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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