Category: 2020 – 2021 Season 2

We started our day with a sermon from North Coast, then got organized for our day trip into Los Mochis, Renee’ tried Uber, but “No Cars available” was all she found. We asked around and Omar the normal guy who watches the Marina was not here, and Luis was. He called a cab for us, and we coordinated the rides for going to Los Mochis for the day today, and in the morning for the Chepe train and the return trip when we get back from Copper Canyon. His rate is 300 pesos each way, so 6 trips is 1800 pesos, which is about $90 US. It is between 15 and 20 miles from the marina to Los Mochis depending on where you are going there.

Today, we went to a huge park, and saw ducks, turtles, and iguanas. Overall one of the nicest parks I can remember. Clean, and quiet. It backed up to a golf course. After the park we went to a lunch Restaurant Panamá Los Mochis. The food was excellent, I had a drink called a Mango Mambo which was an icee thing with lots of fruit and VERY sweet, actually between the cold and the sweet, it about put me over the edge. We checked out the bakery there before walking on to the open air market.

We got to the market as they were putting stuff away. But, it was still HUGE! We walked down one main thoroughfare which was about 3 blocks long, with two or three lanes of stuff to look at/buy. They had tools, fresh fruits and vegetables, lingerie, clothes in general, clothes for babies, clothes for men, bikes and bike parts and there was even a chiropractor (he was the only one I saw in a suit). Renee’ got a puffy vest to stay warm at the canyon, and I bought a couple of pairs of pants, there was of course no place to try them on. I did when we got back to the boat. Levis has a strange size system that I have not figured out. I bought Levi 505’s with “bigger thighs” and straight legs size 34w – 32l. They are probably two sizes too small. The jeans I bought that are no name, size 34w, 30l fit fairly well. OH well, they will go back to the states. They only cost 250 pesos each (about $12.50 each).

From there we walked back to a store near the park we had been to earlier, and Renee’ got a sweater. We then started looking for a place to get a beer (happy hour) and stumbled on McFly’s but the only beer they had was Corona and other “lite beers”. So, we had a beer and called our cab to come get us. We had him take us bake to the Malecón in Topolobampo, and found a restaurant there. Excellent food and about a 10 minute walk back to our boat. They did not have a salad on the menu, but made one anyway for Renee’, I had a tuna and mango tostada which was fantastic! Then back to the boat to pack and get some sleep. We have to be ready for the taxi at 7 am.

We walked around town, found our way to the Malecón, had dinner and back to the boat with a quick stop at an ATM. The tour book says there is limited ATM’s near Copper Canyon, and we need small bills. So, we took out 8000 pesos in 200 peso notes. While that sounds like a lot of money, the conversion rate was about 18.60 pesos to the dollar. Figure 20 pesos to the dollar, or about $400 US. While it is a fairly poor town, the view is spectacular. The food was also very good.

Finally, we managed to get out of La Paz. We had pretty high winds as we got out and around the point. With the wind mainly on the nose, and up into the low 30 knot range. Which made for a pretty uncomfortable ride, complete with me getting seasick. Yes, it happens to all of us occasionally. We had happy hour with chips and guacamole. Good new, it was fresh and tasted good, bad news it looks the same the second time.

Anyway it was a long day and night of motoring and sailing across. We left at 11:45 am. This was based on our planning. We use a speed of 5 knots for planning purposes, but typically go closer to 7 knots when we are going long distances, and I really don’t like arriving after dark. So, since this was 118 miles from Marina to Marina, we wanted to leave no earlier than 12pm, to arrive between 5 am and noon. As it turned out, we arrived and were tied up by 10 am. We got shore power hooked up and went to bed for a couple of hours before checking in.

We saw again, why it is time to update the chart plotter and maps. The entrance to Topolobampo is completely different than the chart plotter shows. The old channel is filled in with the waste from the new channel and is probably a mile north of the old one. I tried to set way points based on the old buoys, and I think only one waypoint did not have to be moved. Well, it is another very expensive project. In any case we arrived safely, and it is a nice marina. The rest of today is dedicated to rest!

We did meet a nice couple across the dock from us, they just got back from Copper canyon, so we went over and shared a beer and got tips on going there.

One other thing I did today is send the pictures and video of the whale shark to the family we took the tour with. I uploaded them to BOX and sent him a link so that he can download them at his leisure, as it would have been too big to send by email.

 

Ok, so the plan was to leave on Jan. 11. But that did not happen. We want to leave after noon, as it will take 24 hours to get to Topolobampo at 5 knots (the speed we use for planning) but we typically go closer to 7 knots when we motor and that would be more like 17 hours. So, if we leave here before noon, we might have to hang out at the other end waiting for day break to go in. So, Renee’ was waiting for a phone call that was supposed to happen in the afternoon, and we won’t have cell service for much of the trip across. So, we waited and waited, and finally she called only to be told, NO, we don’t have you on our list to call, but we can set up a call for later in the day. Well, that made it too late to leave, so we said fine we can leave on the 11th. 

So, the morning of the 12th, I started doing the last minute checks before getting underway, cleaning strainers and changing filters, and checking oil level in the engine and generator. No issues except that the generator had a 1/4” of water/oil in the bottom of the housing. This looked like pure oil. So, my thoughts were not pleasant. After quite a bit of cleaning and calling, I found a hose from the heat exchanger to to the anti siphon device had broken an end and was leaking. This is sea water that cools the heat exchanger then goes to the anti siphon device then the exhaust mixing tee and out the back of the boat. I was able to find heater hose for this at a local chandlery (marine parts store) and hose clamps. I even found someone who could come and work on the boat on the 13th. So, I called him at 8 am (per his request) and he came down and finished hooking everything up. Which meant we would be able to leave today.

But, OH YEAH THE WEATHER! Yeah today is not a good day to leave, so it will be tomorrow. Jan 14. Again there is a reason we refer to this as VELCRO BAY. In the meantime, another trip to the laundry, (70 pesos per load, washed, dried and folded, 20 pesos to the dollar, so $3.50 US) they don’t let you wash your own because COVID. Later today we will walk to Harkers and have our happy hour there, and tomorrow we will get underway. No, really.

We flew back into La Paz, a pretty uneventful trip. We drove the rental car to the BCX terminal, dropped it off in almost the same parking spot we started in, were met by a company representative who took over the car. We got a cart for our luggage (free) and we walked into the terminal. A few minutes later we were done filling out the required customs paperwork and we started across the border. This BCX (Border Crossing Express) is an amazing value for the cost. It is about $40 round trip from the US to the airport. You have to have a flight into or out of Tijuana to use it. We walked 0.6 miles from where we parked the rental to the counter to check our bags. I have walked that far or further at quite a few airports that I have flown out of over the years. All of that walk except the first 100 yards or so, was indoors. That included all of the customs check out from the US and check into Mexico. The flight was 2 hours, and we had one time zone change so it was only an hour on the clock. Renee’ texted our “uber” driver and he picked us up in front of the airport (He is currently not working for Uber as his paperwork is not quite up to speed. The cost for the ride back to the marina was 200 pesos. About $10 US.

We got back on the boat and discovered…. The shore power breaker for the primary circuit was tripped inside the boat. That means that while the air conditioning, washer/dryer and water maker all had power, the important stuff like the BATTERY CHARGER did not! So, once again dead batteries. The fridge and freezer were up to the mid 50’s for temperature. The batteries were at about 11.5 volts. So, our return started with throwing a bunch of stuff away.

As soon as I reset the shore power breaker, the battery charger started up and shortly after that the Iridium Go! Sent the we are here signal, which prompted me to send an email to support to find out when the last message was sent.  Previous experiencer with this device says the battery in it is good for about 8 hours, and it sends a message to say where we are every hour after start up. On Sunday (they are in New Zealand) I got a message back that the last time it sent a message was 12/27/2020 at 23:54:12. So, about 8 hours before that is when the battery on the boat was dead. So, about 4 pm 12/27 is when the battery was dead. We make a little progress with the solar panels during the day, and we use a couple of hundred amp hours per day to run the fridge/freezer etc. So, probably Christmas Day sometime for the breaker to trip. I called Battleborn on Tuesday (no answer on Monday) and talked to a tech who said that if it was only completely discharged for a week, it was not really an issue. Had it been off for a month then I could expect to see some loss of capacity. So, at 4 and a half days, no issue. It took until about 3 in the morning to fully charge the battery. Advantage of new electronics, I can monitor what is going on, or happed on my phone. We discharged 601 AH out of our batteries, rated at 600 AH.

The battery monitoring system (internal to the batteries) turns off the batteries before they go low enough to damage the batteries, which is good and bad. If we are in dire straights, that means our instruments will turn off at that point to save the batteries. Which might not save us.

As a general rule of thumb, our days are like this:

Get up around 7 or 7:30 am. Listen to the cruisers net here in La Paz from 8 to about 8:30. Have breakfast, do our devotions, and figure out what we are going to do for the day. On Sunday there is no net, and we go to church. There is a bilingual church here in La Paz. This Sunday, they had a group from YWAM (youth with a mission) here. Most of the time we have lunch and dinner on the boat, although we have gone out a few times. Best so far was a place called NEMI, mostly a seafood menu, but we had Filet, VERY good! Renee’ and I split a meal, which meant we had room for desert cheese cake and key lime pie.

Today we were told by the guy we contacted (before we got to La Paz) that he was not going to be able to get our work done before we want to leave and that we should contact someone else (he gave the number) for the water maker and wood work that we want done. He had been down on the boat before we left for the states and I am almost positive I told him we would be back on Jan. 2, and the work could start Jan. 4. Oh well, the other watermaker guy said he would start today, and should be done on Friday, or Saturday. The wood guy will be here tomorrow to talk about what I want, and the bottom cleaning is scheduled (I don’t know when, but the bottom cleaner has the message).

I have been busy selling some things on eBay. Our old battery charger/inverter, the old Battery monitor, and a 12 volt to 12 volt charger we did not use (New) all of those sold, and a Battery Isolation Manager (also new, and not sold yet). We tried to sell them here in Mexico before we left for California, and had no serious takers or even offers, until we had the battery charger in California. The discussion was going “Ok” until he suggested that if I did not sell it, we could continue our discussion here in Mexico. This charger weighs 47 lbs. we flew it to California as luggage (so $35). Flying it back was out of the question. I was offering it for sale here for $500 as a starting point, and probably would have taken something less. As it was I sold it for $560 on eBay. All of the stuff is in Sacramento with our son Kyle who will mail it for me. I have pdf files of the shipping labels and packing slips and emailed them to him.

Next up is I have to sort through the quotes I have gotten for new sails. I have seven quotes from reputable sailmakers, and the prices range from $7,863 to $18,640. (Those are the actual numbers). Obviously they are not quoting the same sails. The problem is that I don’t know enough (yet) to know whether the low priced sails are all I need, or if the high priced sails are worth the extra money. Considering we probably will not replace the sails again. The ones we have are about 15 years old, and the new ones will probably last as long, and that would put us in our mid to late 70’s. So, this is truly a one time purchase. One of the seven companies took themselves out of the running. Communications on this sort of thing is very important and theirs was horrible.

I am going to put together a letter tomorrow to email to each of the remaining representatives explaining my lack of knowledge and asking them to make me understand what I am buying and why I should go with them. In the meantime, one of the other IP 445 (same model boat as us) recently got new sails, and his sails are identical to one of the quotes I got. Coincidentally, one of our friends here in Mexico, also bought virtually the same sails. His are a bit bigger as his boat is bigger, and his mast is taller, and he bought his sails in 2017, but his price was about $2,000 less for the mainsail then the quote I got.

We have had a good time here in La Paz. Found a few really good restaurants, attended church at the local bilingual church.

Renee’ had an adventure, she was headed to Walmart on the bus, a very reasonable price of 10 pesos (about 50 cents) to ride the bus anywhere. She has done this trip a couple of times, unfortunately she got on the wrong bus, and wound up traveling south of the airport and got into a small town that did not have paved streets. She called me and we tried to figure out where she was, but somewhere along the line the bus turned around and headed back. Probably no more than an hour or so and she was back where she knew where she was. Fall back plans included calling an Uber for her, or a taxi. In any case she got the shopping done.

This marina has some big boats at 45 feet plus bowsprit and dinghy hanging off the back we are actually about 53 feet, and are currently sitting between a Nordhvn 60 Motor Yacht and a 73 foot sailboat S/V Wolfhound (a gorgeous boat!) here is a link to an article in Yachtingworld about it: https://www.yachtingworld.com/extraordinary-boats/wolfhound-steven-dews-yacht-home-and-studio-for-next-ten-years-95518 We are feeling like we have a pretty small boat here.

Our friends from Oceanside, Duane and Marjie Ericson sold their boat S/V Windrift and he had told me they were headed to La Paz and we should say hello if we ran into them. Well the other night we did, we were in a local restaurant to listen to a live guitarist. We were a bit late, and so had to sit at the bar. A few minutes after we had gotten there, the guy to our right got up and left. A few minutes later someone else sat down and we started chatting, the normal stuff what kind of boat, where are you now, where are you from back and forth. He says his boat is a Passport 40, and I said are you on Windrift? And it was the guy who had bought Duane’s boat. We had a pretty good discussion from about it, and he said he would contact Duane and let him know that he had run into us.

All in all, a really good visit to La Paz, quite a bit got done. The boat got detailed, the stainless steel polished, the blocks for the dinghy hoist and lines replaced, the water-maker had a second membrane installed (was 20 gph now 33 gph) a vent was cut into the cabinet where the charger/inverter is for cooling, and all the hatch hinges are working now! (That is a project that has been going on for months!) Oh, and I have gotten a bunch of quotes for new sails. I think we will be getting some sails that will last a few years and are not very expensive. We will probably get new sails again in about 5 years or so, we should be in Florida by then.