Monday, November 20, 2017

Isla San Francisco: Great Sailing, Rolling and Water Leaking

We enjoyed great downwind (yes, that's right, downwind) over the past couple of days. Yesterday the wind blew a steady 20 knots for most of the day which let the jib moves us along at a steady 6.5 knots of relaxed sailing. The wind dropped to 15 knots for a few hours, so we just rolled up the jib and unfurled the Code 0 to keep moving just as fast, just as easily. Our main sail sure has an easy time of it, resting in its stack pack while the foresails do all the work. The lines that hold up the stack pack are called "lazy jacks", an appropriate name for a lazy sail.

We spent the night before last (Saturday night) in Los Gatos, one of our favorite anchorages. The wind in the northern sea had whipped up a decent swell, making the anchorage very rolly all evening and all night. Even a catamaran can get uncomfortable rocking back and forth a foot or so every six seconds. It reminded us of the Thanksgiving we spent in this same anchorage in 2015, when we experienced the same rolling while we ate our roast chicken dinner.

Our starboard engine has been leaking salt water from somewhere. Every time I think I fixed it, Renee would crouch into the engine compartment to mop it out and wipe the engine down with oil. Then the leak would reappear, I would "fix" it, and Renee would mop and wipe again. I think I finally conquered the leak, after three rounds of fighting it. I don't know how Renee did all that mopping and wiping without complaining. Now we have a dry and very, very clean engine compartment and a thrice-oiled engine.

We spent last night at Isla San Francisco, after a nice long hike along the island's ridge and exploring its salt flat. We collected some nice salt from a small pond so that we can season our food with the local stuff.

Today we're heading to Caleta Partida, another favorite anchorage, our last stop before La Paz.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Agua Verde: We’re finally sailing!

We finally left Puerto Escondido yesterday afternoon after bending on the jib and Code 0. My son Luther will appreciate that we finally dropped the main pin for the Code 0 furled overboard after three years of being extremely careful with this unique piece of hardware for which we carry no replacement. I adapted a 10mm bolt and nylock nut to serve in its place until I obtain a new one and a spare.

What very little wind there was yesterday was on the nose, the recurring story of my sailing life, so we motored the 20 nm or so to Agua Verde. It was a beautiful day and it felt good to be moving through the water again.

Nighttime in the Agua Verde anchorage was delightful. Endless stars spread over a giant moonless night sky, with the occasional shooting one for entertainment. Bioluminescent plankton sparkling like thousands of shooting stars in the inky black still water. I laid out on the trampoline naked with all this beauty around me, a cool breeze blowing over me, on the verge of feeling chilled, refreshing me out of the dull warmth from the bottle of Merlot I drank with dinner. I could hear the tinkle of bells from goats roaming on shore and the frequent splashes of fish enjoying their nocturnal meals. I took it all in, fully and gratefully, feeling content, reminded of how much I enjoy this place and life on the water.

We have less than a week until our flight out of La Paz back home for the holidays. We'll be moving south with purpose, but I'm resolved to enjoy the journey and stops along the way as much as possible. Next stop is Los Gatos, one of our favorite spots in the Sea of Cortez.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Baja Ha-Ha Wrap-Up

I wrote a blog post for each of the three legs of the Baja Ha-Ha, but I don’t feel I wrapped up my reporting for that journey properly. It was a really enjoyable trip. Nothing broke on the boat, nobody was injured and no harsh words were spoken, a winning trifecta that in my experience is rarely achieved when sailing. It was fun to sail a monohull again, a good experience to serve as crew vs. captain, and Gary and Eric were great company.

I asked each of them to recount the best part of the trip for them, their biggest mistake and to summarize it all in one word.

“Excellent”
For Gary, the best part of the trip was the 10 hours spinnaker run on Leg 2 and how well the boat worked. “We could have used more wind, but the spinnaker runs were worth waiting for.” He enjoyed the camaraderie of the crew. He also has “great respect for Dinty Moore”, the brand of prepared meals we ate for dinner almost every night. Gary’s biggest mistake was flubbing the set up for the  second spinnaker hoist, which was quickly resolved but didn’t look good.

 “Relaxing”
Eric enjoyed the wildlife most. He liked the huge pod of spinner dolphins that surrounded the boat one afternoon and the half dozen of dolphins that played in our bow wave for an hour one night. He really enjoyed the show put on by the pelicans, seals and dolphins one morning while we were anchored in Bahia Tortuga and some local fishermen were netting sardines; all the animals wanted a piece of that action and it was surprising there were any sardines left in the net. “National Geographic stuff,” Eric called it. Eric also took honors for highest boat speed, surfing at 10 knots one night on a glorious broad reach. He also played a serious game of beach volleyball, not doubt emboldened by the tequila shots served at half time.  None of us could think of a significant mistake that Eric made, although he did lose his flip flops coming back to the boat after the party at Bahia Santa Maria and dropped a piece of his electric razor overboard. 

“Free”
I enjoyed just taking each moment as it came, whether sailing or on land, with no expectations. I just let events unfold as they did and navigated them the best I could at the time. I think I sailed the boat really well, dialed in my spinnaker trimming, piloted skillfully into anchorages and taught Gary a useful thing or two about his chartplotter.  The three of us worked well together as a team, with little drama and few words spoken. I also enjoyed the dolphins, as I always do.  My biggest mistake was leaving the autopilot set to track the wind at the end of my watch instead of keeping a constant heading. As the wind blowed in all direction as it died for the night, the autopilot started turning the boat in circles, much to Eric’s surprise and displeasure.

I’m very grateful to Gary for inviting me to crew on Mustique and glad to have another Ha-Ha under my belt.

After this experience I’m thinking that I will look for more opportunities to crew on other peoples’ boats. It would broaden my sailing experience and I like the idea of sailing in different locations around the world on different boats.

Eric and Gary. The trip started of cold in northern Baja.

Sunset on the sail to Bahia Tortugas.


Bahia Tortugas Beach Party 2015...
...and in 2017.


Bahia Tortugas

The captain and crew of Mustique at Bahia Santa Maria with the Ha-Ha fleet in the background.

Eric and Gary on one of our spinnaker runs in much warmer weather than at the start.




After 11 days at sea...
...and all cleaned up.

Puerto Escondido: Pump Replaced, We're (almost) Ready to Go!

A big shout out to Pacwest Marine Industrial in San Diego for getting my replacement raw water pump to Loreto in just over 24 hours from when I called them.  They carried it to  Tijuana to ship it via BajaPack, an express delivery service that uses buses to deliver packages throughout the Baja peninsula. It only cost $60, including the carrying over the border. I picked up my pump from the bus terminal in Loreto this afternoon, had the pump installed in 15 minutes and now both engines are running properly.

That wasn't too bad, after all.

After replacing the pump, we bent on the main sail. It took the rest of the afternoon as we had to install the stack pack, slide in all the battens and rig the reefing lines and then make sure everything was right. It was getting dark and we were hungry, so we decided to call it a day and hoist the jib and Code 0 tomorrow morning. Once all the sails are on we'll be ready to leave.

Go figure, though, now none of the lights in the port hull work. We must of jostled something getting the battens out.  As I always say, if it's not one thing it's another. I'll fix it soon.

Our destination tomorrow is Agua Verde, a nice anchorage that we visited on our northbound cruise this spring.  The weather forecast is for light winds, but who knows, maybe we'll get lucky.

The new and the old pump. Can you tell the difference?

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Puerto Escondido: Picture Upload

My recent blog posts have been without pictures due to limited bandwidth, but now I have decent connectivity so I'm uploading a few here from Puerto Escondido.

Good to be back on board Intermezzo, even if the decks were filthy.

The Boat Goats were glad to see me, too.

A cantaloupe we found in the produce locker after six months in the blazing hot Baja desert.

Launching Intermezzo, slowly, carefully, with only inches to spare on each side.

Bougainvillea loving the desert sun.

The Baja desert, greener than when we left it in May.

View from the stern of the boat at anchor in Puerto Escondido, wanting for my pump to arrive.

Puerto Escondido: Bad Pumps...Again

We launched Intermezzo yesterday morning after six months in dry storage at Marina Puerto Escondido, near the Baja town of Loreto. Everything went great until we started up the engines and the normal sound of gurgling water mixing with the exhaust was missing. Looking over the side confirmed no water coming out with the exhaust of either engine. Not good. We drove Intermezzo a short distance to a nearby dock, tied up and opened the engine hatches to figure out what was wrong.

I started with the port engine. I disconnected all the hoses and systematically check for blockages, finding none. The raw seawater pump impeller looked fine, but I replaced it anyway. It made no difference. Somewhat baffled, but with no other option, I replaced the raw water pump with a spare I had on board. That did the trick, the engine running normally with plenty of water shooting out from the exhaust port.  I was sweaty, dirty and my back was aching after four hours crouching in the engine compartment, but at least I got one engine running.

I crossed my fingers when I started working on the starboard engine. Although it exhibited exactly the same symptoms, I hoped that the cause would be a blocked hose or bad impeller, as I only carried one spare raw water pump.  I sweat, got dirty and ached some more pulling off, blowing into and replacing hoses and the impeller, only to determine that the pump was bad, just like the other engine. Bummer. Now I have to find a new pump.

Finding marine engine parts in Mexico is not easy. We experienced this problem last March when we launched the boat after dry storage in Puerto Chiapas and discovered a leaking fresh water cooling pump. I ended up having to fly back to San Francisco to pick up a new one and bring it back. Hopefully, it will be easier this time and I can either find one in La Paz and drive down to get it or have a marine supply company in San Diego put it on a bus in Tijuana to bring it to me.  It will take some phone calls today, but I’m sure I’ll get something figured out.  Fortunately, replacing the raw water pump is about a half hour job compared to the fresh water pump which takes a few hours.  I’m hoping that we’ll get underway before the end of the week.

Let me bring you up to speed on what happened between the end of the Baja Ha-Ha in Cabo San Lucas and now. I arrived in Cabo on Mustique on Thursday morning (November 9) and enjoyed meeting the rest of Gary’s family and partying with other Ha-Ha’ers until Saturday morning, packing and cleaning the boat up in between. On Saturday morning I enjoyed breakfast with Rich Lee, an old friend from Sonoma, and his family and then hopped on a bus to Loreto.  Nine hours later I arrived in Loreto and checked into the Santa Fe Hotel, a decent enough place across the street from the small, dusty bus terminal.

Sunday morning I picked up a rental car at the airport and drove to Puerto Escondido to check on Intermezzo and start preparing for launch. The boat was very, very dirty on the outside, but perfectly clean and just like we left it six months ago on the inside. The dry desert air seems to be much better for boat storage than the moist tropical climates of Chiapas and Costa Rica where we previously stored Intermezzo and had to deal with varying degrees of mold and mildew inside. In the afternoon, I drove back to the airport to pick up Renee, who arrived intact but with her luggage missing. The delay caused by the broken pumps will allow said luggage to be delivered before we leave, a silver lining, I guess. After grabbing a bite to eat, we went to the local supermaket and filled up two small grocery carts with provisions and brought them back to the boat.

We spend Monday getting the boat ready for launching, servicing the propellers and saildrives, changing zincs and washing, washing and washing again the boat until it was finally clean.  And that brings us to where this post started on Tuesday morning.

Now it’s Wednesday morning and we’re sitting peacefully at anchor in the natural harbor of Puerto Escondido, the sky perfectly clear, the water perfectly blue and the day beginning to heat up under a brilliant sun. The desert is much greener than we left it last May, the foliage clearly benefiting from the summer rains.  In fact, from a distance in the low angle light of the morning, the hills remind me of the drier regions of the Hawaiian islands.  The climate is nice here this time of year- it gets pretty hot in the afternoon but is pleasant and even cool in the morning, evenings and at night.


Today I’m going to find our pump.  Maybe even get in a car and drive to La Paz to get it, I hope.


Thursday, November 9, 2017

Baja Ha-Ha, Leg 3


After spending all of Tuesday trapped on the boat with no means of getting to shore, the beach party on Wednesday was a most welcome festivity. We enjoyed beer, a Mexican fresh fish dinner and live music. All this takes place in the middle of nowhere, the small fishing village preparing for days for this annual party and the band traveling for 12 hours over dirt road and two inland water crossings to get there. 

I made friends with the woman tending the Margarita bar and she loaned me a nice shot glass from which I could sip tequila and appear urbane and sophisticated amongst the mostly motley Ha-Ha crew.

The power of karma made itself evident towards the end the party. Beers were sold two for $5, so I bought a couple and went walking around looking for Eric to hand the second one. I couldn't find him, but spotted a guy with a full plate of food and no beer with which to wash it down. I handed him my spare beer, telling him "Enjoy!" for which I was rewarded with a big grin and a look like a gift had dropped down upon him from heaven. Meanwhile, Eric had run out of money and was still thirsty so he walked up to the head of the beer line and asked a guy if he could spot him a beer, which garnered him a cold one, handed over with an enthusiastic smile. Karma!

We departed Bahia Santa Maria yesterday at 6 a.m. in very light winds. The wind model said we would have 10 knots at 2 p.m. and it was right for a change. Gary hopped up on the foredeck and after a minor hoisting snafu, we had the big red symmetric kite up and pulling us along at a steady 6-7 knots. I got the trim dialed in just right which let the autopilot steer the boat until we doused at last light of the day.

The wind dropped at night so we were back to motoring.  It was a beautiful night with a half moon and endless stars. There must have been a meteor shower, as we saw shooting stars frequently through the whole night.  I looked at our wake and thought to myself that the little sparkles of bioluminescence briefly triggered by our passage through the water were like shooting stars in the water. It was quite beautiful and peaceful, despite the steady throb of our diesel engine.

It's been great being at sea again. I do a lot of thinking, meditating (not thinking) and, though oxymoronic, life on the water makes me feel grounded in the present and reality. 

We're approaching Cabo San Lucas and will arrive at the marina around noon, marking the end of Leg 3 and the Baja Ha-Ha. I'll cap off the trip with a concluding post and then start reporting on my land journey back to Intermezzo in Loreto and getting the boat back into the water to sail again...with an espresso machine. 

Monday, November 6, 2017

Baja Ha-Ha, Leg 2

The second leg of the Ha-Ha was great sailing, with steady winds blowing 10-18 knots from behind. We departed Bahia Tortugas early Saturday morning and hoisted the spinnaker right away, flying it for ten hours straight until sunset. The boat flew along at a steady 8 knots, surfing near ten. 

While sailing under the spinnaker was great, more amazing was that our skipper Gary, a young 80 years old, worked the foredeck for the hoist and douse of the chute, tricky jobs in big running seas usually handed to the youngest most fit crew member. He was agile, steady and confident, giving me great hope that I still have some years left in me as a sailor. 

We sailed Saturday night in boisterous seas under main and jib, loping along all night. In the morning, Gary was back up on the deck to hoist the asymmetric kite which we ran under on a broad reach most of the day until we had to jibe to make our mark at the entrance of Bahia Santa Maria. 

We entered the anchorage here last night around 7:30 in pitch black under a starry sky, a big full moon to rise a half hour later. It was tricky weaving our way through the 20 boats (out of 140) that beat us here in the darkness and our anchor didn't set on the first drop, but we nailed it the second time and were snug on the hook at 8:15.  

We ate a quick dinner, somehow managing to down two bottles of Pinot Noir before retiring to much needed sleep. 

Today's a lazy day of rest in the sun. We don't have a dinghy so there's no way to get off the boat unless I can charm someone into giving us a lift. Then we have to figure out how to get back..

Baja Ha-Ha, First Leg

Mustique (not Mystique, apologies for getting the boat name wrong for my first blog post...embarrassing) departed San Diego with roughly 140 other boats of the Ha-Ha fleet on Monday morning. It was calm, hardly any wind and has stayed that way ever since. It's now Wednesday evening and we have been motoring the whole time. Ugh. 

The weather has been a mix of overcast and sunny with some sprinkling of rain, warm in the daytime, chilly at night. The passage has been uneventful save for getting a big batch of kelp wrapped around the keel, prop and rudder on Monday night. The three of us had it cleared off pretty quickly with no drama. Gary, Eric and I are getting along well and make for a comfortable, competent, laid back team. Our watch schedule has allowed us to get some pretty good chunks of sleep during the night; I enjoyed six hours last night, unheard of luxury on Intermezzo. Mustique clearly wishes she was sailing but is motoring along steadily without complaining. 

Tonight we arrive in Bahia de Tortugas around midnight. We've studied the charts, prepared the rode and are all set to drop anchor among the other boats of the fleet as soon as we arrive. We have a big egg breakfast planned for the morning and then we'll enjoy the day's activities on land. 

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Approaching Bahia de Tortugas

Mustique (not Mystique, apologies for getting the boat name wrong for my first blog post...embarrassing) departed San Diego with roughly 140 other boats of the Ha-Ha fleet on Monday morning. It was calm, hardly any wind and has stayed that way ever since. It's now Wednesday evening and we have been motoring the whole time. Ugh.

The weather has been a mix of overcast and sunny with some sprinkling of rain, warm in the daytime, chilly at night. The passage has been uneventful save for getting a big batch of kelp wrapped around the keel, prop and rudder on Monday night. The three of us had it cleared off pretty quickly with no drama. Gary, Eric and I are getting along well and make for a comfortable, competent, laid back team. Our watch schedule has allowed us to get some pretty good chunks of sleep during the night; I enjoyed six hours last night, unheard of luxury on Intermezzo. Mustique clearly wishes she was sailing but is motoring along steadily without complaining.

Tonight we arrive in Bahia de Tortugas around midnight. We've studied the charts, prepared the rode and are all set to drop anchor among the other boats of the fleet as soon as we arrive. We have a big egg breakfast planned for the morning and then we'll enjoy the day's activities on land.