April 18 2024 Thursday Santispac to San Juanico

(posted 04/30/24)
Up at 6 to the coffee pot. We had the anchor up and we were underway by 0645.
Three hours later we’re in the Sea, outside Bahia Conceptión heading south. Good news Sirius XM is working again. So, it’s a problem with shadowing from Starlink.
Today it is very calm, we are motoring at 6.9 knots, and the wind instrument says that we have 7.5 knots of wind from 15 degrees to port. This means most of the wind is actually the boat moving through the air.
Reneé saw a shark (briefly) this morning, and we have seen quite a few sea lions resting with their flippers out of the water.
I spotted a whale, first one this season.
We saw several sailboats heading northbound, we were able to identify a couple as they had AIS, we spoke to them on the radio.
As the day continued, we saw rays jumping out of the water.
We dropped anchor at about 1630 (4:30 pm) almost 10 hours today. There are 8 other boats here, we saw two leaving as we pulled in. Good thing it’s a pretty big bay.

Some of the views we see as we sail
This is what an algae bloom looks like.
This is what an algae bloom looks like.

April 17 2024 Wednesday Santispac

(posted 04/17/24)
Up and morning routines. Then we went out and polished stainless steel. One of the regular chores on the boat. We have a bunch of stainless steel, and living on the sea means lots of salt spray. This means that there is a reason to rinse the boat fairly frequently. But that means me ween to be in a marina that has water. Santa Rosalía is the only marina we have been in since we left Puerto Peñasco, and they have not always had water to rinse the boat. As a result we have only washed the boat once since we left Puerto Peñasco. 2 and a half months. There is quite a bit of salt crust on everything. After polishing we rested for a few minutes then got the dinghy down and took our trash in and joined a group of other sailors and a local ex pat for lunch. Then back to the boat and put the dinghy away and plan our next several days of sailing.
Then because we could, we got in the water and floated for a bit. Followed by dinner and working on the blog.

This is our Starlink antenna mounted on the arch.
This is the shadow across the solar panel
Here is the output of the two panels.  You can see that one panel is about 1/2 of the other for output. By early afternoon, out battery was fully charged.
Doing our morning routine of reading the bible, the flys were really anoying.
Sometimes you get to be the star for someone else, in this case a pelican

April 16 2024 Tuesday Santa Rosalía

(posted 04/17/24)
Up and most of our morning routines, while we were eating breakfast Brian showed up. We will do our Bible reading later.
Brian went up the mast and installed the loud hailer and fog horn, then we mounted the Starlink antenna. He was on the boat from 0800 to 1130. We are waiting for our auto pilot remote, which is getting a new battery. We committed to waiting until Thursday for it. If it’s not ready by then, it will get shipped to Puerto Vallarta for us.
The only bad thing that happened today is that the Sirius XM antenna appears to be in the shadow of the Starlink antenna, this will need to get fixed.
We put all the stuff away that’s been out for this project. The boat looks much neater.
About 4:30 the wind died down, and we got in the water. I used a scrub brush to clean the keel coolers for the fridge and freezer. They are about 3” wide and 8” long and are the heat exchangers for the fridge and freezer. Both had about an inch of marine growth on them. Now we will see how the freezer works.

These are the keel coolers. In this picture we had just been hauled out and they had some marine growth, in this case mainly hard stuff.

Here’s Reneé’s take on today:

Today Brian came to the boat and he and Neil got the hailer mounted on the mast and the Starlink mounted on the back arch.

Good news – bad news… most everything is fixed on the boat . The thing about a boat is…when one thing gets fixed another thing breaks. The Starlink got mounted and in the process of working with the wires the Sirius XM got disconnected. And oh yeah, the fridge still doesn’t work. We have a new compressor for it and will have it installed by Richard’s Marine in Puerto Vallarta.

It is windy today so we just sat around waiting for it to calm down so we could go in the water.

 

April 15 2024 Monday Santispac

(posted 04/17/24)
Up and morning routines, (Reneé listens to the news before breakfast, I review Facebook and play on my table for a bit. Then Breakfast, followed by reading the Bible Monday through
Saturday, on Sunday we watch a sermon via the internet). Then figure out what the plan is for the rest of the day.
Today, we replaced the overhead lamps in the salon and galley. Brian came by and fixed the issue with the 9” chart plotter above the gangway. I also put in brass threads for some panel screws. The wood threads had stripped out from too frequently being used. While Brian was here we mapped out the rest of the changes to the electronics.
– [ ] A new speed probe and the associated wiring
– [ ] A new Micro SD card reader for the master chart plotter
– [ ] A new short backbone cable for the network
We also planned out the work for tomorrow:
– [ ] Install the Loud Hailer
– [ ] Install the Starlink antenna and run the wire

Just another sunrise

April 14 2024 Sunday Santa Rosalía to Santispac

(posted 04/17/24)
Up and morning routines. Then get ready to get underway. We sold one of the old chart plotters to Jeremy.
Jim and Pat on M/V Despedida were going to take the chart plotters and radar to San Carlos, butt things didn’t work out timing wise, so we have one chart plotter and the radar on board.
Then underway by 0915. Headed to Punta Chivato. Almost no wind.
Monday we will be in Santispac, this is to get the Starlink mounted, and adjust the gangway chart plotter.
After that we can get back to cruising.
We changed our minds, and anchored at Santispac tonight. We dropped anchor at about 5:15 pm. So, 8 hours to get here.
After dinner we defrosted the freezer. We will see how that works.

https://vimeo.com/936104465?share=copy

This is where we anchored