Category: 2019 – 2020 Season 1

We got under way at about 6:30, still dark, got to watch the sun come up, and had to deal with some current at the mouth of Mag Bay. Would have been nice if the timing had worked out to give us a push instead of holding us back. We got out 3 miles and dumped the holding tank, then started the water maker and a load of laundry. We have 24 hours to go on this heading. There is no wind (<5 knots, from the port bow), so we have the mainsail up and are motor sailing. We are going about 6.5 knots speed over ground. Listening to Christmas music. Renee’ is napping.

We are still motor sailing. True wind is abut 12 knots, but is from directly astern. Apparent wind is about 7 knots. This is not enough to move our boat. We have gone about 65 miles roughly 1/3 of the way. It is hot, the sea is fairly flat. Pretty dull stuff today.

Well, a bit later, as in after dark. I was getting ready for a nap, we were having issues with the radio, Bluetooth, and cell phones, and so I rebooted the radio. So far so good. Unfortunately I dropped my life jacket/harness by the DC circuit breaker panel and …. bumped the breaker for the chart plotter/radar. OOPS! No control, about 15 minutes later, chart plotter/radar and auto pilot are communicating again, and we are back on course. Renee’ is driving/watching etc. I lay down and take a nap.

A couple hours later, I am driving and Renee’ is sleeping. I take a look at the depth gauge, we are 18+ miles off shore, the chart says 2700 – 3000 feet. BUT!!! Our depth garage is at 50 feet and gradually getting lower. I called Renee’ back on deck to help me watch as we slowed down to about 2.5 knots, and the lowest depth I saw was 10.8 feet. The swells there were pretty strong. We turned west and went slow and eventually got back into deep water.

A couple of hours later, Renee’ was driving and I had just gone down to sleep, and we repeated the previous paragraph, with the shallowest being mid 20’s. This one was on the chart, but said that it was about 55 feet deep at the shallowest! We were originally going to miss that one, but when we changed course for the first one, wound up going right over this one.

We listened to a sermon from North Coast given by Chris Brown on the rich young ruler, the blind beggar and the chief tax collector. Bottom line out of all this, we are called to be servants, not to be served.

We woke up about 7am, and realized that we were supposed to be communicating with the crew of Wild Blue. Renee’ got on the radio and found out that they were in the process of leaving for Cabo. They go a bit slower than us under power at least. (They have a 60 hp engine, and he was told RPM should be 1800 RPM max, which gives them about 4.4 knots). This doesn’t sound right to me, as the boat is a 45 footer, and as such should have a hull speed of about 7.5 knots. It seems wrong that they would be so underpowered at 60 hp, that they can only get half of that.

Today, the crew of the Merry Lee, and the Lost Pearl and I (Neil) used our dinghy to get across to San Carlos (about 9 miles away) it took us about an hour to get there and used about 1.5 gallons of gas to get the 5 of us across the bay. When we got there, a couple of guys in a pickup gave us a ride to the first Pemex in town (but no diesel) so we got back in the truck and he took us across town to the other Pemex to get diesel and gas, then stopped at a grocery store for us, then a liquor store to get beer, then back to the dinghy! We tipped the kids filling the gas and diesel cans, and gave the guy who drove the truck a 200 peso note for his effort. (At about 17 pesos to the dollar, that was a bit more than $10 for his effort). For us, he saved us a couple of hours hauling empty containers to the Pemex and back (probably 5 miles across town each way).

We are planning on having the Merry Lee and the Lost Pearl crews over to play cards this evening. We might also run over to Aloha to get a tour of their boat, and Hans 505. Very nice new boat. We have postponed the trip to Aloha until we meet again in San Jose Del Cabo.

Well, we played Rummy 500 to show them how to play. Then they left and we put our dinghy away, and generally got ready to get underway the next morning. While putting the dinghy away, we watched a pelican catch a fish about 20 feet from the back of the boat. We had the light on to see what we were doing, and apparently that brought a fish near the surface and a pelican to have dinner. A little later we saw a crab in the water (probably 10-12” across) Renee’ tried to catch it overnight, but no luck. The first night here we saw a sea horse near the surface. We have seen some interesting sea life. When everything was put away, we FaceTimed with the grandkids, then went to bed.

We had an interesting sail, we stayed about 3 or 4 miles from Aloha all night. At one point about 17 miles off shore we saw a couple of lights ahead. There was nothing on Radar, and as we got closer we saw that we were on a pretty close approach and considered altering course to avoid. But I figured that I could stay on course keep an eye on them and avoid as necessary. It turned out to be a small Panga, with two very bright lights and a couple of guys fishing. That was our excitement for the night. We anchored at about 8:30 in Bahia Santa Maria. This bay has a pretty big mountain/hill between it and the ocean to the west, but to the north it is just a small spit/beach pretty low, so while it blocks the swells, it does nothing for the wind. Which at the moment is pretty light.

The Merry Lee and Lost Pearl are here and are anchored not far from us. Aloha is still coming in. They are better sailors than we are, as I talked to him periodically on the way down, and they only motored for about an hour and a half, whereas we gave up when the wind came from directly behind us, and dropped to about 10 knots apparent. He was able to maintain 5+ knots with approximately the same course as us. We ran the engine, but I kept the RPM at about 2500, vs our normal cruise RPM of 3000. This kept our speed over ground to about 6 knots. I did not want to get here before sunrise, so that we could see where we were anchoring. We left at 4 pm, and arrived at 8:30 am, so 12.5 hours. There are quite a few boats here (about 6 or 8) and I saw 3 or 4 leaving as we were pulling in. Compared to what we have seen on this coast, the only place that compared was Turtle Bay. This was a long night, we are going to go to bed and get some sleep.

We slept for a bit, then got up, and I called my uncle Gary. After getting the info from my mom that he was awake. That took an act of congress to get him on the phone. The operator at the hospital was convinced he was still in ICU, nope, not in the first one, not in the second one, back to the operator. Finally found out what room he was in, but he was busy, and the phone did not get answered. Wait a bit and try again. Found out what room he was in, but when I tried to call that number, found out I needed to know which bed he was in (private room only one bed) back to he operator, this is the room he is in, and I want to talk to the nurse. Yeah, he is not in this department, so hang on and another transfer. Two hours later…. I talked to him and he is doing pretty well. Could go home tomorrow. The blockages are inoperable. So, some more phone calls to health care providers for him and his neighbor etc. Also called AT&T to figure out why my iPad can’t find my iPhone for hotspot. Two more hours on the phone and a promise to call back tomorrow (I have heard that before) now an hour after the last phone call it is working. Who knows why? Who cares?

I don’t know if I can post pictures yet, we will see.

We had a VERY quiet night, no swells, no wind, not particularly cold or hot. Great sleep! We got up around 7 am, had breakfast of cereal and banana nut bread and then left at about 9am for Man of War Cove in Bahia Magdalena (Mag Bay) a short day we tried to sail, but there was still no wind. We noted that the current through the entrance to Mag Bay was very strong, like 3+ knots out. We were doing 5.5 – 6 knots through the water, and 2 knots speed over ground. We motored up to the cove, and had issues with our instruments. The autopilot/chart plotter lost the connection from the primary chart plotter (at the Nav Station) to the one at the helm, this causes it to stop following the route, as the route (apparently) relies on the primary maps. Anyway, we rebooted the autopilot and the radar a couple of times, and it might be ok. We will see tomorrow. Renee’ caught a Bonito today (tuna?) small, enough for dinner. Very tasty!

We expected to have to go ashore and check in here, but there is no port captain, so no check in. Merry Lee and Lost Pearl both went ashore to check in and let us know about the port captain. We are expecting another very quiet night. Not sure if we will stay here another night, or leave in the morning. The next trip is 200 miles. We are not looking forward to that.

We went over to visit with Ed and Katie on the Wild Blue a 1999 Island Packet 45. We spent about an hour there. Ed is a famous kayaker, he has kayaked from California to Hawaii, and took 63 days to do it. They have had an ocean kayaking school, he has kayaked most of the west coast down into South America. It was interesting to see the differences between the two boats. Our is a center cockpit, and theirs is an aft cockpit which accounts for much of the difference. Also, they have a fully battened mainsail that is not roller furling. They replaced all of their standing rigging in San Diego just before making this trip. Casey at Pacific Offshore Rigging was involved. They also replaced much of their running rigging as well. They had their mast out for this project. While their boat is about the same size as ours, they have a smaller engine, a 60 horse power Yanmar, we have a 75 hours power Yanmar. Theirs appears to a low RPM engine, 1500 to 2000 vs ours at 3200-3400. Their engine room is a bit smaller than ours, and they don’t have room for the generator in the engine room.

On the other hand, the cupboard/wine rack behind the table is deeper and wider on their boat, I think the wood has a richer/darker look on their boat.

We gave Lost Pearl water tonight, and discussed going to San Carlos on the other side of Mag Bay. It is a panga ride from here to there and back. $100 round trip for as many as fit in the panga, over in the morning head back around noon. If 8 of us went, it would be $25/boat. Another option is to use our dinghy and motor over. 9 miles or so each way. I am not crazy about that idea. If we take a sailboat over there, it requires paying for the anchorage, and a full check in with the harbor captain, etc. We are not sure how much It costs to anchor, just know that it is free here, and also most other places. I just took a look across the bay to San Carlos. It is a long way.

We will see tomorrow night we are planning to play cars with the other guys.

Ospreys in Abreojos.