Category: 2025-03 (March)

Published 04/01/2025

Up at 6:30 underway by about 7:30. The issue was seaweed on the anchor chain and anchor. Normally we have mud on the chain and anchor and it washes off pretty easy with the hose from the wash down system (sea water via a pump and hose). But seaweed is much worse, this stuff is stringy like spinach. So, it took some extra effort to get it cleaned off. Finally underway.
About 45 miles today. The wind was always right on our nose, which means no real sailing. Much of the day the wind was under 5 knots, which means not only was the wind from the wrong direction, there also wasn’t enough to really work with. So, the water was flat which means we were faster than normal about 7.3 knots. We saw two sail boats late in the day headed away from us, the nearest one was about 5 miles away.
We anchored at Puerto Don Juan (a small protected bay at the south east corner of Bahia de Los Angeles). We are in about 40 feet of water. This is one of my favorite anchorages, it is surrounded by rocks and hills, there are no houses or villages, so no supplies, but it is completely protected from storm surges, and waves, while the wind might affect us, generally speaking it takes very strong winds to really make an affect on boats anchored here. The last hurricane that hit this area found 20+ boats anchored here with no issues. Downside, there is very little to do here, paddle board, kayak and one hike from this bay across to the sea to the south east.
We found two boats anchored here, SV Offlander (Michael Gingrich), and his previous boat SV Mi Canció (Mike named the boat My Song, they renamed it and changed the name into Spanish with the same meaning) with Jen and Joe who bought the boat from Mike. We are getting together on our boat for dinner tonight.
We have heard that the weather may prevent us from going tomorrow, we will see.
We had a great time, played some dice (Flub similar to Farkle with some differences). Everyone left about 8 and we will go hiking tomorrow.

No pictures today.

 

 

Published 04/01/2025

Up at 3:30, underway by 4 am, we have 80ish miles to go at 6 or I 7 knots, the Mariana at Santa Rosalia is well lit at night, and the slips are wide. We are parked next to is a monohull sailboat, and there is a lot of room, I think we could both be catamarans and still fit here. In any case, I would rather maneuver out of this slip at night than anchor in the dark at Punta San Francisquito.
On our way, we had approximately 2 knots in the marina and as we went north, the wind speed went to 17 knots from the west, then back to 1 knot from the north (the direction we were going) and by 6:30 (2.5 hours) it was back to 2 knots from the south. Later in the morning it was up to about 12 knots, but when dropped back to 3 knots. Just not enough to sail with.
Our original plan included a stop at Punta Trionidad about 1/2 way to Punta San Francisquito, but that was just to avoid a long day. We thought about it and decided to just do 80 miles today When we anchor tonight, we will have just under 200 miles to go, and we plan to be in Puerto Peñasco on Friday 4/4. Today is the 2nd longest day of our journey this season so far.
We listened to the service from Savannah this morning, we heard almost all of the message, then apparently we got too far from land and lost our internet. We are about 12 miles off shore, and that is the limit with Starlink. we should be able to get it back a bit later today.
Starlink came back when we were about 12 miles off shore.
We got anchored and had dinner then we were on the phone with both of our mothers for a bit. Finally bed!!

 

Published 04/01/2025
Up at 6 am. Breakfast, and bible reading. Then Reneé headed out for shopping.
We had an “interesting” thing happen as we crawled into bed last night. An alarm went off, that we did not recognize. I thought it was from the radio, (we keep the VHF handheld on all the time, it doesn’t draw much power, and it lets us know if there is something going on that concerns us). But, not the radio, also somewhat inconsistent. I eventually gave up trying to find where it was, then started cycling circuit breakers on the DC panel. I got to the PUMP FUSE BLOCK which stopped the alarm, and when I turned it back on the alarm was back, so I turned it off while I investigated further. I went to the compartment where the fresh water pump is, and took all the tools and vacuum cleaner out and found about 3” of water in the bottom of the compartment (as well as a folding alarm). This compartment has the water pump, a filter, the suction strainer, the manifold for cold water and the manifold for hotter, it s where virtually every hose on the fresh water system starts. See the picture of this compartment. The water is in the bottom of it, but nothing above the bottom is wet. IF the leak is from the pressurized system, either cold or hot, then the pump would have to run periodically. There is no expansion tank, the pump cycles on for low pressure and off when the pressure is up. The pump doesn’t run, therefore the water is not coming from the pressurized system. There is an Air Conditioner in the next compartment aft, but there is a low point in the pan for that unit that drains to the bilge. This is a puzzle, and I am looking for whatever is putting water in here.
Things that have been done on the boat with water in the last week, we got a delivery of water, the fill line is on the same side of the boat, but further aft. We washed the boat, but that has never resulted in putting water here before. I fixed the wash down pump hose yesterday, but that is forward and on the other side of the boat. It drains to the bilge from where I was working.
After running a fan to dry out the water for an hour or so, I took another look. I noticed the water seemed to be coming from the front lower point of the compartment. Above that point is the valve for the washing machine. I checked the hose under it and found it was wet. Upon closer inspection the valve was wet at the point the hose connected to it at the top, I tighten the hose clamps top and bottom (they were pretty loose), and dried it with a paper towel. Now the fan is drying things out again. I will check again in an hour or so.
In the meantime, I also want to flush out the drain on the aft head sink. It is always slow, yesterday I flushed it for awhile, including using boiling water, then put vinegar down the drain. This hose is only about 3 feet long. It goes from the bottom of the sink straight down, then through a wall to the drain valve and out the bottom of the boat. No significant bends, but it is the sink that gets used for brushing teeth and combing of hair happens above it. We have had it cleaned out from the bottom up with a snake, and have taken the hose off (I thought we replaced the hose but maybe not) and tried to clean it out that way. So far it always drains slow.
I posted about this draining issue in the Facebook group for IP445/465 (our model boat) and within a short period of time, I had 4 responses that all shared similar experiences. I am done trying to fix this.
We walked into town to get a pastry, and some California rolls, then back to the boat. Showers (4-7pm) for lukewarm warm water. Reneé went first. When I got back, the covers came off the windows and shore power as well. We plan to get underway by 3 ish. We want to anchor before dark, and it’s about 80 miles to Puerto San Francisquito.
About that time the bottom cleaning guy showed up. Something that has to be done about monthly. This finishes our list for what to get done here.
When they get done, we will head up to Padre Santo for dinner and a beer. Then off to bed.

Below is our list of things to get done in Santa Rosalia:
– [x] Get bottom cleaning done (scheduled for Saturday)
– [x] Grocery shopping (Saturday)
– [x] Stern light repair (Friday)
– [x] Reneé gets a haircut (Friday)
– [x] Take a look at the wash down pump and hose see if I can fix the leak (Friday)
– [x] Order the solenoid for the propane to be at Lukeville in about a week (Friday)
– [x] Put sealant on back edge of mast collar (Friday)
– [x] Fill propane tanks (Thursday)
– [x] Pharmacy (Thursday)
– [x] Wash the boat (Thursday)
– [x] Bank (Thursday)
– [x] Get water (Wednesday)

Published 04/01/2025
Up at 6:30, breakfast, bible reading then stuff to do.
Reneé left for haircut, I updated the blog, then the dishes got done. After she got back. I ordered the parts. Situation is that shipping into Mexico is difficult at best. We are going to be in Puerto Peñasco in a week. Where we will have access to our truck and we can drive to the border if needed. So, shipping these parts to a place north of the border is an idea. There is a Gastrak service station that accepts mail, the way it works, they have a charge for the delivery and a weekly rate for holding it. BUT the US postal service will not deliver mail to them. So, it has to UPS or FedEx. In any case, it is ordered and UPS to the Gastrak. We will be there about 4/5 and the package is supposed to arrive about 4/4. This should work.
I went to work on the stern light. I turned it on, and it worked. That was easy!
Then checked the wash down pump. The hose had two hose clamps on it (normal on a boat) the outer one was broken, the inner one was not in good shape. I replaced both. No more leak.

Below is our list of things to get done in Santa Rosalia:
– [ ] Grocery shopping (Saturday)
– [ ] Get bottom cleaning done (scheduled for Saturday)
– [x] Stern light repair (Friday)
– [x] Reneé gets a haircut (Friday)
– [x] Take a look at the wash down pump and hose see if I can fix the leak (Friday)
– [x] Order the solenoid for the propane to be at Lukeville in about a week (Friday)
– [x] Put sealant on back edge of mast collar (Friday)
– [x] Fill propane tanks (Thursday)
– [x] Pharmacy (Thursday)
– [x] Wash the boat (Thursday)
– [x] Bank (Thursday)
– [x] Get water (Wednesday)

 

Published 03/28/2025
Up at 6:30, breakfast, bible reading then started working through our list.
At 9 am the laundry lady arrived and took our laundry. Then we washed the boat. This marina restricts water on the dock to two hours, 9-11 am. They also restrict “hot” water in the showers.
The shower limits we ran into after washing the boat and heading to the shower after lunch.
Then, going to get Propane for me and Reneé went out to get a haircut. Since I had the cart to get the propane, I was also going to get mineral water. We have found that we really like sparkling mineral water. The propane place here is about a 10 minute walk from the marina. Normally they are on the outskirts of town in Mexico, but here it is very easy to get to. Unfortunately, the place I went to for the mineral water only had the expensive brand and it was more than we wanted to spend, so back to the boat with only the propane. Reneé wound up scheduling an appointment for her hair cut tomorrow afternoon.
She also eventually found a bank that she could get pesos out of at a reasonable rate. This is an interesting issue. We do our banking in the US, and we can go to any ATM here in Mexico and get pesos directly from our account, the bank in the US pays the fees so that part is free to us. However, the conversion rate from our bank is the best available at the moment we withdraw our pesos, many of the ATMs here in Mexico will give you a choice (usually hidden somewhere on the screen) to use their default conversion rate or let your bank do the conversion the difference was 18.81 pesos to the dollar or 20 pesos to the dollar. It took her three ATMs to find one that had pesos and would let our bank do the conversion. She was attempting to get 10,000 pesos and the difference would have been about $32 US, lost in the conversion. In the end she was only able to get 7000 pesos (about $350 US).
This is a fairly sparsely populated area, and most places don’t take credit cards, cash is the only way to do business, so we try to have some on hand. In the bigger cities we can use a credit card to make a purchase for groceries or supplies for the boat, but in smaller places (like Aqua Verde) we have to use currency.
We got showers about 6 pm (4-7 for “hot” water). We had beer at the brewery on the way out and on the way back, (we split one the second time). We eventually found mineral water, and bought some of the groceries as well.
Below is our list of things to get done in Santa Rosalia:
– [ ] Take a look at the wash down pump and hose see if I can fix the leak
– [ ] Get bottom cleaning done (scheduled for Saturday)
– [ ] Grocery shopping
– [ ] Reneé gets a haircut (Friday)
– [ ] Stern light repair
– [ ] Order the solenoid for the propane to be at Lukeville in about a week
– [x] Fill propane tanks
– [x] Pharmacy
– [x] Wash the boat
– [x] Bank
– [x] Get water