Category: 2020 – 2021 Season 2

We got up early so that we could go in at high tide. The idea was to get in and not have to run aground, well that was the idea. No success, but that was the idea….

We got out of the mud and docked by 8 am. Then chores to do, get the anchor chain out on the dock and mark it for the various depths as the paint has flaked off, run the water maker to fill the tank using good water to dilute what is in the tank now. (Our water maker from sea water is at about 500+ PPM, but from the dock water about 1 ppm. We will have it looked at in Puerto Vallarta. We have talked to several people here, and one couple that we met in La Paz at church. We will be having dinner with them later.

We got an early start this morning, up at 5:15, and underway by 6:15. We hoped to sail, but instead had virtually no wind, complete with fog. We used our fog horn function on the radio which blasts a horn over our loud speaker so that all those near us would know that we were there (nobody was near us). We saw a few whales. At one point I was below pumping the holding tank and Renee’ was watching the boat. A mother whale with her calve surfaced just in front of the boat and then again just to the side. VERY close!

We arrived at Matachén bay, and anchored about 1:00 pm, and took naps and read until happy hour and then dinner on deck.

We got up at 5 am! Underway at 6 am, breakfast after we got out of port. Yes, just another sunrise at sea!

We followed S/V Monarch and motor/sailed north to the island. We did not go fast, and since it was about 35 miles, took all day. When we got there, we found this LITTLE island had 4 boats at anchor in the two anchorages. With us, there will be 6. Or there would have been, except it looks like one of them left as we arrived.

On the way north, we saw about a dozen whales, some humpbacked and some we don’t know as we only saw the blow or it was in the distance. We dropped anchor at the second or third choice as we were the last ones in, and oh yeah lots of other people. We anchored in about 35 feet of water not far from the beach. The books all warn that this is a rocky anchorage and to make sure and use a trip line to be able to free a stuck anchor, so we put a 50 foot rope on the anchor with a fender tied at the end. Hopefully we won’t have to use that, and we can just have some fun getting the rope and fender back on board.

The first thing I noticed about this island as we approached (after the other sailboats and whales) is that there are lot’s of birds flying above the island. The book says, the optimum time to visit is Mid February to Mid March to see all the birds. So, it looks like we hit that window!

Our refrigerator is not working well again, currently we have two jugs of ice in the box, and a small fan to circulate the air. The refrigerator is running hard, and holding temperature to about 42 degrees. Renee’ said, “we may have to cut this playing around short and get to Puerto Vallarta to get this fixed”.  I have suggested moving the important stuff to the beer cooler, which is working well. To come back from Matachén. Bay to here was an all day sail, to come back from PV it would take about 3 to 5 days up against the wind and then 2 to 4 days to get back. I am not saying we won’t ever do that, but it is a pretty big investment of time.

We just heard from Michael, they had originally planned to stay here until midnight tomorrow night, then go to Mazatlan stay for a day or so, then cross to Las Muertos on the peninsula. Well, they have decided to leave mid morning tomorrow and cross directly to Las Muertos, a 48 hour crossing. So, we will not be getting together again for awhile.

 

Renee’s comments about Isla Isabel

2/22 we arrived in late afternoon after a lovely trip, some sailing, mostly motoring.  The Naccaratos ahead of us checked out the south anchorage first…too rocky.  They then anchored on the east side and we parked next door.  We used a trip line in 30’ of water because of the rocky bottom.

2/23 we said goodbye to the Naccaratos in the morning as they left for La Paz (150 mi).  We then dropped the kayak in the water and packed our hiking boots to go ashore.  We first paddled by Shari Ann (38’ Hunter) and spoke to Chris, a single handed sailor.  Then on to the shore.  There was some wave action and we surfed in to the beach smoothly.

We walked along the beach to find the trailhead and had to dodge the many Blue Footed Boobie nests on the coastline.  The mommies complained but didn’t leave their nest.  Some daddies stood by the mommies and babies.  There were other kinds of birds and iguanas all over the place!  It was like walking through an aviary!  Our hike took us up to the rim of the inactive volcano where there was a lake.  Then we hiked down to the south bay/anchorage.  Here there were many fishing huts, pangas, and fishermen.  Two sailboats were anchored in this bay.  On our way back we ran into two hikers that were very happy to see us because they were off the trail and looking for the trail.  They were Elizabeth and Mark.  Elizabeth runs a boat maintenance co in Paradise Village (Banderas Bay).  We got her number.  Chris was on the trail as well.  When we got back to the kayak the tide was out and the waves were breaking on the rock shelf that we didn’t know was there when we came in.  We stared at it for quite a while trying to figure out the best spot to cast off to get back to the boat.  Chris want first and made it look so easy.  Neil and I made it without capsizing but it took several tries to get past the rock shelf.  Then we paddled over to another boat where we met Brad and Sarah.  They’d been on the boat in front of us in the Cabrales boatyard.   

Once back on the boat, we had a beer, lunch, and collapsed.  Our plans of going snorkeling evaporated.  It was a somewhat calm evening…not real rolly but not still either.  We watched “The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission”.

We both agreed the island of Isla Isabela was worth the trip.

We woke up early (before 7 am) had breakfast, watched a sermon from North Coast and worked on getting the dinghy down. Then washed the solar panels. I found the stern light still on this morning. When we turn on the navigation lights, there are breakers for most of them, but one of the two stern lights has a switch at the helm. I turned it on when it got dark and forgot to turn it off when we got here. It takes about 1 amp, which means that since it was on for about 24 hours extra, 24 amp hours. We have 600 amp hours to work with. So, about 4% of our capacity went to the light. This morning we are at 47%, so that means we would have been at about 51%. The refrigerator is really using some amps! We need to get the leak fixed and get it recharged. We will be running the generator tonight to get hot water for showers and charge the batteries. Right now the solar is putting out about 24 amps, but only about 8 amps is going into the battery. The rest is being used by the things that are running. Freezer, Refrigerator, Beer cooler, the charger for my laptop, and one fan. Oh, I was going to turn off the fan to see how much current it was drawing and … Renee’ started the microwave which uses the inverter to the tune of 60-80 amps out of the battery. The fan is drawing about half an amp.

Well it is time to go. I will write more later.

 

We woke up about noon feeling like we had hangovers, and really did not feel like doing anything. Layed around and read, we communicated with the Nacarotto’s who are headed our way. They expected to arrive about 7 pm, but were anchored by about 5 or so. We chatted and decided to get together on Sunday. I spent some time talking to Kyle about batteries and systems for their RV and dealing with my mom’s iPad issue.

The iPad issue is starting to really get me upset. Here is the history of that:

In December 2017 I bought my mom an iPad mini, and I don’t remember who set it up, as I was not going to be there when it arrived. She uses her iPad a lot. In about 2019 (maybe?) she got a new iPhone. Well in the meantime she had forgotten her Apple ID password. So the phone got set up on a new Apple ID. We visited her at Christmas time and she commented on the battery life being very short on the iPad mini. I looked at it and decided it was time to replace this iPad. After all, it was 3 years old, and had been a refurbished device when we got it. Of course, I would not be there to set it up. Kyle said that he would do it. Well, this had been a disaster, Kyle followed the directions to transfer data from the old iPad to the new one, there was even direction if you did not have the password to reset it on the new device as you transferred the data. Well that did not work. End result, both iPads are “setup” with the find my iPad turned on (which is important as you can’t change this function with out the password) Both iPads are asking for the password and not going any further in the setup process, and we have spent multiple hours on the phone with Apple support. We have both worked on straightening this out, I have driven over to my mom’s to work on this at least twice while we were up visiting. (Good I got to spend time with her, bad I was busy on the phone with Apple). We have attempted to use Apple’s support system to reset her Apple ID password, this is an automated program, that you have to do on line. It starts with you answering a bunch of questions, then you click a button screen and the message is displayed about how long this process will take. Anywhere from 24 hours to two weeks. Yes, I said two weeks! So, Kyle did that and we waited two weeks. At the end of the two weeks I was sitting at my mom’s waiting (because they gave a date and time to the second of when we should expect a call or a text to start the next step). Nothing happened, so we called Apple, and were told that “OH, if you used the device in the time that you were waiting for the password reset, the automated app with stop. You have to request the password reset an then set the device aside and not use it”. So, we stared another two weeks of wait!
This time I was told how to check the status on the password reset, and I did, this was the morning that we were leaving from Kyle’s to go skiing. The status was “start over” nothing going on etc. So, now we are onto the next call with Apple Support!

So, when we got back from Tahoe, I went to my mom’s to start the call. The last thing I had been told was that the next step in the process if the Apple ID password did not get reset was to remove the Apple ID from the device. To do that I had to fill out a form on line, include a copy of the receipt for the purchase of the device and the serial number to Apple and they would unlock the device. So, I did that with the Apple Genius on the line, one form for each device and then the tech told me, OK, now we wait for up to a week or more for them to process and remove the lock. We spent the rest of the day with my mom and finally went back to Kyle’s. Then back to the boat, still unsuccessful in fixing this iPad issue.

That last part was a week ago, yesterday, I got the email and it said that the Apple ID lock was removed on the iPad. GREAT! Except, I only got one email. The lock was removed on the old iPad. Kyle called apple support and found out that the lock was NOT removed on the new iPad and that we would have to try again to get it removed. At this point I was still exhausted from the trip overnight, and so decided I would call on Monday to start this process. We will be at two months since I bought the new iPad in a week.