Up at about 6 am, no particular reason, just when we woke up. Breakfast, Bible reading and looking at the weather. We are still on for leaving this afternoon for Puerto Peñasco. This morning is pretty calm, no wind and flat seas. It is supposed to be a little windy this afternoon. We will see.
Reneé did some meal preparation for the overnight run. When. She was done in the kitchen, I checked oil and water on the engine and the generator. We have a small sea water leak on the generator again, I will have to see if I can find it one of these times when I am running it. Otherwise, everything was fine. I did add a little oil and a little engine coolant to the main engine.
I also checked the fire extinguishers, I read somewhere the requirement to change them every 3 years changed to monthly inspections and shaking of the bottle. We have 4 installed around the boat. There have been a couple of posts lately about emergency planning on a boat. I believe I will write a separate post about that.
Yesterday we talked about running a load of laundry, specifically sheets. But decided against it as the sheets normally get washed once a week, and while that would be today, we are not going to be sleeping in them tonight. So, it will wait until we get into Puerto Peñasco.
We tried to take it easy and get a nap in the afternoon.
We pulled up the anchor and we were underway at almost exactly 4 pm. It was a long night, wind speed was variable, and generally less than 12 knots, we put out the main and shortly after I laid down for a nap with Reneé driving, the wind was up to 17 knots. As it was getting dark, she asked me to help. We took in the main and the wind dropped back to about 10 knots. We left the main down.
We motored all night, we had moon light from sundown until about 3 am, and a fleet of shrimp (fishing boats to our west) about the time the moon went down the fishing boats disappeared.
This is me, a favorite place to enjoy the dayJust another sunsetThis shows where we are at the momentThis is the radar display showing the shrimp fleet
Up a little after 6 am, underway by 7 am. For the first couple of miles, we had some wind, up to 16 knots. Then down to 2-3 knots. Another motorboat ride.
We had breakfast underway and bible reading.
By 10 am back to 14 knots now from the west. We’re in the narrow place between the peninsula and Isla de La Guarda.
There were no surprises as we pulled into Refugio and anchored in about 40 feet of water. There are 4 other boats here:
We anchored at about 2:45. There’s a Catamaran In the next bay east of us. The Catamaran that was in Don Juan the other day SV Snow Leopard, the sail boat with the blue hull SV Palomita and the Catamaran SV Divergent are all three anchored in the passage to the north side as you come into the big bay. So, only 5 boats here now.
We have a light breeze 4 to 5 knots.
Water temp is 62.7 degrees (chilly!)
The plan is to leave 4 pm or so tomorrow. It’s 106 miles straight to Puerto Peñasco. Tide swings are significant there (22 feet). At low tide we can’t go in. High tide is around noon Sunday. about We travel at a little better than 6 knots. So, if we leave at 4 we should be there around noon the next day. Going into the harbor at high tide.
The view going into RefugioThe view going into RefugioThe view going into Refugio
Up at 6:30, it’s cold and relatively calm. We slept well. The heater in our room really helps. But it does take quite a bit of battery power.
We had breakfast and told Mike, Joe and Jenna that we were staying one more day.
After lunch, we kayaked ashore, Joe and Jenna went on paddle boards, and Mike took his dinghy. Then we hiked over to the Sea and back total of about 3 miles. Followed by kayaking back to the boat. Of course the return trip was against the wind.
While getting the kayak organized, I got the tip of my right pinky finger between the kayak and the boat. I think I broke my finger. I am writing this the next day, it’s a little swollen and purple with bruises. I am glad that it was this finger, not the pointer finger.
Of course after we got the dinghy put away the wind died down.
We ran the generator, got showers and dinner then bed.
Neil, Mike, Reneé, Jenna, Joe SV Make Me Laugh Again, SV Offlander, SV Mi Canción
Up at about 6:30, it was a rough night wind speeds up to about 35 miles per hour. Breakfast, and then bible reading. Checking the weather and listening to the wind. Two more boats arrived by about 10 am. A catamaran and a monohull. The monohull appears to be a single sailor and he had a difficult time anchoring. There is still 20 knots of wind.
After lunch we talked about getting together if the wind died down (still 20+ knots) so, I took a nap.
Later Reneé and I had happy hour and continued doing a whole bunch of nothing. Around 5 pm we checked in via the radio and again the wind was still too high.
At about 5:45 the wind dropped down to 3 – 8 knots so we will have company tonight for Mexican train and dinner.
In the meantime I am running the generator to top off the batteries. After an hour or so up from 80% to 94%. That is why Lithium batteries are so fantastic for a boat! With lead acid (AGM’s even) we would still be around 82%. I will turn off the generator as soon as I seem them getting close, so that they don’t get exhaust from the generator where they are getting on board.
I am still debating leaving in the morning to go north. If we do go, we are looking at fairly significant wind from the west for the first day and calm the rest of the trip, if we wait one more day it will probably be calm the whole trip. The difference is when we arrive in Puerto Peñasco. If we leave tomorrow it will be Sunday, if we leave Friday it will be Monday when we get there.
Only Mike came over Jenna was sleeping so they didn’t come over by a little after 7 pm the wind came back up and Mike headed back to his boat.
Reneé and I looked at maps, weather, and tides.
Plan 1. We will stay here another day, go to Refugio then leave from there about 4 pm Saturday to arrive at Peñasco about noon Sunday (high tide). Negatives: 18 hour crossing.
Plan 2. We leave tomorrow morning for Refugio, then Friday go to Lobos, then Saturday, to Isla San Jorge. Negatives: Isla San Jorge anchorage is North, wind is from the north, so no protection. High tide is about 10 am, and it is pretty low.
Plan 3. We leave tomorrow for Refugio, then Friday for Lobos, then Saturday go straight to Puerto Peñasco. We would almost certainly have to anchor out Saturday night.
Up at 6:30, it was very windy last night I checked in the morning while Reneé was fishing wind speeds were up to 35 knots. There are white caps on the water here in Puerto Don Juan. I am really glad we skipped Punta Trinidad two days ago when we left Santa Rosalia and went straight to Puerto San Francisquito. It meant we were here last night and not going through this outside getting here today! Instead of going into the wind at 35 knots, we saw 5 knots or less. Much easier. We had planned to go north to Refugio today, but it is too windy. We will stay here until the weather predictions are more favorable.
We had breakfast and did our bible reading then some banking stuff. We hope the wind calms down and we can go ashore and take a hike.
I have attached a screenshot of Google Earth with something close to our route from Puerto Vallarta to Puerto Peñasco. Last night we were in Puerto Don Juan. This is a small bay (or cove) surrounded by rocks and hills. It is about 1/3 of a mile wide and almost a mile long. The yellow line in the close up is the measurement. The wind last night was pretty strong, probably more than 25 knots. As you are probably aware, the force of the wind is a square function, (that is the wind speed doubles, the force goes up by a factor of 4). So, our boat moved around quite a bit. Where we are has about an 8 foot tide swing, we anchored near high tide in about 40 feet of water, and at low tide we about 32 feet. This bay is almost all in that range. We have friends who rode out a hurricane here in 2023 along with 21 other boats, they sustained no damage.
Regardingthe route shown in the picture, we did not stop at Punta Trinidad. We went straight from Santa Rosalia to Puerto San Francisquito (I am glad, because it meant that we got here a day earlier than we would have and had better protection from the wind. We also skipped Punta Chivato.
We are headed to Puerto Peñasco where our truck and a cargo trailer are parked. The plan is to load all of our personal stuff to the trailer then head back to Santa Rosalia and cross to San Carlos on the mainland (3rd picture showing the distance at about 90 miles). That is where we will get some repair work done and put the boat on the hard for the hurricane season. In the fall we hope to have a slip reserved in the Puerto Vallarta area, and will move the boat there and put it up for sale. As you look at these maps, consider that in our boat the top speed is about 7 knots, which really works out to about 6 knots average speed (about 7 mph). So the 90 mile crossing from Santa Rosalia to San Carlos will take about 13 hours. Since we don’t want to anchor in the dark we will probably leave in the middle of the night, as the marina at Santa Rosalia is well lit at night.
As I sit here writing, Reneé is on deck fishing, and the wind is blowing 25-35 knots right now.
So, one of the things that happens is software gets updated on anything that uses a computer, even a stereo. So the other day we were listening to some music and all of a sudden the sound quit. I looked at settings and did not find anything obvious. I tried calling support, but it was a weekend. No luck. Yesterday we were on the water, not a good time to call for help. Today, I am sitting here working on the blog and waiting for the wind to die down. So, I called, turns out we were 3 revisions behind and one of them fixed this problem. About 20 minutes later the updates are done (I had to do the update from my phone while it was connected to the stereo, not directly from the stereo, if that had not worked then I would have needed to get a USB stick that was no bigger than 16 gb and access the back of the stereo to do the update). The stereo works again!
Wind speed is down to 15 knots at 1 pm.
So, a bit later wind speed dropped to about 1 knot! We got out the kayak and went out and joined Mike, Jenna and Joe. We discussed getting together again tonight, Jenna and Joe said no, they didn’t sleep well last night. Mike was up for it.
Then Reneé and I went to the other boat, Blue Wind, with Alexandra and Chris. I gave them the password for our Starlink so they could check the weather. Then back to the boat. We debated whether or not to put the kayak away. In the end we did. About 4 the wind was back to 20+ knots. Mike said he didn’t want to come over with the wind. So, it was just us.
We ran the generator and took showers, then dinner.
Some friends boats experiencing the weather at anchorJust another sunset
