Category: 2019 – 2020 Season 1

We got up as normal, listened to the NET, and had breakfast, did our devotions and planned the day.

Renee’ took the laundry up and started it. Cheaper than other places we have been, but the marina is more, so still not even.

When she got back, we dropped the box under the sink to access the suspected leak. Well, some bad news first, there is about a half inch of water under the engine. Not sure where it came from but, there is no leak visible under the sink. So, back to the top, closer inspection of the valve and …. take the top of the valve apart and there it is a loose nut that hold the valve together. I tighten that up and wipe the sink down and the leak is gone. We redid some of the insulation tape inside the engine room and at 2 pm today Michael N. will be by to help put it back up. Then I can look for the other leak on the engine. In the meantime, laundry is done and Renee’ took the shuttle into town.

At this point it is pretty clear that we will be leaving in the morning headed out to the islands again. We have reservations for our flight to Tijuana on Feb 3rd, and for a slip in this marina starting on Feb 2nd, so we will be back for that.

So here are some pictures of the day.

We went to bed last night with very calm seas. No wind, no waves. About 2 am this morning the waves started from the west, so it was kinda rolly the rest of the night. Renee’ could not sleep anymore about 6:45 and got up, I slept in for another hour, then got up.

We had breakfast, Renee’ had planned bagels which were in the freezer, but they had gotten stale, so, she made French toast out of them, and used a strawberry and apple mix she had made for the turnovers we had the other day as syrup on them. This was really good.

One thing we have noticed, is that there is a small leak at the base of the faucet in the galley. This is one of the hardest things to access to work on. The faucet is behind the sink and above the engine. Inside the engine compartment there is a box around the sink that is insulated and held up by a half dozen or so screws. The insulation is held on by metallic insulation tape and spray adhesive. When we replaced this faucet in San Diego, my friend Bob and I spent a day taking this box down to get at the faucet. There was more effort involved in taking the box down than replacing the faucet. On top of which when we took the box down, we broke one of the two engine room lights off the ceiling. How bad it can get, is if we go after the leak, and break something in the faucet, we won’t have any fresh water on the boat, as there are virtually no valves in this system. I am not sure I want to go after this leak while at anchor, as to work on this we have to drop the box on top of the engine while we work on the faucet. Which means the engine is not available while the box is sitting on top of it. In the mean time, we are mopping up the water with a sponge periodically.  Renee’ looked in the engine room and does not see any water leaking there. Which tends to suggest that the problem is the faucet itself, we bought it at Lowes, less than a year ago. I have not seen a Lowes since we left San Diego and I don’t have access to the internet to find out if there is one nearby. We will probably be buying a new faucet here at Home Depot in La Paz, if it is not something I can fix.

We have turned off the water pump (Renee’ suggested it) and depressurized the system when we are not using it, to minimize the leak.

As the wind built up and the waves got a bit taller. We thought about it and decided that it would be better to go back to La Paz and fix the sink, as we were going to spend the day sitting on the boat rocking and rolling.

We motored out of the cove, and sailed until the wind died, yeah the wind that was making the waves in Ensenada Grande just died. Oh well, then we motored and headed back to La Paz. Checked on all the stuff we ordered and got a slip in Pamira marina in La Paz.

When we got here, we backed in and it went very smoothly! Parked it right where it was supposed to be and never touched a thing on the way in, not even the roller on the end of the dock. I was pretty surprised how it worked, and I was the one driving!

They did not have 50 amp shore power available, after an hour they said we could move to the other side of the dock where it had already been fixed, or wait about an hour and they would have it fixed on our slip. We waited and the guy came out and did it. So, we are here and have shore power and we will be working on the faucet in the morning.

We got up a bit early, about 7 am. We had our breakfast and did our devotions. Read for a bit, and got underway about 9:30 or so. We ran the water maker again today for  4 or 5 hours. That is 80-100 gallons of water. Our water tank level indicator says it went from 70 to 90%. We have a 260 gallon tank, 10%=26 gallons. 30% is 78 gallons,  so maybe it is right, or maybe it reads a bit low. In any case, we did not get water out of the overflow yet. We will be running the water maker again in a couple of days and see if we can top of the tank.
We anchored between a large power boat, and a sailboat, there are now 3 sailboats in this part of the anchorage, and two power boats. There is also a bunch of people on the beach to the north of us, brought in by Panga’s from La Paz (I think).

I am looking for some input here:

I have had several people suggest that we should be filming this and posting it to YouTube. What do you think? Would you watch it? Should we film it? By the way, I can’t upload video here. I could post it to Vimeo or Youtube and link it but not directly here.

This is not a small commitment, I have watched a number of video’s on YouTube from sailors, and several of them (who admitted to having had a career in videography prior to sailing) have said that it typically takes them 8 hours of effort for a 20 minute video on YouTube, If we posted a video once a month, would that be enough to keep people interested? That would still be a bunch of work on our part, but it would be spread out over the month. On the other hand, if we posted a video a week, it would almost be like having a job. Which we really don’t want.

So, drop us a line, comment on this post, send an email, send a text, let us know what you think.

We got up about normal time 7:30, had breakfast and did our devotions.

We read for a bit this morning and then about 10 am we kayaked around the cove. Most of this cove is very shallow, as in less than 4 feet with the tide in. We decided to come back to the boat for lunch and then snorkel afterwards.

After lunch and a nap for me, (Renee’ worked on setting up the hammock) we kayaked ashore and snorkeled for a bit. This is not a good location for this, as the water is too shallow, with a sand bottom, very few rocks, so not much to see. Anyway we snorkeled for a bit then came back to the boat. Put the kayak away and started the generator. That way we can have hot showers in about a half hour or so.

Just another quiet day in our life.

 

We got up normal time, had breakfast and listened to the net. Then got a phone call from Bill Brown, we worked together in the training department at San Onofre, which makes it about 15 years ago! We have stayed in touch occasionally. He used to live in Texas, and is now retired and “homeless!” Ok, he does not have a home that he lives in, he does have rental property, a sailboat and a trailer. He was in New Port Richey, Florida and looking for us.  We chatted for awhile, and I sent him the address of this blog. 

Anyway, after all that was done and breakfast and devotions, we were starting to get the boat ready to leave, when the couple who had just arrived across the dock stopped by, we gave them a tour and looked at their boat as well. Then they left to get breakfast and we finished our departure preparations. 

Rich and Danielle on S/V Festina Lente 

We left and eventually got out in the middle of the bay. Good day for sailing with no particular schedule. Our plan was to get to Balandra bay by 5:30 and have the anchor down. Only about 15 miles total. We were out in the bay making water (as usual) for about 3 hours so, 60 gallons. This puts us at 80% in our tank. Enough for showers and everything else. 

We anchored in about 25 feet of water, with 150 feet of chain out in about the same spot as we were the last time we were here. In the morning, we will kayak ashore, over to the shallow part and do some snorkeling (assuming it warms up a bit).