another thing, and this may be important. A knurled nut is used to hold the push button switch in place. Arnold discovered that there was a second nut inside the flexible rubber covering. It appears that that second hidden internal nut would have inhibited full depression of the starter button, which could have been the source of our problem. I reassembled the starter switch with only the one nut and the action of the switch was ... well ... in the class of "I never knew it could be like this!"

We fixed in the new wiring and tried the starter and it worked with no problem. We read 10.7 volts going into the solenoid while the starter was turning, which was not quite the 11 volts that Mark would have been happy with, but was according to Arnold significantly better that the 9V+ that we had been getting before. The "battery" cable voltage at the solenoid read 12.6V static but we didn't think of checking it when the starter was turning. Arnold thinks that there may be a voltage drop associated with routing of the cable from the battery to the master switch to the solenoid.

Anyway, Arnold and I had worked slowly, patiently, and methodically and we were confident that we had done as good a job with the rewiring of that starter switch as possible. Time will tell if that work solves our solves our starter problems, but we are confident.

At 3.15 PM Arnold and I went ashore for showers and to purchase some wine in preparation for a visit to Peter and Cheryl Ainsworth aboard their S%S designed Hylas "Stolen Kiss". Peter and Cheryl are old hands at the Western Australia sailing scene and are long time members of the Fremantle Sailing Club. They knew Pachuca and one of her previous owners, Gavin Abbott, very well. Fortunately for us Peter and Cheryl anchored their boat only a few hundred meters upwind from us so the Zodiac ride to their boat, though choppy and a bit wet, was mercifully short. We arrived at their boat at 5 PM and had a wonderful two hours discussing a wide range of issues over nibblies, beer, and wine.

Thanks to Peter and Cheryl I KNOW WHAT THE NAME OF THIS BOAT "PACHUCA" MEANS. Gavin Abbott, the owner of Pachuca previous to the partnership of 3 who owned her for 6 years and from whom I purchased her, was a mining engineer. In mining, a "pachuca" is some sort of blower-equipped device that is used to separate dust and other material in the processing of gold ore. Brenda and I had been aware that a "pachuca" was used in the processing of gold, but now we know for sure that this is what the name of this boat actually means.

It is fortuitous that the name "Pachuca" is very favorably received in the Mexican world, being both a city in Hidalgo province and a female member of the "zoot suit Spanish American subculture of decades ago. But if I am asked by my Mexican amigos I will have to be honest about the real meaning of the name.

Peter and Cheryl plan to set off in a few days to explore the Sea of Cortez to the north which is precisely what Arnold and I plan to do. We hope to see them again before either of us depart, and we hope to see them during our journey to the north. But regardless, we'll have each other's blog addresses and I am looking forward to seeing them in Fremantle in April 2011.

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Internet from La Paz

Arnold and I went ashore with our laptops in hand. Fortunately my little acer fits nicely in a zip lock bag which then goes into the computer carrying case which then goes into a big garbage bag which then goes into a splash resistant laundry bag. This is the sort of care I must take to protect that vital piece of equipment from the dangers of salt water when I take it on the Zodiac. Arnold took similar measures with his laptop.
The first order of business before visiting the internet cafe was to drop by Lopez Marine for that marine wire for our starter button. I purchased 12 meters of 10 gauge marine grade cable, coated red.

We then visited the internet cafe which was very modern and comfortable. Unfortunately the internet service was up and down like a yo-yo. One of the staff rebooted the router twice but Arnold and I could see that the problem lay beyond the internet cafe. A local patron later told us that for the last week there had been problems associated with a damaged fiber optic cable.

Nevertheless I was able go get through my email and publish a few photos on the blog. I tried uploading a video but after watching the upload creep along for close to 45 minutes the upload abruptly stopped and it was all for nothing. Arnold then left and I went upstairs to call Brenda in Australia via Skype. We had a very good conversation with camera images and all for about 20 minutes and ... then ... the cafe lost electric power and everything dropped dead. I packed up and as I walked along the street I could see that the entire building had lost power.

Arnold and I had our usual afternoon lunch at the marina cafe. I ordered fillet of fish with garlic, the waiter asked for the dish number, I scanned across to the beginning of the line and said "99" which was off by one line so I had my first octopus in memory.

We returned to the boat at about 4 PM to relax and have a good night's sleep in preparation for the switch rewiring job the following day. Our plan had been to take the power for the push button starter switch from the bus bar behind the breaker panel. However, I later realized that this would violate the principle that all engine starting power emanates from the "starter" battery bank. If we proceeded as planned the starter switch would rely on the "house" bank and the rest of the starting system would rely on the "starter" bank. That would work fine but could lead to problems and confusion in the future. Our plan was altered to trace all of the relevant wiring, draw a schematic, and try to power the switch from the "starter" bank.

Arnold made a reservation with Alaska Airlines to fly from La Paz directly to Seattle on April 12. So we will return to La Paz on the 10th or earlier to make sure that Arnold catches that flight. As I have outlined already I will then stay in La Paz for a few more days re provisioning and preparing the boat then will make my exit from Mexico and head for Costa Rica.

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Photos from La Paz

- Filling up the water jugs at the dinghey dock. The three dark blue ones hold 6 gallons (22 liters) and provide the emergency reserve. The two light blue ones hold 10 liters and are used for bathing, general cleaning, and also for collecting rain water.

- The photo of the channel approach to the anchorage shows how serious the markers must be regarded. The ship in the background is way out to sea.

- Pachuca at anchor (second boat from left), with her mainsail yet to be zipped up.

- The beach front of La Paz. This long walk has been very well done and is a feature of La Paz.

Anchorage at La Paz

The accompanying photo of the chart plotter screen shows where Pachuca is anchored. The cross hairs are over the dinghy dock at the marina and the data at the top shows the distance from Pacuca to the dinghey dock to be 0.220 nautical miles.

Note the track of Pachuca as we motored from the top right. The long narrow bay between El Mogote and La Paz shallow, so the long channel to La Paz has been dredged.

Cruising Plans

This is the latest version of my cruising plans.

Arnold plans to depart the boat about mid-April. It is highly likely that he will fly out of La Paz. I will probably remain in La Paz for another week provisioning and preparing the boat and depart in the last week of April.

Brenda and I have agreed that she will meet the boat in Costa Rica. This will avoid the problem of my having to arrive in Puerto Vallarta or Acapulco on a tight schedule to meet an airplane. It will also allow me to clear the hurricane belt quickly because I should be out of the area by mid-May. (A big worry is that this is an El Nino year and they are expecting more hurricane activity.) Also, this spares Brenda the ... hmm ... challenge of crossing the notorious Golfo de Tehuantepec with its ferocious waves and huge seas.

Then the question is how am I going to get from La Paz to Costa Rica.

The orthodox way is to work one's way down the Mexican coast to the northern end of the Tehuantepec. There is a port where cruisers wait until they get the "go" signal from the port capitania which signifies a few days of calmer winds. At this point the cruisers sail as fast as they can staying a mile or 2 off the coast and get to the south side as soon as possible.

But here I'm afraid that I am reverting to type. Sailing alone I do not want to deal with the hassles of sailing close to the coast and dealing with associated dangers such as reefs, lee shores, fishing boats, crab pots, etc. I can see myself dead tired and afraid to heave to because of my proximity to shore or perhaps a frantic race to avoid the winds of Tehuantepec. I also want to avoid the time and hassle of going in and out of anchorages.

So at this point my plan is to formally exit Mexico at La Paz and heading S or SSW, putting more distance between myself and the coast, which falls away to the SE, with each passing day. I'd like to clear the coast of Golfo de Tehuantepec by about 300 miles, hoping that the winds that are funneled through that gap have largely dissipated that far at sea. Once I am past these hazards I will approach Costa Rica from the NW.

The fact is that given that Pachuca has proven herself to be a very good and strong sea boat I feel safer far out at sea than near land. Out there I can rest when becalmed or under sail, and I can always heave to the way sailors have done for hundreds of years.

In summary, I plan to depart La Paz Mexico in late April and sail for Costa Rica in a big loop of about 2500 miles. This will be a major crossing and I would hope to make it within 30 days.

Looking further down the track, Brenda must be back in Australia by sometime in September, so after seeing her off I would head for the Galapagos probably in October with a view to reaching Puerto Montt in Chile in November. That will be my springboard for the Horn in December.

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Boat Bound

The strong northerlies that we have been expecting for days finally arrived.

The morning started relatively calm as usual, though we were warned during the VHF 22 session that we could expect wind speeds of 10-20 knots overnight.

Arnold and I put in an hour investigating the starter problem. We were hoping that the starter would fail so that we could do certain experiments to isolate the problem. But we had bad-good luck and the engine cranked each of the four times that we tried the starter. Nevertheless we think that we made progress. The wire from the push button starter to the solenoid appeared to be copper with no tinning. The connector to the solenoid appeared to be in bad shape. I checked the voltage coming through that wire while Arnold held down the starter button and the maximum I could read was 9.88 V, whereas using the same grounding point I had read 12.6 V on the battery cable to the solenoid. At this point we plan to replace the entire starter switch wiring, taking the power directly from the bus bar behind the breaker panel. We'll then go off for a couple of weeks exploring some of the islands and bays to the north and see if the starter behaves itself. If it doesn't at least we will have eliminated the switch wiring as the problem and can look at problem in the starter-solenoid combo.

Arnold and I went to the marina for showers and a shave for me. The plan was to return to the boat after the showers, pack our laptops, and head off for the internet cafe and from there I would get the electrical wire for the starter switch job. However, the wind had picked up by the time we returned to the boat and Arnold got a bit wet from the spray. Over the next two hours we watched the wind speed increase from 15 to 20 knots and we did not want to risk damage to our laptops by trying to get ashore and back in these conditions. We were resigned to having an easy day on the boat which suited me because I was pretty tired from the activities of the previous few days.

I cooked spaghetti for lunch and had a nap. Then I got up thinking that this might be a good opportunity for installing the new outlet hose for the toilet. I uncoupled the hose at the toilet end and after letting the relatively clean salt water drain out compared the end profiles of the new and old hose. The old hose looked better than the new one. Whereas the new hose was made up of one layer of plastic with ripples along the inside the old hose had a second inner layer of black material that presented the advantages of a thicker laminated wall and a smooth interior. I showed this to Arnold and he agreed. He was afraid that the new hose might rupture. I was also afraid of odors working their through the hose wall to the outside. In short, I had purchased hosing that looked like the real McCoy but was not proper sanitation hose. So I secured the old hose again with the clamps and spent the next hour cleaning the head and after that the dusty navigation table. I'll probably carry the new hose in under one of the quarter berths as emergency spare.

By 5 PM the wind was hitting 22 knots and we had agreed to watch a movie.

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Two Things Fixed

This morning I looked into the problem of the sticking anchor winch foot switch. It took 30 minutes of patient work to remove the switch because I had put so much silicone sealant on the underside of the switch that I had trouble getting to the wiring terminal nuts. I took the switch apart and got confirmation on my hypothesis. The line of silicone sealant that I had put under the perimeter of the flexible rubber pad had been squeezed when I screwed the switch down and had oozed from the perimeter of the rubber pad to the flexible part so that when I put my foot down to turn on the windlass the silicone sealant would hold the rubber down which meant that the switch would not release. I spent a lot of time removing every bit of sealant that I could find, figuring that likely more frequent failure due to corrosion will be compensated by the fact that everything will be so easy to remove and take apart.

We then went ashore and Arnold went to do his laundry and I headed on foot across town with the trolley in tow to pick up the new main halyard. I arrived after a brisk 45 minute walk and the man seemed pleased to see me and was trying to tell me things and ask me questions that I simply could not understand. "Esta Listo?" (Is it ready?) I asked. "Ah, si!". He had done a beautiful and neat job with plenty of stitches. "Esta muy bien" I said approvingly. He then showed me the thread that he had used indicating that it was marine grade. "Claro. Muy bien." I responded. "Cuanto dinero?" I asked. "Ochenta" he replied - 80 pesos. I shook my head and said "No". He got a worried look until I said "Mas" (More!) then he smiled. I handed him two hundred peso bills and said "Por cerveza" (For beer).

I didn't want to abruptly grab my goods and walk away so I told gave him the Spanish version of my name, "Roberto Jose Morales". He smiled and said that there are a lot of Moraleses in Mexico. I couldn't recall the exact word for "born" so I tried "Naciento? Nato? en San Juan Puerto Rico". He knew what I meant and he said that Yes, Americano because Puerto Rico is a territory of the US. I told him "Soy de Australia" and "Navegamos aqui desde Australia" (We have sailed from Australia) followed by "Dos anos", trying to tell him that we had been at it for 2 years. He understood. Then I told him "Nuestro barco se llama Pachuca" and he liked that, asking me, I think, if I had visited Pachuca here in Mexico. He asked me the length of the boat. "Doce metro" I replied. He have me his card and I could see that he was Senor Miguel Angel Galvan Lopez, proprietor of "El Velero". We shook hands, I thanked him again, and bid him Adios feeling pretty good about the encounter.

I walked back to the marina where I met Arnold just finishing his laundry. He had washed his own clothes, bringing his own soap and paying 40 pesos per machine load. He saw many Gringos picking up bundles of washing all folded up and he read the sign that for 50 pesos per load the lady do the washing, provide the soap and softener, and fold the clothes. DUH!

I then dropped off two books at the exchange and walked out with A Cruising Guide to the Caribbean. Regarding the prospects of crossing the Panama Canal and turning right to go around Colombia and Venezuela the book states "Many have set a counterclockwise course from the Panama Canal to Grenada and have had horrendous tales to tell of head seas encountered, and some have aborted their plans and headed north to Jamaica. One hardy sailor who did it tells us: 'The coasts of Colombia and Venezuela at that time of year (January) are almost impossible, three boats before us were dismasted.'"

We had lunch overlooking the marina over some beers (steak for Arnold, fish for me) then headed back to Pachuca with the results of our day which included some bananas and other things that Arnold had purchased. While Arnold topped off both water tanks with the latest lot of water I got cracking with the new halyard. At the end of 30 minutes of patient work where I had to avoid at all cost breaking the pull-trough cord lest I have to climb to the top of the mast to dangle a new cord, I had the halyard fitted from the mainsail head board to the winch.

That meant that two of the three problems with Pachuca had been fixed: the sticky anchor windlass foot switch and the halyard buggered up by Captain Crossover had been replaced. The third and most important item remained: the intermittent problem with starting the engine.

Mark from Shoreline Marine Diesel at Port Townsend had given me some good broad advice on the problem, suggesting that I begin my investigation with the switch and the wiring to the solenoid. As luck would have it we got a visit this morning from Dennis off a nearby boat. He is a Seattle man who grew up sailing in Puget sound. He knows his boats because he spotted the IOR lines of Pachuca and wanted to know more about it. And by the way his profession is marine electrics. Well of course I had to ask him about our starting problem. From the symptoms he though that we should start with the switch and wiring to the solenoid, as Mark had advised. Arnold and I plan to do some basic tests in the morning but I told Arnold that whether it turns out to be the wiring or not the fact is that it should be changed on spec. It is probably copper wire, possibly from when the boat was built, and probably passes through the bilge to get into the engine compartment. I would like to replace that with marine grade tinned wiring of the proper gauge and with good connectors so that I can eliminate this as a problem for the foreseeable future.

I asked about internet service at the marina yesterday and learned that it is available only to people in slips, not those at anchor. That doesn't matter. Two days ago on one of my walkabouts I spotted an internet cafe and bakery with free wireless service not far from the marina. If not tomorrow then the next day I will visit for a long internet session where I will upload some photos and videos to the blog.

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