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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