VISIT TO LORETO
Tuesday, 01 November 2005

We had promised ourselves that we would get an early start to Loreto across the waters from our anchorage. While the wind would be weak in the morning hours, I expected that, like yesterday, it would be picking up as the day went on. Loreto only has a small-boat shelter for pangas; we would have to anchor in about ten feet of water off the Malecon and be exposed to the wind and swells.

I am up before sunrise, the sky to the east as red as last night’s western sky. I can still see a few stars above me. It is warm enough to be on deck without any clothing. The others stir and I go below to put water on for coffee. The cabin looks a mess and we shall have to stow before we leave. There is a little wind and our jibsail is anyway ripped so we opt for motoring over to Loreto. I get the anchor up even before Kathleen can start the engine so we are off in a flash. While we drink coffee we steam across the seven–mile stretch with leftover swells from yesterday still around.

When we arrive it is clear that we did the right thing by not trying to overnight at Loreto. Even at 0830 when we drop the anchor in ten feet of water just off the fishermen’s small-boat harbour, there is a slow swell that causes Vilisar to roll quite a bit. The deck is a little treacherous as Laila and I launch the dinghy. When we three finally try to get into the dinghy it is bobbing up and down and the Vilisar is rolling around. Interesting! But there are no mishaps and we row into the sheltered area and tie up to a floating dock and strike off into town to the internet café.

Familiar Loreto is attractive in the warm sunshine. Excedpt for our little swim to the beach at Pulpito we have none of us been on land since we left San Carlos. Besides posting my blog and checking emails, we want to get a few groceries and a few items for repairing the sail. And then we want to be back on the boat by noon so we avoid the stronger afternoon winds and waves.

I think we shall head for Honeymoon Cove opposite Puerto Escondido.

SAILING WITH SANTA ANNA WINDS; WE CATCH OUR FIRST TUNA; ANCHORAGE AT ISLA CORONADO
Monday, 31 October 2005

Sailing with Santa Anna winds

When we wake at sunrise there is already a wind up. It is northerly and, if it is running at 5-10 knots already, it will certainly pick up as the day progresses. I can see wind waves and small whitecaps out beyond Pulpito. We want to make Loreto if we can and we want to do it without the engine. Finally!

It still takes us until 0830 to get everything stowed and the sails rigged. I can probably get the anchor up without the assistance of the engine. But the winds are already putting pressure on the chain and I should have to use the manually operated windlass. This will work against the wind but it is nearly as much work as pulling the chain in by hand; I don’t normally bother with the windlass at all accept in cases where we want to sail out of an anchorage without the engine. But I decide that my aching ribs and shoulder deserve a little mercy and I ask Kathleen to run the engine.

In a few minutes I pull in the anchor chain as Kathleen goes forward slowly on the engine with hand signals from me to point her at the anchor. With a last pull I haul the 20-kilo Bruce anchor’s last awkward bit to get it up over the bronze bow rollers, drop the chain over the gipsy and use the light line I keep there to tie the anchor chain to a padeye on the deck so the chain cannot inadvertently jump off the gipsy and allow the anchor to drop into the deep whilst we are under way.

Since we shall be running more-or-less southeast and I expect the winds will be coming form the north or northwest, I decide to use only the jib and staysails. They are quickly hoisted and soon we are running wing-on-wing towards the distant cape. The sky is full of strato-sirrus mares-tails indicating some sort of weather change over the next few days. We have been expecting autumnal Santa Anna winds, which, if I understand it correctly, will be coming from the north off the deserts as the Pacific High moves south from Alaska. These are part of the winter-wind constellation around here. They usually bring dry and northwesterly wind and the Santa Annas are also quite strong. They may also bring desert sand too.

I go below to snooze and read leaving Kathleen and Laila in the cockpit. When I come up a couple of hours later, the winds are quite strong and the waves are getting bigger all the time. Laila’s eyes tend to pop out when she looks astern; she has not yet become confident that Vilisar will ride each up each wave that passes beneath us. With only the headsails set, we are being lulled along directly down wind and there is little yawing to contend with. Kathleen and I, old salts that we now are, feel no effects of the waves on our wellbeing except the great feeling that every sailor knows of zishing along in the wind and sunshine, knowing that we are on a downhill run to our destination some thirty miles away.

At one point Laila begins to feel a little funny and heads down below. Within ten minutes however, she is back on deck looking a little pale under her sunburned face. We suggest that she take the helm for a while which should divert her attention from how she feels. This takes a while but after a half-hour she is generally feeling better. I go back below and stretch out on the settee.

All day the winds get stronger and the following seas bigger and with more and more whitecaps. I come to the conclusion that it will not be possible to anchor off Loreto. All they have there is a small boat jetty. We should have to anchor in an open roadstead being filled with bigger rollers. We decide therefore to sail down between Baja and Coronado Island and find an anchorage on the south and protected side. We spent a couple of nights there on the way up and know where to put down the hook. In fact we were parked near Susan and Tim of S/V Liberty Card, whom we had met only a day earlier in Ballandra Bay about ten miles away on Isla Carmen. Susan had taught me how to clean fish. She also taught me how to catch them but that lesson did not seem to have taken as well!

We catch our first tuna

We are dragging our feathered lure behind us. Yesterday we definitely had a bight. After a long pull to get the fish up to the boat, it got off the hook without us actually seeing it. It could have been seaweed since there was not that much fight at the other end. But when we got the lure into the boat, there was a large fisheye attached to the hook. Gruesome! We left it on as bait and threw the line back overboard.

Now, about 1100, the pole begins to jump and bounce. It is rather a long pull; we are under sail and doing 5-6 knots. We could come up into the wind and heave to but no one wants to stop. Finally we spot the silvery form in the water and by 1110 we have a beautiful 26-inch blue-fin tuna, one of the best of a great type of eating fish. We get out the fish knife and I practice - now for the third time - the skills taught me by Susan (the other two catches were Dorado or Mahi Mahi). So far I have had more success getting fish onto the deck, about two feet above the waterline, than using the gaff hook that Howard Lund gave to us back in Long Beach; we can never seem to get the gaff to hook the fish and simply hand-lining it up has so far worked. The blue-silver tuna is 26 inches long. I insert the long sharp knife into his gills to cut his jugular. Dark read blood spreads out on the wooden deck and drips down the side of the boat. It’s firm meat as I cut the fillets is a deep, deep red and yields surely about three or four kilos of beautiful meat. Kathleen puts the huge fillets into a covered plastic bowl and whisks it below. I strip off and slosh bucket after bucket of saltwater over the decks and end everything with a rinse off of my blood-covered legs and hands.

Anchorage at Isla Coronado

Already we are planning dinner in the anchorage; boiled potatoes with tuna fillets lightly rolled in flour, seared in a pan and cooked for five minutes in red wine with thyme added for flavouring. What a meal! We each had two good-sized pieces of meat and there was still three large pieces left for breakfast.

The anchorage is very windy even though it is on the south side of the island. As we round the sandspit that sticks out a long way from the southwest corner and tighten up the headsails, the boat heels to starboard. We want to try and sail our anchor in. But without the mainsail up, we were having trouble getting up into the wind. The headsails are flogging and suddenly I notice that the jib’s seam along the leach has torn for a length of about 6-8 feet. We finally capitulate and turn on the Lister. Getting the headsails down in the wind is, for some reason, a struggle. Halyards and sheets keep getting caught around the anchor windlass or the fishing pole or whatever sticks out at an inconvenient angle. Thank goodness Laila is along to help on the foredeck because I am becoming very frustrated. The two long days in the sun and wind are making me very short-tempered and I remind myself to take some sueros (electrolytes) that evening.

With the sails finally doused we motor right long to the eastern end near the navigation light. In the middle of the bay it still blowing over the island like stink whereas it seems less windy here. But at first the anchor does not want to set properly. The water is clear enough that I can see that we have sand over rock. As we back the boat down, the Bruce-anchor drags bumping across rocks. I am just about to call it quits and move to another spot when the anchor suddenly digs in and the boat comes to a sudden stop. There is some swell refracting around the point but it there is only a slight rolling. The boat “put to bed”, Laila and I jump in for a refreshing swim before dinner while Kathleen putters below. The wind is cold later as it dries U.S.A. Like yesterday at Pulpito we sit again in the afternoon sun on deck until we are dry.

As night falls there are still strato-sirrus clouds over Baja and the sunset is spectacular. The lights of Loreto come on some seven miles away to the southwest, the airport beacon flashing. We retire below to our feast and afterwards, over red wine and cookies, Laila learns to play canasta.


BACK IN BAJA; OUR FIRST ANCHORAGE; PUNTO PULPITO
Monday, 31 October 2005

The night crossing is completely uneventful. The winds are non-existent; the sea itself puts on its flattest face. The engine performs faultlessly. The stars are plentiful and bright; I am happy to see our old companion-constellation, Orion and his belt, back in the night sky at this time of year; the Big Dipper is just barely visible above the horizon for a few hours and the Polar Star low in the north. I wonder when we shall finally see the Southern Cross. And will I recognise it when we do?

Having Laila on board is a big help. She is, first, a good sport and ready to pitch in with anything you ask. She is cheerful and chipper even after an overnight passage. She is also a busy beaver: she keeps her own stuff neat and tidy and she is always tidying and cleaning around the cabin. She is also eager to learn everything about the boat. Since she is handy with tools and likes to works with her hands, she is from that point-of-view also great to have aboard. I notice this especially now when my arm, shoulder and ribs are still so sore from the horse accident. And, of course, on a night passage, we are really glad to have another crewman to stand watch. It gets dark earlier now (sunset at about 1800) and the sun comes up about 0730 though of course first light is somewhat earlier. We set three-hour watches that are plenty long enough when you are alone on deck. Without the third person, it would have meant two three-hour watches each with only three hours to sleep in between. With Laila we could each get six hours of shut-eye.

(For those who have been asking, I can do basically everything as before but I ache for the rest of the day if I have wrestled down recalcitrant sails or pulled up the anchor. Then I go back on my aspirin or Ibuprofen supplements. Curiously enough, the most pain is when I am trying to get in or out of bed or trying to switch from one side to the other for sleeping.)

When we saw that there was going to be no wind at all for the crossing, we decided to head straight across to Conception Bay about 75 Nm away. At sunrise the mountains of Baja California are clearly visible. Over morning coffee and sleepy eyes, we discuss our plans. There are no good northerly anchorages near the mouth of Conception Bay and motoring al the way in to find one and then back out after a day of rest doesn’t appeal to us. We therefore decide to make use of the nice weather, weak=winded though it still is, to turn the bow to the southeast and run along the coast towards Loreto. Along the way, when we are ready, we shall find an anchorage and stop for the afternoon and night.

Punto Pulpito takes its name from a big rock formation, a couple of hundred feet high, sticks up and out like a pulpit from a coastline that is low and sandy just at that point. Tucked in behind the pulpit, in the vestry I guess, is a small-ish anchorage with a small white-sandy beach. The sandy bottom of the anchorage gives the absolutely clear water a greenish tinge and when the anchor is down in twenty feet of water at about 1530, we can follow the anchor chain with our eyes as it snakes away up wind all the way to the anchor itself.

The cruising guide says that, although during northerlies there will be no waves (not even ones refracted around the point), it can be quite windy in there. Since about 0730 this morning the northerly winds that have sprung up during the day have allowed us to get up sail and turn off the engine. We are running downwind under mainsail and jib, the staysail left unused since it is largely masked by the main. The wind whistling now over the love sandy cliff between the mainland and the Pulpito isthmus is stiff and keeps Vilisar pointed straight into the wind and the anchor chain at a forty-five degree angle to the water.

We are all a bit frazzled from the night passage and all in need of a clean-up. Nobody wants to make the effort to launch the “Chameleon” dinghy still stowed on the foredeck; everyone just strips off, jumps overboard into the “fresh” clear water and strikes out for the sandy beach about two hindered yards away. The swim is glorious, the water warms as we near the beach and we walk up and down in the white sand looking for shells, looking at the crabs darting into the water and soaking up the sun. Although one can see to the next cape about five to seven miles away to the southeast, there is no sign of human habitation around. Three pairs of naked feet leave footprints on the sand like Crusoes. We swim slowly back out to Vilisar standing like a postcard in the late-afternoon sunshine. Hard to believe that it is now Halloween, that everyone else we know are putting up their storm windows and taking delivery of winter fuel-oil. Here we are enjoying what would be an early-summer’s day on Lake Ontario. Except the water is a lot warmer.

As the sun drops I crack up a mixed-bean dish in the pressure cooker, a little comfort food after a night and a day of snacking. With a beer or a glass of cheap red wine, we are kings.


GETTING THE ELECTRICALS RIGHT; NIGHT CROSSING TO BAJA
Sunday, 30 October 2005

The main reasons voyagers don’t bother with tight planning is that you can almost never adhere to the plans. There’s the weather, of course; I would never want to underrate the weather as a factor in voyaging. In this case however, the tiempo was actually better for crossing the Sea of Cortés when we arrived in San Carlos than what we actually sailed. Thinking we could have Vilisar provisioned and ready to go in a day or two at the maximum, we finally left a week after arriving back on the boat from Rancho el Nogal. In between I worked on a legal translation for about five days, the final day involving staying up till 0300 to get it done and shipped off.

I mentioned earlier that we ran into the Wiggins Family in San Carlos. We knew them at Rancho el Nogal. They are now getting set up in the local boating community as electricians and mechanics. Since we have been having a lot of trouble with our deep-cycle batteries and the solar panels, we ask them to take a look at them. It is a few days before they can get started at the work, by which time I am finished my translation and eager to set sail at last. Impossible, however, with the engine room’s electrical guts strewn all over the place!

There are several problems plaguing us. First, it appears that the voltage regulator, which prevents destruction of the batteries by overcharging (the solar panels could theoretically generate enough power to start the acid boiling in the batteries), is somehow defective; although there is plenty Sonora-sun power coming from our two 55-watt solid solar panels on deck, only a small fraction was actually reaching the batteries. The voltage regulator has to go. We put out an inquiry on the daily Cruiser Network and mange to buy a used regulator. Joe gets it set up.

Second, our two 130-amp batteries seem to have somehow been “cooked” and will not hold a charge. Vilisar has three flooded batteries altogether. One is specifically kept separate for starting the engine. By type it is designed, like a car battery, to give large jolts of power for brief periods. Ours is located just to starboard when you look inside the engine compartment. It’s easy to check and easy to keep the cells topped up with distilled water.

What we call the “house batteries”, however, are situated abaft the engine. These batteries are used for almost everything else aboard from running and cabin lights to VHF radio, laptop, cellphone, and rechargeable flashlight batteries.

When we first acquired the boat the batteries were “gel” type; i.e. they were sealed and you never had to add water. After several years of replacing these with flooded batteries I know exactly now why gel batteries were used! It is a very, very difficult and dirty job to squeeze in between the engine and the starboard fuel tank and insert oneself feet first in a horizontal position until you are actually sitting on the hull planking behind the Lister diesel with a portion of your behind on the shaft. The two deep-cycle batteries are located together in a fibre-glassed tray under the cockpit floor but high up in the engine room in case it gets flooded, I guess.

Given the structure of the boat, once you are in position there is no way you can lift your head high enough to get look into the cells and check for water levels. I did finally buy a specialised black-plastic bottle in Victoria a few years ago that would allow me to pour distilled water into the batteries without actually seeing what I was doing. Until then, the only way I could tell they were full was when sulphuric acid overflowed into the box or onto my hands and clothes. I was constantly mopping up and sprinkling baking soda all around to prevent damage. The smell in the engine room was unpleasant and permeated into the cabin as well. The description of the battery box does not even give a hint about how difficult it was to lift out two heavy lead batteries with your arms outstretched above your head, somehow move them across your body to the engine itself and set them down. Then you had to climb out like a snake to move them from the engine to the cabin. The same procedure was required in reverse to install new batteries. I give you all this detail by way of excusing the fact that we probably did not always keep the water level up in those house batteries. I think also that contributed to them being overcharged on one of our Sea of Cortés crossing. The long and short of it is that these two batteries are pretty well dead.

None of this is vouchsafed immediately, of course. First the solar panels have to be properly wired to deliver power and then there has to be a phase of a day or two to see if the solar panels can liven up the batteries. We conclude with Joe and Bill in the end that the batteries simply will not hold a charge and must be replaced. We swear never that we would never again use flooded batteries. Even though sealed (gel or AGM) batteries may or may not be as efficient, their maintenance is much more geared for electrically-ungifted sailors like us. And even though we would not need to spend so much time on maintenance with sealed batteries, to save the physical torture of actually shifting batteries out of and into the battery tray, we decide to relocate all the wires and switches so we can have the batteries henceforth situated inside an existing wooden box, which lives at the bottom of our companionway ladder. All you have to do now to check the batteries is to lift the lid of the wooden box!

After a shopping expedition to get the materials, Joe spends ours conscientiously relaying the wiring and moving the old batteries forward. He also simplifies the wiring and the multi-switch for the different battery banks is also no in the main cabin and not on the back bulkhead of the engine room. We always had to take off the engine room door and lean over the frequently moving or hot engine to switch.

All of this has us on pins and needles. We really want the electrical work done. But we are very eager to sail in order to be in La Paz to meet Bob Ferguson on the way down by trawler from Seattle. And anyway, once we have departure in our minds, we tend to have the bit in our teeth. How often can you do a last-minute provisioning of fresh goods? Laila Kahn, our crewperson from Switzerland is getting especially antsy to leave as she has only a limited amount of travelling time before she has to return to Guadalajara and then Bern.

It is finally Saturday morning when Vilisar leaves the mooring buoy and moves under power to the fuel dock. We have plenty of diesel in the two tanks (we carry some 75-80 U.S. gallons and the tanks are nearly full. Plenty for the trip to La Paz even if we have to motor the whole way. But our on-board water tanks (60 gallons) and the four five-gallon on-deck jerry jugs are all empty. There is still electrical work going on below as the hose at the fuel dock is dragged across the cabin roof to the port tank. The rate of flow is slow that each tank takes about twenty minutes to fill. Fortunately, there is now waiting line at the fuel dock. Fortunate for use, too, the municipal water in San Carlos is treated and potable.

Bill and Terry, Joe, Jeannie, and Johnny all come to wish us bon voyage. They will be able to follow out comings and goings on this blogsite. We wish them all the best for their efforts in San Carlos or wherever they land. Bill and Joe follow us out to the exit from Bahia San Carlos in their inflatable dinghy. All of us waving as they motor back towards San Carlos and w head out past Martini Cove, where we have spent so many nights at anchor, and the craggy bluffs that guard the entrances. All our sails are set and we point Vilisar’s bowsprit to the southwest.

When planning the crossing to Baja, we were not sure what sort of winds we would be offered upon leaving Bahia San Carlos. The longer term forecast for the week promised Santa Anna-type winds, i.e. strongly form the northwest. These would be ideal for a direct shot at La Paz. On the other hand they might still be weakly southerly which would make a crossing to appoint farther north along the Baja coast attractive and allow us to stop here and there on the way to La Paz. Since the choice of La Paz as our goal had to do with meeting Bob Ferguson, just when he will be arriving would also play a role.

It has now become clear from email traffic that, if he is going to make it to La Paz at all, Bob will probably be very delayed and might, indeed, only make it time to dash to the airport for his return flight on 09Nov05. The last word I had from him was on Monday and stated with some asperity that his vessel was stuck in Huntington Beach, California (i.e. between Long Beach and San Diego), they were being delayed by a threatening gale, there was heavy coastal fogs, and that conditions did not permit the vessel to cross the harbour bar to gain the open sea. The earliest they could possibly leave, Bob told me on Monday, would be on Wednesday. Now it was Sunday. WE assume they left on Wednesday but thy will certainly not make it to La Paz for 31Oct05, their original date of arrival.

We have this all in mind as we motorsail out of San Carlos Bay. We find the late-afternoon wind is very light and from the southwest. The sea is very calm, the skies clear. After a discussion we opt for motorsailing through the night to Bahia Conception. It is 74 Nm and the more-or=less the shortest distance across. Our current speed is only about 3.5 knots, which will put us there in the morning. We might pick up a bit more speed in the night and be there at sunrise. After that we will time the 250 miles down to La Paz to meet Bob, to take advantage of good winds and to show Laila and ourselves a few more coves on the Baja side. Perhaps Bob will have a better ETZA by the time we get to an inter4net café in Loreto along about Tuesday. Although, of course, this will in no way impact the length of the night, it is the date when we set back the clocks to winter time. We wonder if the GPS will do this automatically.

I drop the jib since it is useless when motorsailing and we continue with the main and staysails up and the Lister purring along nicely underneath the cockpit. We have nearly a full load of fuel so our cruising range is moiré than sufficient. That done, we discuss safety measures on board with Laila including man-overboard steps. Then we set watches and think about dinner. We are underway at last.

Being underway starts us thinking about our time in the Sea of Cortés and I San Carlos. I don’t think any of us regret leaving San Carlos. For Laila, it was just a boring wait while we repaired things. She is eager to get onto her first sailing voyage. And although we did met some interesting people there, living at anchor as we were and not hanging out at Barracuda Bob’s café, we were not part of the small permanent community in San Carlos. We only went there to be farther north and in a safe harbour for the hurricane season, to be convenient for picking up kids by bus from Tucson and later to reach the cooper Canyon Railway and Rancho el Nogal. We would otherwise probably have spent the summer over on the Baja side in the hope that we would miss the electrical storms and much of the humidity. There are good services for boaters in San Carlos but not much else. We were ready to move on

The sun gives us one if its famous San Carlos sunsets, falling stone-like into the distant horizon fast enough at this time of year to actually see it disappearing. Kathleen is as usual at the helm as we get underway. I spend my time tidying up the foredeck and cabin roof, coiling lines and stowing them for a night crossing. As usual too we have a little too much stuff on our cabin roof: solar panels; dingy spars and sail; the dingy seat; fishing gaff. I have rigged a spot on a shroud for the remaining fishing pole (our other pole went overboard on the way back from Miramar to San Carlos back in August), the scrub brush and the boat hook are in their normal places on the shrouds too.

I treat myself to a sun-downer beer and stretch out on the settee to read. I suddenly realise that I am tired and eager for a snooze. It is already very dark in the cabin. The Lister engine behind its bulkhead door is chugging away steadily. I see stars wagging back and forth above me through the skylight and the sound of water passing the hull of the boat just beside me. It hits me as I drift off to sleep that we are not just leaving San Carlos and that we are also not just on our last cruise in the Sea of Cortés . We are at the beginning of Vilisar’s Central American Voyage. Will we be in Costa Rica for the next hot period beginning in June? Will we be going back to Rancho el Nogal again to avoid the tropical heat? As the shrinks say, just put this all in the “Third Place” until its time to decide.