June 12, 2007 - Sea Heather is now on the hard at Marina Real Dry Storage in San Carlos and up for sale! We are driving across the country to New Jersey where we will be attending graduate school in the fall. Paul is going to Stevens Institute of Technology, and Saesha is going to Rutgers University.
June 6 - 9, 2007 - Transit from La Paz to Guaymas. We completely rebuilt our transmission at sea. We'll give the details later. It took 7 hours.
May 13 - June 6 - We'll update with the details later, but suffice to say we spent this time in La Paz ordering parts for our transmission and shipping them from the US.
May 12, 2007 - We waited until noon for the afternoon north wind to pick up. We did not want to use the transmission at all if we could avoid it, so we started the engine so we would have some power if we needed it in an emergency. As the wind picked up we raised the sails and pulled the hook under sail, then with a nice 10 knot tailwind we had a pleasant cruise down the channel into La Paz. In 6000 miles of cruising we had never sailed into our out of an anchorage under sail. Luckily we had read about it! Also, luckily, the Kiwis on Kia Kaha were not aboard thier boat when we anchored in a stiff breeze in the crowded anchorage of La Paz or they may have had words with us! In truth, it went almost perfectly, but we feined ignorance just in case things went awry, and we didn't anchor as close to Kia Kaha as it may have appeared to onlookers... at least that's our story.
May 11, 2007 - Things are not good. About 12 miles out on our way up the channel out of La Paz our transmission began to slip! We shut it down immediately and did our best to sail into Pichelique, a small cove just south of Balandra. We were not happy. We called around to find out if there was anyone who knew a bit about transmissions in La Paz. We got the name of a mechanic named Colin. Over the phone he said the best thing to do would be get back into La Paz to where he could come aboard and take a look.
May 10, 2007 - We decided to zip on down to La Paz, get our engine mounts which we pre-ordered while in Los Muertos, and get back to Balandra as quickly as possible. La Paz was very nice, clean, friendly. We stayed at Marina Vista Coral which isn't really a marina at all, but rather a space where you can anchor and use the dingy dock and showers for $5 per day. The engine mounts were readily available, so we quickly purchased them and installed them. It turned out that the old mounts were made out of PLASTIC! They had the outward appearance of cast steel, but on closer inspection, yup, plastic, with rubber inserts, and steel studs. Needless to say they were trashed. The job was easy, we replaced the mounts one at a time so that the engine was still supported in three places. It took a couple of hours to do. Finally we aligned the shaft, tested the engine and decided things were good.
May 8-9, 2007 - We departed Bahia de los Muertos for Bahia Balandra. The trip was very pleasant, we had nice wind so we didnt have to motor much with our questionable engine mounts. Balandra was increadible! The water was crystal clear, and most of the cove was 1-3 feet deep, with a soft white sand bottom. We walked around for hours chasing puffer fish and other small aquatic animals. Trango and Canyon actually SWAM! They both hate water deeper than about six inches, but possibly because the water was so warm (80-85 degrees) they both went in up to thier necks. The pictures say the rest.
May 6-7, 2007 - From Los Frailes we worked our way up to Bahia de los Muertos. The anchorage was fantastic when we arrived, nice and smooth with only a light breeze. Luckily for us, our toilet clogged! So we completely disassembled it and discovered that every piece was covered with a 1/2 thick layer of stuff that had the consistency of titanium. We were able to break some of it apart, but we ended up using muriatic (hydrochloric) acid to dissolve much of it. We were actually amazed that the toilet functioned as long as it did! After several hours of cursing and sweet smells we rebuilt the toilet. It worked beautifully! Go figure. Also, our engine mounts are in dire straights. We discovered that three of them were cracked. We wire tied them down to nurse us into La Paz... Cross your fingers!
May 4-5, 2007 - Los Frailes. It's a pretty anchorage with a beautiful beach. The weather has been overcast and the water is 74 degrees (less than our required 80 degrees), so we didn't fancy a swim. Mostly we just hung around and recovered from the crossing. Maybe we'll snorkle on the reef here, but right now we are just relaxing.
May 2-3, 2007 - Mazatlan to Los Frailes. We got a moderate start at 9:30am. We had to wait for the dredge in the marina channel at Mazatlan to move, which was ok by us. We set off under power, but eventually shut the engine down and started sailing with a nice quarting tailwind. We put up the spinnaker for a couple of hours, but later in the day the wind picked up a bit and swung around in front of us so we dropped the chute, pulled in the sails and started the engine.
We had the fishing line out from the get-go, and were half snoozing half driving when suddenly we heared the ZZZZZZZZZZZ from the fishing pole paying out line at an increadible rate! Paul jumped up and ran to the pole while Saesha pulled back on the throttle to slow the boat. Paul quickly started tightening down the drag on the line to keep it from paying all the way out, but it just kept going. Finally he tightened it down to its maximum and the line stopped, at which point the pole bent almost in half under the weight. As the boat slowed Paul was able to slowly start pulling in line. It took everything he had to turn the crank on the reel, but little by little the line starting coming in. Off in the distance we could see the fins of the fish break the surface, but couldn't tell what it was yet. As it got closer we could finally see the beautifull changing colors of a giant Dorado (Mahi-Mahi). Its entire body would flash from bright green to bright blue in seconds. Finally Paul handed the pole to Saesha who walked forward as Paul tried to get the fish into the net so we could get it on deck. It wouldn't fit in the net! Finally we got it head first in the net with the tail sticking out and heaved it on deck. Saesha got back on the wheel while Paul grabbed the club/gaff. It's a wooden club about a foot and half long and has a metal spike sticking out of one end. The carnage began. Paul remembered back to a story that Doug and Dara on SV Harmony told him about a giant Dorado that they caught and clubbed which came back to life suddenly and began flapping around the cocpit knocking things over and spraying blood everywhere. So Paul starting smacking this poor beautiful fish repeatedly to avoid a similar situation. After the carnage ended Saesha said that we should really get a picture of the fish before it got too bloody. So Paul ran below to grab the camera getting back on deck just as the fish came back to life!!! It flopped a couple of times in the net and then moved slowly to the edge of the boat. Paul put the camera down and lunged after it, but it was too slippery! If felt like an eternity, but it was only a couple of seconds as the fish slid over the edge with Paul clawing at its slimy body trying in vain to get a hand hold, and plop! It fell into the water and started to sink. We made a pathetic attempt to retrieve it by turning the boat around and netting it, but it was no use. It sank and will become some bigger fish's dinner. But bad things come in threes (or fours)! So, on to numero dos.
Later that evening Saesha said she thought she heard something funny from the engine room, a strang vibration. Paul agreed and thought he heard a funny squeak as well, so he climbed into the engine room to poke about. There was nothing obvious going on, but Paul feared that the squeak might be a bearing which could be very bad if it continued to squeak. So we shut the engine down to think about it. Paul was fairly certain that when we repaired the cracked engine bracket in Mazatlan it threw the engine's alignment off (the shaft has to line up with the engine perfectly or bad things happen). So he loosened the nut on the repaired engine mount to give it some play. The shaft then turned much more freely, and we started the engine up again. No squeak, no more vibration. So on to numero tres.
The cooling water high temperature alarm went off a few seconds after Paul got back on deck, and black smoke started to come out of the exhaust pipe! Paul ran below to check on the engine, but everything was fine. He yelled out to Saesha to check the exhaust and see if cooling water was coming out. Nope, no water! That's bad! Shut it down! It only took about five seconds for Paul to realize what had happened. While down below loosening the engine mount he had noticed a drip of water coming out of the sea strainer. So he closed the raw-water intake valve to check the strainer, and of course didn't open it back up again!!! Luckily, no harm done. We opened the valve started the engine up and it ran like a charm. Another few seconds however and we may have needed a new engine! Ahhh, isn't cruising relaxing!
Luckily no more fun events occurred and we made it to the anchorage at around 11:30pm. We didn't have a problem entering at night for two reasons. The first is that the moon was so full and so bright that it felt like daylight. The second is that these anchorages in Mexico, according to saesha are just "shallow spots in the ocean" near shore and don't really involve "entering" anything so to speak.
February 2007 Archive - not done yet.