Author: Neil Scheuerlein

Published 3/18/25

Up at 6:30 underway preps, less than yesterday, the covers are already off the windows in the dodger and the screens are up. Breakfast, the net.

Well, the packing on the shaft needed to be adjusted, but that drains below the engine room floor, along with the AC. So, that’s not the issue. The investigation continues.

Finally!! We have the “smoking gun”. Most people run these engines at 2000 rpm maximum, I don’t know where that comes from, but the Yanmar manual clearly shows the normal continuous duty rpm is 3000, with 3800 rpm for up to an hour. I run ours at 3000 rpm, the difference is 4.5  vs 6+ knots.

At 2000 rpm, no leaks, but at 3000 rpm there is a steady stream out of the raw water pump. Upon further investigation two bolts were loose. The o-ring was flat, so a new one (yes we had one) was installed some cleanup and then we will see what we get.

We ran up to Isla Partida north of Espirto Santo and anchored at Ensenada Grande. The engine room remains clean and dry!!

Carlos and his wife worked on the boat from about 9 am to 1230. Then we immediately got underway as the next boat to rent the slip was pulling in. Very close!

It was a calm night, good sleeping weather.

Published 3/18/25

Up at 6:30, breakfast and getting underway preps. Shore power off, screens around the cockpit up, etc. we plan to get underway by 800 to get over to the fuel dock and get going. We forgot to call the office last night, so we can’t leave until they open at 8 am, but we want to be ready to go. We have 47 miles to go to our anchorage tonight. Which is about 10 hours. With the fuel stop, we hope to be anchored by 6 pm.

We left the fuel dock at 8:55 am. We left our keys there for the marina. Checked out with the port captain via radio and we are on our way.

False start! I checked the engine room after about a half hour, and the oil absorbing pad is soaked. It is water, and it appears the shaft seal need to be adjusted. We went back to our slip in  Costa Baja, at least we have one more night that is already paid for. We checked with Carlos, he will be here at 8:30 tomorrow. He says the adjustment on the shaft seal will only take a half hour.

We should be underway by 0900 tomorrow.

We did our bible reading back at the dock and midafternoon we took a walk to the far side of the marina, probably a mile and a half each way. Had sushi for happy hour. While we were out we went to the market and found they had Scorpion Beer (Baja Brewing) this is very good and is a treat when we can find it.

We watched a movie “Unforgiven” with Clint Eastwood.

No pictures today

Published 3/18/25

Up at 6:30, breakfast the net and bible reading. Then off the boat and up to the shuttle by 9 am for a ride into La Paz. We walked the Malecon, checked on a part for the outboard, then walked the other way, stopped and had a beer and chips and guacamole.

The restaurants that we wanted to eat lunch at were both closed on Wednesday Oh well!

We caught the 1:30 return shuttle back to the boat, I started the water maker to top off the tank, Reneé is going do some laundry today while we are filling the water tank.

Today I have a few tasks to get done, fill the water tank, clean the strainers for the engine, generator air conditioning and shower drain.  Reneé is doing some cooking, tomorrow we will stop and get diesel on our way out of the marina.

Published 3/18/25

Up at 6am. Breakfast, the net and bible reading.

We plan to polish stainless this morning and Carlos is due here at noon to work on the leaks.

We have done an hour or so polishing stainless. It is hot when there is no breeze.

An interesting note we have temperature monitors set up in the fridge, freezer, beverage cooler, engine room on deck and in the salon. This monitor displays on a single location as well as at each individual monitor. We have 6 channels used.

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An interesting point was that our beverage cooler (drawer fridge) has no other temperature displayed, but the regular refrigerator and freezer both do have (just that we don’t completely trust them. So, here we are in La Paz at a the Costa Baja marina in a slip and channel 3, which shows the beverage cooler is reading very high, like in the 60’s in the evenings and higher in the daytime, for example 91 degrees right now at 11 am. Well it turns out our neighbor has the same system on his boat and channel 3 is zip tied under his solar panels. Now that I have changed channels, I have to wait about a half hour for the temperature readings to stabilize. So far I have figured out that two channels of our monitors are looking at something on his boat.

No pictures today

Published 3/18/25

Up at 6:15, breakfast, the net, and bible reading. Reneé went to the local market, I stayed here waiting for the mechanic and the guys to clean the oil. Reneé got back and I was still waiting.

The guys to clean the oil showed up about 2:30 and found a coolant leak on the engine (very small a weep really) and tightened the clamps. They found a similar leak on the generator, also tightened the clamps, then they cleaned the oil out of the bilge. I believe it is coming from the accumulated oil that leaked that is under the generator and slowly flowing into the bilge. Carlos the engine mechanic said he will be here tomorrow, he has the parts in hand now.

Tomorrow morning we will be polishing stainless steel.