Crossing Back to the Mainland, 1st attempt

The Crossing from the Baja Peninsula to the mainland requires two day hops so we can get as far southeast as possible. This reduces the length of the crossing. We had two pleasant days with evenings in popular cruisers anchorages. We left for Mazatlan at first light on the Friday before Christmas so we would arrive mid morning on Christmas Eve.

One hour into the passage while I was below getting the weather forecast from the amateur radio nets Rhea told me the autopilot was giving an off course alarm. I got us back on course, rebooted the system went below to get the weather. Two minutes later we had the same problem. Worse I could not steer Vagari using the autopilot. Few things are worse than not being able to steer a sailboat.

Our steering and autopilot mechanisms are under our bed in the very back of the boat. We had to remove all the bedding plus the mattress and the mattress topper. There is not enough room in our bedroom for all of this so we have to move it all to the front of the boat.

In a couple of minutes we determined that our main steering was OK but a part of the autopilot was missing. It was a small key that connects the arm that turns the rudder shaft to the actual rudder shaft. We also decided that we would return to our last anchorage (Cabo Frailes) right away to investigate the problem.

Anchored we determined that the missing piece had ground itself into little pieces because two bolts had worked loose. These bolts are countersunk in the back of a metal arm. You can’t see them without using a mirror but a careful look will tell you if they are lose because you will see a crack between pieces of metal. So we now know to check them after each rough passage and at least monthly.

The trip back to La Paz to have the key made would require two legs and be upwind with two notorious channels to get through on the last day. Fortunately there were no strong weather patterns but significant wind is generated in the channels by the temperature difference between the land and the sea. We would have to hand steer so to minimize the waves and wind we decided to do the legs at night. This worked and we have two calm passages. On the first leg we got our backup autopilot to work but on the second night it quit when two metal pins broke.

We spent Christmas Eve in Ensenada de los Muertos (bay of the dead) with friends we met in La Paz. Dinner was great as was the company. Christmas morning we anchored in little cove just north of La Paz.

We are back in La Paz the autopilot is fixed and we are ready to go again. More soon.