Gresham Family Exodus

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).

We celebrated Brenden’s birthday at Isla Mitlan, and the day started with a spear fishing expedition, of course.  Steve speared a yellowtail, so Brenden got birthday sahimi after all, and Brenden speared a trigger fish, so he also got birthday ceviche.  Dinner was rounded out by homemade bread, pasta with red sauce (of course), roasted zuchini, and sugar cookies.  Since Alex got a giant oreo for his birthday Brenden had to have a giant sugar cookie.  The birthday present Alex picked out at the village was absoultely perfect for Brenden.  It was a *lego* battleship game!

Early in the summer, Jake, from sailboat Jake, announced the dates for the BLA full moon parties.  However, since he was spending the summer in the Puerto Escondido area this year rather than coming up north, he was looking for someone to be the coordinator for the parties.  These are an annual thing, so it seemed appropriate that a BLA summer veteran would step up to do the coordinating, and that’s just what happened.  Dazzler was interested, so I emailed Jake to get more details, printed out the response, and handed it off to Dazzler.  Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make it up to BLA after all, so the job of coordinating fell, by default, to Lady Carolina.  Dazzler had given him the print out, which when he saw the email was addressed to me he was floored.  He kept pointing it out to me as if I should actually be the one coordinating, however, I try very hard to not let myself be the default anything. 

The first full moon party was in August at La Gringa and entailed a “floatie” contest and a beach potluck.  Steve found all kinds of creative ways to announce the party on the various radio nets, but here’s the quick version of the floatie contest.  Basically, there would be prizes for each of 3 categories: 1) Best store bought floatie, 2) best floatie made out of noodles, and 3) best floatie you could throw together with whatever you have in your boat (the prize for this 3rd category was clearly the most coveted, at least by Steve.)  The concept was that we would get to the estuary just after high tide and ride the “rapids” out as the current gets stronger and stronger.  It was actually a lot of fun! 

Tim gave the boys the job of building a floatie out of water jugs (the big 5 gal size), boat fenders, and thermarests.  They had a lot of fun and put one together, and they were actually quite proud of it.  But Tim made them dismantle it since it only fit one person, and he wanted something all of them could ride (can anyone say requirements creep?)  So, they ended up making 3 small floaties so they each had one, but in the end, Lady Carolina kicked butt in the floatie contest by using wood planks, fenders, a wind scoop as a spinnaker, and a very large Canadian flag.  All the boys enjoyed riding that raft, even Tim.  There was one hysterical moment where Alex was holding his soda up and then he fell off, was dunked under water, but managed to keep his soda right side up and out of the water.  Get that kid a beer!

There were a lot of very creative rafts including a throne raft made of Pacifico beer cans by True Companion.  I was one of the judges along with Sue of Mai Tai Roa and Trisha of Interabang.  It’s kind of a known joke that the judges for this event will take any and all bribes.  However, Team Canada (aka Lady Carolina) was the only one who really took advantage.  Joel gave us bags of cookies and big hugs.  I swear that had nothing to do with them winning, though.

After the rapids died down we all retreated to our boats for some relaxing, and then reconvened on the beach for a potluck.  Steve marked the potluck site with one of his many bright orange shirts, and Tim set up our surfboards on water jugs to use as tables for the food.  Once everyone started arriving and the food was being spread out we all noticed something a little peculiar.  The food was heavily, and I mean heavily, skewed towards desserts.  Somthing like half the dishes there were dessert dishes.  At one point Brenden came up to me and told me there was the best bread here, the best he’s ever had, and he’s had about 4 pieces.  So, I had to go try it, and it turns out it was cake.  Very delicious and not too sweet peach cack, but definetly cake.  Brendedn ended up getting sick and spending most of the night bent over one of the back swim steps. 

Overall, it was a fantastic day.  We got to meet most of the fleet that was staying in the BLA area for the summer, and Lady Carolina got bragging rights for winning the floatie contest.

The second full moon party was in September at La Mona. There was no floatie contest for this one, and although there was an estuary, the choke point wasn’t as tight so when the tide was going out it was more like a whirlpool to sit and relax in than rapids to ride floaties down.  The full moon fortuatously fell on “talk like a pirate day” so that was good for lots of fun and jokes.  This party was slightly more sparsely attended than the La Gringa party, but fun was still had by all relaxing in the whirlpool and getting our competitive juices flowing with games of bocce ball.  We had a fantastic potluck, but suprisingly, this time, no one brought any desserts.  Having flashbacks from the last potlulck, Brenden respectfully asked me to make something that he would definitley know what it was, so I just made pasta in red sauce, and he scarfed it down.

The day after the full moon party we tried to organize an appetizer and drink “progressive” where everyone visits each boat for a short period to eat and drink.  The wind didn’t cooperate, though, so our “progressive” turned into an appetizer potluck on the motor vessel Mai Tai Roa.  Thanks to Alex and Sue, we all still had a great time.

The annual BLA “regatta” was held the day before the La Mona full moon party.  And once again, somehow the Lady Carolina crew were put in charge of organizing when Pit on Karma Seas left a little earlier than planned for San Carlos.  So, Joel was the regatta Grand Pubah, which included officially starting the race, making game time rule decisions, and awarding the trophy to this year’s winner.

The regatta was a race from the BLA village anchorage to La Mona and back.  The Exodus crew got all decked out in our matching blue Exodus shirts (thanks Marsha!)  At least we looked good, because it was all downhill after that.  The plan was to raise anchor about 20 min before start time so then we could get the sails up and engines off in time to cross the start line under sail.  However, when we were raising anchor and the windlass cut out on us.  After troubleshooting for a little while we ended up raising the anchor manually, and by that I seriously mean manually.  Tim raised it hand over hand.  Mine and Alex’s jobs were to feed the chain into the locker and Brenden’s job was to standby with a hook that was attached to a line attached to a cleat and hook the anchor chain secure when Tim needed a break.  What fun!  By the time we raised anchor and got our sail up the “race” had already started, but we actually weren’t in last place, believe it or not.  We had a great sail across the bay, but when we got back (in 4th place, I might add) the windlass still wasn’t working and we had to drop the anchor manually as well.

It was a lot of fun seeing all the other boats under sail, and the winds were in the mid to high teens, but we were sailing into the wind both directions, I’m not sure how that worked out. The only rule established ahead of time was that the lead boat decided which buoy to round and then all boats would follow around the same buoy.  However, two lead boats diverged pretty substantially, so as they were each approaching different buoys, a ruling by the Grand Pubah had to be made, and in keeping with the laid back cruising philosophy it was determined that any buoy would be OK.  True Blue V round their buoy first, and we followed Sara M around a different buoy.  Although we finished back in the pack, we could at least celebrate that we had beaten Lady Carolina.

When we got Exodus settled back at anchor at the village, Tim and I decided to get the water hammocks out and relax in the water with a cocktail.  Of course, right at that time and Elefante (strong westerly wind) kicked up, and between the hot wind and the big swell, our relaxing float was anything but. Luckily it didn’t get too bad and we were all able to meet on shore for a great dinner together at Costa del Sol.