Category: Uncategorized

As we left San Felipe we intended to zip down the Baja Peninsula as quick as we could in order to meet up with Lady Carolina in Puerto Escondido and then La Paz and then cross the Sea over to the Mexican mainland.  But what we found on our way down caused us to slow down and enjoy some new anchorages and rediscover some familiar ones.  A trip home to the States for Tim meant that the boys and I would also get to know Puerto Escondido quite well.  Our time in the Sea of Cortez was coming to a close, and we decided to savor every minute of it.

When we came back from the States we came loaded down with Halloween candy from my mom.  She even sent bags for Kyle and Joel, who are so much a part of our family she couldn’t send candy without thinking of them too.  As always, with Halloween candy, it was dominated by the smaller versions of familiar candy bars, you know, the mini treats called, “Fun Size?”  I’m not sure how it started, maybe they were doing dishes and Brenden couldn’t reach the dish drainer, or maybe they were putting stuff away and Brenden couldn’t quite reach the cupboard, but regardless how it started, Alex has taken to calling Brenden “Fun Size.”  And if you know Brenden, you know that “Fun Size” just fits him on so many levels!

This is our new motto.  Whenever there’s too much to do or something new breaks or stops working, we just say, “I just want to relax on the boat.”  The origin goes back to San Felipe  when the boys and I returned with the rental car and since we would have the car until the next morning we (mostly me) wanted to go out to dinner and then hit the grocery store for provisioning.  They boys, happy to be home, groaned and complained, and Alex uttered the words that we will repeat over and over again for the rest of our journey, “I just want to relax on the boat!”

If you’ve spent time looking at our photos, you know the boys spend a fair amount of time fishing and swimming.  They have both become quite the divers and spear fishermen, and they are able to hold their breath far longer than I can.  I started to count on them bringing at least one sashimi fish home each day when they started dinghy fishing almost every afternoon.  And “swimming” doesn’t mean just swimming.  They also like playing “king of the surfboard” and “how long can I hang on the anchor chain.” One of the things life on a boat is teaching them is how to be creative with their time.  It’s a small space, and sometimes there aren’t a lot of options.  Of course, the familiar items are utilized a lot: iPads, books, games, legos.  Every once in awhile they have “minecraft night” with Kyle and Joel.  They don’t need internet, just a local LAN, to be able to play together in the same minecraft world.  Now, some of you might be sneering a bit about letting the kids play “video games,” but my take on it is everything in moderation.  And you just have to see what they do and build in minecraft!  It’s not just a video game.  It’s like electronic legos; they have to build, problem solve, work together, and well, be creative.  It’s fun to see the mansions they build, how they figure out how to grow food and get recources the most efficient way, and all the other creative things they do, like taking care of pets and hiding treasures.  So, all you video game haters out there, don’t judge

The boys read way more than they did at home.  They started out reading the same 3 Big Nate books over and over again, so I bought them more when we were back in the states.  It didn’t take them long to finish those, so then they just kept reading the same 12 Big Nate boods over and over again.  Kids just love those books.  When other kids come over, they get hooked on them too.  But I thought they should branch out a bit so I told them they had to read something other than Big Nate (or Diary of a Wimpy Kid) for 30 minutes each day.  There was some resistance at first, but now I couldn’t stop them from reading if I tried.  They’ve both read the Hunger Game series, Alex is tackling The Hobit, and Brenden is blowing through the Darren Shan books (Thanks Andrew!)

They play games in fits and starts.  They tend to get obsessed with a game and play it nonstop and then get sick of it and then move on.  This includes Uno, Miles Bourse, Monopoly, Chess, Battleship, Tile Rummy, etc., etc.  And when we have internet access we like to play Draw Something on our iPads.  The boys get unlimited pleasure from making fun of my artistic skills.  They also make up games of their own.  My favorite is “The Scribble Game.”  One person closes his eyes and scribbles on a piece of paper.  Then the other one tries to make a drawing out of the scribbles.  We have learned the Brenden can see a dinasaur in pretty much any scribble configuration.

Don’t get me wrong, I still occasionally hear, “I’m bored,” but overall they’ve gotten much better at being creative about finding something to do.  Having Lady Carolina with us all summer sure made a big difference.

October 16-27, 2013

Our trip home for Danna’s wedding was nothing short of magical, but it did have a somewhat frustrating start.  I had wanted to rent a car in San Felipe and drive all the way there, mostly because I wanted to be able to bring a car full of provisions from the states back to Exodus.  The guy at the marina office told me that, unfortunately, there are no rental cars in San Felipe, but I could easily take the bus to Mexicali and rent a car there.  It’s quite easy, there’s even a rental car agency at the bus stop.  But of course there’s not, and I learned that the hard way. Well, I also learned there are 2 bus stops in Mexicali, so it’s possible he was talking about the other one, but that didn’t help me at all. 

The boys and I caught an air conditioned bus and watched movies in Spanish from San Felipe to Mexicali.  We had to get off at one of the military check points, but the boys didn’t mind at all, since there was a snack bar there and I bought them some chips.  When we arrived in Mexicali, we circled the periphery of the bus stop, which wasn’t very big, but we did not see the rental car agency.  Because it wasn’t there.  I asked the guy at the door who arranges the taxis for people if there was a rental car agency nearby (in Spanish), and he pulled out a business card and a flyer for National Rental Car and said I needed to call this number.  I asked if they were nearby and if I could walk there, and he said no, they would pick me up.  I hesitated because I figured there must be some place nearby and he was just sending me to this one because he gets a kickback, and he interpreted my hesitation for lack of understanding, so he went and got another guy who spoke English.  That guy told me, no there wasn’t one within walking distance, and I should just call that one.  So, I did, and after about a half hour a very large guy picked us up in a Smart Car with a standard transmission and he stalled the car at every stop.  At first, I was kind, and I joked how it had been so long since I had driven a stick I’m sure I’d be stalling it too.  Then I got a little more intentionally helpful, reminding him to give it a little more gas as he released the clutch.  And if it had taken another five minutes to get there I think I would have insisted that he just let me drive.  He was nice, and he was embarrased, so I let it go, and tried to make conversation on the longer than it needed to be drive back to the office.  Renting the car was easy, and I drove away in my much too expensive compact car with automatic transmission but manual door locks and windows.  The boys were so used to our mini-van that not only had automatic locks but automatic doors, that they were not just a little impatient when we would get to the car and I’d have to unlock my door and get in and then lean over to unlock theirs.  Of course I reminded them that, “back in my day….”

The drive across the border was slow but not as bad as Tijuana, and pretty soon we were racing down the country highway to Brawley to my mom’s house.  We had a fantastic dinner with Mom and John, and the without a doubt highlight of the evening was the ice cream.  Well, for the boys anyway.  For me it was the CA Chardonnay that John had chilling for me in the fridge.

We headed to Vegas the next day, and the fun surprises began.  You see, the only people who knew the boys were coming with me were Danna and my mom.  So, they got to suprise Papa and Nana (my dad and Karen), their cousins Ethan and Cammy, and, of course, Andrew.  Ethan and Cammy were the best with all the excited squealing and Ethan repeating over and over how I tricked him.  It was so much fun that Alex and Brenden were able to come, and it made the horrible passage up to San Felipe more than worth it (Well, I’m not sure what Tim would say about that.)

Andrew took a bus, a train, and another bus to get from San Luis Obispo to Las Vegas.  I drove downtown by myself to pick him up, looking forward to some one on one time with my biggest boy.  Funny thing about heading downtown is that when I was still with my mom I muttered something about being concerned to be heading down there.  She took that to mean I was a little concerned about going there by myself.  She confided in my Uncle Mike and Danna about it, and they both reacted similarly, with something like, “what is she talking about being concerned?  She lives on a boat in Mexico and she’s worried about going to downtown Vegas???”  Well, as I was getting ready to go my mom offered for Uncle Mike to go with me since I was concerned about going alone, and I laughed.  I told her I guess I never finished my thought, I was actually concerned about the traffic at the time of day I would be going.  She got a good laugh about that and shared with me what Uncle Mike and Danna had said.  Too funny.

Another funny thing about heading downtown is that it was another of my old stomping grounds.  Vegas, baby!  When I was too young to (legally) gamble or drink we would road trip to Vegas and stay downtown at a cheap hotel and eat cheap food and play quarter roulette.  I could go for a whole weekend on only $40.  The bus station is actually right next to Union Plaza where we would play penny slots. Ah, the good ole days. 

We had a great weekend with Andrew.  We all stayed together in a hotel room, and Andrew and I took turns sleeping with Brenden, since he’s still quite a mobile sleeper.  Not Alex, on the other hand.  He sleeps like a rock.  The day before the wedding the four of us went to the Vegas Strip to do some sight seeing, and while Andrew was quite a good sport, Alex and Brenden basically complained all afternoon, because they just wanted to go back to the hotel room to watch TV.  I guess they miss TV, after all.  When we were walking through the Paris hotel, someone actually asked Andrew and I if we were married.  I laughed so hard, and then I laughed even harder when I saw how horrified Andrew was.  I told him I was used to being mistaken for his sister, but this was definitely a first.  He commented that of course I’m going to have to tell everyone about it, and I thought, well, yeah!

That night was the rehearsal dinner, and when Danna invited us she let me know there would be beer and wine, “but, probably not anything I would like.”  I’m pretty sure that was her calling me a beer and wine snob.  Since Andrew rode over with Dylan, and Alex and Brenden rode over with Papa and Nana, I decided to stop and get some respectable beverages to bring along.  I found a Whole Foods somewhat on the way, and when I walked in it was like clouds parted and angels started singing. I wanted to fall to my knees and weep.  It was the epitome of everything I no longer have access to on a boat in Mexico.  The piles and piles of colorful fresh fruits and veggies.  The bulk bins with nuts and grains I had forgotten even existed.  I’m starting to tear up just thinking about it, so I can’t go on.  And I didn’t linger in the store too long either for fear I wouldn’t be able to leave. I grabbed a couple six packs and a few bottles of wine and slowly made my way out of the store. I was hoping to find Arrogant Bastard and Raging Bitch beer for the special occasion, figuring it was appropriate for a wedding rehearsal dinner, but unfortunately they were out of both.  The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun.  One of Danna’s friends hosted and it was a very relaxed evening.  They had a fire pit out back, and as I’m walking up I hear *Andrew* telling the story from earlier.  I guess he got over his mortification and realized how very funny it was.

The wedding was amazing.  Whenever I was telling someone I was going to Vegas for my sister’s wedding I would feel compelled to add, …”she lives there.”  So, no, they didn’t get married by Elvis in a chapel on the Strip.  It was at a beautiful place North of Vegas with a lush green outdoor area with a stream running through it and a large gazebo.  Everyone had such a great time at the reception.  It was relaxed and fun being with all of my relatives.  Alex and Brenden ran around with Ethan and Cammy, and they all showed their moves on the dance floor.  Andrew ran around with Dylan, and it was enjoyable seeing them together again after so long. 

After Vegas we drove to L.A. and had a great time visiting friends.  We stayed with Colin and Jen, and Heather even flew out to visit.  So, being with them meant I had a few days of good food, great wine, and even a run on the beach.  The boys were able to see thier buddies as well, and they were very sad to leave (again).  We spent a night at Dad and Karen’s house and then headed back to Brawley for my step-sister Kristen’s wedding, another wonderful wedding. 

The few weeks before the visit Tim and I had started our Amazon purchases, and the boxes were piled pretty high in my mom’s living room.  Tim even joined Amazon prime so he could order stuff right up until the last minuite.  I also made a Costco run, a Target run, and a grocery store run, so I had quite the puzzle to solve getting everything to fit in the tiny rental car.  Everything had to come out of the packages, and every square inch of usable space in that car was used up. 

I took a different approach with customs this time and didn’t bother putting together any sort of spreadsheet.  We had also bought a Honda generator, so I figured if asked by customs if I had anything to declare, I would just declare that, pay the duty, and be done with it.  However, at the border, I inadvertently totally bypassed customs altogether.  I needed to stop at immigration to get new tourist visas, but instead of stopping and parking where I needed to I accidentally got in the customs line.  So, when the guy came to talk to me I told him I needed to go to immigration, and asked him what I should do, and so he told me I could just leave the car there, and go in.  But we took so long in there, they had to come in and ask me to move the car over to the side, which I did, of course.  So, when we were done with immigration and went back to the car, I realized that where I was parked was now past the customs checkpoint.  I stood there for a minute or so, kept looking around, and then we just got in the car and took off.  Sometimes, being a bit of an idiot can actually pay off.  We drove the rental car all the way to San Felipe, and the next day Alex and I took the rental car back to Mexicali and rode the bus back.  He didn’t want to go with me, but then I told him it was for safety in that he’s big enough now that I would be safer if he went with me than if I went alone (just due to safety in numbers).  He puffed his chest out a little and said, OK.  He always did like being “grown up.”  We had a great time up in the states, but it was nice to be back on Exodus with Tim, getting ready to get back out on the water. 

On the SSB radio nets the typical order of business is taking any emergency/priority traffic (seldom), then check-ins for vessels underway (usually one or two), then all the general checkins for boats at anchor.  During the summer we had gotten used to the net traffic being very, very sparse.  It would pretty much typically be our little gang checking in to each other each day.  So, early in our passage from Puerto Refugio to San Felipe I tuned in to the Southbound Net, and Steve (Lady Carolina) was the net controller.  Obviously he knew we were underway, since we just left them at Puerto Refugio, so he totally cracked me up when, after calling for emergency traffic (and getting none), he moved to taking checkins from “any Exoduses wishing to check into the net.  Any Exoduses out there, please come ahead now.”  Me, “Exodus.”  Steve, “I hear an Exodus.  Exodus, please come ahead with your checkin.”  Then he took checkins from other vessels underway.  Wow, personal service from the southbound net.  We wouldn’t pull anything like that these days when the nets get much more traffic since cruisers are all back from their summer holidays, but the summertime did yield some good times.

As mentioned above, the windlass decided to stop working again when we were reanchoring in the channel at Puerto Refugio.  Tim did quite a bit of in situ troubleshooting while I just manned the helm and kept us from drifting into any rocks.  He eventually gave up and dropped the anchor manually.  Tim and Steve traced the issue back to the breaker swich, so as a band-aid, they decided to bypass it altogether.  Steve, being an Electrical Engineer by education and trade, is our resident expert.  He put together a four fuse in parallel contraption to use in place of the switch in order to protect the windless motor from overcurrent.  It was an ugly looking thing, but it got the job done.  Tim ordered a replacement switch and it was part of the loot I brought back down from the states.  (Note from 2/17/2014 as I write this… Tim has yet to replace the switch.  The fuse monster is still in place.  Long live the fuse monster.)

So, the windlass has been working, but shortly after leaving San Felipe the chain counter got fussy and the remote gives an error of “no sensor.”  This complaint is clearly a “first world cruising problem,” but we, especially I, had gotten very spoiled by just having to look at the display to know how much chain was out.  Luckily, while we were in San Felipe, Tim added markers on the chain to identify 33, 66, 100, etc. ft on the chain.  It’s a bit of a pain, but we’re managing.  When we anchor, ususally I’m at the helm and Tim’s at the anchor, but occassionally when I’m at the anchor I have to call back, “What color is 100 ft again?”

October 1 – November 2, 2013

Our summer in the sea was over, and it was time to head… North?  It’s not a common direction to be heading from BLA, but that’s what we did, and it was for one reason only.  Danna’s wedding was in Las Vegas on October 20, and there was no way I was missing that.  My preference would have been to head south to Loreto and fly from there.  But unfortunately, it was just a week or two too early for our comfort level to head south (early relative to the end of hurricane season).  Many of the cruisers were heading south and some had actually left already, but like I said, it was too early for *our* comfort level.  So, we settled on heading north to San Felipe so I could take a bus to Mexicali and then either rent a car or walk across the border.  Since I grew up in El Centro, I was no stranger to Mexicali.  In fact, I found it quite humorous that on my cruise around the world I was bussing around my old stomping grounds: San Felipe to Mexicali.  Very few Sea of Cortez cruisers make it all the way up to San Felipe, in fact, the authors of our guidebook didn’t even venture that far up.  And when we got there we figured out why.  First, sailing in the far northern sea can be a bit harrowing.  Second, San Felipe, relatively speaking, isn’t really that nice.  Sure, it’s a nice vacation spot for folks from southern california wanting to get away but not too far away, but compared to the many other places we had been on the Baja Peninsula it just didn’t compare.  However, it was a safe place for Tim to stay with Exodus while the rest of us headed home, and it’s kind of fun to be able to say we circumnavigated the Baja peninsula.

Puerto Refugio

We left BLA village with Lady Carolina on Oct 1 headed for Puerto Refugio, which was a natural stop between BLA and San Felipe.  It was about 45 miles away, and we had been there before but didn’t stay as long as we would have liked due to the rampant no-see-ums.  We had heard from other cruisers that this time of year, when it has cooled off a bit, the no-see-ums wouldn’t be so prevelant, so we happily headed that direction.  We got a bit of late start, so we didn’t make it all the way to Puerto Refugio the first day. We stopped at Alcatraz for one night.  The sail from BLA to Alcatrz was kind of crazy.  We went from moderate winds to absolutely nothing, and then not 10 min later we had 25 kts and had to reef the head sail.  We also lost our big trash can overboard and were much too slow to retrieve it before it sank to the depths.  We pretty much failed at that man over board drill, although most of the time was wasted debating whether we should go back for it, which I’m guessing we wouldn’t have done if it was one of the boys that had fallen over.

Our sail from Alcatrz to Refugio the next day was pretty uneventful and we joined Charra in the Middle bight of the East bay.  After being in BLA village for several days the guys were all itching to get in the water with spears and guns, and I’m not kidding, they suited up and dropped the dinghy in record time.  Bob and Joyce were having us all over for dinner on Charra that night, and they asked about taking fish out of the freezer just in case, but we (Carolina and I) were pretty confident they wouldn’t come back empty handed.  And they didn’t.  We had a great evening eating, drinking, and talking, and Joyce brought out a deck of cards for the kids, so they could stay entertained as well. 

There was a big Northern blow in the forecast, so we either needed to leave the next day ahead of it to get to the next anchorage north up the coast (at Bahia Willard) or wait it out at Refugio, which doesn’t really have a stellar anchorage for north wind protection.  We decided to stay at Refugio to enjoy the anchorage and hanging out with Lady Carolina just a little longer.  Where we were anchored in the East Bay was wide open to the north so we moved over to what is called the West Bay, but it’s really just the channel between Isla Angel de la Guarda (the huge island) and a much smaller island that we had to pass through to get to the East Bay.  When we first moved over there it was pretty rolly from the SW swell, and we thought it would settle down once the wind shifted to the north, but it was strong enough to bend around the point and come through the channel as well.  Both we and Lady Carolina moved around within the channel a couple times trying to find the best, most protected spots.  While dropping anchor one of those times, the windlass stopped working again (see more info below).  Unfortunately because of the strong wind and swell we didn’t really do much while at Refugio until our last two days, but those days were amazing, and more than made up for it.  We hiked up on some of the hills and had some amazing snorkling.  One day we had a family snorkle, and I called it “land of the minis.”  The fish were all very striking with many different colors, but they were all very very small.  Not too far away, though, were some bigger fish and Tim and Brenden encountered a school of Yellowtail (mmm… sahsimi).  We have a great video of Tim spearing a yellowtail, that one day I will have enough bandwidth to load to facebook .  As he was pulling it in it got away and Brenden was johnny on the spot in the background and shot it through the eyes before it got too far.  Our last night at Refugio we had desserts and drinks on Exoudus with Lady Carolina to say good-bye and to celebrate our successful summer in the sea (no tropical storms and no chubascos).  It’s too bad that because the wind had died the no-see-ums actually found us and we all got eaten alive that night.  We toughed it out though and hung out playing cards well into the night.  We weren’t going to see Lady Carolina for about 6 weeks, which would be quite strange considering we had been pretty much inseparable for 4 months.

Passage to San Felipe

The passage from Puerto Refugio to San Felipe was about 111 miles, and we planned to go straight there rather than stop at any of the few anchorages along the way simply because with the anchor windlass issues, we didn’t want Tim to have to lower/raise the anchor manually.  We had been tracking for a weather window and we left in the mid morning on Oct 8 when the wind was supposed to be high teens low 20s from the SW.  Since we were heading NW this would give us a strong beam reach.  That’s not exactly how it worked out.

San Felipe

The relief I felt when we pulled into that marina will always result in me having a soft spot for San Felipe.  Yes, it was a safe haven, but actually it wasn’t much else.  One of the first things to notice about San Felipe and the far northern sea are the immense tide swings.  Around the full moon the difference between low and high tide can be up to 22 feet!  The harbor is dredged but there are severe shoals, one being right next to the marina berths.  The marina was a small, Fonatur (government run) marina, and we were the only cruising boat there among local fishing boats and a couple of research boats.  The marina wasn’t connected to running water, so they had a well that was periodically filled.  They were very conservative with the water, and they shut it off every evening around 5pm when the guys were off duty.  When I first went up to use the bathrooms, they were locked, so I went to the marina office to ask about it, and he said, “yeah, now that you guys are here we will leave those unlocked for you.”  They had laundry facilities that kept eating my tokens, but I figured out they left the top unlocked and I could reach the mechanism to start the washer without a token.  I gave up on the dryers and dried our laundry in our cockpit.  Overall, the Fonatur was comparable to the one we stayed at in Santa Rosalia, however, it was less secure because the dock entrance was outside of the gated marina area. 

The marina was located a couple miles south of the town of San Felipe, and we enjoyed walking along the beach at low tide to get there.  Well, I know I enjoyed the walk.  Alex and Brenden only complained a little bit, so overall, not too bad.  San Felipe has a small malecon lined with restaurants and shops, and our first day there we landed at the Taco Factory, which was nothing special, but it’s always fun to eat out after being away from civilization for a couple weeks.  The town is very tourist oriented, but it seemed misplaced because it wasn’t exactly hustling and bustling with activity.  We found a pizza joint owned by a Canadian where we could watch the Dodger game, and he told us this is one of the slowest times of the year.

Provisioning in San Felipe wasn’t much different than anywhere else, but there were small things that made you realize how close to the border you were.  Like lemons.  They had huge, juicy lemons, which we hadn’t seen at all anywhere else in Baja.

Although there weren’t a lot of other boats at the marina, we did meet a few interesting people.  The same morning we arrived, a very small (19 ft) sailboat pulled into a slip across from us, and the guy got out and went directly over to hang out with the Mexican guys who were working on the research boat.  Later we talked to him and had him over for dinner, and he was a single hander who was going to sail the Sea of Corez for a few months.  He had launched his boat in BLA and headed North to San Felipe.  Like us, he had read that the Northern Sea is a road less travelled, and that drew him to it.  However, he was at anchor off the coast just south of San Felipe during the storm that we experienced, and he had a pretty harrowing night at anchor.  So, he was rethinking his plan.  He was there in San Felipe with us for about a week and ended up loading his boat, Updog (What’s Updog, I don’t know, what’s up with you?) back onto the trailer with intent to drive down to La Paz, relaunch, and cruise around there for awhile.  We never heard from or saw him again, so we hope had a satisfying experience, regardless of what he ended up doing.

We also met the scientists who were conducting the research.  They were studying Vaquitas, which are small porpoises who only live in the northern Sea of Cortez.  They are endangered due to fishing nets, so the research effort is to try to assess the size and health of the remaining population.  They had a very successful expedition a few years ago, but this time, mostly due to the weather, they hadn’t seen a single one.  They gave us some literature and coloring books for the boys, and Brenden became quite interested in the plight of the Vaquita and did one of his science projects on them.

While we were in the states, Tim befriended one of the guys that worked in the Marina, whose English was spotty at best, but better than Tim’s Spanish, so I can only imagine the extent of their conversations.  Of course, everyone speaks beer.  He had worked before at a cook in a restaurant, so he showed Tim how to cook shrimp.  He also showed Tim around the town, and by that I mean mostly the bars.  When we were back and we went out to dinner, a bartender at a restaurant came over and hugged me like we were old friends!

I’m very happy we went to San Felipe for many reasons, but when it was time to leave, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  I think the thing we absolutely liked the least was the bird poop!  The marina is in the flight path and it was near impossible to clean Exodus fast enough to keep up.  Good riddance, stupid pelicans!  We left San Felipe on November 2 with a plan to stay nearer to the coast this time.  We were hoping to get to Puerto Escondido in time to catch up with Lady Carolina, and we were looking forward to stopping a few places along the way.

Summer is over, the weather is cooling off, and we are going to have to go our separate ways from Lady Carolina very soon. I’ve said before how happy I am that we stayed in the sea this summer, and I will say it again.  However, we are starting to get that twinge of moving on to new places and new adventures, so our sadness at leaving BLA is balanced by excitement of what might come next.  And we’ll only be away from Lady Carolina for about 4-6 weeks, so I’m sure we can survive that.

We had a spinnaker dousing mishap that could have turned out much worse than it actually did.  We were sailing from Alcatraz to La Gringa on a nice spinnaker run, and the wind was up around the low 20s.  We’ve doused the spinnaker many times, usually Tim has me loosen up one side, either the sheet or the guy, and then when it depowers he pulls down the sock.  This time we were having trouble getting it depowered.  On the port side the guy and the sheet were configured so both were under load (if you don’t understand, it’s not essential) with the guy around the winch and the sheet around a cleat.  While Tim was trying to loosen the sheet from around the cleat it slacked and then filled and it pulled him violently around and he leaned way over the lifelines before letting go.  I was standing right there at the helm and I really thought he was going in, which would have meant I would have to get the spinnaker down myself, with help from the boys, before I could engine up and turn around to go get him.  Quite a trick.  We did eventually get it down, but not without Tim sustaining a broken toe as it banged against the toe rail when he almost went for a swim.  And we’ve got another lesson learned in our ever growing file of lessons learned.

The first time the anchor windlass didn’t work was very early in our journey and the symptom that time was a “no sensor” error on the chain counter.  So, the issue wasn’t with the motor at all but with the electrical contacts that count the rotation of the drum to be able to display how much chain is out.  When that happens the windlass will work but only for a few seconds then it stops to tell you there’s no sensor.  But if you just keep pushing the button you can get the chain up/down you just don’t know how much chain is out.  So, on the to do list went remarking the chain with distance markers so we aren’t dependent on the chain counter display.  Tim and Steve fixed that but when we got to BLA the night before the Regatta we encountered a whole new problem.  When lowering the anchor the windlass stopped working and there was no power at all to the display.  We cycled the breaker switch and it would work briefly and then shut off again.  So, Tim disassembled the gypsy and gave it a good cleaning with fresh water, and that seemed to solve the problem and we were able to get the anchor set. 

Given that we had this trouble the night before, in hindsight I’m not sure why we didn’t start the anchor raising process earlier before the regatta, just in case.  As alluded to earlier, the windlass wouldn’t work the morning of the regatta, and no amount of water spraying or flipping the breaker switch would help, so we raised it manually.  While raising it hand over hand, Tim was straddling the track where the chain is between the gypsy and the bow roller, and if Alex and I got a little ahead feeding the chain into the locker the tension would cause it to raise up and we got yelled at more than once for “busting my nuts!”  I just reminded Tim of that and he doesn’t recall it with as much humor as I seem to.  I guess perspective  matters.  After the regatta we chose a shallower spot to anchor and dropped it manually as well.  The next day the boat was turned into a workshop and Tim with help from Steve as well as Alan (Sara M) trouble shooted the problem including taking apart the motor housing.  They eventually traced the problem to a loose connection at the breaker switch and the simple fix of tightening that connection solved the problem.  (Spoiler alert — at the time we thought it solved the problem, but stay tuned for the continuation of our anchor windlass woes in future essays)

Strong wind and big swells weren’t  the only issues we had at the Isla Mitlan anchorage.  On passage to get there the boys had caught a nice sized sierra, and Brenden was looking forward to some sashimi that evening.  Unfortunately it was hanging on the stringer a little too close to one of the props, and no one remembered to move it before we used the engines to maneuver around and anchor.  Before we had finished anchoring Brenden realized it was gone, so he suited up and was in the water seconds after the engines were off on a mission to find his sierra.  He was unsuccessful in that mission, but he came back to get his spear reporting that there were parrot fish, and not long after that he came back with not one but two parrot fish.  So, instead of sashimi that evening we had ourselves a huge bowlful of ceviche.

And that’s not where it stops.  At the head of the anchorage there is a pinnacle rock identified in the guidebook with a GPS waypoint, and because there was already another boat there and we needed to fit Exodus and Lady Carolina in there as well, we tried to anchor inside of the other boat but not so far inside we would swing into the pinnacle rock if the wind shifted.  We were cutting it close, and we knew we were cutting it close.  We always drop a waypoint at the anchor, so I knew our distance and bearing to our anchor and our distance and bearing to the rock, and I was trying to calculate the distance from the anchor to the rock.  I knew I had “side angle side” but for the life of me I couldn’t remember my trigonometry, so I texted my favorite retired math teacher (my dad) through the inreach and he reminded me of the law of cosines.  And the resulting distance was well within the accuracy of GPS, so yeah, we were cutting it close.  Tim decided to dive on the rock and he found it and marked it with a float, and determined we would be fine, and we didn’t need to move. 

Apparently he changed his mind, because he woke me in the middle of the night declaring that, “we need to move.”  When I got up I saw that the wind had shifted, and the float marking the rock was just off our port side, and it looked to be well inside our swing radius.  So, we hauled anchor in the dark and moved to the outside of Lady Carolina out in much deeper water with less protection.  It worked out OK.  Tim was monitoring the situation and took action when the risk was clearly high enough.  My only request in the aftermath was that we take precaution before the sun goes down whenever possible, since maneuvering around a small anchorage in the dark presents it’s own additional risks. 

We had some excitement on passage between BLA village and La Gringa when I was rinsing my veggie bin and accidentally dropped it in the water.  (While in an achorage I throw food scraps in a bin on the counter rather than in the trash.  We often go a week or more between being able to dump trash, and it will start smelling if it’s in the trash.  The bin we can dump in the water anytime we are moving in between anchorages.)  We circled back to get it, and when we spotted it, without hesitation, Alex dove into the water off the port bow.  He retrieved it, but then missed the back step as we circled around.  Then it was like a man overboard drill… Brenden grabbed the pole and we pulled him in.  I promise, grandparents, that at no time during this  exercise was Alex in any danger.  It was good fun, and Alex got to be the hero. Of course, he said next time it’s my turn, but he always says that.

There are a few other minor boat issues that have had to be resolved along the way: 1) Tim installed a fan inside the fridge and wired it to 12 V so it comes on when the fridge does in order to circulate air and keep the fridge colder.  Seems to be working.  2) The fresh water pump acculumator needs to be “pumped up” every so often and Tim does that with a bicycle air pump. 3) Our navigation system “sea talk” network had intermittent issues in that sometimes some displays get data while others don’t.  The order we turn on displays seems to help, but I decided to diagram the whole network just to see what we’re dealing with, and I discovered that the autopilot is connected twice, once via sea talk 1, and once via sea talk ng.  According to one of the manuals I downloaded this seems to be a violation of correct network connectivity, but we don’t have the autopilot manual itself, so I didn’t want to disconnect anything before reading that.  (Spoiler alert: We disconnected the sea talk 1 connection, and the autopilot still functions correctly, but it hasn’t fixed the intermittent communication problem.  Tim’s also updated all the software on all the instrument displays and that hasn’t fixed it either, but it has caused us to have to recalibrate the autopilot, which is a whole other issue.

So, as you can see we are still learning, but I’m pretty pleased to say that we’ve met each challenge with creativity and flexibility and I’m getting more and more confident that we can handle whatever comes our way (with a little luck of course).