Day 11 - San Evaristo With Drama

Yesterday we made the 9 mile crossing up wind along the San Jose Channel to San Evaristo, a fishing village on the Baja peninsula. San Evaristo represents the extent of my experience in the Sea of Cortez because this is as far as Arnold and I got way back in April or May of last year before we were forced to motor back to La Paz with a crippled engine in a cloud of black smoke.
The day started off with another marine head problem - actually a continuation of the previous day's. I won't go on about it other than to say that this time it was a true blockage (which had probably caused the previous day's inversion of the joker valve) and because I could not uncouple the hose at the hull end without damaging it I was forced to go over the side and clear the blockage with a long screw driver up thru-hull fitting. The culprit was toilet paper (clouds and clouds of it) and the new policy is that no more paper passes through the toilet.
We motored out of the anchorage of Isla San Francisco at about noon. I was not too comfortable with the situation because we could see white caps along the San Jose Channel. Brenda made a great decision to lock down the forward hatch to it's "tight" position - so tight that I had to go topside and push the hatch down while she turn the four latches. I made a poor decision to tow the Zodiac close to stern on a bridle, though I was wise enough to ship the outboard motor. The Zodiac was to cause a lot of problems as it jumped about and tangled with the Monitor wind steering. Another poor decision was to leave the spare anchor assembled and resting on the open anchor well with the chain hanging over the side and coming in under the pulpit rail. After dropping anchor I noticed that a loop of several feet of chain had dropped into the water. Also, I didn't like the way that spare anchor cluttered up the area where I was handling the main anchor.
We tried sailing and that turned out to be yet another mistake because the leeway was driving us south rather than toward our intended northwest. With great difficulty I rolled in the half of the jib that we had been using then we headed north up the channel, engine at 2500 rpm, making 3 knots against an apparent wind of 25 knots. Then the battery alarm came on, uncharacteristically when we were running at full rpm. I noted that we were taking in only 10 amps, most if not all from the wind charger and solar panels.
Thirty minutes later the autopilot displayed "no pilot" and quit functioning. A few minutes later we got the first whiff of smoke. Brenda took the helm and by the time I got below the back of the cabin was filled with acrid throat-burning smoke from an electrical fire. I had expected the problem to be with the engine, possibly the alternator belt or maybe the alternator itself. But the smoke was coming from the corner of the navigation station, ahead of the main electrical panel and behind the Lowrance and Trimble GPS's. I turned off the master switch of the house bank and the production of smoke ceased. I lifted the cabin hatch and went outside for fresh air. A few minutes later I ventured back into the cabin and soon located the problem area, forward of the nav station bulkhead and inside the port cabin storage locker. There was a real mess spanning 2 ft of cabling, with burnt insulation and exposed wires. Brenda fretted about lack of chart plotter and depth sounder so I switched off the main breakers, turned on cabin power, then switch on one breaker at a time, feeling for hot wires. Soon we had the Raymarine chart plotter and instrumentation back on line and the front panel which supports the mast lights, anchor winch, and boat sound system were OK.
I then had a quick look at our electrical power situation and noted that the "starter" bank was at 14.2V but the "house" bank was at only 12.3V, with only a few amps going into the system. I turned the yellow switch to join both banks and immediately saw 102 amps pouring in to the batteries. The Volvo battery fault light had gone out. There is a BEP relay that is supposed to pass current to the house bank when the starter bank is at 13.7V and that had failed for some reason.
We entered the shelter of San Evaristo and dropped anchor in 6m of water at 4 PM. There were 3 boats in the snug and well protected north cove, but we elected to drop anchor in the main bay, given that the winds were expected to abate. This would place us very close to the settlement. Later I saw that two of the boats in the north cove were Murray Grey and Pacific Bliss.
I taped all exposed wires in the damage area, tidied the cabin, then knocked back two quick beers and in the evening Brenda presented a splendid meal of fritters and broccoli which we had over red wine and port. By the then the wind had died down and we had a blissfully peaceful night with the boat wandering around its anchor.

Kialoa III

At about this time David Griffin's Kialoa III, the magnificent aluminum hulled S&S built in New Zealand and winner of just about every ocean race worth noting, dropped anchor nearby. Soon David came over in his inflatable boat to say hello and invited us over for coffee the following morning.
Investigation of the wiring problem would have to wait until another day. This should not have happened if all of the wiring were fuse and breaker protected as it should be. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to review every bit of wiring in the boat. However, I will say that I have yet to note any unprotected wiring. Also, I'm hoping to get the flux gate compass back on line.
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