Make Me Laugh Again

Well, not to rolly, until we went to bed. Then really rolly until about midnight, calmed down some and finally some good sleep around 4. Then up at 7 to get started. Perhaps we can get some naps in today. 

Breakfast burritos and coffee to start the day!

Quite a bit of wind again today. We coasted along at about 5 knots with jib and mainsail out with the wind almost directly behind us. Running the watermaker and washing machine all day. At the end of our trip we pumped out the holding tank and ended with something more than 90% in the water tank.  We anchored in 30 feet of water at San Evaristo in the north east corner. Very well protected for wind and waves. We expect to be here two nights. 

We did not sleep that well, the boat was moving a bit last night. Not much just enough to drag the chain around on the rocks/gravel under the boat. Since it was so quiet it was enough to wake me up. Renee’ had issues with wet hair keeping her awake. So, she used her blowdryer this morning to fix that. We looked at the charts and thought about what we are going to do as we continue south. At this point our itinerary looks something like this:

Thursday night (tonight) in Puerto Los Gatos, if it is crowded then we will go another couple of miles to Tembabichi. This is a short day, only about 20 miles.

Friday (12/11) and Saturday (12/12) night, in San Evaristo. A very protected bay. This is because we are expecting some wind on Saturday. This is about 35 miles.

Sunday (12/13) night, Isla San Francisco (10 miles), or Isla La Partida (30 miles), or Espirtu Santo (35 miles). 

Monday (12/14) La Paz, depending on where we were Sunday night, 50 miles or less.

Monday (12/21) Fly to Tijuana and back to California Returning 1/2/2021. 

One thing that happened relative to the new batteries and charging system, the display for the inverter/charger stopped showing battery percentage. The info was still available from the Victron Energy battery monitor either on the face of the instrument or via Bluetooth. Just not on the local display. I found a cable disconnected on the back of the battery monitor. The wire is a little on the short side, and a bump to wire can unplug this. I will have to figure out a way to keep that from happening. In any case, it is all working again.

We arrived in Puerto Los Gatos about 1 pm, a bit of excitement, the weather guessers said that it should be mild with minimal wind. Of course we had over 20 knots from behind us and that meant for an interesting time furling the gib (so, not so mild). Anyway, we got it in and then the mainsail as well. We ran the water maker for almost 3 hours, and ended with about 90% in the water tank. It only shows 10% increments, so we could have been at 99%, but we were not full. We have a couple of loads of laundry to do, so we will start that the next time we run the generator, and the watermaker. We also charged the battery, with the final on that of  95%. The only other boat here is S/V Pellucidar. 

Today has been rainy, and we discovered that the boot around the bottom of the mast leaks. Tonight is popcorn and a movie. Then bed in a rolly anchorage.

So, either we stay here (at Salinas) a day or straight to Agua Verde. The weather program says that we should expect high winds next Saturday.  If we stay here Thursday, then Agua Verde Friday, we will be in the islands north of La Paz on Saturday, and I really don’t like going into La Paz with a lot of wind. If we go to Agua Verde Wednesday, Then the islands on Thursday, we will be going into La Paz on Friday, which is a full week before our flight, which means extra slip fee’s. Time to Christmas shop and maybe time to get the outboard worked on, the boat detailed, the bottom cleaned, the stainless steel polished. Look for some parts that we would rather not bring back in our luggage. Like Fenders that are huge. 

So, we got up and motored to Agua Verde. We ran the water maker for about 3 hours (45 gallons or there about) we are now at about 90%. When we got to Agua Verde, we got the kayak down and paddled ashore, had a beer (or a couple) and talked to Leonore about the school supplies and the outboard not working. Her husband fishes at night, so he will come with a teacher to get the supplies when he gets up. She also has a nephew (husband of her niece actually) who will take a look at our outboard. Since it needs to be mounted on the dinghy and in the water we did that when we got back to the boat. We enjoyed some chatting with another cruiser and his guests there at the restaurant. Then we went back to our boat and put the kayak away and got the dinghy down and put the outboard on it. As we started, it began to rain. Not heavy but kind of cold. Anyway, we got it done and are back inside waiting for our guests.

Well the teacher the husband of Leonore and a student from the school all showed up about 5 or 5:30, we gave them the supplies and they told us the nephew who could work on the engine would be by tomorrow, so we told them to not bother and we would get it taken care of in La Paz. We then put the dinghy and outboard away again, went below and had dinner, read our books and bed.

While at the restaurant, we talked to the crew of S/V Pellucidar, which was named by the previous owners and is the name of the hollow earth that Edgar Rice Boroughs wrote about before he wrote Tarzan or the Barsoom (Mars) books. 

We got up as planned at 6:30, dealt with the spinnaker, and started motoring by 7:30. As predicted a very calm day. I set the speed at 5 knots to give us more time to run the watermaker.  After we were underway we had breakfast in courses, apple bread and oranges first, then cereal a bit later. 

We saw two boats heading south in San Juanico, and another one that was sailing north from Salinas heading to San Juanico. At one point we saw about 10 small fishing boats (not panga’s) sport fishing type boats 20-30 ft long fishing in one area. Renee’ ran three loads of clothes. Which takes about three hours to run the washer, and about 15 gallons of water per load, while the watermaker gives us a little more than 15 gallons of water per hour. We ran the watermaker for about 6 hours and raised the level in the water tank about 20% (0.20*260= 52 gallons). We talked to both boys on the phone today, and did a little texting (we had cell service for about an hour as we crossed and could see Loretto, until we got around Isla Carmen and the signal got blocked. In any case we arrived about 4pm, as planned and anchored in about 20 feet of water. There is another sailboat anchored here.

This was a salt plant, with a large salt pond just inland on this island that used to ship salt all over the world. We will kayak ashore tomorrow and take in the sights.

The plan is to head across to Agua Verde on Thursday. Renee’ exchanged texts with Leonore at Agua Verde about the supplies and getting them off of our boat, as our outboard is not working. What we have to give them is a bunch of school supplies. There are 17 small backpacks with a variety of supplies in each, these were aimed at elementary kids. There is a bunch of 1” binders and notepads, and drafting type tools, (triangles, protractors and compasses) and more stuff. There is a large rolling bag full of stuff, and 4 trash bags with the backpack and some of the other things in them. Leonore’s husband has a panga and will come out to get them. Her comment was that fishing has not been good due to the wind. The trip to Agua Verde is about 30 miles, we will probably go slow for that as well, so we can run the watermaker again. When we get to La Paz, I want to go in with the water tank full, as we will be there for a couple of weeks (part of the time we will be in Calif). We will also have the holding tank empty to maximize our time before we will have to go out and dump it.

Well we figured out that the coffee pot had the wrong time in it. As it woke us up early with the coffee being done. Renee’ goes right back to sleep, and I don’t. She takes a while to go to sleep at night, whereas, I typically go to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. Just one of those differences.

We eventually got out of bed, checked our messages, and downloaded the weather (all via satellite). We saw that none of the other three boats have left yet, so we will stay in this somewhat rolly anchorage. 

The following is an excerpt from my notes on the new batteries and our charging system. 

Today 12/6, we are in San Juanico, we will be here two days, I am going to see what we do with out the generator for a longer period of time. We ended the day yesterday with the generator running until about 4pm (running the water maker) which meant the battery was fully charged at that point, then used the engine to get into the anchorage (which kept the battery fully charged as well). Then about 5:30 or so the engine was off and we were draining the battery. As of 8 am, we are down to 67%. We will see what we have when we are at the end of the day, but we know that tomorrow the plan is to motor (due to no wind) south for about 50 miles, we will also top off the water tank, and perhaps do some laundry both of which require the generator to be running. We will see if we can go a day without the generator. I don’t want to go below 30% on the battery, even though Battleborn says 0% is OK, and everything I have read says LiFePO4 is good down to 20%. So, the limit I will use for running the generator is 480 AH discharged. 

Since this is about the time we will be getting underway tomorrow, I can expect that we will use about the same amount of battery capacity from 5 pm to 8 am tomorrow, we are at about 220 AH discharged, so we need to have less than 260 AH discharged by 5 pm or run the generator. That means the solar has to do some charging! 

Well, the best I saw out of the solar was about 20 amps. But, all bets are off, as two of the boats left, and we moved the boat. Since we started the motor, I am charging batteries and heating water for showers and washing dishes. We are debating staying here an extra day so that we can go ashore, as the wind is supposed to die down tomorrow.

We have noticed a drop off in the wind! We are staying here tomorrow, to go ashore and get the dinghy working. I am hoping for a good night sleep with minimal rocking from the waves. In the meantime, we had a great dinner. Renee’ spent the day in the galley making Banana bread and coleslaw, so we had left over pulled pork, rice and refried beans for burritos. A very tasty dinner. It was a pretty mild day, we worked on boat stuff, Renee’ polished the stainless, I washed the windows (lots of windows, and lots of salt), I got the lock off the outboard (rusted pretty good), and washed the solar panels. We also moved the boat, as explained above. 

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We woke up at a little after 7 am. Very calm day! So, after it warms up a bit, we will get the dinghy down and go ashore. We might play around with the kayak as well. But first coffee and breakfast.

The battery is at 48%, with the old batteries we never got down to this point (even though the old batteries were 750 ah, and we are at 326 ah discharged, so this would be 56% discharged). We will see what happens today, but I will be running the generator sometime today.

From 9am to noon, was play with dinghy time. That included putting it in the water, and getting the outboard mounted on it, then spending a couple of hours pulling on the start rope and finally giving up and putting it all away. Things I tried, flushing the fuel out of the hose back in to the gas tank, pulling the spark plugs and pulling the start rope a few times to push anything in the cylinders out, putting it all back together and pulling a few more times. I actually got one short (VERY SHORT) run out of the engine. This happened early in the process. Finally by 12:20 everything was put away and we stopped for lunch. Renee’ worked on baking bread, and putting together a picnic lunch (that we ate on board). As of 1 pm, the battery is at 47 %, which means the solar is sort of keeping up with our use on board, things like microwaving a cup of coffee takes almost 1 % of battery capacity. 

Next plan is to get the kayak out, and go ashore. 

So, we had lunch, and went ashore. We stopped and talked to Greg and Diane on S/V Alma, for just a few minutes. They are from Quincy Ca. Then we coninued ashore and found the shrine for cruisers and added our shell with the boat name and year. We then hiked up the hillside and got the view of the bay and our boat. Another beautiful day. Then back down to the beach and walked the beach for a bit, then kayaked around the island and near the spires next to the boat and finally back to the boat and figured out how to lift the kayak up and put it away. 

We have been trying to figure this out ever since we started with they kayak on this boat. Renee’ suggested the location of where to lift it and I had an idea about using the holes in the body of the kayak to run a rope through so that the kayak comes up with the bow forward, and laying on its side so I just have to push it forward as Renee’ lowers it from inside the cockpit. Anyway, it worked very well!

Renee’ just told me the hot water faucet in the aft head is working now, apparently we have passed a “stone” here as I did not do anything other than look at it and see that it was not working and what it was going to take to get into it.