2019 – 2020 Season 1 – Page 11

April 1, Wednesday, Martini Cove, 1 year retired!

Renee’ got up at 6 am and made bread, I stayed in bed a bit longer. I had to get up one time last night to check the anchor alarm (4 am). I had set the limits too tight and we got to the limit and it woke me up. I checked what where we were adjusted the alarm and went back to bed.

When I got up, I updated our fuel record (where I track fuel and oil changes for the engine, generator and water maker. Then I wrote the blog for yesterday and this morning. While we sat here at anchor, we got a text from Colin and Claudia on Cappella III. They are here in San Carlos and went out this morning to pump out their holding tank this morning. They saw us either on their AIS, or just saw the boat as they went by, and wanted to see if we spent the night in Martini Cove. We suggested they raft up with us and we could teach them a new card game. They thought about it, but are getting their boat hauled out tomorrow and have a bunch of stuff to get done.

Since we won’t have company, we will probably get underway in an hour or so, and head north.

Well, we got underway, and headed north. We sailed wing on wing, (the mainsail out to port, the staysail and jib out to starboard, wind coming from about 5 degrees to port of our stern) for about 3 hours. Finally when the wind dropped to about 3 knots, and boat speed was effectively zero, we started the motor and finished our day. We arrived at Las Cocinies to find 5 there other boats here already. Of course by the time we dropped anchor the wind was up to about 15 knots. Oh well. We anchored and read and napped for a couple of hours. Then dinner and a movie.

We ran the water-maker while we were out today. I figure it has been run for about 9.5 hours in the last two days. Which is about 190 gallons. Our tank indicates 90% (260 gallons when full). There was some water in it I plan on running it next when we cross the sea back to Baja. I intend to run it long enough to get some water out of the overflow on the tank. We are planning on going to Bhaia Kino tomorrow that is about 50 miles north of here. Kind of a long day. Then cross to Isla Tiburon (shark island), staying in Monument bay on the south east corner. From there it is about 40 miles across to the peninsula From there, we continue north. We are hoping for more protected anchorages. The next couple are pretty open and there are no real options as to where we anchor. Except to go longer distances.

For being 1 year retired, I guess we should have some pithy comments about what it feels like and whether or not we are happy being retired. All I can say about that is, I have no desire to go back to work. Really, I don’t miss it a bit. I liked what I did, but it is like a different life completely, and we are too busy with this life to even think about adding work to it.

We have been pretty busy this year, since we retired, we moved our household stuff to Florida, moved our truck and trailer to Kansas, moved our residence state to Nevada, took a narrow boat trip in England, finished getting the boat ready, took a shakedown cruise from San Diego to Monterey, fixed what broke on the boat, and then (finally) started this cruise south. We have lived aboard at least 6 of the last 12 months. (1 month from San Diego to Monterey and 5 more on this trip). When we were in San Diego, we had at least 10 days a month on the boat. Not enough to be called live-aboards, but enough to have some privacy and to give some to Bob and Sharlene Miller who graciously let us stay at their place while we worked on the boat. We are looking forward to the summer part of our retired life, but that may be on hold with the Corona Virus. We are planning on having the boat hauled about May 11th. In PUERTO PEñASCO. We have a two bedroom apartment rented for three weeks starting May 11th. We will have to get the boat ready to be hauled out. After that we will go back to the states, get our truck and trailer out of storage and do some driving and visiting friends and relatives.

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a passport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

March 31, Tuesday, travel to San Carlos

We got up early 6 am, and had breakfast and made preparations for getting underway. Which means, take out the trash, fill the holding tank with water from the dock, (this helps to clean the tank out), take off shore power, turn all the instruments on, put the speed probe back in the water, and finally say goodbye’s to those we are leaving behind. Then we start the engine and take off the dock lines.

We headed out of port, Renee’ gets busy with putting things away on deck while I am focused on getting us out of the bay. All the dock lines get coiled up and tied to places on the life lines, the fenders all come on deck, she makes a point of checking that the decks are clear and that one of the dock lines is looped though the anchor to tie it down (only really an issue in heavy weather). Finally everything is done and we exit the bay. We had checked the weather the last couple of days, and downloaded it this morning before we left, but, it is after all only a prediction, and like all weather predictions, really only a best guess. So, we expected light winds in the 10 knot range what we got was 25 to 30 knots. Much more than we wanted.

In any case we sailed out for awhile and dumped the holding tank, then started the water maker and ran it for about 3 hours. While all this was going on, we did our devotions for the day.

Pulling into San Carlos was interesting, the channel is narrow, and the chart looks like the east channel marker is near the west side of the channel, and that is where I was headed. At almost the last minute, Renee’ told me that the “Red” channel marker I was looking at was ORANGE, (a non specific buoy) and that I should be further east. So, we stopped and looked a bit closer at the chart and the water, then moved east and continued on slowly. Turns out the “Orange Buoy” was not a buoy, as in fit was built on a concrete stand and there was a pretty good sized rock right where I had been headed. OOPS!

In any case we got in safely and got fuel. The price was 21.45 pesos to the liter, and the dock fee was 5% on top of that. We spent almost $400 on diesel topping off the tank. While that sounds like quite a bit of money, you really have to keep it in perspective. We have put in about 420 gallons of fuel since we left San Diego at the end of October, which means we have spent about $1,500 on fuel. Which gives us propulsion, power, and water, or our utility and fuel bill is about $300 per month. We also have occasional slip fees, depending on the weather we are trying to anchor more (free) and stay in less expensive slips when we do stay in a slip. For example the last couple of slips have been in $70 -$80 per week range. This keeps our overall expenses down. Other expenses we have include cleaning the bottom of the boat once a month. Typically that costs about $1 per foot or around $50. We got it cleaned in Guaymas and it was about $33. Repairs, things break and have to be fixed, typically they are not very expensive and we can find someone to do most of them. Beyond that it comes down to food and beer. Oh, and don’t forget the souvenirs!

We pulled out of San Carlos, and made a hard right turn and looped back into Martini bay. This is a very small little cove with tall cliffs around three sides and a huge rock (mountain) in the fourth side. VERY protected. From almost every direction. This might be my favorite anchorage from the last 5 months.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

When we get fuel, this is where Renee’ winds up. Holding the oil absorbing rag at the overflow of the tank.

This shows how much and what we paid. The quantity is in liters, and the price in pesos.

No matter the price at the pump, there is almost always at little something extra.

April 3, Friday, Isla Tiburon (Shark Island)

We woke up at 7 am to the anchor alarm. We had drifted to the edge of the alarm boundary. Probably too tight again. Oh well, I would rather have a few false alarms, then miss one and wind up on the rocks. When we looked out it was foggy, and cool. Fairly calm, no wind and small swells.

The cell service we had last night is weak. Sometimes it is good enough to stream a video from YouTube, other times, we can’t open a web browser to do a text search.

So, today was supposed to be a day outside, kayaking, hiking and swimming, that sort of thing. But, instead we spent a significant portion of the day trying to recover files for the journal that Renee’ has been using since we left San Diego in 2013 and took our first boat S/V Make Me Laugh across the Gulf of Mexico from Corpus Christi, Tx to New Port Richey, FL. We have recovered some of the files, but none of the files from about September 2017 to October 2019. We are still working on it, currently on our last feeble hope (started at about 8:30 am and it is now 1:45pm. Difficult at best with a weak cell service.

FINALLY! We have recovered what we can. There is a period of about 2 years (2017-2019) with no pictures, and a period of a couple of months with nothing (June to Oct 2019) that are gone. But otherwise, we recovered all of it from 2013 (when she started using it) until today! She has the pictures in her photos on her phone and iPad, just not in the journal. The support was AWESOME! Consider that the app she was using DAYONE JOURNAL CLASSIC, was upgraded to a newer version and no longer supported in 2016. So, it was 4 years out of date. Consider that we were not backing up to the cloud, rather to our computer, and that she had also been backing up to Dropbox.com, who had stopped supporting the method used by DAYONE JOURNAL CLASSIC in 2017. So, what all that means is that the support guy could have said “sorry, but you got what you paid for” (she was using a free version). But, the support guy stayed with us from about 8:30 until 3 pm or later. We recovered all those files, and he gave us a code good for a one year subscription to the new version of the software. He also sent me the information on how to do the backups and make sure that we did not have this problem again. Yes, it cost a bit in the long run, the new app costs about $3 a month and I really do need to use the iCloud backup, I have been trying very hard to avoid this (like years!). So, we have to pay for a bigger plan.

Again the support was awesome and I highly recommend this app and its support!

https://dayoneapp.com/

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a sport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

No new pictures today.

March 30, Monday, Guaymas, another false start

We got up at 6 am. Our plan was to get organized, go to the store and turn in our keys (to get our deposit) and leave by 9:30 am. Well, that did not happen. We got up, had our breakfast, did our devotions, downloaded the weather and looked at what the wind was doing to our flags. We decided to go to the store, and leave mañana. We went to the store, and came back to the boat. This took an hour or two. Remember we do everything on foot. In this case we pulled our little cart. When we got back to the boat we had another lazy day.

Renee’ made sun tea, and watched a movie and read a book. Later in the day she made cookies. I surfed the net and searched for recommended navigation software for the iPad’s. Finally settled on Navionics. I downloaded it for both iPads and signed up for a 2 week trial. When we decide we want it, it is $28 for a year. Not a horrible price.

After lunch we took a walk on the Malecón, and also checked out (on the honor system) from the marina. This way we can leave first thing in the morning.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

March 29, Sunday, Guaymas, another quiet day

We got up about 7:30, had breakfast and watch a sermon from North Coast Church in Vista, Ca. We tried to watch the message from Stonebridge Church in Cedar Rapids, Ia. But we could not keep the video working via the internet that we had. Not sure why North Coast’s worked and Stonebridge did not. Oh well.

After the sermon, Renee’ started a load of clothes, and I worked on formatting the BLOG some more.

After lunch we went for a walk, past the church and down the Malecón. Finally back to the boat. Renee’ made a couple of calls, and I surfed the net some more. Another quiet day.

We had dinner and spent the rest of the day surfing the Internet. Renee’ made tortilla soup for dinner. We plan to get up early tomorrow make a run to the grocery store and get underway by 9 or 9:30 tomorrow.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again