Sunset in La Paz marina
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Cruising [krooz ing] verb- present participle (1) Repairing your boat in exotic anchorages
The windless and outboard continue to work so I’m ready for another challenge. On the 24 hour leg from Mantenchen Bay to Mazatlan I noticed water in the bilge. Not a lot but Vagari is the driest boat I have ever sailed. I checked all the normal places, the fittings where hoses go thru the hull and where the prop shaft exits the hull. Sure enough water was coming in thru the packing gland on the prop shaft. This is designed to leak a few drops a minute but more than that was coming now. Not a problem because the packing gland is designed to be adjusted so the amount of water coming in can be controlled. I had never worked on one of these fittings but I understood how they worked. I couldn’t back off the 2 1/2” locknut. I worked on it for an hour or so in the morning without success. So I took a nap after lunch and then I was able back off the locknut and make the adjustment. We will see how good I was on the next passage.
We had another potential problem. At night the charging light on the engine panel glowed. It was so dim you couldn’t see during the day. As luck would have the local rep for the make of engine in Vagari was a dock neighbor. He found the problem in a flash, a little corrosion in a wiring harness, so easy to fix I could do it in a few minutes. But why do we have corrosion? Because my mixer elbow where the hot exhaust gases are mixed and cooled with the seawater that comes out of the heat exchanger. The elbow had a very small hole but one that would grow quickly if not fixed. A new elbow would take 10 to 14 days to import. So a local welding shop welded a plate over the corroded part and we where up and running in a few days. The engine rep spent time in the engine room showing me potential problem areas and telling what to check on a monthly or seasonal basis. He also adjusted the valves. I felt more knowledgeable after his visit.
We were in exotic anchorages when we made these repairs.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Crossing Back To The Baja
Rhea’s Overview of the Crossing:
On Saturday, April 3, 2005 we began our crossing from Mazatlan to La Paz. This trip would take about 40 hours – two nights and one full day. With our new autopilot we figured we could handle this trip with just the two of us. We were, however, traveling in the company of our good friends aboard Persistence. We maintained contact every hour with this vessel.
After watching the weather and deciding it was a go for the third of April, we left the marina in Mazatlan at 4 p.m. and headed out of the harbor. It was a little rough at the beginning and by dark the wind had picked up a bit and there was talk of turning back, but we decided to put a double reef in the mainsail and go for it. And we did. It turned out to be a long night during which we discovered that we had some trouble with the packing gland (not good) but Stan the mechanic fixed it. The rest of the night went okay and we managed to share the watch without further incident. The next day was calm; the sea was like a skating rink. Night came too quickly, and after a bowl of soup we settled in for another night. Fairly uneventful except we had lots of sea spray in the early morning and because the window over the navigation table was not securely closed, things got wet including our VHS radio. We had no communication with the outside world and needless to say, Persistence was quite worried. After getting close enough to shout our problem out, and getting our little portable radio to sort of work, Persistence kind of stood by because we had another problem. Stan needed to change the fuel filter, as the engine was not responding, as it should.
After the fuel filter was taken care of, we could not start Vagari’s engine. The waves were getting rather sloppy and it was not too much fun. Stan finally did figure out a way to get her going and we were under way for the last part of our trip into La Paz.
I am glad that the over night passages are done for this season, at least I think they are done. So we managed to make it through this with all the trials and tribulations and still remain speaking which is amazing. I guess when the going gets rough; you do what you have to do.
We are both ready to get back to the calm of Saddlebrooke. Let’s just hope the remaining couple hundred miles up the sea go smoothly. On the whole, as a first year endeavor, I would have to say that this cruising life has turned out better than I expected. While I am looking forward to returning to my other life for the summer, I think I will be ready to come back to Mexico in the fall. I would imagine that cruising gets easier every year as we become more familiar with Vagari and her capabilities and mine!!!
Stan’s Overview of the Crossing:
Crossing to and from mainland Mexico from the southern Baja is one of the more significant challenges you face when cruising the west coast of Mexico. The crossing to and from our homeport of San Carlos is a 75 mile mostly daylight trip. The southern crossing can be 240 to 300 miles. At best a full night and day if you take the shortest possible jump. After much discussion and chart work with a half a dozen or more cruisers we decided to do a two-night 1 1/2-day route direct from Mazatlan to La Paz. We had what we considered to be an ideal weather window and we wanted to “get it over all at one time” rather that breaking it down into two legs which adds a day but eliminates a second night to the trip. It’s a close call; next year I might take the other option.
We didn’t have enough time in Mazatlan to fully enjoy this large industrial city. Mazatlan is also the best place to start a land trip to the Copper Canyon area of Mexico so next year we will spend more time there and at Mantanchen Bay.
Saturday afternoon four boats left for La Paz, Baja Sur Mexico. The slowest Rod Lee left at noon, Persistence (http://sailwithpersistence.com/ ) and Vagari left at four and the fastest, Legacy left at 9 PM. Departure time is determined by estimated average boat speed so you don’t arrive at night. Most ports or anchorages are not safe to enter in the dark. We planned to arrive a couple of hours after sunrise on Monday. Sunday a group of six boats left.
We planned to talk on every hour on the VHF radio. The 5:35 afternoon weather update is on the single sideband radio. After several days of consistent forecast for a light wind passage including the 8:15 AM forecast that morning in the afternoon they predicted, “southern crossing - 15 to 25 kts on the mainland side from the south, then light again Sunday morning”. I was the only one of our group that copied the forecast. After confirming the forecast with the net controller I told the fleet the prediction.
We decided that if we are going to cruise we have to learn to handle 25 kts so we would continue. We put a double reef in the mainsail in case it got rougher that predicted. The Rod Lee broke a critical autopilot part, which they fixed but they weren’t confident that it could handle 25 knots so they headed back. They ended up starting the next morning again.
The 25 kt winds never happened, the most we had was 10 kts from the south.
I was using the head after awaking at 4:30 AM to stand my next watch. Suddenly I heard a loud zinging noise and rattling and banging. The sound was coming from right next to my feet. That is where the drive shaft exits the hull. In no time I had the carpet up and cover removed. I found that the packing gland bouncing around on the prop shaft and seawater coming in around the shaft. Rhea turned the engine off and I had the packing gland re-installed and the leak stopped in a few minutes. But it was a very exciting few minutes. We advised Persistence right away and they were standing by near us quickly. A friend in time of need is a friend indeed! This problem was caused because I didn’t properly tighten the packing gland and its corresponding lock nut.
While making this repair I noticed that the bearing on the shaft was hot. There is grease fitting on this bearing and grease fittings on the steering cables at the same place. The steering is a little stiff so I had been in there with a grease gun several times. I checked the bearing and packing gland the rest of the trip every few hours and didn’t have any problems.
The first half of the trip featured favorable seas and winds. So except for a few minutes we had a good first half.
The moon was a little less than half full during the trip but it didn’t rise until an hour or so before sunrise. But oh the stars! If you haven’t seen the night sky from total darkness you are missing a real treat. They are magnificent.
The next morning at 2 AM we approached our first waypoint. Because we have never been there before we didn’t have any confirmed waypoints. A large ferryboat went right between Persistence and Vagari. Between the two boats, radar and GPS we missed the rocks and continued on to the next navigation challenge which is another narrow channel with rocks on both sides. We had good confirmed GPS coordinates for this area so it was relatively easy, except for the ferry that cut in front of Persistence at the narrow point.
About 20 knots of wind on the nose came up as we passed the first narrow spot. By now we were pounding with lots of spray flying over the boat. After two days of calm seas and warm temperatures we had the porthole over the navigation table open. That is where our radios are. The VHF radio mic was sitting in a pool of water when I went down for our 5AM radio check with the two other boats. I quickly got our handheld VHF radio but its batteries were dead. I had trouble getting the battery cover off. Persistence couldn’t contact us, assumed I had fallen asleep and was racing towards us with foghorn and searchlight going when I finally signaled them that I was OK. Tom’s wife was sleeping when she heard the foghorn. She thought they were about to be hit by a big boat. A friend indeed, again.
The excitement was not over yet. At sunrise we both slowed down to take pictures when I noticed that I couldn’t get my engine, even out of gear to go above 50% of its normal speed. No problem, I just needed to change the fuel filter. I put a new additive in the fuel in Mazatlan that was supposed to clean you fuel tank. It had a warning that your fuel filters my need special attention after the first use. I changed the filter in about 10 minutes. I ask Rhea to start the diesel so we could get underway. Silence, nada, nothing.
I jumped the starter battery to the house battery. Nothing. Then I tried the windless battery. Nothing. Then I tighten all the electrical connections that could be involved. Silence, not golden either. The last trick was to manually rotate the engine with a large vice grip in case there was a dead spot in the starter. I saw a friend do it. By God it worked, the engine roared to life. Persistence must be getting a little tired of us by now.
Tom of Persistence arranged for a slip for us, since I was still on the weak handheld radio, and took our dock lines as we entered.
The new autopilot drove the entire trip. It connects to the GPS and takes us from waypoint to waypoint. The engine starts with every turn of the key now. The regular VHS radio is working again so we are good to go.
The trip took 40 hours as planned.
Tuesday night we went out to dinner with Persistence as our guests.
We had an hour or two of excitement but other than that is was a beautiful journey.
I can’t believe how long this is but Rhea wanted to write for the bog for the first time. You may wonder if Rhea and I were on the same boat. I hope you find this interesting. We are open to suggestions or comments. If this bores you let me know so I can make them shorter.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Heading North
It’s only mid March but in this area cruisers start to look for weather windows so they can start the trek North. The dominant wind direction here from the fall to the spring is from the Northwest. Since going north up the west coast of Mexico really means going northwest, i.e. right into the wind, cruisers wait for periods of southerly winds. The summer winds are usually from the South. The forecast for last Tuesday thru Friday morning was for light winds with a southerly component.
So we took off Tuesday morning with a short 20-mile sail the first day, then a 55-mile trip the second day to Mantanchen Bay. Next a 140-mile overnight leg Thursday morning to Friday morning. We traveled with two other sailboats and met Basta!, the retired OBGYN who was next to us in Paradise Village, on the last long leg. We had a comfortable trip except for perhaps 8 hours when we pounded in to headwinds. We have pounded worse so it wasn’t bad. The new autopilot lived up to our expectations. The highlight was the night in Mantanchen Bay, which was beautiful. The jungle-covered mountains in places come right down to the ocean, ending in large cliffs. I will post pictures of the blazing red sun setting behind some palm trees. The next night we had a full moon until an hour before sunrise when clouds obscured the moon. We could see the glow from Mazatlan by then and a large cruise ship that was covered with bright white lights crossed in front of us as it entered the commercial harbor. I had an opportunity to do some neat navigation work to avoid the islands and other navigation hazards around Mazatlan.
The entrance to the Mazatlan marinas is considered a little tricky and at times it is closed due to sea conditions and dredging. I was concerned but we arrived at dawn with the wind calm, just 30 minutes before high tide and the seas almost flat. A helpful cruiser inside the marina gave us the current conditions in the entrance channel via radio. There is often a dredge working on the channel that closes much or the entire channel. The three days before Easter is huge holiday in Mexico. Inland Mexicans head for the beach and the costal towns are mobbed. The locals that live on the coast head inland to avoid the crowds. A long way of saying the dredge was not working on Good Friday and we had an easy entrance into the marina. As I write this Easter Sunday morning the harbor entrance is closed because of the sea conditions.
As is the custom, several cruisers took our lines as we docked. After introductions I told them I owed my bride a nice dinner because she handled her night watch like a pro. Could they recommend a restaurant for tonight? No they said, take her to dinner next week, the town is mobbed, you don’t really want to go into town.
It takes several hours to clean the boat up after a passage, wash the salt off the decks and stainless steel, rig her for dock power, cover the sails and do the required paper work to check into a new port and marina. Then its nap time, we don’t really sleep well the first night at sea.
If the cook stands watches she can’t cook so it’s PB&J, soup and munchies during night passages. We both wanted a nice meal before catching up on our sleep.
So about 3 PM we went up to the main road, we are several miles north of town, to catch a bus. As luck would have it a pickup truck with benches in the truck bed drove past. I waved it down and Rhea and I road into town in the back of a pick up truck. We shared the truck bed with two huge speakers, which the driver thankfully shut off.
Downtown looked like Ft. Lauderdale during spring break. Wall to wall young adults in swimsuits drinking as they walked the street. We found a nice restaurant and had a good meal. After a little shopping we took an open air taxi (pulmonias), they look like a golf cart or a VW bug with the roof cut off and a couple of rows of bench seats on the back, to the marina. We were in bed by 7:30 and didn’t wake up until dawn.
Saturday night is of course date night, so along with three other boats (Persistence, Daneli and Basta!), we all came up from Puerto Vallarta at the same time, we went into town. We took a bus. The traffic was so bad that we could have walked faster. Some of the highlights were: a Cadillac Escalade with three young ladies on the roof; young ladies sitting on car or truck door windows signing or yelling I couldn’t tell the difference; not once but twice a car in front of us stopped so the driver could get into the trunk to refresh his beer supply.
We had a nice dinner and a couple of drinks. Our kids won’t believe it, but six of us rode home in the back of a pickup truck sitting next to two huge blearing speakers doing the YMCA song, rocking the truck and yelling at the crowds.
Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. The cruising life can be a lot of fun.
Our future intentions are to cross over to the Baja peninsula from here then up the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez to the latitude of San Carlos. Then cross the Sea again to San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, then put the boat, “on the hard” for the summer. We intend to arrive in San Carlos prior to May 1st give or take a week or two. We will then go into our “dirt dweller” mode for six months.
Short term it doesn’t look like we will have a weather window for the crossing until next weekend.
The really big news is that Good Friday our son Joe told us his lovely wife is pregnant. That will be two for them and our fourth grandchild. Way to go Joe and Dana! You make us extremely happy.
We welcome any questions, comments or special request. Send emails to:
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Enjoying Paradise
Using experience learned from our bus trip home we were able to take a first class bus most of the way back to Puerto Vallarta so we had a more comfortable, quicker trip back.
Once back at Paradise Marina, we found Vagari in good shape and quickly fell into the resort living mode. The marina/ hotel where we are staying sponsors an international sailboat regatta. We were able to crew on one of the participants for the 3 days of racing. We were on a 30 plus year old 44’ Kelly Peterson that weights 37,000 pounds. We had a lot of fun and I was able to build up my strength and stamina. We finished 4th in our class of seven. There were a couple of boats that we beat or lost to right at the finish. After about 3 hours of racing we would cross the finish line less than a minute before or after the closest boat in our class.
Before moving from San Diego I purchased a modem that will let me send and receive emails from Vagari using the Ham radio. For a year I never even tried to install the system. I did install it at home in Saddlebrooke last summer but never got it working. There is an expert who is a former cruiser living here. He had it up and running in no time and showed me how to it worked. So Vagari can now send and receive text only emails. My first email went at a blazing 137 bits per second. Slow for sure but it’s nice to be in contact with family and friends when we are at sea or in remote anchorages.
We both came down with a case of “tourista” Tuesday evening. Rhea was on the road to recovery in a day Stan took a little longer since he had the double ender assortment.
A word about diversity. That word has become a political buzz- word but Vagari is in the middle of diversity. On our starboard side is the 32’ or 34’ sailing vessel “Darhma”. I don’t know what make or model it is but it is a wreck. The decks are covered with junk; tarps are blowing in the breeze. The owner is Susan from the bay area. Susan used to be a he before she became a she. Because it would cost so much to clean her up I wouldn’t take it if it were given to me.
To port is a top of the line sailboat that is a 37’or 38’ eight year old that is in pristine condition owned by a retired OBGYN physician. It’s for sale for $185,000.
Both of these people are pleasant interesting neighbors.
Friday, March 04, 2005
A Break in Our Plans
I was enjoying a pleasant bicycle ride the Saturday morning the Coleman family was arriving for a visit when I crashed and broke my shoulder (clavicle).
Rhea and I took a bus to the hospital. An MD who was an Orthopedic and Trauma specialists made the diagnosis after reviewing 6 X Rays. He put a brace and sling on, gave me ten days of medication after explaining the course of treatment and telling me what to expect. The total cost was 2,070 pesos or just under $185. This took 90 minutes. We took a taxi back to Vagari.
We had a great visit with our family and believe we were able to completely spoil our grandchildren. I had to take a pass on some of the activities and we weren’t able to take Vagari sailing but we still had a very enjoyable visit.
A couple of days after the Coleman’s returned to real world I had my first follow up visit with the doctor. He tightened up the brace and said I could travel as long as I could take the discomfort. He told me to get another X Ray 3 weeks from the date of the injury.
We decided to go home and take our planned break to do our taxes in February instead of March. Living on a sailboat even when docked is more physically demanding than living at home.
We took a bus to the town where our truck was in storage and then drove home the next day. The bus ride was just over 25 hours. That is a story in itself.
The doctor in Tucson said that he would have treated me just like the Mexican doctor after reviewing the X-rays from Mexico. He prescribed some really great pain medication so my stay at home has been comfortable.
After five weeks in Saddlebrooke our taxes are filed, I am almost as good as new and we are looking forward to returning to our cruising lifestyle. We will leave March 7th for Puerto Vallarta.
Our plan is to cruise until early May.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Not Sailing
You may think that cruising is “roughing it”. There is some truth to that thinking. Long passages with just two people to stand watches can get tiring and become a drag. We don’t have hot water for bathing in the shower. In fact we have never used our onboard shower. When at sea we shower on deck when no boats are around or at night. We heat the water using the sun. The marinas have showers.
On the other hand, the marina we are in now is attached to a very luxurious resort. The swimming pools are stunning with large slides, islands, bridges and gorgeous views. They have a small zoo. You will often see ostrich and peacocks walking the magnificently landscaped grounds. The lap pool’s water is kept cool, which of course is what the distance swimmers like. The restaurants offer exotic menus with prices to match. They have a club for the cruisers with great Internet access and reasonable long distance telephone access; US satellite TV and relatively cheap drinks and food. The marina runs seminars for cruisers that are going to the South Seas and another set for those going thru the ditch. Dock parties are held every week or so. They also sponsor sailboat races and regattas. The marina is spotless.
Vagari could use some maintenance but we have a hard time getting to it because we have to go the pool every afternoon to visit with the other cruisers. In the cool of the morning we really enjoy exploring the area on our bicycle. Then we have to decide what we are going to do for dinner.
So we are not sailing for a while, waiting for the Coleman family to visit. We are excited waiting for our kids and grand children. In the meantime we are enjoying the good life.
Cruising [krooz ing] verb- present participle (1) Repairing your boat in exotic anchorages
The outboard motor saga continues. The seller told me that the fuel shut off value leaked and should be replaced. I played with it in La Paz and thought I had it working. It may have worked when tied to a nice stable dock but the rigors movement of the open sea caused it to leak again. In PV the only fuel valve I could get was for a different brand outboard. I simple modification to that shut off value and it now works.
We used the outboard every day when anchored. One beautiful day, when anchored off La Cruz Huanacaxtle the motor worked fine but the dinghy didn’t move. The shear pin that connects the drive shaft to the prop broke. I took it apart and saw that a wire had been used as a shear pin. I made my own wire shear pin and it lasted for a couple of minutes. As luck would have it was marked day in La Cruise Huanacaxtle. So we went to the market area. I was able to purchase a used long shaft screwdriver with the appropriate size shaft for 10 pesos. Back to the Vagari machine shop (vice grips, hacksaw and file). We had a shear pin and several spares in a few minutes. The outboard has been working great since then.
We were in exotic anchorages when we made these repairs.
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