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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1 comment:
Oh my goodness...I hope you are able to solve the engine problem now you have cleared fuzz of marine growth off the propeller. A few months before back to oz I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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