Taking the seanic route
(posted 02/19/24)
Today we enjoyed the use of Mike Gingrich’s pickup. We drove to church. We went to Auto Zone, Sam’s, “Walmart” (Walmart has a different name in Mexico), and to Duke’s for lunch. Duke’s has great salads! They also have a pickleball court. We probably bought more food than we need but Renee is trying to provision for 3 months. We filled our gas tanks, and our propane tanks, we should be good for the whole season!
(posted 02/19/24)
Ran the water maker and verified it works then filled the tank. I worked on the fridge some more, no change, and the auto pilot, no change. It has been a pretty frustrating week regarding these two issues. This is a place in Mexico with NO technician’s to call for help. It does not matter what you need help with, they are not here. We are going to head out without these three things working, the refrigerator, the auto pilot, and the wind speed sensor. We will pull into San Carlos in a couple of weeks and deal with it there.
(posted 02/19/24)
Our ladder came back today…nice and straight (and the scratch marks were gone…polished out?)…1300 pesos. Neil worked on the auto pilot all day. He swapped the old one out for an upgraded model (out of our spare boat parts). Unfortunately the same error message appeared.
Renee’ got 15000 steps in looking for a stainless bolt and nut for the kayak rack. Found the bolts. Was directed to another hardware store. On the way she found a kitchen supply store where she purchased a sea salt grinder (unfortunately not refillable) and some frozen meats and veggies. The fridge on the boat is still not working. The hardware store was closed and a gal in front of it said it would be closed for two weeks.
We advertised on the Cabrales WhatsApp group site and gave away our two defective boat hooks.
Blue Pearl, Jessica, returned from a trip to Phoenix where she bought two summer sausage logs for me.
The stainless is almost all polished. The only part on done are the far back bars on the solar panels. The water on the dock isn’t working so we cannot wash the boat or check the water maker.
(posted 02/19/24)
We were a bit late getting up, it is cold on the boat in the morning here. We did not sleep super well, as we need to find another blanket. Since we don’t have shore power here, we have no heat on the boat. The solar is doing a good job of keeping the batteries charged, but that doesn’t heat the boat, or the water heater. The plan going forward will be to run the generator for a half hour to heat the water to wash dishes and take showers in the evening. That has to be figured in to our fuel supplies. We have 160 gallons of diesel and we have two 5 gallon Jerry cans. Our engine or generator burn about a gallon an hour. There is no fuel dock here in Puerto Peñasco, and the next stop south where there is a fuel dock is Santa Rosalia, but…. The marina is being taken over by the Mexican Navy to run, and apparently there is an issue with paperwork so the fuel dock is closed until they get it fixed. The next fuel dock south is in Puerto Escondido, and they have about the most expensive fuel in Mexico! It is roughly 300 miles to Santa Rosalia and 450 to Puerto Escondido. When motoring we go about 6 miles an hour, and we don’t want to go straight there, as there are many anchorage’s between here and there.
The first 125 miles or so from here is straight out to Refugio on Isla Angel de La Guarda. We have not found any “great” places to drop anchor at the north end of the Sea of Cortez. This is about a 20 hour crossing. We will probably motor most of that, depending on the wind. Then continue south bouncing from one anchorage to another. As there are quite a few places to stop between there and Santa Rosalia.
At Santa Rosalia, even though the fuel dock is closed, there is a gas station about a block away, which means that we can haul our Jerry cans there and fill them and haul it back to the boat. Which is what we will probably do. We expect to take about 3 months to get to Puerto Vallarta which is about 1,000 miles south (straight line distance), so at a guess we will get to Santa Rosalia mid March, so the fuel dock might be open by then.
The coffee is ready, and breakfast will be soon, so I will add more later.
Today’s plans are to add Freon to the refrigerator. I have watched a couple of videos on doing this, and I have started, one thing the videos stressed was patience. For those that know me, that may be an issue. But, I am trying..
Low tide 11:43 AM 0.98 ft, next high tide 6:26 PM 10.47 ft. 9.49 ft difference. Biggest I have heard about here is 22 feet.
We went to the BBQ House for dinner. The owner knows how to sell his product. He took us in the back where the meat was slow cooking in the smoker. He gave us some pork rib right out of the smoker. We ordered the Valentine’s special…Brisket w/ two sides and cheesecake. It was delicious!
On the way back to the boat we met Joe and Jenna, from My Song. They purchased the boat from Mike Gingrich.
(posted 02/19/24)
We got up early to get to the boat, Reneé took laundry in and we were expecting a 1015 time for splash. I saw Salvador when I got to the yard, and he said 1415. Of course I did not look at the tide chart. We did not splash until much later (closer to high tide).
I worked on electronics, I got the chart plotters to talk to each other and to show the maps, but I could not get the Auto Pilot to see the network. That will be a project for tomorrow. Then I started into the project of changing the set points for the Battery Charger, I had already updated the solar controllers. First thing I did was disconnect the network from our old router. This was a wired connection, and the new router (with Starlink) doesn’t have a port. Then I went online to find out how to connect to the WiFi. Very easy. In the meantime, I had called Battleborn, the company I bought the batteries and chargers from and left a message for tech support. Hugh Sprock called me back and we spent the next hour or so updating the firmware and adjusting set points. This was the first time I had updated the firmware since installation, so quite a few changes had been made (I can see almost none of them).
Eventually, the yard picked up the boat in the truck, finished the bottom paint, and pulled us out to the lift. They picked up the boat and turned around so that we would go in bow first. We had a couple of people from the yard help with lines and we were in the water. We opened the isolation valve for the engine and verified water flow, then out!
We did not have far to go, and of course the wind was blowing. We banged into the dock pretty hard, and tweaked the port side ladder. Someone is coming tomorrow to look at “fixing” that.
We rigged up the bosuns chair and Reneé hooked up the lines for the dinghy, and polished some of the stainless steel on the aft arch and we put the paddle boards and kayak out, this cleared the deck.
Now that we are back in the water, we could turn on the refrigerator and freezer (both are keel cooled, so we have to be in the water to use them), good news the freezer is working, bad news the refrigerator is not. We expected something like this, the refrigerator has a small Freon leak, as in about once a year we have to recharge it. I have the Freon and the hoses/gauges so I can do it. So, it is on the list.
As I said the leak is very small, we have talked to the manufacturer of the unit, who said absolutely do NOT put dye in the system, as the dye will settle out in the keel cooler (at the bottom of the boat) and block the Freon flow, and the fix for that might include removing the keel cooler and replacing it. Refrigeration on a boat is a complicated thing, there are three major parts, the keel cooler, the cold plate in the refrigerator and the compressor. Of course the piping in between. Most of the piping is inside the cabinets, so I can’t see it to find a leak, we have had a couple of refrigeration techs look at it, but the end result is, charge it and wait until next year and charge it again.
Another thing to add to the list is the wind speed and direction, it did not appear to work as we had the electronics turned on. That typically means replacing the sensor at the top of the mast (I don’t do heights) and of course we don’t have a spare, and the nearest one is a mail order from the states and then getting it here. I just checked and the delivery date is February 22 – 26, and it’s about $360 plus tax (19% or about $70) and shipping to get it to us. We might have to figure out how to get it sent to Santa Rosalia or Puerto Escondido.
Then dinner and up to the room here in the marina for showers and back to the boat for our first night sleeping in our own bed on our boat.
