LEAVING LA PAZ AGAIN AT LAST
Saturday, 12 November 2005

Friday was so frittered away that we put off leaving for today. It is definitely time to go, though. La Paz is nice but we spent a month here last spring and have seen all we want to see of it. Not surprisingly, it’s the same people around as then, the same opinionated old Americans running the Cruiser Net in the morning. We have our coffee. The tide turns and we get up the anchor, wave and shout goodbye to Jack on S/V Dream Catcher anchored nearby and motor off.

We expected that the winds would be more from the east in the morning and that, with a favourable ebb tide, we should be able to sail right down the channel and out. But the winds stayed from the north all night too and are still blowing into the harbour. There are swells coming at us and lines of breakers along the sand spit running north from the Mogote. We motor it.

Refuelling and Diesel fuel consumption

Before leaving La Paz for Mazatlán, we decide however to top off the fuel tanks. They are still half full but, although we are determined to make the crossing under sail (or at least after we motor into the north wind around to the east side of the La Paz peninsula), one never knows when a full tank of fuel might come in handy. And anyway, it prevents moisture from accumulating over time in the tanks, sinking to the bottom, and there becoming a fertile spot for marine algae to grow. (Our fuel filters were very clean and moisture-free when we last changed them in Long Beach, CA. but we sure would not like to have to deal with polishing the tanks or gumming up the engine with algae.)

We intend to tank up at Marina de la Paz and actually motor over there about 1000. Unfortunately, the fuel dock is totally blocked by a big yacht (M/V Nautilus Express), which is refuelling (and judging by its size is going to be quite a few hours doing so), and M/V Pacific Song, a trawler, that was using the dock for overnight parking. We make a quick stop at one of the empty berths, pick up the CD-ROMs that Greg has made and left for us at the marina office, get Pedro the Carpenter to saw a piece of oak in two that I have on board and need for mounting the binnacle compass, say another farewell and bon voyage to Greg and Jill, and then leave “immediately”.

We could go into Marina Palmira to refuel but instead we call ahead to Marina Costa Baja, a brand-new, nearly-empty marina just at the exit from the harbour. They have a Pemex fuel dock there. The people are very helpful and friendly though everything looks rather somnolent around there. There are about a dozen, mostly very big and expensive motor yachts in the slips. Their price is cheaper here too than at the other fuel docks although there is some calculating to do. The selling price at the pump is Peso 5.07 per litre but there is a Peso 1.00 per litre “service charge” added on bringing the total to Peso 6.07. It is rather difficult to get an explanation in Spanish and English, or at least one that we can understand. But apparently this is Pemex’ way of calculating. The other fuel docks (Marina de la Paz and Marina Palmira) are private while Marina Costa Baja has Pemex (state-owned monopoly). The private marinas simply include the service charge in the end price, says Pemex. The Costa Baja attendants maintain that their Pemex price is lower overall even with the servicio than the private ones. So much for market forces driving the prices down.

Not only is Marina Costa Baja very new and clean, there are two attendants at the dock as well as a security guy. When we pull in they pull a floating pollution barrier around the outside of the vessel until we have finished refuelling, the first time we have seen that anywhere in over four years of cruising. Very conscientious; San Carlos has a Pemex dock too but they don’t do anything like that.

The refuelling operation gets us thinking about fuel prices and how much we have spent on diesel fuel in the four years and some months that we have been aboard Vilisar. Once we get into it, we get out the old maintenance and fuel logs and develop the following table :

S/V Vilisar
Diesel Fuel Consumption Analysis

Item

Place

Date

US Gallons (US $)

Price / US Gallon
(US $)
Total Price Paid (incl. taxes, etc.)
(US $)
1
Port Townsend, WA
29Aug01
83
1.38
114.58
2
Port Townsend, WA
27Dec01
9
1.00
9.00
3
Port Townsend, WA
01Jan02
5.02
1.03
6.52
4
Port Townsend, WA
02Jan02
78.9
1.04
89.39
5
Sequim, WA
19Mar02
79.61
1.05
90.43
6
Port Hardy, B.C., Canada
(north tip of Vancouver Island)
26May02
41.3
1.42
58.64
7
Hartley Bay, B.C., Canada
(south of Prince Rupert, B.C.)
11Jun02
36.16
1.70
61.47
8
Juneau, AK
08Jul02
60.0
1.50
90.00
9
Sitka, AK
23Jul02
20.00
1.17
25.62
10
Comox, B.C., Canada
12Sep02
53.34
1.29
68.89
11
Port Townsend, WA
04Jun03
47.00
1.21
57.00
12
Port Townsend, WA
07Aug03
64.00
1.37
94.82
13
Neah Bay, WA
16Aug03
8.00
1.59
12.72
14
Sausalito, CA
04Sep03
43.7
1.77
77.30
15
Long Beach, CA
30Apr04
30.20
2.19
66.14
16
San Diego, CA
06Feb05
18.50
2.45
45.44
17
Ensenada, BCN, Mexico
16Feb05
5.00
1.74
8.70
18
La Paz (MLP), BCS. Mexico
21Apr05
33.79
2.08
70.28
19
San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico
05Aug05
38.00
2.03
77.14
20
La Paz (Costa Baja), Mexico
12Nov05
28.99
2.18
63.20



783.51
31.46
1187.28

Statistics

Total no. of months (actual travel end-Aug 01 - mid-Nov 05
27
Total number of occasions diesel purchased
20 x
Total number of US gallons purchased
783.51 gals.
Highest price per US Gallon (San Diego, CA. Feb05)
$ 2.45
Lowest price per US Gallon (Pt. Townsend, WA. Dec01)
$ 1.00
Mean Price per US gallon [(2.45-1.00/2)+1.00 =]
$ 1.715
Average price [$1,187.28/783.51 US Gals.]
$ 1.52
Average number of US gallons used per month of travel
[783.54 Gals. / 27 =]
29.02 gals.

Discussion

The numbers reflect a rising price for fuel. Canadian prices for diesel were higher than in the U.S.A. Mexico is now the cheapest but diesel is more expensive in Mexico now than it was in the U.S.A. back in 2001 and 2002. San Diego last winter (Feb 05) was unbelievably expensive and so was Long Beach. Just shows you how much you can save by not paying road taxes for marine fuel! We did more motoring in 2002 than since; going to Alaska involves a lot of engine hours. We also sometimes used diesel fuel to fire our on-board furnace in winter in Canada, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A.

Clearly, compared to a power boat, for example, Vilisar is not a big user of diesel fuel. We can bunker about 75-80 US gallons in two tanks but we try not to let the levels get too low although that often depends upon how cash-rich we are. In Sequim and Port Townsend in the early years we let the levels get very low. I am surprised we never actually ever ran out; the diesel furnace was burning about a gallon a day in the winter and one could easily get low.

Of the 51 months since we moved aboard in August 2001, we have spent a good portion not actually travelling. I include in this “down time” the six months we lived aboard in Victoria in the winter of 2002/2003, the sixteen months we braved a 66-degree winters in Long Beach while we stopped to freshen the cruising kitty, and the nearly two months we spent at Rancho el Nogal last summer. Of course, we were not actually moving at all times even during the remaining 27 months but, if we anchored or moored or docked somewhere, it was with the understanding that we were only there temporarily.

Clearly the price of diesel fuel has rocketed in the period since we took to the voyaging life. We could hardly recall that we paid a dollar a gallon at the fuel dock in Port Townsend at year-end 2001. That’s no surprise to anyone, of course, though it is hard to understand why San Diego should be so outstandingly expensive. It’s not remote like Hartley Bay, B.C. and there is lots of demand around there. Some fuel retailer has a great location, I guess, or some other sort of advantage. Fortunately, we used most of our diesel in the early period when we were using the on-board diesel furnace more (at the moment the stove pipes and the Charlie Noble are removed and stored in the anchor locker forward, I hope until we reach New Zealand) and motoring through British Columbia to Alaska, etc. Whenever we went offshore (e.g. Cape Flattery to Long Beach or Long Beach to La Paz), we used much less fuel and used our sails and our windvane steering much more. Whatever our intentions, we find that coastal cruising in protected waters such as the Inside Passage, Puget Sound, Straits of Georgia, or the Sea of Cortés means light winds and a lots of motoring. You do not expect to stand off or keep sailing at night and the winds are so unreliable and weak that you have to throw on the iron genoa just to make your anchorage.

Mexican diesel prices are consistently below US levels. I think this is a national economic strategy by the Mexican government. Pemex is the state-owned petroleum monopoly. Petroleum was deliberately left out of NAFTA negotiations because the Mexican government wanted to be able to keep it “public” and to use this resource to further economic development.

So far, in the 27 months, we have been using about one US gallon of diesel a day. This average I think will fall as we move farther and farther south and as we make longer bluewater passages, i.e. where we are using the furnace less and the sails more.


DEPARTURE FOR MAZATLÁN;
Saturday, 12 November 2005

Our original goal for the first night was Puerto Ballandra, not far from the exit from the harbour. But when we finally pull out of the fuel dock and into the open waters, the northerlies have built up two-foot, closely-spaced waves. We have to pitch straight into them and our speed drops to a couple of knots. I go below to close the ports so we don’t get salt spray below. The forward hatch is only open a crack and we brought the dinghy aboard before we left this morning so that it covers it well.

But ploughing to windward is tiresome and Ballandra will take us another hour and one-half at least. If we stop somewhere now we should have the tide on our side in the morning and calmer winds and seas.

We do a quick reconnaissance and opt to put into Playa Pichilingue. Bahia Pichilingue is the main ferry terminal now for La Paz. There is good north-wind protection. A well-frequented highway comes over the hill to the terminal bringing cars and loud trucks but, where we are anchored, the traffic is half a mile away and barely audible. A 60-foot white, steel shrimp boat is anchored on the north side near the boat-launching ramp, one or two other cabin cruisers are anchored in the bay, and a detachment of the Mexican Army is set up on the beach. Their two fast outboard motorboats, flashing police lights and all, are rafted up in front of their bivouac. We stop a couple of hundred yards from the shrimper and drop the hook in twenty feet of water. The north wind can still be felt coming down the gulch by the beach. But there is no fetch and we rest at calm all night. We are both tired and decide not to play canasta tonight. By 2100 we are tucked up in bed. We finally left La Paz again.


CANAL SAN LORENZO; ISLA CERRALVO; FAREWELL TO BAJA
Sunday, 13 November 2005

Canal San Lorenzo

We are up early and steaming out of Playa Pichilingue by 0800. We want to catch a good tide and get started while the waters are still calm.

As we round the Isla Lobos the swells are already carrying whitecaps and coming straight at us again. I guess nothing calmed down last night at all. Nevertheless, we get up the main and headsails and pitch and plough toward the mid-channel marker buoy, some five miles away and way out in the channel. San Lorenzo is known to be tricky. It is mostly shoal and the actual passable channel is only one-third of the three-mile width. We can see the large buoy ahead of us and assume it to be the green southern buoy. But at first we cannot spot the northern buoy. We watch as, first, a large cabin cruiser coming towards us passes to the north of the buoy and, later, the ferry from Topolobampo steams in and passes north of the buoy as well. This gives us a little more confidence. By scanning with the binoculars we finally pick out the red northern buoy over near the island. As we pass the green buoy we have about 35 feet of water under us. When we approached La Paz last spring we had the same problem finding the right buoy and at one point soundings were down to ten feet before we finally got into the right channel.

Once past the green channel marker, we turn from a course straight into the waves and wind and bear more easterly. In a few minutes we cut the engine and are doing 3.5 knots on a reach with only staysail and mainsail. The winds are stronger now and we are taking some water under the lee rail so I slacken the mainsail sheet and the boat sits up straighter. Vilisar certainly loves a little wind, though. She is steaming along nicely.

After another hour we reach the eastern end of the channel and turn to the southeast. Mazatlán is 210 Nm away on that course. But Cerralvo Island is in between a few miles away. We had intended to anchor in Bahia de los Muertos tonight. After consulting the cruising guide (Baja Boater’s Guide by Jack Williams, on loan to us from Bob and Rita Valine of S/V Ritana in Powell River), we decide to anchor on the south end of Cerralvo Island. It is as good a jumping off place for our Sea of Cortés crossing as Muertos.

Isla Cerralvo

The afternoon passes slowly. We have mid-70’s temperatures. Kathleen is feeling a little woozy and goes below to snooze. First she treats us to a glass of suero (electrolytes); maybe that will make us both feel better. At first the wind begins to drop. But as we coast down the western side of the island, they become funnelled along the mountains making up the spine of the island and we are doing 7 knots downwind under drifter and mainsail. This is perhaps more speed than I should like with a light-wind sail like the drifter. But it seems to be holding up well. I shall wait till we are under Punta Gorda to take in sail.

As we round the point the wind intensifies as it comes onto our port beam and the sea feels very choppy. The cruising guide says that, although it is windy at the SE point of the island, about half-way along the southern coast one can tuck in close to the beach. It is basically an open roadstead but we should find good holding and calmer seas.

Under the lee, we round up with the engine running to take in the headsails and get ready to anchor. All headsails tend to be a handful when the wind is on the nose; lots of flapping and noise and wind. When I let go of the halyard, it does not want to come down, the wind trying to push the sail back up the stay. I throw myself at it cursing it furiously while I haul it down and smother it with a line. The staysail, no doubt in mortal fear of one of my tongue-lashing, comes down meekly. I praise it for its cooperation.

We chug along the short coast and try one or two spots. The water is so clear here that, at 40 feet depth, one can clearly see the sandy bottom. As we move along the shore, I notice that the waves refracting around Punta Gorda are becoming smaller though the wind is still noticeable. I am dissatisfied with the first place when I see little whitecaps on the beach. A bit farther along we head in towards the tiny beach and find twenty feet of draught about thirty boat-lengths from the shore. I let out lots of chain and, when it starts rising out of the water as the vessel reverses, it grabs at first go. I give Kathy the throat-cutting sign that we use for shutting down the engine. I always feel very exposed on these open anchorages. But Californians live with them if they ever sail anywhere but Catalina Island where everyone has to pay to tie up to buoy in a boat-parking lot. I observe that, over toward the beach right here the water is very calm while farther out, two or three hundred yards perhaps, the whitecaps are definitely larger, indicating that there is more wind there. I guess we’ll be all right. I put out the sentinel.

The boat stays pointed at the light wind and although we feel some waves, it is minimal. I guess we are home for the night. While Kathleen makes up a bean stew for our crossing, I start rigging the jack lines for our Sea of Cortés crossing. I also do some securing of deck items, check our halyards and sheets for chafe, check that the CQR anchor and the dinghy are made completely immoveable. I also put out the solar-powered anchor light and check that our running lights are operational. The whole time I watch how Vilisar is behaving at anchor. She is like a lamb. When I look over the side I see the anchor chain clearly as it snakes along into oblivion parallel to the beach on the white sandy bottom.

Farewell to Baja

While I am working I keep looking over towards the Baja coast where the sun is getting ready to set behind the mountains. They stand in row after row, in blues and purples. Some high cloud is blowing in from the Pacific, Coromuel wind, likely. There is a lot of haze and perhaps even smoke around the valleys and the peaks stick out above it. The sun eventually slips behind the largest of the mountains and turns the bottoms of the mares-tails into fiery feathers that reach about as far as mid-channel. Above the island to the east-northeast, the just-past-full moon is up and, when I turn from soaking up the sunset, the beach is a white glowing strip. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can even see the refracted moonlight on the sandy bottom beneath the boat and the occasional dark fish swimming by.

Technically, I guess, by anchoring at Isla Cerralvo we have already left Baja though not the Sea of Cortés. Soon we shall no more be seeing the sun setting behind mountain ranges but dropping instead into the sea. I recall how Baja and the Sea of Cortés were like a mantra or magical words for would-be cruisers in Washington and British Columbia. George Friend, who built Vilisar back in the early seventies, had always wanted to sail here and even built this boat to do so. He was 89, I think, when we visited him in Sidney and in very poor health. For one reason or another he never made it and now he never will. But we have spent eight months here minus the two months up at the rancho. It took us quite a while to get used to the desert scenery; at first we were totally bored by it after the Coastal Range splendours of British Columbia, the Gulf Islands and the San Juans. But now we had adjusted our perception and could easily see the beauty that many others see.

What we never did get used to was the intense heat and humidity in the middle part of the Sea of Cortés. May and June were hot but tolerable. Thereafter we suffered. Other cruisers have told us that San Carlos is a very bad place to spend the summer. It may be relatively hurricane-proof. But the humidity and the electrical storms are too much. We went to San Carlos certainly because it is hurricane proof. By convenient long-distance bus, just as importantly, we could pick up the visiting children from Tucson Airport. Since it became almost too hot to sail anywhere and since anchorages with southerly protection on the mainland of Sonora are not numerous, we tended not to undertake longer voyages though we did make one crossing with William and Antonia to Bahia de los Angeles on the Baja Peninsula. The winds being what they were, we ended up motoring all the way back to Guaymas/San Carlos.

Finding an “out” became extremely important. I was seriously ready to sell the boat and do something else than just sit, sweat and vegetate in Bahia San Carlos. Despite the “crapshoot” of leaving Vilisar on a mooring buoy during the hurricane season, the two months away from the heat and humidity got us away from the intolerable weather. It also proved to be a thoroughly interesting thing to have done. We shall definitely do something like that again next summer. Maybe we shall even go back to Rancho el Nogal.


CROSSING THE SEA OF CORTÉS, DAY I
Monday, 14 November 2005

We were both awake before 0700 as the sun began to peep through the portholes. In the night the boat had turned and was now facing toward the other point though it was still parallel to the beach. There was no wind initially but a three or three and one-half knot current was running along the beach. We decided to drink our coffee in peace and wait to see if the wind would fill in enough to let us overcome the current that was running against us.

To kill some time, we tried measuring the strength of the current by using a makeshift log. In the old days, sailors would drop a “log” from the taffrail and pay out a line with knots in it. The number of knots that ran out within a certain time indicated the speed in “knots”. This morning Kathleen dropped a tissue off the bowsprit while I timed how long it took to drift to the stern of the boat: 90 seconds. Assuming that the boat is 40 feet long we could calculate the speed of the current using the following formula: 40/90 = 6000/X. The result was just over 3 knots. Just to be sure I dropped a banana peel from the bowsprit while Kathleen timed it. The result was very close to being the same. We could make up a little schedule to keep in the navigation table with seconds and speeds. (At sea we don’t bother since the GPS will give us the speed over the ground; it can’t give us the speed of the water going by us when we are anchored, though.)

Finally, about 0800 we drain our coffee cups and put away the breakfast cereal bowls, pull up the anchor and hoist our pirate-like red drifter. This sail is becoming quite useful. The wind is beginning to pick up from the direction of La Paz and soon we are moving over a smooth sea at about 2.5 knots. The wind remains weak and fluky until we clear the lighthouse at the point about 1000. At first the waters are very confused with currents converging and winds coming around both sides of the island. Our speed drops to 1.5 knots for a while until we are well out into the northerly wind coming down the eastern side of the island. Then we start putting up sails and put Vilisar on a nice reach. There are whitecaps and the waves are running at about 2 feet. At this angle we are bouncing around quite a bit.

We begin to play with the Cap Horn windvane steering. The last time we used it was rounding Cabo Falso last March. It worked really well all the way from Ensenada over the six days of non-stop sailing. In the night after passing Cabo San Lucas’ lights, I noticed that, although I was adjusting for direction – we changed from southeast to northeast to head up into the Sea of Cortés – Vilisar suddenly started sailing off to the south. This was particularly uninteresting at the time since she started heading toward a cruise ship. Of course, the wind in the Sea was different from the wind on the Pacific Coast. Moreover, the night wind dropped to nothing and soon we were slatting around in the dark. I disengaged the windvane steering and hauled in the sails. We were both very exhausted from the long trip and, apparently, we were going nowhere before daylight at the earliest. Leaving the running lights on, I went below and slept the two or three hours until dawn.

It takes us now a few tries to get the windvane set. At first it is yawing terribly and wanting to head up into the wind. We tried to balance the boat before we set about engaging the windvane steering but I assume the big mainsail is tending to overpower the headsails. I let out a bit on the main sheet and tighten the staysail inboard somewhat. That helps though we are pinching too far above the rhumb line over the next hour or two. This in normal times is no great inconvenience since it gives one a lot of room to manoeuvre later. But in this case it is too much. Sailing a reach today is also fairly uncomfortable and bumpy. We adjust the vane to take us more off the wind and the ride immediately becomes more tolerable.

Kathleen is feeling her normal first-day weak stomach and chooses to stay on deck. I head below and curl up on the leeward bunk for some reading, some writing and some snoozing. Occasionally I go out to check out course or when I here an unusual noise. About mid-afternoon we lay the boat on a course that is more of a broad reach and drop the staysail that on the one hand is masking the drifter and on the other being masked by the main. The weight of the staysail’s wooden club foot causes the sail to collapse unless there is plenty of breeze.

By 1600 Baja has nearly completely disappeared into the haze astern of us. As we were leaving the anchorage this morning we heard and saw a number of sailboats motoring up towards La Paz and a big white and modern motor cruiser speeding along at a minimum of fifteen knots; his fuel bill just for this trip would be greater than ours has been for the last four years! There were also a few sports and panga fishermen out a couple of miles; we actually saw one pull in a Dorado as we went by. Coming up the channel we saw the truck ferry heading for port too. Now however, although we can hear VHF traffic both with La Paz and Mazatlán, there is nary a vessel to be seen. We own the Sea of Cortés.


CROSSING THE SEA OF CORTÉS, DAY II
Tuesday, 15 November 2005

November’s full moon is already low to the east and sending a shaft of white light towards us out of a dark-blue sky even as the sun sinks into the haze to the west lighting the sky with reds and oranges. Cloudless, the western sky is a palette of nuanced colours that tonight take a long time to fade out.

Kathleen heats up the bean stew she made earlier in the day and, ravenously hungry after our first day out on the Sea, we wolf down the food along with a beer as we watch the colour show to east and west. By 1800 there is only a faint glow in the west and the moon has taken possession of the night sky.

We discuss our farewells to Baja and then set the night watches. With only about 11 hours of daylight, the nights are now much longer even this far south than they were last spring. We don’t usually have official watches during the day. But, at night, somebody has to be awake and on the lookout for ships that might run us down. With the windvane steering functioning, no one actually has to have a hand on the tiller. In fact, no one even has to stay in the cockpit as long as the horizon is scanned every 15-20 minutes. We generally do three-hour watches even though the time can sure be slow in the middle of the night. But anything shorter does not allow anyone to get any deep sleep. I draw 2100 to midnight and 0300 to 0600. I sit with Kathleen for a while on deck to talk before going below to read.

The winds that only picked up after 0900 have already dropped by dark. Before going below we drop the main and staysails for night-time running and put Vilisar on a slightly more southerly course. With the wind so light, the main would start slatting. This sounds like cannon fire down below. The big red drifter, on the other hand, will pull us more downwind and give us more peace and quiet for sleeping. The drifter might slat a bit but it will do so quietly. With the new course and the night winds, we are only doing 1.5 – 2 knots. Twelve hours of running at this speed will only mean 24 Nm gained. So even if we are not strictly on course, we shall not have lost much.

Oh, the first night at sea! My first off-watch I use for reading because I am not yet sleepy. On watch between 2100 and midnight, the time seems to pass quickly enough but I slept fitfully after midnight thanks to the motion of the boat and various noises outside. That dog watch from 0300 to 0600! I can hardly keep my eyes open. I struggle. I get up every five minutes to check the horizon. The outside temperature is delightful and I hardly need any clothing.

We were overtaken by a sailboat that passed us a mile to the south around midnight just as I was coming on watch. When I saw their red port light and high white steaming light, they were still many miles behind us. I switched on our running lights that I had been switching off to save our minimal battery reserves and turned them off again when they were nearly out of sight over the horizon. Through the binoculars it was clear that the sailboat was motoring; no hanging about in less-than-optimum winds for these guys. We bob along at between 1.5 and 1.8 knots.

I come up to scan the deck in an attempt to keep awake. To my surprise I see a large ship straight ahead of us. I drop down the companionway and switch on the running lights, wishing we had some charged up flashlight batteries to shine onto the mainsail. Through the binoculars I can only see the ship’s red port light so I guess she is steering straight for us after all. But she is going to pass us fairly close to port. I keep an eye on her. Suddenly she switches on all of her deck lights and keeps approaching. As she passes me, she blinks them once and then switches them off. I see her ever farther away when I come up for my quarter-hourly scans.

I switch the running lights off again and go back to musing about the moon and the sea and our time in Baja. The book I am reading is really interesting and thought-provoking (The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch) but it is too heavy for this early hour. And, anyway, my eyes are burning from yesterday’s sun and wind.

Six o’clock finally rolls around. I switch on the red light over the navigation table and enter the coordinates, distances, bearing and speed into the logbook and deliberately disturb Kathleen’s sleep. She gets up immediately and I do the handover quickly, strip off and stretch out on the starboard settee for some shuteye. Before I do I watch the moon set and wait for a few minutes to look at the bright orange eastern sky.

An hour later I get up, grumpy and frustrated. The first night at sea is like the first night on a camping trip. You wonder what on earth you are doing here when you could be in a warm bed at home. Except this is our home and I know what to expect. Neverthless, I want a coffee badly. I put the water on to boil and splash water out of the galley tap into my face.

What a long, slow night we had. By late afternoon yesterday, our ongoing average speed for the trip to Mazatlán was up to over 4 knots. After twenty-four hours we have drifted off south of our rhumb line and our average for the trip is down to under 3 knots. The day starts with very little wind and gets no better during the day. By 1300 we are still doing only 2.5 knots and the running average is now only 2.3 knots. At this rate we will need three or four days to get to Mazatlán. The temptation to start the engine is almost overpowering. But we have decided not to use the engine just to cover ground on this trip. We might use it to get into and out of a port or in an emergency, but we have sworn to sail this one completely. If you can’t change the wind you should change your attitude to time. And anyway, what’s the rush? Why was that guy motoring fast through the night last night? We shall just learn to enjoy this and make use of the time.

The first item on the agenda is the Cap Horn windvane steering. Once we set a course, the boat yaws across some 50 degrees meaning that the sails are nearly always set wrong for the bearing we are on. I go below and dig out the user manual. Oho! There is a little bungee-cord thingy on the vane that should prevent yawing. In fact, going down wind in light winds, it is essential to tighten this up. I climb out on the lazarette deck and fiddle with it. It seems to work. Another stunning success by Captain Ronnie, Boy Spot-Welding King of the World, Captain Epoxy!

Then we start to wonder if our Garmin 76Map GPS is on the blink. The bearing is always about 30° off from the binnacle compass. The charts tell us that magnetic variation in the region should be only about 10 °. We check the binnacle compass against two other magnetic compasses on board; they agree with each other. We then dig out our reserve GPS and it agrees with the first one. So, the GPS’s agree with each other and the compasses agree amongst themselves. But compasses and GPS’s don’t agree with each other. Either George W. Bush has started another war and the U.S. military have scrambled the GPS satellites to frustrate would-be “attackers”, or the magnetic variation around here is a lot bigger than the chart says. I guess we can live with all this but it is strange.

I go forward in the afternoon to the foredeck to read. My eye falls on a deck-level block for the staysail sheet and suspect that it is wearing through and should soon be replaced. As the thought forms, the block gives way and the staysail boom flies free to leeward. I jump up and pull it back in, an easy thing to do in these light winds. I slip off the block and run the sheet itself through the padeye on the deck. I go below to get the big roll of black fisherman twine, pliers, electrician’s tape and a knife. I also find in a drawer the other block that I have meaning to repair, and set to work on them both. The sun on my back feels warm but not hot. There is a gentle but refreshing breeze. The boat is splashing along only very slightly heeled over. It might not be a fast trip but this is a perfect day and I remind myself to enjoy it consciously. I do this so successfully that I splice both blocks upside down and have to do them both again. Attitude is all! I regard it as practice.


CROSSING THE SEA OF CORTÉS, DAY III; TROUBLE
Wednesday, 16 November 2005

Trouble

The weak winds we experienced for most of yesterday lulls us into a false sense of how easy the crossing will be. The windvane is working and, although the winds are picking up somewhat in the late afternoon, we do not pay much attention to the benign weather as the Cap Horn is handling the steering. It is really much nicer when you do not have to concentrate for hours on that aspect of sailing.

As night falls we prepare our simple meal and play a few rounds of canasta, something we have been doing on this trip. The fact that Kathleen is shellacking me in every hand keeps me from thinking of the weather. Kathleen sticks her head out of the hatch after every hand to check for shipping or other hazards. When we finally put the cards away, I too have a look as well. I am surprised at how fast we are now going. We are carrying all our sail including the drifter and, when I check the GPS, I see that the vessel has rounded up more into the wind. We are now bearing to the northeast when we ought to be bearing south-southeast. Vilisar is rushing along in the moonlit darkness at about 6 knots, high speed for her. The speed seems even greater because we are now close-hauled and have the wind on our faces. Whereas a few hours ago the surface of the sea was covered with small waves and the occasional tiny unprepossessing whitecap and while we were beginning to realise that the trip was going to take three days, now the seas seem to have grown much larger and nearly all of the waves, rolling towards us row after row, carry long horizontal connecting streaks of white foam. Even allowing for the fact that darkness and night magnify fears and threats, it is clearly time to get some sail off her.

We slip into our footwear and head on deck, Kathleen to the cockpit. She slips the windvane off and steers Vilisar back to her original course by hand. At that bearing the boat starts to roll. I wonder to myself why the windvane steering has taken Vilisar so far up into the wind: maybe the wind direction actually changed somewhat. Or the boat is over-canvassed and the powerful mainsail has twisted the boat’s direction around the mast’s axis and therefore more into the weather.

We discuss what to do and decide to get the mainsail down and run under headsails. First I drop the staysail so I can work without being beaten by the boom. At the command, we come up into the wind, the two remaining sails begin to flap and the foredeck begins to get very unstable. Kathleen pulls in the mainsail sheet until the boom is over the gallows and I let the halyard go, the boom crashes onto the gallows and I climb onto the cabin roof with a handful of ties, pull down the half of the sail that never wants to come down of its own free will, and eventually get the sail smothered and tied up to the boom.

We go back on our course and try to set the windvane steering again. But at the bearing we want we are rolling so badly that the vane cannot handle the yaws. Our speed is also now down to about 1.5 knots. We have the alternatives of running before the wind with the windvane doing the steering, or heaving to for the night and accepting some drift, likely in the right direction. We decide upon the latter. Unfortunately, without the main, the boat will now not fully come up into the wind and getting the big red drifter down is very exciting indeed. The wind tries to drive it back up the jibstay and I have to move forward to the bowsprit to pull it down. I curse myself for not having the downhaul already rigged, a project I have experimented with several times in vain but now think I may have a good solution. Because of its size and the difficulty of getting the boat to head up, the bulky sail trails in the water. Eventually, I haul it in and tie it down on the foredeck.

This done, I hoist the staysail again, thinking we can run under this alone. But we are only doing about half a knot. It’s just simpler to heave to, we agree, and stand watch from below. I go forward and, when Kathleen shoves the tiller over to starboard, I tie the clew of the staysail to the port pin rail, effectively backing it to the wind. Suddenly we stop moving and everything quiets down. When properly hove to, the bow should be pointing at an angle of about 45 ° to the wives. We are closer to being sideways to the waves. We begin to roll, a noisy and sickening roll as we go below to test things out.

The waves are smacking us and from time to time we are thrown suddenly about. This is like our nights on the Pacific coming down from Cape
Flattery in August of 2003 except that the waves are by no means so large or so vicious. The starboard settee is to leeward and it is possible to lie there without be catapulted out onto the floor. The port settee, however, is treacherous. Lying there you have to hang on for fear a wave will unexpectedly have you airborne. It is not comfortable but it is tolerable. The watchkeeper gets the “upper” berth and the sleeper gets the safer “lower”. It is not only bouncy here below in the cabin, it is noisy as we are shaken and rattled and rolled. The one good thing that we can say is that things are very well stowed below. We need to find places for one or two things and I go around the galley to pad things that are excessively noisy. What we really need now, however, are leecloths at least for the port settee. Without a leecloth it means hanging on all night by your fingernails, not something designed to shorten the three-hour watch. With it you can wedge yourself in with cushions and be secure and read a book. You need only get up every fifteen or twenty minutes to scan then horizon by sticking one’s head out of the main hatch. Kathleen searches in the forecastle. She swears she saw the leecloths only a few days ago. But now, like so many things on a small boat, they have disappeared. She is hampered by the fact that the rechargeable nickel methyl-hydrate batteries only keep a charge for a very few minutes (this has to do with our weak deep cycle batteries, I think). We shall have to wait until morning now to look.

The night crawls on. I do kind of get used to the bumping and rattling and, off watch, am only too happy to give up the port “upper” and fall into a deep sleep on the “lower” when I reach my rest time. While on watch and hanging on, I think about how the sails should be configured for heaving to. Clearly we have not yet got it right. Given that the mainmast is a little farther aft on a cutter rig like ours, we might in fact manage to heave to properly using a reefed-in mainsail only. If not, I can always easily hoist the staysail and back it to windward. If needs be, I can even reef down the staysail to better balance the boat.

The real issue is that Vilisar’s mainsail is very difficult to reef. It has two reefing lines. But the boom gooseneck goes up about 18 inches on a bronze slide when the sail is hoisted. This is an older system; the idea was that, when going to windward, the tack could be pulled down and the luff thus tightened the better to beat to windward. There is no means of actually pulling the gooseneck down on Vilisar so I assume it was not used very much. All this is critical when you de-power the main and drop the sail so the reefs can be tucked in. At that point the gooseneck slides back down and it is almost impossible to get it back up when hoisting the reefed sail again.

My approach now is to bring the vessel up into the wind, drop boom and mainsail onto the boom gallows and work on reefing from there. I envy those boats that can reef in easily at all points of sail without being required to head up. On the other hand, these vessels usually have much shorter booms than Vilisar so it is not so difficult. Off the wind, the aft end of our boom is a long way outboard from the boat deck; I like to put on an extra tie-down around the leach reefing grommets and can only reach these grommets if the boom is inboard.

I don’t why I didn’t think of it before starting. The mainsail could have been left double-reefed. With quartering winds then the main would not be making the headsails, the boat would be much better balanced and Cap Horn could take over more of the steering.

After a long night, sunrise and moonset (full moon) are roughly at the same time again. I am awake but dally in bed and then get up in the still heavily rolling boat. I am determined to have my coffee before we start out again and I put the water on and add grounds to the plunger coffee pot. Not infrequently, the inside of the cabin after a rough night at sea can look like a bombsite. But this morning it doesn’t look too bad. We drink our leisurely coffee all the while trying not to scald ourselves as we bounce. I feel better for the drink and a quick wash at the sink.

By eight o’clock we are back out on deck. It is easy to get under way from a hove-to position. Untie the staysail so it is no longer backed, untie the helm so it can be moved and off you go. The waves are just as big as last night but not so scary in the daylight. Eventually we also get the mainsail up. Since we are doing 5 knots anyway in nearly following winds, we decide to forget about the drifter or Yankee. I wish we had reefed the mainsail, though. That would put more following air on the headsails whilst using the main. As it is, although we are getting good speeds, the boat is not balanced and the windvane cannot hold it on course. We therefore take turns steering in the bright sunshine and napping down below when off watch.

At one point I swear I see a whale blow almost dead ahead of us about a mile. But we never spot the whale. A sparrow flutters around us and lands on the lifeline near the foredeck. It looks tired; perhaps it has been blown out to sea. It takes off again after twenty minutes. A pair of grey-tawny small birds rather like doves comes by and inspects our spreaders. I cannot tell if they have talons but their beaks are either parrot-like or similar to birds of prey. I try looking them up but cannot find them in the book. I am reminded that I wish we had a book about marine mammals on board. In our voyaging, we encounter so many dolphins, porpoises, and whales of all sorts but are never sure about identification.

The distance from our anchorage at Isla Cerralvo to the harbour light at Mazatlán is just under 200 Nm according to the GPS. About 1330 today we break the 100-mile mark. Our speeds all day have been 4 and 5 knots. We shall soon have to decide what to do tonight: heave to, keep hand steering or set the sails so the windvane does the work. I’m for reefing the mainsail when we get it down and setting headsails to cover ground, however little, during the night.


CROSSING THE SEA OF CORTÉS, DAY IV; ARRIVING IN MAZATLÁN
Thursday, 17 November 2005

Arriving in Mazatlán

By last night, our third night on the crossing, our third night with disturbed sleep and discomfort, we are both becoming stretched and short-tempered, easily annoyed by any troubles aboard.

Instead of dropping at sunset on the second day as we expected, the wind that came up while we were playing canasta on the evening of Day II, continues all night and all the next day. By now we are the middle of the Sea of Cortés and the northerly winds have the whole length of the Sea to build up wind waves before reaching us; an 800-mile fetch. The waves are frothy, large and noisy. Even if the wind dies down now, it will take some time for the waters to become calmer.

As the afternoon progresses I say that we should get started earlier today to trim the boat for night running. I want to avoid doing the deck work in the dark, which is nearly total by 1800, and the work always seems to take longer than expected. I also want to make sure that the windvane is going to be doing the steering tonight, that we can stand our individual watches from the settees belowdecks.

The mainsail is dropped and furled to the boom. Then, putting the helm over so that the wind is behind us, I pole out the staysail to port and leave the red drifter to starboard hoping this will balance the boat and make the windvane happier about steering. It doesn’t work. The boat wants constantly to head up into the wind and the vane has not got enough power to overcome this. Clearly the boat is not properly balanced. That leaves as an alternative sailing under the staysail alone. But, with a headsail up we may be rolling across the waves. The motion is very uncomfortable.

We decide simply to run downwind basically “under bare poles". This is an old and proven storm tactic. Although we are not in storm conditions it will be interesting to see if the boat will actually sail in 15-knot winds without any canvas to power it. We drop the staysail and turn the boat so it is running, - with no sails up at all - straight downwind with the waves rolling up behind us and passing underneath us to continue their voyage to the Pacific. The windvane is set up and works like a charm! Our speed is still 3.5 knots, admittedly down from the 5 knots we had with the main up, but still very decent for night running. The bow wants to yaw off course a bit and we experience quite a bit of rolling at each extreme of the yaw before the vane brings the boat back on course.

Dipping into my bag of tricks, I dig up an idea I once read about but have never tried. An additional storm tactic when running downwind is to raise a small headsail, in our case the staysail, and sheet it in as flat and tight as possible amidships. The sail offers no surface to the wind unless the bow turns to port or starboard. In that case the small sail forward helps turn the boat back downwind. This works like a charm and there is almost no deviation whatsoever from our course now. Down below, it is so calm that it is almost possible to forget that we are actually sailing.

For dinner we polish off the leftover bean dish with tomato sauce added. Delicious! We agree on watches and remind ourselves to keep checking the compass either on deck or in the cabin for deviation from our course; the wind could change in the night. Our downwind course is actually taking us slightly away from a direct approach to Mazatlán but, well-rested, we intend to make it up easily in the morning (Day IV).

Before getting some sleep, I go on deck to check the horizon for ships and to admire the full moon ahead of us. There are a couple of lights in the far distance; one is clearly a cruise ship passing across our front. As I look forward to the staysail working away quietly in the moonlight, I see a strange shadow and decide more out of curiosity to go forward for a look. Just as I reach the shrouds I hear a loud tear and the staysail rips from the leech forward about three-quarters of the way up. I cannot in the dim light tell if the stitching has pulled out or the cloth has torn. Johnny-on-the-Spot, I loosen the halyard from its cleat on the mast and drop the sail onto the foredeck. The boat is still moving downwind but begins again to yaw more extensively and to roll at the extremes.

This is very dispiriting. We were always agreed that our little staysail was the best of the lot and useful as well. Now it is useless. I am not instead about to sheet in the Yankee amidships to keep running under bare poles. The jib and the drifter are not cut as flat as the staysail. So, if I did, we would essentially be sailing downwind at about 5 or 6 knots again. We have already tried that and the vane does not deal with it well.

I am frustrated and annoyed and perhaps I infected Kathleen as well. We have both had it with Vilisar, with sailing, with boats, and with the sea in general. Just one more thing gone wrong! Now we are either be going to lying a-hull or sailing. Staying at the helm all night is not high on our “To Do” list.

So lying a-hull it is to be. Lying a-hull is another storm tactic whereby you lash the helm and just go below, get into your berth, and let the boat take care of itself. Of course, it is going to be bumpy and rolly again tonight. “Get me off this boat!” I shout into the wind. Finally down below, Kathleen loses it completely while trying to struggle out of the sleeves of her windbreaker. She lets out a primeval and very loud scream before dropping unto the starboard settee to sleep. A few minutes later from behind the leecloths, which she has managed to locate during the day, she apologises for losing her cool. It hasn’t bothered me a bit since I myself have been cursing away on deck fighting sails and dealing with the frustrations of a sailboat. She drops off to sleep almost immediately, her eyes covered by sleeping blinders.

The night of course is long and the three-hour watches are interminable. The bumping and splashing of waves on the hull is uncomfortable but tolerable. At least, however, we can read in the berth and only have to brave the rolling every fifteen minutes to scan the horizon.

The morning of Day IV dawns red. The moon first fades out in the sky and then disappears below the horizon, a pale copy of its former self. By 0600 we have the mainsail and drifter rigged again and we are running along close-hauled at about 4-5 knots, the windvane unaccountably this morning agreeing to end its strike. I head back to bed after making coffee while Kathleen stays on deck to read. Mazatlán is now only about 25-30 Nm away and still out of sight in the marine haze. The breeze is just right. The world is back in order.

The day runs without a hitch. It is definitely cooler here than in the Sea of Cortés. Is it because the water is more Pacific? Or are we getting more Pacific winds as we come out of the lee of Baja? In the early morning there is some cloud cover and marine haze; the former dissipates before noon. But the sunny day remains a little cooler than we are used to.

With the windvane working and the sails drawing so well, Vilisar is cruising along at about 4 or 5 knots making for Mazatlán out of sight in the distance. I go below to catch up on my Scott Turow novel and my sleep. The cabin is reasonable tidy considering we have been at sea for a few days.

Early in the afternoon Kathleen announces that she can see land clearly and even some tall buildings. There are plenty of sports-fishing boats out and not a few shrimpers. We get our fishing pole out and the lure out behind us. You never know! At some point in the afternoon the pole begins to jump and is almost pulled overboard. Just as I dive to grab it the line goes slack. When we reel it in the lure, the lead and all are gone. Must have been a big one! We rig the line again but we get no more bites.

By about 1530 we are rounding up in the shelter of Isla Crestón with its lighthouse, El Faro, on top. It stands guard over the harbour entrance. The lighthouse itself is 157 metres above sea level and can be seen for 390 miles at sea. Given that it a strange harbour and given the boating activity all around us, I have decided to use the engine. Our sail dousing has to be done with regard for the several other boats around us, pangas, fishing boats, a long-liner coming into the harbour, a shrimper on the way out. The drifter as usual lands in the water and has to be fished out.

Sails down, we chug along carefully into the harbour. Just inside to the left is the old harbour of Mazatlán. Like San Diego, the harbour is a very long inlet running inland for some miles, though I am sure San Diego is much bigger. There are a lot of sports-fishing runabouts in the inner corners and a lot of catamaran party boats strewn about the harbour. Along the shore are boatyards with big shrimpers up on the marine skids. There are about eight or ten sailboats at anchor. Some of them have cruisers aboard. We drop anchor in about ten feet of dirty water near the schooner Patricia Belle out of Seattle, real beauty of probably 60 feet in length. I set the sentinel. We are here. By 1930 we are both in bed and asleep.


Friday, 18 November 2005

After three nights and four days non-stop since Isla Cerralvo or six days and five nights from La Paz (we anchored three times), we are tired though no longer dispirited. We have learned to accept the fact that life on a boat can be intensely frustrating at times. We are even learning to recognise the symptoms of sleep deprivation and understand why it is used as a torture technique.

We intended to make the voyage without using the engine once we had rounded the cape north of La Paz and would have favourable winds. In fact we did use it for a total of forty-five minutes and, for the moment this seems acceptable to us. With the windvane steering, we are much happier and life for a short-handed crew becomes tolerable. When we have to steer for days, life is a bore.

A sea voyage soon brings out the weaknesses in the vessel. Our reefing system is still somewhat daunting and if I knew what to do about it I would take care of it. But I don’t. So we will have to take more precautions. That means getting the sail down earlier or reefing it in advance when we know that we will be running. Inspecting the staysail this morning by daylight, I see that a seam has pulled out. I also notice that other seams are beginning to weaken too. We could get out the sewing machine and try to repair it ourselves. But, here in Mazatlán, I shall try to find a sail loft and have it go over everything to be absolutely sure. (I can repair the torn jib from last week myself.) I shall also see if I can get him to repair the ties to the mast and boom slide slide-cars. They are looking very old and one or two have already parted. The tropical sun has been hard on our sails. But they were old already and will probably need to be replaced before we try a Pacific crossing.

Except that recovering it is a bit of a job, the good news is that, not only is the red colour very distinguishing, the drifter has proven itself really useful. The most wind we have had, I suppose, has been about 20 knots. Normally we get only 5-10 knots of wind. This is perfect for the drifter.

I am reminded once again to finally get a functioning downhaul for the jib and drifter. Going out on the bowsprit in a pitching sea is no fun, exhausting and dangerous to boot. There is an article in one of Lyn and Larry Pardey’s books that describes a system that I shall try.

All things considered, our deep-cycle batteries served us quite well on this trip. And this despite the fact that we were not running the engine. The solar panels kept things charged up enough that, during the daylight hours, I could even charge up the computer. Nevertheless, we need to replace the house bank.

A result of the weak deep-cycle batteries was that our flashlight and other small batteries could never be charged up very high and consequently we were constantly threatened with having our GPS die on us. We made it but we shall buy some ready-charged ones and get our house batteries replaced.

Kathleen complained again on this trip that the cockpit is too wide for her to brace herself if she needs to pull on the tiller. She wants a foot-brace. She is also not happy about the fact that I took off the coaming just forward of the cockpit; I did it so we could use the cockpit and bridge for sleeping in the summer. When the weather is rough, however, the coaming has a handhold that she can use to brace herself. And if I were to add a better handhold on either side of the cockpit she would feel that much safer as well.

We did a good job of stowing for the voyage and we managed to live just fine considering everything. Kathleen prepared a big bean stew which, in permutations, lasted us a few days. Believe it or not, the last of it actually wound up in the Chinese stir-fry that I made when we arrived in Mazatlán last night. It was good to have things like hot dogs and other precooked things aboard. At first I am not hungry on a voyage and Kathleen is often a little seasick for a few days. Quick finger foods are good. A constant cheer is coffee for us both. The day has not really begun till we have had it. Unfortunately, I carelessly left our glass plunger-type coffee pot on the companionway ladder. Down it went in a million pieces when the boat rolled again. So, no coffee till we can get a new one. Maybe we can get one with a built-in thermos. That would at least be unbreakable. A bigger one would be better too. (This morning we are drinking black tea; the first taste reminded me immediately of England when I was a post-graduate student. I think I lived on it there.) Kathleen doesn’t eat sugar, but having biscuits, crackers, cheese and other snacks helps in the galley too. We stocked up on some beer before leaving La Paz but only I drank one can of it on the voyage.

We are not sure about how long we should stay in Mazatlán. Quien sabe? Maybe a week. Our next stop will be Isla Isabela, some eighty-five miles to the south. Maybe. We’ll see.