Hard Second Day in La Paz

This morning I went off looking for boat equipment and Arnold headed off to sort out his banking problems.

I checked two other chandlers but for me Lopez marine was the most suitable: better equipped and set out more like a shop and less like a parts counter. My primary objective was to get a replacement for my damaged main halyard. I settled on 9/16" diameter 11,700 lb breaking strength. While I was there I also purchased a replacement sanitation outlet hose for the head (38 mm inside diameter, 2.1 meters long) and some electrical tape.

On the way back to the boat I dropped by a small canvas shop and asked if they could sew a loop in the new halyard to hold the shackle for the sail headboard. The fellow said that he could not do it because they use only sewing machines and a palm and needle would be required. However, he directed me to his uncle's shop at the other end of town. Two main halyards are a very heavy package to lug around town so I went back to the Marina where I met Arnold and he watched my backpack and halyards while I went to the boat to fetch the trolley. It was a long walk to the other side of town and on the way I saw a target of opportunity and purchased a set of earphones to jack into my HF radio so that I can listen to Radio Australia in the dead of night without disturbing Arnold. I found the uncle's place and through gestures and my pidgin Spanish the man understood what was required and asked me to return manana. On my return walk I began to wonder if I had given him an impossible task. The torn halyard had two internal strands of material and the sewing had been done between the two strands. The replacement halyard seemed to have one large core which might be difficult to pierce with a needle. We'll see how he does.

I returned to the marina and had lunch with Arnold then returned to the boat while Arnold was engaged in telephone conversations. The wind had was lighter than had been predicted and I wanted to take advantage of that to port water to the boat and fill up its tanks. The starboard water tank had run dry during our first day in La Paz. To that end I performed the task of extricating the three big six gallon (22 liter) emergency water containers in the starboard quarter berth and pouring entire lot of 66 liters of water into the starboard water tank. This meant that for the next few weeks we would be drinking good water from Tahiti. I emptied the two 10 liter containers into the sea (because they contained questionable well water) and proceeded to the dinghy dock with the 5 containers. I returned to the boat and had the starboard tank filled while pouring from the third large container. The 140 liter "empty" tank took 120 liters as expected, because we are not able to pump the tanks dry. I then emptied the 14 liters of that third container and the two 10 liter containers into the port tank. I then returned to the dinghy dock and filled the 5 containers again. After taking a beer break overlooking the marina with Arnold we returned to the boat where we stored the three large containers in the quarter berth for emergency use. I emptied the two 10 liter containers into the port tank which must have come close to filling it. From now on we'll keep the tanks topped up using the two 10 liter containers.

So it was a physically demanding day with hours of walking and lifting those 6 gallon containers on and off the boat and dinghy several times.

On the brighter side the weather was excellent and I got to see more of La Paz. In contrast to Tahiti the back blocks of La Paz might not be as neat and modern as the central tourist district but are still neat and clean. And I have found the prices of merchandise in Mexico to be pretty good. I purchased a set of ear phones for 350 pesos which equates to $28 USD which I found to be OK. The 106 ft of 9/16" halyard came out to $211 USD and I recall paying $320 for the new halyard in Port Townsend, though that probably included the superb headboard shackle that was sewn into it. The 2.1 meters of 38mm sanitation hose came out to $27.93 which I found to be OK.

There is still much work to be done, validating the observation that long distance cruising is about repairing your boat in exotic places.

Arnold's banking problems? Happily they have been resolved. He telephoned USAA and very soon he had his Master card set up for use in Mexico ATM's. (The problem had been that he had never used his Master card at an ATM and the first time is special regarding pin numbers.) The BoA was a bit more difficult but at the end that worked at the ATM too.

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First Full Day in La Paz

This morning I tuned into the cruising net on VHF 22A and found it both informative and highly entertaining. The session is well structured and lots of business gets done quickly. At the appropriate time I announced the presence of Pachuca.

I left the channel open and soon got a call from Cheryl of Stolen Kiss. I had not been able to spot their boat in the El Mogote anchorage because they were in the marina. In any event I don't think I would have recognized their boat because not long after our conversation they motored past Pachuca and said hello on their way to a day sail with Peter's sister and brother-in-law who are visiting from Cottesloe Western Australia, and I saw that their boat didn't have the lines that I had expected: it is a large beautiful blue-hulled 46-footer if I recall the length correctly, with and aft cabin. We plan to get together at the end of the week.

Arnold and I took the Zodiac to the marina dinghy dock and I purchased a week of dinghy dock, garbage, and water service for 90 pesos (about $1 USD per day). Showers are extra, 15 pesos each.

After our showers we visited the cruising club house which seemed like a lively and friendly place. They have a great book exchange library and a large range of DVD's that can be signed out. Arnold and I read an interesting article on the board where there are 60,000 to 80,000 retired Americans living in Mexico. The story focused on one California woman who needed old age assisted care and could not afford it in the USA. She moved into an assisted care facility in Mexico for 1/3 the price and is enjoying the great weather and great support services. The Mexican entrepreneurs are getting the market signals and building senior resident facilities for these gringos who cannot afford to live in their own country. Let's look at the business model. One big factor is that American drugs are significantly cheaper in Mexico than they are in the USA where they are produced. The other factor is that medical expertise is much cheaper in Mexico. We've been told that the Mexican border towns are filled with a monumental number of Mexican dentists who service the Americans who flock across the border seeking affordable dental (and medical, no doubt) care. Globalization is a two-way street. Anyway, let's look to Mexico being the Florida retirement Mecca of the future.

At the dinghy dock I got into a conversation with Chris of "Bright Star" who gave me some sobering information on the notorious Golfo de Tehuantpec between Mexico and Guatemala. That is at a narrow point in the Central America land mass and I know from listening to Don Anderson's weather reports any time there are northerly winds in the Caribbean there are gales across the Tahuantepec. My plan had been to sail out several hundred miles out to sea from the coast line in that area, but Chris says that he's had friends beat up as far as 400 miles out to sea from Tehuantepec. His suggested play is to head for a southernmost port in Mexico at the NW end of that gulf, get my Zarpe, and wait for the harbormaster to give the "go" signal for a fast crossing near the shore along the gulf to Guatemala. Once the "go" signal is given, sail post haste 1-2 miles off the coast. If the winds hit then being that close into shore will mean that there will be less fetch and lower seas. The worst thing one can do is to sail right across the middle of that gulf because the seas can become monumental.

We then returned to the boat and prepared for the serious business. Arnold needed to sort out some banking issues and my primary objective was to visit the Capitan de Puerto (Harbormaster) and present the ship's papers announcing our presence. I visited the bank with Arnold where I withdrew $4000 pesos with my ANZ Visa card with no problem but his Bank of America card would not work, as a fellow BOA card user had warned. I left Arnold at the bank waiting to talk to their Customer Service and pushed on the long walk to the Capitan de Puerto. On the way I saw a target of opportunity and got an excellent hair cut complete with ear trim, blow dry and mousse, for the princely sum of 80 pesos ($6.15 USD). I gave the man 100 pesos feeling guilty as I walked out.

I found dealing with the Capitania de Puerton office a very good experience. The office was staffed by bright young people in white uniforms and I was dealt with in an efficient and professional matter. The young man (Sad isn't it when every man under 30 becomes a "young" man. I can remember saying many times during my loner and alienated university days with firm conviction "Don't trust anyone over 30.") did not speak much English and I'm proud to say that my feeble Spanish carried the day. (But he wanted to know where the boat was and for the life of me I could not recall the word for "anchor" - ancla - so I showed him where the boat was on the chart in my cruising guide.) I was told that when leaving La Paz I must notify their office over VHF 16, though when finally clearing Mexico I must get my Zarpe (clearance paper) in person.

I walked the 3 kilometers back to the boat along the beautiful waterfront and on the way ducked into a nice looking restaurant where I had lunch overlooking the waterfront. I immediately ordered a "cerveza Pacifico por favor, no vaso" (Pacifico beer, please, no glass) and once the alcohol had cooled my brain I ordered the crumbed fillet of fish. I love lunch in Mexico. To keep you amused while the dish is being prepared they bring out a large plate of fresh crisp nachos with three different dips. Before I could wolf my way through the nachos lunch arrived with two generous pieces of fish fillet, rice, and a splendid fresh salad of lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber, and plenty of avocado. The spice rack had 7 bottles of various sauces. There is a lot to be said about the spiritual, philosophical, and ideological side of life, but let's not forget the physicality of life - after all, we are physical beings during our time on earth. And I really, really, REALLY enjoyed the sensuality of the good booze, good food, and good views during that lunch. The entire sensual experience including beer came to 95 pesos, or less than $7 USD.

I walked back to the marina needing a siesta more than the fresh air and arrived an hour early for the rendezvous with Arnold. I walked from one end of the facilities to the other and found no Arnold so I sat at a bench for 45 minutes snoozing. I had not checked the cafe and all that time Arnold was inside the cafe having a few beers. Anyway, we finally got together and after Arnold successfully faxed some papers to the bank and an abortive try for the boat against some rough seas we finally made the somewhat turbulent Zodiac trip back to Pachuca just before sunset. (We learned from that experience to take wet weather gear with us when we go ashore.)

As for Arnold's problems with Bank of America I will let him provide the details of the unbelievable story. Whereas my Australian ANZ bank has provided unqualified support to me, including sending a new card to me to Honolulu post haste after I had left mine at an ATM, the BoA seems like a hide bound, backward, conservative organization that thinks more of itself than of its customers who need support in foreign countries. To obtain the "privilege" of withdrawing his own money from a Mexican ATM he had to fax photocopies of both sides of his BoA Visa card, two items of identification (passport and driver's license) and - get this - three signatures on the same piece of paper one under the other. The only thing that they didn't ask him to do was to roll over, pee all over himself, and bark. And after this Arnold must phone them and verbally jump through more hoops before they will give him the privilege of accessing his own money.

By the way, we had to set our watches 1 hour forward, which puts us at GMT-7.

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In La Paz

We were very fortunate with the wind at our anchorage in the Puerto Baladara bay. The wind eased during the night and backed to the southwest which provided us with shelter by the south arm of the bay. By dawn the wind had veered back to the north but was inconsequentially light.

After a slow and lazy two hours I went forward to begin the difficult task of retrieving the 50 lb Swarbrick "Fisherman" or "Admiralty" or "Navy" style anchor. That anchor has a combination of white rope and chain which meant that I had to wind the rope around the windlass drum and winch it by hand. When I got to the chain I had to manhandle it to the gypsy of the windlass and continue cranking. Then it was a matter of folding the stock while the anchor dangled over the bow the manhandling the anchor to the foredeck where I could dismantle it. It was not an easy process (though it will be easier when I've fixed the anchor windlass switch) but I have great confidence in that anchor in either unknown ground, since it will punch through weed and cling to rocks, or in a survival situation.

When we were ready we tried the engine starter and it worked fine, so soon, at about 9 AM, I weighed the 45 lb plow anchor and we were underway.

It was a very calm day and we motored all of the way to La Paz, which was a distance of only 12 miles. We reached the beginning of the channel only 7 miles away and traveled the rest of the way down the long narrow and relatively shallow (6 meters) channel to the anchorage. We tried to make the crossing to the anchorage at the El Magote peninsula by carefully following the waypoints specified in the cruising guide to three decimal places of minutes. However, the shallow alarm came on and at 2.3 meters of depth (actually 2.8 meters due to a "fudge factor") we turned around. Arnold couldn't see why we couldn't drop anchor at the anchorage near town just a few hundred meters from the Marina de La Paz and I had to agree. After one failed attempt after we were chased away by a cranky yachtie who didn't want anyone too close to his boat we found a nice spot in 5 meters of water 800 ft from shore and 1500 ft from the marina, which would provide us with a dinghy dock, showers, garbage service, fresh water, etc for a reasonable fee. Our position was 24N09.5, 110W19.5.

La Paz seems "boat friendly" to quote Arnold. He did a quick count and there are about 80 boats at anchor and many more in the three or four marinas. The place has a "laid back" feel about it and from the boat the town looks modern, attractive, and with plenty of amenities.

Soon after our arrival we were visited by a trio from a nearby Catalina that had arrived just after we did. It was Ron, Les, and Sue from Sydney. Les had purchased a Catalina in the US the previous year and had sailed it to Australia at a profit and now Ron was doing the same thing. We had a nice chat and we expected to see them again. As they motored away I proudly displayed my true Aussie credentials: a large jar of Vegemite. Pachuca's Australian flag is a magnet for any Aussies within sight, as it should be

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Departed Bahia de Los Muertos

Yesterday's GRIB file indicated strong westerly winds on the west side of Baja California but so-so winds on the east side in the Sea of Cortez. However, the day after that (tomorrow) looked better. We returned to the boat expecting to spend another day at anchor. I woke up at 5.30 AM to the hum of a healthy SW wind and soon I saw another boat turn off its anchor light and switch on its running lights indicating that it was about to depart. A second boat soon started making similar preparations. Rather than waiting until Don Anderson's weather report at 6.15 AM on Amiga net I roused Arnold and he agreed tat it was a good time to go. By 6 AM the another two boats had motored out, heading North. We were a little slower, having to ship the outboard motor, Zodiac on the foredeck, and the boarding ladder. It must have been 7 AM when we started our engine.

The engine started beautifully. Perhaps it was the attention that I had given it two days earlier: engine oil check (uses no oil), transmission oil check (50 ml), all three fan belts tightened, raw water filter cleared of some weed, Racor fuel filter checked and vacuum guage indicating no problem with the fuel filter.

However, the anchor winch foot switch had a problem. We had noticed earlier that it tended to stick on the "on" position. I wound most of the anchor chain by hand then went to the foot switch and it could not switch off. Arnold was aware of the potential problem and when I asked him to switch off power to the anchor switch in the cabin he knew exactly what to do. The windlass stopped with the anchor just about to clear the water. We plan to take the switch apart of course. My hypothesis is that some of the silicone sealant that I used to seal the witch got into the works and is acting like a sticky glue. If we cannot find the cause of the problem I will replace the switch.

We motored about 30 minutes giving plenty of clearance to the shallow water then we rounded up and I had to do the hard work to raise the mainsail all of the way up. We had the task of beating our way up the Canal Cerravo in moderate winds (10-12 kt) and we needed all of the sail that we could get. By then we could see a big ketch (must be over 60 ft) leaving the anchorage and he hugged the shore much more than we dared and got well past us. For a while we were doing more than 6 ky but at 9 AM we were down to 3.7 kt against a 9 kt wind. Fortunately we were about to clear the SW shoulder of Isla Cerralvo which would allow us to go off the wind a bit for better speed.

Our two full days at Bahia de Los Muertos had been comfortable and productive. Arnold and I spent hours on the internet attending to personal email and some telephone conversations. I managed to bring the blog up to date posting photographs and videos. Fortunately the internet service at the restaurant was extremely fast.

I regretted not having a chance to say goodbye to Jim and his dog Scout. He is a fine man who has paid his dues to life: with the merchant marine at the age of 17 during the last year of WWII, with experience of the Kamikazes off Okinawa, a career as a tug engineer then pilot in the SF Bay area. He's been retired for 30 years and at 82 years of age still wanders this part of the world in his RV with Scout. I told him that he reminded me of John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie". Jim had read Steinbeck but not that book. I pointed out the Charlie was a dog. His RV is the only home that he's got. A real inspiration.

During our stay Christopher aboard his boat Orisa in Hawaii and I made arrangements to communicate by HF radio starting at 9.30 PM. The plan was to work our way through the ship-ship channels changing every 5 minutes until we made contact. It took a bit of patient work but we were able to have a good conversation on the 8 MHz band. It was the first time that I had spoken with Christopher since my crossing from Hawaii to Juan de Fuca. He plans to sail his boat to Seattle in June/July and I hope that he and Arnold can get together.

Things deteriorated as the day progressed. The wind became light and fluky so we wound up motoring most of the way to our anchorage, with one or two periods of sailing. We noticed that with the engine running at 1400 RPM the cooling water temperature finally registered on both gauges at 80 (cintegrade, probably)Then the engine wouldn't start. After a discussion with Arnold I pulled out my copy of Nigel Calder's "Mechanical and Electrical Manual" and studied up on starters and solenoids.

At mid afternoon we decided to motor through the narrow passage between Isla Espiritu Santo and the Baja peninsula but the west wind picked up so we reverted to our original plan to anchor at Playa Bonanza at the SE corner of Isla Espiritu Santo. The engine would not start as we were ready to drop sails so with Arnold's help I managed to start the engine by shorting the solenoid with a screw driver. We dropped sails but as we approached the island I picked up serious inconsistencies between the cruising guide and the chart - I didn't know which side of the big rocky headland the beach was on. So we decided to turn tail and head for Puerto Balandra, through that narrow passage and on the Baja Peninsula. We made our entry OK and dropped anchor at 4 PM in 7 meters of water. But the bay was wide open to the west and we had a west wind of 6-9 knots threatening to increase the next day. Arnold was relaxed about our position but I knew better. I assembled the 50-lb Swarbrick anchor and carefully laid it down with 30 meters of rode so that if the plow anchor dragged the rode of the Swarbrick would pay out and we might have a chance. The bottom was sandy and shoaled to the shore so I was pretty sure that we would be OK. However, the fact was that we were anchored in a lee shore with the prospects of the boat pitching wildly all night, and that was not smart.

Assuming that we got through the night alright the bright side as that we were anchored only about 10 miles from our proposed anchorage at "Peninsula De El Mogote" opposite from La Paz.

After a stiff brandy (Excellent Mexican "Presidente" brand) I felt a bit better. The day had been cloudy, occasionally drizzly, with fluky winds, and we had been forced to motor; but at least we had made it to the threshold of La Paz. In retrospect we should have spent one more day in Bahia de Los Muertos enjoying the restaurant and Jim's company but what is done is done and this is where we were at.

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The Restaurant and Bay

The restaurant here has been good to us: good beer, great hamburgers, and excellent internet facilities.

Pachuca is the second boat from the right. Forgive the smudge on the photos. It appears that my faithful Fujifilm camera is due for retirement after a hard two years at sea.

Jim and Resort

Here are photos of our ride with Jim in his RV and the resort that we visited. A golf course at the lower end of Baja California seemed strange to me.

Video After Rounding Cabo San Lucas

I took this video at the end of my midnight watch after rounding Cabo San Lucas.