BARRA THOUGHTS ON ZEN AND THE ART OF BOAT MAINTENANCE;
ON HARPER AND THE CANADIAN FUTURE; DAY-TO-DAY IN BARRA DE NAVIDAD; SOLO SAILING TO TENACATITA; TENACATITA BAY; THE AQUARIUM; “THE JUNGLE TOUR”; SALAD DAYS IN TENACATITA; BACK TO MALAQUE
Barra thoughts on Zen and the art of boat maintenance
Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico, Monday, 23 January 2006
I was foiled yesterday in getting my blog posted at the Sands Hotel in Barra de Navidad. I took my laptop in with me also to get a full charge on it. But I never found a wi-fi signal and, since I was a passenger in someone else’s motorboat, I did not have the time to go to an internet café and blog. I really miss having a flash memory since I can then write on the boat and take only the flash stick ashore with the blog already written and only needing to be posted. There is also a lot less risk involved in sticking a flash stick into your pocket, possibly in a Ziploc-type bag; the dangers of carrying a laptop ashore were brought all to forcefully home to me yesterday when the inflatable in which I riding took a big sloppy wash from a passing panga over the bow. The wave splashed copiously over the contents of our boat. Fortunately, before leaving I had placed the laptop in a plastic laundry bag; although a little water got inside, no damage was done this time.
I worked for a while on the computer at the hotel hoping that I would at some point get a wi-fi signal. It never came and I dashed up to the internet café to check if I had heard from Kathleen or gotten translating work before making a quick trip to the butchers. Back at the boat I decided that, with only $ 10 left till month-end, there was not much point in going ashore for the moment. I had better aboard and get my painting and other jobs done so I could leave soon.
The gusty northwest winds of last week have disappeared. If there is any wind it is very light and as likely as not from the southwest. Working around the boat is hot now, hotter than almost any day on the Straits of Georgia in British-Columbian summer. At times like these it is best to adopt a Zen-like approach to motorcycle and boat maintenance. Organise some work and let your mind slip into a semi—detached state. In the morning now I do some yoga stretching exercises, which, though seemingly undemanding, have made me stiff at midday and tired earlier in the evening. I play opera recording while I am working, take a break in the early afternoon to have a sandwich and something to drink, and to do some writing.
Yesterday I scraped both of our battered oars in preparation for coating. These have seen a lot of action and the tips of the blades are rough and most of the paint is gone. Scraping the oars removes about 60 percent of the old white paint. I sand them and intend to apply a coat of sealant to the bare ash-wood when I accidentally flip the sanding sponge over the side and fish it out without thinking first with an oar. It was after all the handiest thing available. Of course, now the blade is damp and I cannot put the sealant on tonight. I put them out to dry and will do them in the morning. This gets done this morning and I hope to get a coat of paint on them as well.
This morning too I sand all around the aft deck and apply a coat of light grey paint to the caprail. I debate about painting the caprail all round but for the life of me I cannot find the jug of fine sand that I want to spread on the wet paint to prevent slipperiness underfoot. I know it’s aboard here somewhere because I saw it only a day or two ago. But where has it got to? My Zen mood vanishes in a moment of frustration. Up till then I am pretty cool and enjoying the work despite the heat. After my noon break I shall paint the oars, paint the white trim on tow teak hatchcovers, the lazarette and forecastle hatchcovers, and get a second coat of paint on the dinghy seat which has remained unpainted since I made this replacement for the seat lost when the dinghy flipped off the Pacific coast of Baja California last February.
Last evening Jens and Alice of Veleda invited me over for a beer. After saying yes I had to back out because the oars were drying and I had no means of propulsion. They are going to pick me up later this afternoon and take me over. We are thinking of leaving together along with Curt of Sea Reach for Tenacatita on Wednesday. I have a lot to get done before then.
At night the lagoon is beautifully quiet. The stars are extremely bright and there is a little forest of disembodied masthead and anchor lights from the now twenty boats in here; except for the closest ones, I cannot see the boats themselves. After my dinner, I sit outside with a beer and a cigar contemplating my day’s work until I feel weary enough to stretch out on the starboard berth intending to read. It is warm enough the last two nights to make a blanket unnecessary until at least early morning. Inside the cabin it is so dark that I cannot see my hand in front of my face. In the far distance, a mile away, fireworks go off around 2200; I get up to watch and count five or six seconds between burst and sound. They must be coming from Melaque across the bay. I hear disco music too but it is far away and not disturbing (these beach discos and bars are a total nuisance to cruisers in Mexico; Mexicans seem to accept high levels of noise at any time but I am surprised that neighbouring hoteliers don’t complain.) I return to my bed and my book but the intention to read goes the way of my earlier Zen mood and I drift off.
I awaken around 0300, unable to sleep any longer. This is not uncommon for me; it’s probably and “Alterserscheinung” (an indication of old age). Lights go out about 2130 and I am normally awake again around 0300. I have learned not to regret this quiet time, to welcome it now even, for reading or, if the laptop battery will permit, for writing. I normally first go on deck to pay a visit to the leeward shrouds. Tonight again, as usual, I contemplate the constellations, fiery bright in the blue-black heavens, and notice that a last-quarter moon is rising in the southeastern sky. It lays a silver path through the silhouetted sailboats directly to Vilisar. The disco music is still going strong but far away.
Down below I dig out Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes to read some more about the voyage to Ecuador. I heard of one boat headed that way in February and wonder if we are leaving things too late of we go in early April. The other boat intends to stop at Islas Cocos, a group of islands belonging to Costa Rica and on the rhumb line to Ecuador (but a little to the east of a rhumb line aimed at the Galapagos Archipelago). The Cocos are some 600 miles offshore. I try in vain to find something about the Cocos Islands. I drag out the British Admiralty Ocean Passages for the World and flip to the section at the back for sailing vessels. This is section was the whole book until the advent of motor vessels. It’s fascinating to read today since a copy was on every rigged merchantman and warship in the great days of sail. I also unfold all six of the charts and diagrams in the packet that comes with the book. However, the Cocos are barely mentioned here either so I have no idea if you can land there, if they have water and fuel available to us, important considerations for us. We may, after all, have to motor a large part of this trip given the contrary winds and the fact that the Doldrums, that squally belt of contrary or absent winds just above the equator that moves north in the spring and summer. Currents are erratic in this region as well so we need to be prepared. Perhaps it would be better to sail to Ecuador via the Cocos rather than directly to the Galapagos, which we can then visit when we eventually cross to French Polynesia.
Then of course, there is the matter of money. In the middle of the night all worries get a little bigger. I normally avoid troublesome thought during dark hours. But tonight they get to me. I wonder how we can afford flying three kids this summer back and forth and whether we can afford the cruising permits and visas for the Arche de Colón (Galapagos Islands). Obviously this will require some tight planning. Better to do it in the daytime though. Better yet, I shall get Kathleen working on this problem. She’s better at it. I go back to reading C.S. Forester’s The Hornblower Companion, especially the long essay on how he came to write the series and how he goes about actually creating a novel. Very interesting and makes me want to write one too. I have known that feeling before but have never come up with a good idea. Maybe I should be less ambitious and just write a short story or an essay. Actually, now that I think of it, I have a good story about trade financing, believe it or not. I wonder if I could work it up and where I could do the research for it. Best just to start.
On Harper and the Canadian future; Day-to-day in Barra de Navidad
Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico, Wednesday, 25 January 2006
On Harper and the Canadian Future
The voters in Canada earlier this week turfed out the now sclerotic Liberal-Party, party that had learned, one would have thought, how to juggle the many facets of maintaining power in a decentralised country like Canada. The Liberals were caught in a payola scandal and seemed to have no clear policies any more beyond self-perpetuation and self-enhancement. It was time for them to go and the voters basically voted against them.
It remains to be seen whether with the resignation of Liberal Prime Minster Paul Martin and the Governor General’s request of young and brash Stephen Harper will be more to the electorate’s taste. The Conservative Party, once a national party had shrunk over the last generation to a rump party. In desperation it amalgamated with the Reform Party, a “neo-conservative”, “Christian” and “free-enterprise party that grew up in the West, mainly Alberta and British Columbia, which historically have been the cradle of bizarre political credos like Social Credit (don’t ask what it is; it’s so way out that even the Social Credit Parties have long since abandoned it intellectual roots).
If the Conservative cum Reform Party had gotten a large majority - in fact, they are the largest party but cannot forge a clear majority over all other parties in the House of Commons- there programme would have included a dismantling of the social welfare, national health care and national pension fund. It would also have aligned Canada more closely with the U.S.A. (Harper has stated that Canada should have been in Iraq at America’s side). With a minority government the Conservatives will be dependent upon other parties for support to get legislation through. Most importantly, the Conservatives do not, I believe, have deep support from Quebec; without it, it becomes impossible to deal with the French-English fissures in Canada’s political landscape.
It is also quite unlikely that the Liberals will support them. that party will now go through a purging of the Old Guard and a leadership convention (Michael Ignatieff is touted as a left-wing candidate after his handy win in a Toronto riding; he has a lot of cosmopolitan charm and intellectual credentials as well as being a TV-news moderator and therefore with face appeal). But expect the Liberals to keep their distance from the Government while they nurse their wounds and rebuild the party and its finances. Since the Conservatives are now required to expose their “idealistic” programmes to parliamentary scrutiny, since they are novices in government after so many years in the wilderness, The Liberal Party will probably take a high moral line while praying Harper’s government self-destructs.
Beyond the Liberal Party in Parliament, there is the Bloc Quebecois, a nationalist party from the Province de Québec, as the next largest grouping. They may give tacit support to the Government on some issues provided they get something specifically for Quebec. The voters in the province did not give the party the same wholehearted approval that they received in the past perhaps indicating that independence is no longer holds the same fascination as it did twenty years ago. Any dismantling of the social contract is unlikely however to be attractive to Quebecers since they province has wrested so many goodies from the rest of Canada that they would be cutting off the nose to spite the face if they were to get off the gravy train. Separtistes have always argued – to Quebecers - that they could have it both ways: the goodies AND independence. The rest of Canada laughed behind their hands so as not to appear patronising to their French-Canadian fellow citizens.
Finally, there is the good old New Democratic Party. It holds, I think, 29 seats (Bloc Quebecois holds 50 plus and there is one independent MP). I have not got all the arithmetic at hand. But I am not sure if the Conservatives plus the NDP could trump all other parties. I think not. And in any case, nothing could be farther from this Prairie-agrarian/eastern labour-union merger than a neo-conservative agenda so similar and so close to George W. Bush that people have already been saying of Harper he will be competing for kennel room with lead-poodle to the U.S.A., Tony Blair.
Canadian independence is anyway a dodgy thing, living as the country does next to the American giant. I have not noticed any strong tendency for union with the U.S.A. although some Westerners, when they feel hard done by as Quebec gets all the goodies, do raise the spectre and keep the topic alive. The national view of Canada is cradled in Ontario and, to a certain degree in Quebec (the non-nationalist cum independence portion). The West has always felt hard done by and to be sure they are in many ways. Alberta and B.C. oil gives them some cards to play.
But the north-south pull is still tremendous. Behind the scenes, Canadian strategic thinkers must worry about how attractive Canadian natural resources are to Americans: including the oil sands in the West, Canada is now rated as the country with the second-largest proven reserves of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia; even Canada’s huge resources of fresh water and electricity are attractive to a country unwilling to live on its own means. When will Americans resurrect the idea of Manifest Destiny and look north over the border. If they can talk themselves into attacking Iraq in order to take a physical stake in the Middle East, willing to expend American blood in Middle-Eastern entanglements, why would they not just as easily convince themselves that Canada needs the protection of American boots-on-the-ground? Most Americans I know scoff at this idea. But they came to scoff at George BW. Bush and Iraq and stayed to stare in amazement. There are some Quisling elements in Canada: Alberta has always been very pro-American; the Bay-Street business crowd is so integrated in cross-border business that it might not be hostile to a merger.
That said, most Canadians, I believe, want to maintain their distinctive institutions and worldview, however much they may resemble Americans in general and like them individually. Having ridden themselves of their priest decades ago, do Quebecers now, do secular English Canadians now want Bible-backed political hectoring by rural, hang ‘em and flog ‘em MP’s from the shires? Will there be a backlash against a neo-conservative government under Harper as he lays out his neo-conservative programme? Canadians generally I think have been astonished by the neo-conservative programme in the U.S.A. including its imperial overseas policies. The graft and corruption scandals currently getting an airing in neo-conservative dominated Washington are not likely to make neo-conservative, Bible-thumping ideas more appealing to Canadian voters. Also, there are many recent European and Asian immigrants to Canada with anything but fundamentalist Christian views. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are cosmopolitan and outward looking compared to the Canadian Prairies, or rural Ontario and interior British Columbia.
Day to day in Barra de Navidad
My days are not all that long, in fact. It is still essentially dark at 0700 and the sun comes up about 0745. By 1900 it is pitch dark again. The hours between sunup and sunset still have not reached twelve and the days are currently only lengthening at a rate of lest than a minutes a day. Cruisers tend to be like farmers; they get and go to bed more-or-less with the sun. Social activities frequently happen in the late afternoon and people are back on their bots by dark. That makes finding their anchored yacht easier; when the suns goes down this can be a problem.
I generally follow the same schedule. I am up with the sun and, normally turn off my reading light by 2130. I make coffee in the morning and either go out to the cockpit to drink it or continue reading while I sip. There is a Cruisers Net on VHF in Bare and Tenacatita at 0900 by which time I am normally already busy if I have plans for the day. The net is so excrutiatingly boring that some mornings I switch it off after the tides and weather have been given (The weather forecasts are apparently to particularly meant for voyagers. It often consists of superficial statements like, “It’s going to be another sunny day.” I guess real cruisers listen to the ham or SSB weather, especially to Don on S/V Summer Sausage.)
I try to get my boat work done before noon and do some writing in the afternoon when the solar panels can deliver good wattage. AT present I am doing a lot of painting and varnishing. All the relevant storage holds have been unpacked and there are cans of paint and brushes and rags and boxes spread all round the cockpit area.
Painting has several stages: preparation, i.e. sanding and scraping; and, the actually painting of up to three daily coats. Once you start you have to be at it for days. Once you have wet paint around you can’t start sanding somewhere else or your paint and varnish will be ruined. If the sun is too hot the newly-varnished or painted surfaces will dry too quickly and then blister as the gasses underneath the hard surface expand.
Then there is the problem of cleaning brushes. Throw-away brushes are handy although they are definitely not as good for holding the paint, preventing drips, or applying even coats. The hairs also loosen and get in the paint. But they are at least disposable. In a home workshop you can clean brushes properly and keep them in proper containers to keep them soft. This is almost impossible on a boat. I use disposable brushes if I have them.
You have to learn to like this painting and mostly I am content with it. But now I have had enough for a while. I get into Barra de Navidad every couple of days; in fact, I could cadge a lift daily with Jens and his family from S/V Veleda, or Curt off S/V Sea Reach. But if I go to town half of my working day on the boat is shot and I need to get stuff done and the materials stowed again.
Jens and Curt were going to leave for Tenacatita today and had invited me to go along: a little Canadian flotilla since Veleda and Vilisar are from Victoria and Sea Reach is from Prince Rupert. But Don’s weather forecast on Tuesday night promised 20-30 knot easterlies. I thought this would be great. But the other two skippers have decided that the risk is too great and we should all wait another day. We shall probably be motoring the whole way! Good thing I didn’t put my painting stuff away; I can finish some stuff today and put everything away at dusk.
SOLO SAILING TO TENACATITA
Thursday, 26 January 2006
I am awake at dawn and, after making my coffee, I start final measures for getting under way. The cabin interior is quickly done; on deck I get the awing in and strip the sail covers off and throw everything into the forecastle through the foreward hatch. I have decided to tow the dinghy; it is only about 12 Nm and it looks pretty calm.
In fact, as I start the engine and get in the anchor, it is dead calm in the lagoon. Veleda is already on the way out and Curt is fiddling with his anchor on Sea Reach. I follow Veleda at a distance into the dredged channel, determined not to run aground as we did coming in. I try to stay under 1.5 knots, often slipping the engine into neutral and coasting so as not to build up speed. At one point I am overtaken by Curt who says his transmission will not allow him to go that slow.
Just before the final exit into the Pacific Ocean swells, I coast while I put up the main- and staysails. Outside there is a gentle and slow swell and I head due West into them at about 4.5 knots. The bottom did pick up a bit of marine growth in the lagoon though, as far as I can see, no barnacles. My speed does not seem to be impaired, at least, and a few hours of sailing will help to clean things off.
Sea Reach has stopped ahead of me. As I near him Curt says his inflatable dinghy came untied and he had to rescue it and retie it securely. After that he follows me at a distance of several hundred yards. He has automatic pilot, I suppose, while I make due with bungee cords tied to the tiller. I really must get that Navico 5500 tiller pilot adapted to our boat. Bungee is all right for a few minutes so you can dart down below and get another cuppa. But the boat tends to wander off course and there has to be a helmsman to correct it.
It is about five miles to the waypoint off the rocky point. I recall that there is a submerged rock off the point and to leave lots of berth. I continue reading my latest Hornblower novel (Ship of the Line) and almost forget about the rock until, looking up, I realise we are near the point and, just then, I see the waves washing slowly over the rock. I turn more to port to avoid an embarrassing scene. Ahead of me at least a mile, Veleda has rounded the point much farther out and is no heading north into Tenacatita Bay.
At the waypoint, I turn Vilisar north as well. By this time it is after 1100 and a southwesterly breeze has picked up. The main and staysail are already up and I put the engine in neutral for a few minutes to see if I can sail. Definitely! There must be about 10 knots of quartering wind. I lash the tiller down, sheet in the jib and go forward to hoist the jibsail. Back in the cockpit the GPS tells me we have picked up speed to 3 knots. After that it wavers between 2.5 and 4.5 going the final five miles into the anchorage. The engine is off and I am enjoying the feel of the swells and the wind and the sun after two weeks in the lagoon. The day began with some high clouds (at night we have been hearing thunder and seeing lightening inland from the coats and the air has a heavy feel to it). But now the afternoon winds have picked up and life is good again. Not a paintbrush in sight. I admire while I test the foot-support I have place on the cockpit floor at Kathleen’s request. When she is fighting the tiller and the boat is heeled sharply, she cannot reach the far seat to brace herself. Obviously this cockpit was not meant for petite ladies. She will be pleased since I have been promising to make it for months if not years. (I took a piece of hardwood about 18” x 1½“ x 1½”, one of the scrap pieces of hardwood I have been carrying around since we house-sat for a builder of weaving looms in Port Townsend, Washington, back at the beginning of 2002. It is probably oak but might be some other sort of hardwood like cherry. It was unfinished so I roughed it up a bit with 80 grit sandpaper and then scraped and sanded the paint off the centre of the cockpit sole. Then I mixed up some epoxy and smeared the underside of the wood and pressed into place on the bare spot. It will take dynamite to get it off now so I hope Kathleen approves of it. It will get painted when I redo the cockpit area and that will happen when I can find the jug of fine sand for non-skid.)
When I have finished setting and tweaking the sails, I look ahead to see that Veleda has stopped about a mile ahead of me. She is just bobbing up and down in the water. Sea Reach has passed me motorsailing. As Curt comes level with Veleda I see through the binoculars that he has wound in his big Genoa (I have noticed that many boats apparently find it simpler just to unfurl their genoas and not bother with the mainsail. Probably the headsail is easier to do than hauling up a mainsail.) Then I noticed that Sea Reach has taken Veleda under tow. I try to call Veleda on VHF to find out what’s up but Curt answers me to say that Veleda was taking water through the exhaust system and the water was beginning to fill up the boat. Jens requested a tow into Tenacatita. It seems strange that a perfectly viable sailboat would need a tow because its engine doesn’t work. I am making between 3.5 and 4.5 knots and I am definitely slower than Veleda under sail. But there you go. They make good speed under tow and arrive in the anchorage before me.
When alone aboard Vilisar, getting sail down is a bigger challenge than getting sails up. Usually you can get sail up in the early hours while the morning winds are very light or non-existent. Getting them down in the afternoon is a bigger challenge because the wind has picked up and the boat does not want to stay up in the wind without a helmsman. Fortunately, today’s winds (and waves) are relatively light. While we are still running nearly downwind into the Bahia, I go forward and drop the jibsail onto the foredeck while the sail is masked by the big mainsail. I lash it down quickly with one or two sail ties. After the turn to port around Central Rock puts us on a beam reach, I steer for the cluster of anchored boats about half a mile ahead. Eventually, I push Vilisar up into the wind, lash her tiller, scramble forward to drop the mainsail, grab the sail ties and do a very quick-and-dirty furling job (harbour furling will have to wait till I arrive), and spring nimbly back to the cockpit to turn the boat back on to it course to the anchorage.
We are moving much slower now under staysail alone. I steer for the left-hand side where I see there is the least wave action even though Veleda and Sea Reach have anchored much farther to the north along the beach. I also notice that the boats are rolling over there and I don’t want to be there. I decide finally to start the engine and chug in with all the sails down. This is my first time here and there are just too many boats around; I do not want any accidents. Very soon I have the anchor down in 2 ½ fathoms and lay our 10 fathoms of chains. That should hold it. The anchor bites at first go.
I realise suddenly how hot and tired I am after a long half-day out on the water. I would really like a beer but reckon, first, that it is too early in the day, and, second, that I have to ration them anyway until month-end when I can get some money. Despite my weariness, I drag the swim ladder out of the forecastle and set it; I begin to look forward to a refreshing swim after the swim-less two weeks in the Barra lagoon. Then I pull dig out the sail covers and the awning and get them rigged. I do this without too much debate with my innere Schweinehund though it keeps whispering in my ear, “Well done, Old Chap! Have a rest and a beer!” The sun is getting hot and, without the awning, there won’t be any rest anyway. I plug my ears, figuratively. With everything covered, the awning in place and even the anchor ball hoisted, I strip off my shorts and dive over the side. Super! I’ve arrived.
TENACATITA BAY; THE AQUARIUM; “THE JUNGLE TOUR”
Bahia Tenacatita, Sunday, 29 January 2006
Tenacatita Bay
Some cruisers think that Tenacatita Bay is the no plus ultra in Mexican cruising. And, of course, it’s very nice. The bay is well protected, the surf on the beach is moderate, the weather in January is warm, the water refreshing and teeming with Dorado and other fish. The cruising couples, exclusively US and Canadian with occasional Englishmen on boats bought in California. There are little cruiser activities like a swim ashore form one sailboat everyday, botchie ball on the beach and beer in the palapa afterwards. It is a beach holiday, not too harried and the people are friendly. It is all a bit suburban but a chance to meet some cruisers, if that what you’ve mind to do.
I met David and Judy Lloyd from Kelowna, British Columbia, on the new catamaran called Deja Too that David built himself. It is fast and roomy. David is a high-energy fifty-something with a high adrenaline level that needs plenty of long-distance running, mountain-climbing, surfing, and whatever else that requires the expenditure of energy. Judy is a professional accountant and no slouch when it comes to running, swimming and hiking. I was interested to hear that he was a stay-at-home Dad and raised two kids along with building the boat. She also did a volunteer stint in Kenya advising villagers on how to market their agricultural projects. It made me want investigate volunteer projects for the periods of the year when we are not actually sailing.
I also met John and Donna aboard S/V Cohilo, Hans-Christian double-ender out of Seattle. Long before meeting John, Donna had once had own catamaran. There next stop is Palmira Island, an American “protectorate” some 1,000 miles due south of Hawaii. It was the deserted atoll that was the scene of a grisly murder some years back when one cruising couple was murdered by another and their boat stolen. Actually, the man was convicted of the murder and his wife/girlfriend got off by convincing a jury that she had known nothing of the deed at all. John and Donna would be caretakers there for six months on behalf of the Nature Conservancy, I think. It might be a bit remote and off the beaten track for me but, after Rancho el Nogal, who knows. John borrowed my British Admiralty Ocean Passages for the World and lent me his Virtual Passage Planner.
I also ran into Carl from S/V Voyage, San Francisco. We met him and his wife Julie in Mazatlán. At first I recognised his face in a group of cruisers but could not for the life of me place him. Later he came by in his dinghy and refreshed my aging memory. This is somewhat worrying since I wanted to recall and, once he nudged me a bit, it all fell back into place. A really nice couple that it would be nice to stay in contact with.
Our friends, Jens, Alice and their son Steven are here aboard S/V Veleda and so is my new acquaintance, Curt, aboard his 41-footer, S/V Sea Reach.
There is a lot of talk amongst the cruisers of their voyaging plans. Some are heading away from Mexico, most of them to French Polynesia in March or April while others, like us, are heading for Ecuador/ Galapagos, or Central America, chiefly Costa Rica. One or two, like Carl for instance, is planning to return to California. Carl is going to sail back in late June or July when he should have following southerlies for much of the trip and still be ahead of the summer tropical storms. Many others will head back to the Sea of Cortés; they are already starting north. A few will attend the so-called SAIL FEST in Zehuateneo, a charity event lasting a week and made up of regattas, dinners, parties, and lectures. Mainly parties, I think. Then they will head back north.
We are still planning on sailing to Ecuador. The open questions are how much motoring we will have to and are able to do and whether we can carry or get enough fuel. A direct sail in one thing, a stop at the Galapagos is another and a stop at the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica the final. Of course, it’s possible to do them all. We shall see. We are planning a week in Acapulco with friends from Evanston in a time-share apartment before jumping offshore. The whole passage is much on my mind at present and I am attending to a lot of little projects on the boat to prepare.
I shall likely stay here until Tuesday or Wednesday before returning to Barra de Navidad to check emails and see if I have any money on the bank account. I need to re-provision and perhaps refuel and at present I am, shall we say, cash poor. Then I shall jump off for Zehuateneo and stops between. There is at least one overnighter to be done.
“The Aquarium”
Yesterday I rode with Curt in his dinghy and Jens et alia followed in their inflatable dinghy. We went round the point and over to the “Outer Anchorage” where Kathleen and I had anchored on the way to Barra de Navidad. The reef right next to where we anchored then is called The Aquarium by the local cruisers because of the huge numbers and varieties of tropical fish there.
I wore the broken face mask that I have to keep against my face with one hand while swimming. It was a bit annoying but I enjoyed the hour in the water before I got too cold and came out. And it’s true: there are lots of colourful fish and in great number. It was fun to feel the Pacific-Ocean surges and slide right up to the fish. I saw needle fish, angel fish, sergeant-major fish, and many, many more, too many for me to name or describe in a short essay. This was basically only my second time snorkelling and I intend now to get a proper face mask for this. It will also be useful for cleaning the propeller and boat bottom.
In the morning yesterday I started my sail-repair project. The mainsail is held to both the boom and the mast by synthetic tapes that attach to little bronze slides. Like the stitching in the Dacron sails, these tapes have begun to rot through and, by the time I came over from Barrad de Navidad, there were four more hanging uselessly along with the three others we had when we arrived. It was trial and error. The first try using normal, 1-ounce Dacron sail thread was clearly not going to be stout enough. I switched to whipping twine and that worked fine. Then, with some patience, after getting the sail off the mast (though not the boom), I spread the sail out on the cabin roof and got sewing. Another job well done by Captain Ronnie; Boy Spot-Welding King of the World; Captain Epoxy!
“The Jungle Tour”
This morning was out date for “The Jungle Tour”, as the cruisers call it. There is a huge mangrove section behind the beach and the tide floods it twice daily. Where the brackish water enters and exits is at the beach near where Vilisar lies anchored. We took the same two dinghies and motored the 5 kilometres up the creek that leads to the lagoon behind the Outer Anchorage. At one point the trees were growing right over our heads. Fortunately, someone, probably panga fishermen who keep their boats in the lagoon, had trimmed back branches to allow passage. The flooding tide made for quite a strong current and it was difficult to guide the flat-bottomed inflatable dinghies while being pushed by water moving at 2 or 3 knots. There was some wildlife but surprisingly little. Curt said he had rowed up there one midday and saw quite a lot more. Today is Sunday and there were quite a few boats up in there, Mexican pangas and cruiser’s dinghies. Perhaps we frightened the birds away. We did see snowy egrets and nesting pelicans, however.
Salad Days in Tenacatita Bay
Bahia de Tenacatita, Tuesday, 31 January 2006
This is I guess what people imagine a cruising holiday in Mexico to be. I spend my leisurely days puttering around the boat, undertaking little visiting expeditions to other boats to chat and have a drink, or I row ashore to the palm-thatched palapa where I often find other cruisers to chat with. There are always about two dozen boats anchored here in the bay though there is also a steady coming and going, mostly to/from Barra de Navidad to replenish, refuel or check emails. The daytime temperatures are in the high 70’s F ° or low 80’s F ° and nights are warm enough to get through most of the night without a blanket. The days are lengthening slowly but noticeably and now the sun pops over the mountains to the ESE at around
0730 and sets behind the hills to the WSW at around 1845. We are cooled by gentle land-and-sea breezes each day. It’s beginning to feel hot in the direct sunshine. But the breezes are cooling and the water is so clear and inviting it is hard to resist jumping in for a refreshing splash. I fail to resist several times daily, in fact. Since there are enough boats nearby I have given up skinny-dipping; don’t want to frighten the children.
You can tell the number of pensioners and social-security recipients by how many boats are leaving today or tomorrow for Barra de Navidad, twelve sea miles away around the point. In the money again!
This includes yours truly! I am totally out of cash and nearly out of provisions again though I could probably live from spaghetti, baked bread, pancakes and some tinned goods. I have not been assiduous about catching fish though the bay literally teems with them. I find lots of little needle-nosed silver fish in my dinghy each morning that I use for bait. I always have a couple of hooks hanging over the side. Too passive this fishing, I supsect. When they are being chased by bigger fish like groupers of Dorado’s, swarms of bait-fish leap out of the water, attracting the pelicans and boobies who go into feeding frenzies. When some other boater crows over the vhf that he has just caught a mahi-mahi off the boat, I suddenly see men appearing on decks of sailboats around the anchorage with fishing rods in the hand. I can see the swarms of bait fish around my boat and not infrequently I can clearly see pairs of groupers or Dorado’s chasing them. Big and small, they roil the water with the hunt. Pelicans crash dive and boobies shoot deep into the water to pop up a few seconds later with a flash of silver in the beak. Although we have occasionally caught a fish when we are out sailing and trolling a lure, our most conspicuous successes in hunting-and-gathering have been when other more successful fishermen catch too much and make a gift of a nice tuna or Dorado to the crew of Vilisar. With only one person aboard, a kilo of meat would be more than enough for a big meal and some left over.
I myself might actually have left today with Veleda. But I wanted to put another couple of coats of finish on the hatchcover and the aft-deck brightwork and the first gloss coat. That’s done now (Monday afternoon). After a visit from another cruiser (Al aboard S/V Monrova, Vancouver, B.C.), I pull up the cabin sole to address the water leak under the starboard settee. A few days ago I was sure it was coming slowly through a seam in the planking. But today I realise it is a slow leak from the freshwater tank. So I get out underwater putty, mix it up in my fingers like play dough and pack some around the inside of the water through-hull inside the water tank. I mop up any water in the bilge and put a fan down there to see if it will dry up. After a few hours I can see that although the water drip has slowed it is still coming. I pack putty around the outside corner of the tank where I suspect there is a hairline fracture. Now as I sit at the cabin table, listening to duets sung by Rita Streich and Maureen Forrester and writing this, I see that the bilge under the tank is staying dry. Otherwise the bilge is dry except right aft under the engine and the water level there is so low that I cannot pump it out. So, another success story for Captain Ronnie: Boy Spot-Welding King-of-the-World; Captain Epoxy! I shall leave the cabin sole open till dark to give it a good drying and a good airing.
And now here is another piece of good news: While I was searching for the net dip so I could start slushing the rig, I accidentally ran across the big jar of sand that I need for the non-skid in the cockpit. Hurrah! It has gone missing. Of course I didn’t find the net dip so I guess the trick is to search for something else and the net dip will miraculously turn up. I have no idea why it can be so easy to loose things on a small boat. Quien sabe!
There is a lovely afternoon sea breeze at present why the three sailboats have just come in from Barra de Navidad without their sails up. It is basically a perfect sailing day. I shall get all the painting stuff put away, the awning and sail-covers stored before the heavy dew sets tonight and try to sail out of here on the NE land breeze that blows around dawn. Maybe I shall be turning to the SE around the point way out there and pick up the later morning land breezes for the five-mile shot to Barra de Navidad.
Last night I paid a visit to Chris and Heather (and their two Portuguese water dogs) aboard S/V Legacy. A really nice couple from Juneau, Alaska, which is why I went over: Vilisar’s home port used to be Juneau when the vessel was a USCG-documented boat belonging to Joe May up in Clarence Strait. Chris had heard of Joe but did not know him.
We discussed sailing plans; they are thinking of going through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean since, with the dogs, they would not be welcomed in the South Pacific or New Zealand and they do not want to the leave them in a boarding kennel for so long. They also told me that Zehuateneo, a couple days of sailing to the south, is noticeably hotter than Tenacatita, on the average about 10 ° F hotter, and therefore up into the nineties each afternoon. The SAIL FEST over, most of the cruising boats either head north again or offshore to French Polynesia. Some, of course, head for Costa Rica where they leave their boats and go home. That’s what Chris and Heather are planning, I think. They also pointed me to a website called “Southbounder” where cruisers themselves add the latest information about harbours and seas. There might be some stuff about Ecuador and the Galapagos. Chris put all the emails on a disk for me to read at my leisure (Leisure! Who has leisure around here?!). To sign up for it you have to email eric@sulaadventures.com. He screens submissions for spam and viruses.
The last few days have been mildly overcast with high thin clouds. Today is clear again so I decided to use the strong solar-panel input to write. First, I wrote up a basic Sail Plan outline that included the detailed description of the vessel and all her systems (ground tackle, rig, sails, colours, auxiliary power, pumps, communications, lights, life-raft, etc.) in preparation for our 2-3 week offshore cruise to Ecuador in early April. I only need to add the dates and destination of any voyage along with the crewmen and all their personnel details (DOB, NOK, medical conditions, etc.). If our 406 MHz EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) is switched on in an emergency, Search & Rescue, where the EPIRB is registered, call the contact person where, I hope, I have lodged the Float Plan. The EPIRB alarm will give the nearly-exact position and the information that, indeed, an emergency exists. But beyond that the SAR personnel do not store the latest data on the boat or crew. They call the contact person.
BACK TO MALAQUE
Thursday, 02 February 2006
Pure inertia leads me to postpone my departure a couple of times from Tenacatita Bay. But I finally get everything stowed below on Tuesday evening and strip the canvas off the sails before having a quick meal and rowing over to S/V Legacy to watch a DVD with them. Heather and Chris are going to Barra de Navidad for a couple of days; they are picking up visitors and replenishing.
I am uncertain whether I should get up before sunrise and catch a faint land breeze out of the bay, or wait till later in the morning for the NW sea breezes to fill in. I am determined to sail the whole way so it makes a difference: when you motor or motorsail you sail if there is wind and you want to make the effort. But otherwise you just drive to your destination. If you are a true sailor, you calculate all the wind and current advantages you can get. Revealing myself to be neither, I pick up the anchor at about 0915, i.e. just as the early-morning land wind dies and before the sea breezes have picked up. I regret not having hanked on the red drifter but decide that I shall make my single-handed sailing life a little simpler and go with the headsails I already have hooked on. As I ghost east out of the anchorage I am passed by several larger sailboats, all motoring, all with their sail-covers still on. After about half an hour I turn past Centre Rock and head south toward the point some five miles away. Through the binoculars I can see whitecaps and waves out there. At one point the wind dies to nothing and I consider throwing on the Lister engine. But I stick to my plan and exercise myself in patience.
After twenty minutes of uncertainty, the winds freshen and soon Vilisar is doing over three knots. As we approach the point we are up to 5 knots. I am still being passed by sailboats under power but now they take longer to go by, at least. I follow the procession around the point and turn SE towards Bahia de Navidad. It is only five miles away on a downwind run. I swing the big solid fir main-boom out to starboard and try to get the staysail and job to go wing-on-wing. The attempt fails because the big mainsail is masking them. I decide not to worry about it and just enjoy the sail. Ahead of me all the sailboats have unfurled their genoas for the downwind leg; many modern cruising sailors never bother with their mainsails because they are more work to get up and douse while the genoas can simply be unfurled and furled again from the cockpit with a minimum of effort. I hear them talking on VHF and hear their motors in the background. I do see two ketches beating to windward out of Barra de Navidad, heeled way over and bobbing up and down in the waves so that I can see their bottoms.
The winds are definitely fresher now and small whitecaps are passing under Vilisar. She seems to like it. Sailing Vilisar solo is never really a problem until you want to put up sail or take it in: the staysail and the mainsail are self-tending, i.e. when you tack they will simply go over to the other side, though, with the big main, it is better when gibing to pull the mainsail boom amidships so it does not crash out the other side when the stern goes through the wind. The jibsail also needs to be handled over when tacking. But if you are quick, you can very quickly pull the jibsheet in fast enough to make a winch handle superfluous. However, when running, you have to be careful not to let the jibsail sheet out suddenly and allow the jibsail to wrap itself around the jibstay. This is not only hard on the sail but a big mess to get sorted out. I try to let loose the one sheet while tightening up the other at the same time. Not always successful especially if you are single-handing and need to pull the mainsail boom amidships and let that out the other side too. The result is can be a Chinese fire drill. This time everything works out.
I am more worried about the dinghy that I am towing. A friend used it to sail a few weeks ago and I noticed on the way to Tenacatita that the cover for the daggerboard is letting in more water than it used to, and even that was too much. I curse myself for not doing something about it in the last few days. By the time we round the point the bow half of the dinghy is already full of seawater and getting sluggish. I let out all the tow line attached to and the dinghy sits nicely on the back of the wave behind me. A drag, to be sure, but manageable. At least it is not trying to surf down a big wave in order to give Vilisar a kiss on the rudder. But I know that when we arrive in Malaque it will be difficult to pull the dinghy up to the side of the boat in preparation for anchoring. I debate heaving to, pulling the tender to the boat, climbing into the dinghy and bailing her out. I decide to wait till we are in more sheltered water around the distant point. But I renew my pledge to myself not only to make that cover watertight but also to perfect a manner of getting the two halves on deck when I am alone on board.
I look forward to going ashore in Malaque to check if there is money on the account and then buying some fresh foods. Jens told me of a supermarket that carries America items like peanut butter. I will stop off at the internet café and see if Kathleen has written from Germany in the last week and if perhaps I have work.
Under full sail I round the rocky point and see some half-dozen sailboats anchored in the bight. I round up, drop the mainsail and staysail, pull the dinghy alongside and secure it, and head under jibsail into the anchorage. Unfortunately, with this sail arrangement I cannot get to windward where I want to anchor out of the refracted waves coming around the rocks. So I run the engine for fifteen minutes, douse the jib and motor slowly forward. There’s Veleda and there are Jack and Monica on S/V Belle Via, a junk rigged double-ender from near Comox. In fact, of the seven boats in the anchorage, six are Canadians. There’s from Bella Bella, B.C., too.
Having been here before, it takes only a few minutes to anchor in twenty-five feet of clear water. It is hot in the sun and I want to rig the swim ladder and jump in. But I force myself to get the sail-covers on and the awning rigged before I finally go overboard. Given the density of the local population I decide I had better wear a bathing suit. In the water I note that it is time to clean Vilisar’s hull again and that I need a good diving mask. Another job to be done by Captain Ronnie, Boy Spot-Welding King-of-the-World. While I am drying off in the sunshine, Jack and Monica row by on the way to shore. “You looked fantastic coming in under sail!” they shout as they go by.
In the evening I check emails ashore, go to the bank to pick up money from the ATM and head to Fruterias Hawaii. Before that last stop though, I walk into the little alley outside the mercado that is lined with lunch counters. There are no customers since it is already late afternoon and the mercado is closed for the day. But the restaurants are all still open waiting for the evening trade, I guess. I pick a nice clean looking one in the middle of the row and have a discussion with the lady about what’s available. She wants me to try her chilli relenos (green chilli stuffed with mild cheese. I am not a fan since this dish is far too bland. She has no fish any more and I finally go and look in the two pots on her stove. One has a delicious looking dark stew, a guisado, with beef, potatoes and chillies. I order this and sit down while her ten-year-old son is sent to get me a soft drink. Doña Ilena has offered me agua fresca, a non-alcoholic iced drink made in this case from a white nut that tastes vaguely like coconut milk but which does not really appeal to me.
I take my time over the delicious meal, realising how weak I had become during the day because I had not really eaten anything. But I get to talk with Doña Ilena for a while. She says she will make sure she has a pesca for me if I come back tomorrow. The whole meal cost only Pesos 40 inclidng the large cola and the tip. With an “addios”, a “muchos gratias”, and with a full stomach, I wander out of the alley into the main street and across it to Fruterias Hawaii.
It is full of tourists buying like mad. But, Jens was right: it has most of what I need including peanut butter and bouillon powder. I buy lots of fruit and vegetables, some cookies and a few other things for the boat. There is no chance to pick up meat or chicken still today since that must come from the mercado. Tomorrow, then. After that “rico” and filling meal, I don’t plan to cook anything on the boat tonight anyway. I trudge back along the long beach to the dinghy with my plastic bags, and then row out to the boat through the light surf. I made a meal of cookies and fruit yoghurt. I’m a solo sailor and I can eat what I like.
ON HARPER AND THE CANADIAN FUTURE; DAY-TO-DAY IN BARRA DE NAVIDAD; SOLO SAILING TO TENACATITA; TENACATITA BAY; THE AQUARIUM; “THE JUNGLE TOUR”; SALAD DAYS IN TENACATITA; BACK TO MALAQUE
Barra thoughts on Zen and the art of boat maintenance
Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico, Monday, 23 January 2006
I was foiled yesterday in getting my blog posted at the Sands Hotel in Barra de Navidad. I took my laptop in with me also to get a full charge on it. But I never found a wi-fi signal and, since I was a passenger in someone else’s motorboat, I did not have the time to go to an internet café and blog. I really miss having a flash memory since I can then write on the boat and take only the flash stick ashore with the blog already written and only needing to be posted. There is also a lot less risk involved in sticking a flash stick into your pocket, possibly in a Ziploc-type bag; the dangers of carrying a laptop ashore were brought all to forcefully home to me yesterday when the inflatable in which I riding took a big sloppy wash from a passing panga over the bow. The wave splashed copiously over the contents of our boat. Fortunately, before leaving I had placed the laptop in a plastic laundry bag; although a little water got inside, no damage was done this time.
I worked for a while on the computer at the hotel hoping that I would at some point get a wi-fi signal. It never came and I dashed up to the internet café to check if I had heard from Kathleen or gotten translating work before making a quick trip to the butchers. Back at the boat I decided that, with only $ 10 left till month-end, there was not much point in going ashore for the moment. I had better aboard and get my painting and other jobs done so I could leave soon.
The gusty northwest winds of last week have disappeared. If there is any wind it is very light and as likely as not from the southwest. Working around the boat is hot now, hotter than almost any day on the Straits of Georgia in British-Columbian summer. At times like these it is best to adopt a Zen-like approach to motorcycle and boat maintenance. Organise some work and let your mind slip into a semi—detached state. In the morning now I do some yoga stretching exercises, which, though seemingly undemanding, have made me stiff at midday and tired earlier in the evening. I play opera recording while I am working, take a break in the early afternoon to have a sandwich and something to drink, and to do some writing.
Yesterday I scraped both of our battered oars in preparation for coating. These have seen a lot of action and the tips of the blades are rough and most of the paint is gone. Scraping the oars removes about 60 percent of the old white paint. I sand them and intend to apply a coat of sealant to the bare ash-wood when I accidentally flip the sanding sponge over the side and fish it out without thinking first with an oar. It was after all the handiest thing available. Of course, now the blade is damp and I cannot put the sealant on tonight. I put them out to dry and will do them in the morning. This gets done this morning and I hope to get a coat of paint on them as well.
This morning too I sand all around the aft deck and apply a coat of light grey paint to the caprail. I debate about painting the caprail all round but for the life of me I cannot find the jug of fine sand that I want to spread on the wet paint to prevent slipperiness underfoot. I know it’s aboard here somewhere because I saw it only a day or two ago. But where has it got to? My Zen mood vanishes in a moment of frustration. Up till then I am pretty cool and enjoying the work despite the heat. After my noon break I shall paint the oars, paint the white trim on tow teak hatchcovers, the lazarette and forecastle hatchcovers, and get a second coat of paint on the dinghy seat which has remained unpainted since I made this replacement for the seat lost when the dinghy flipped off the Pacific coast of Baja California last February.
Last evening Jens and Alice of Veleda invited me over for a beer. After saying yes I had to back out because the oars were drying and I had no means of propulsion. They are going to pick me up later this afternoon and take me over. We are thinking of leaving together along with Curt of Sea Reach for Tenacatita on Wednesday. I have a lot to get done before then.
At night the lagoon is beautifully quiet. The stars are extremely bright and there is a little forest of disembodied masthead and anchor lights from the now twenty boats in here; except for the closest ones, I cannot see the boats themselves. After my dinner, I sit outside with a beer and a cigar contemplating my day’s work until I feel weary enough to stretch out on the starboard berth intending to read. It is warm enough the last two nights to make a blanket unnecessary until at least early morning. Inside the cabin it is so dark that I cannot see my hand in front of my face. In the far distance, a mile away, fireworks go off around 2200; I get up to watch and count five or six seconds between burst and sound. They must be coming from Melaque across the bay. I hear disco music too but it is far away and not disturbing (these beach discos and bars are a total nuisance to cruisers in Mexico; Mexicans seem to accept high levels of noise at any time but I am surprised that neighbouring hoteliers don’t complain.) I return to my bed and my book but the intention to read goes the way of my earlier Zen mood and I drift off.
I awaken around 0300, unable to sleep any longer. This is not uncommon for me; it’s probably and “Alterserscheinung” (an indication of old age). Lights go out about 2130 and I am normally awake again around 0300. I have learned not to regret this quiet time, to welcome it now even, for reading or, if the laptop battery will permit, for writing. I normally first go on deck to pay a visit to the leeward shrouds. Tonight again, as usual, I contemplate the constellations, fiery bright in the blue-black heavens, and notice that a last-quarter moon is rising in the southeastern sky. It lays a silver path through the silhouetted sailboats directly to Vilisar. The disco music is still going strong but far away.
Down below I dig out Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes to read some more about the voyage to Ecuador. I heard of one boat headed that way in February and wonder if we are leaving things too late of we go in early April. The other boat intends to stop at Islas Cocos, a group of islands belonging to Costa Rica and on the rhumb line to Ecuador (but a little to the east of a rhumb line aimed at the Galapagos Archipelago). The Cocos are some 600 miles offshore. I try in vain to find something about the Cocos Islands. I drag out the British Admiralty Ocean Passages for the World and flip to the section at the back for sailing vessels. This is section was the whole book until the advent of motor vessels. It’s fascinating to read today since a copy was on every rigged merchantman and warship in the great days of sail. I also unfold all six of the charts and diagrams in the packet that comes with the book. However, the Cocos are barely mentioned here either so I have no idea if you can land there, if they have water and fuel available to us, important considerations for us. We may, after all, have to motor a large part of this trip given the contrary winds and the fact that the Doldrums, that squally belt of contrary or absent winds just above the equator that moves north in the spring and summer. Currents are erratic in this region as well so we need to be prepared. Perhaps it would be better to sail to Ecuador via the Cocos rather than directly to the Galapagos, which we can then visit when we eventually cross to French Polynesia.
Then of course, there is the matter of money. In the middle of the night all worries get a little bigger. I normally avoid troublesome thought during dark hours. But tonight they get to me. I wonder how we can afford flying three kids this summer back and forth and whether we can afford the cruising permits and visas for the Arche de Colón (Galapagos Islands). Obviously this will require some tight planning. Better to do it in the daytime though. Better yet, I shall get Kathleen working on this problem. She’s better at it. I go back to reading C.S. Forester’s The Hornblower Companion, especially the long essay on how he came to write the series and how he goes about actually creating a novel. Very interesting and makes me want to write one too. I have known that feeling before but have never come up with a good idea. Maybe I should be less ambitious and just write a short story or an essay. Actually, now that I think of it, I have a good story about trade financing, believe it or not. I wonder if I could work it up and where I could do the research for it. Best just to start.
On Harper and the Canadian future; Day-to-day in Barra de Navidad
Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico, Wednesday, 25 January 2006
On Harper and the Canadian Future
The voters in Canada earlier this week turfed out the now sclerotic Liberal-Party, party that had learned, one would have thought, how to juggle the many facets of maintaining power in a decentralised country like Canada. The Liberals were caught in a payola scandal and seemed to have no clear policies any more beyond self-perpetuation and self-enhancement. It was time for them to go and the voters basically voted against them.
It remains to be seen whether with the resignation of Liberal Prime Minster Paul Martin and the Governor General’s request of young and brash Stephen Harper will be more to the electorate’s taste. The Conservative Party, once a national party had shrunk over the last generation to a rump party. In desperation it amalgamated with the Reform Party, a “neo-conservative”, “Christian” and “free-enterprise party that grew up in the West, mainly Alberta and British Columbia, which historically have been the cradle of bizarre political credos like Social Credit (don’t ask what it is; it’s so way out that even the Social Credit Parties have long since abandoned it intellectual roots).
If the Conservative cum Reform Party had gotten a large majority - in fact, they are the largest party but cannot forge a clear majority over all other parties in the House of Commons- there programme would have included a dismantling of the social welfare, national health care and national pension fund. It would also have aligned Canada more closely with the U.S.A. (Harper has stated that Canada should have been in Iraq at America’s side). With a minority government the Conservatives will be dependent upon other parties for support to get legislation through. Most importantly, the Conservatives do not, I believe, have deep support from Quebec; without it, it becomes impossible to deal with the French-English fissures in Canada’s political landscape.
It is also quite unlikely that the Liberals will support them. that party will now go through a purging of the Old Guard and a leadership convention (Michael Ignatieff is touted as a left-wing candidate after his handy win in a Toronto riding; he has a lot of cosmopolitan charm and intellectual credentials as well as being a TV-news moderator and therefore with face appeal). But expect the Liberals to keep their distance from the Government while they nurse their wounds and rebuild the party and its finances. Since the Conservatives are now required to expose their “idealistic” programmes to parliamentary scrutiny, since they are novices in government after so many years in the wilderness, The Liberal Party will probably take a high moral line while praying Harper’s government self-destructs.
Beyond the Liberal Party in Parliament, there is the Bloc Quebecois, a nationalist party from the Province de Québec, as the next largest grouping. They may give tacit support to the Government on some issues provided they get something specifically for Quebec. The voters in the province did not give the party the same wholehearted approval that they received in the past perhaps indicating that independence is no longer holds the same fascination as it did twenty years ago. Any dismantling of the social contract is unlikely however to be attractive to Quebecers since they province has wrested so many goodies from the rest of Canada that they would be cutting off the nose to spite the face if they were to get off the gravy train. Separtistes have always argued – to Quebecers - that they could have it both ways: the goodies AND independence. The rest of Canada laughed behind their hands so as not to appear patronising to their French-Canadian fellow citizens.
Finally, there is the good old New Democratic Party. It holds, I think, 29 seats (Bloc Quebecois holds 50 plus and there is one independent MP). I have not got all the arithmetic at hand. But I am not sure if the Conservatives plus the NDP could trump all other parties. I think not. And in any case, nothing could be farther from this Prairie-agrarian/eastern labour-union merger than a neo-conservative agenda so similar and so close to George W. Bush that people have already been saying of Harper he will be competing for kennel room with lead-poodle to the U.S.A., Tony Blair.
Canadian independence is anyway a dodgy thing, living as the country does next to the American giant. I have not noticed any strong tendency for union with the U.S.A. although some Westerners, when they feel hard done by as Quebec gets all the goodies, do raise the spectre and keep the topic alive. The national view of Canada is cradled in Ontario and, to a certain degree in Quebec (the non-nationalist cum independence portion). The West has always felt hard done by and to be sure they are in many ways. Alberta and B.C. oil gives them some cards to play.
But the north-south pull is still tremendous. Behind the scenes, Canadian strategic thinkers must worry about how attractive Canadian natural resources are to Americans: including the oil sands in the West, Canada is now rated as the country with the second-largest proven reserves of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia; even Canada’s huge resources of fresh water and electricity are attractive to a country unwilling to live on its own means. When will Americans resurrect the idea of Manifest Destiny and look north over the border. If they can talk themselves into attacking Iraq in order to take a physical stake in the Middle East, willing to expend American blood in Middle-Eastern entanglements, why would they not just as easily convince themselves that Canada needs the protection of American boots-on-the-ground? Most Americans I know scoff at this idea. But they came to scoff at George BW. Bush and Iraq and stayed to stare in amazement. There are some Quisling elements in Canada: Alberta has always been very pro-American; the Bay-Street business crowd is so integrated in cross-border business that it might not be hostile to a merger.
That said, most Canadians, I believe, want to maintain their distinctive institutions and worldview, however much they may resemble Americans in general and like them individually. Having ridden themselves of their priest decades ago, do Quebecers now, do secular English Canadians now want Bible-backed political hectoring by rural, hang ‘em and flog ‘em MP’s from the shires? Will there be a backlash against a neo-conservative government under Harper as he lays out his neo-conservative programme? Canadians generally I think have been astonished by the neo-conservative programme in the U.S.A. including its imperial overseas policies. The graft and corruption scandals currently getting an airing in neo-conservative dominated Washington are not likely to make neo-conservative, Bible-thumping ideas more appealing to Canadian voters. Also, there are many recent European and Asian immigrants to Canada with anything but fundamentalist Christian views. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are cosmopolitan and outward looking compared to the Canadian Prairies, or rural Ontario and interior British Columbia.
Day to day in Barra de Navidad
My days are not all that long, in fact. It is still essentially dark at 0700 and the sun comes up about 0745. By 1900 it is pitch dark again. The hours between sunup and sunset still have not reached twelve and the days are currently only lengthening at a rate of lest than a minutes a day. Cruisers tend to be like farmers; they get and go to bed more-or-less with the sun. Social activities frequently happen in the late afternoon and people are back on their bots by dark. That makes finding their anchored yacht easier; when the suns goes down this can be a problem.
I generally follow the same schedule. I am up with the sun and, normally turn off my reading light by 2130. I make coffee in the morning and either go out to the cockpit to drink it or continue reading while I sip. There is a Cruisers Net on VHF in Bare and Tenacatita at 0900 by which time I am normally already busy if I have plans for the day. The net is so excrutiatingly boring that some mornings I switch it off after the tides and weather have been given (The weather forecasts are apparently to particularly meant for voyagers. It often consists of superficial statements like, “It’s going to be another sunny day.” I guess real cruisers listen to the ham or SSB weather, especially to Don on S/V Summer Sausage.)
I try to get my boat work done before noon and do some writing in the afternoon when the solar panels can deliver good wattage. AT present I am doing a lot of painting and varnishing. All the relevant storage holds have been unpacked and there are cans of paint and brushes and rags and boxes spread all round the cockpit area.
Painting has several stages: preparation, i.e. sanding and scraping; and, the actually painting of up to three daily coats. Once you start you have to be at it for days. Once you have wet paint around you can’t start sanding somewhere else or your paint and varnish will be ruined. If the sun is too hot the newly-varnished or painted surfaces will dry too quickly and then blister as the gasses underneath the hard surface expand.
Then there is the problem of cleaning brushes. Throw-away brushes are handy although they are definitely not as good for holding the paint, preventing drips, or applying even coats. The hairs also loosen and get in the paint. But they are at least disposable. In a home workshop you can clean brushes properly and keep them in proper containers to keep them soft. This is almost impossible on a boat. I use disposable brushes if I have them.
You have to learn to like this painting and mostly I am content with it. But now I have had enough for a while. I get into Barra de Navidad every couple of days; in fact, I could cadge a lift daily with Jens and his family from S/V Veleda, or Curt off S/V Sea Reach. But if I go to town half of my working day on the boat is shot and I need to get stuff done and the materials stowed again.
Jens and Curt were going to leave for Tenacatita today and had invited me to go along: a little Canadian flotilla since Veleda and Vilisar are from Victoria and Sea Reach is from Prince Rupert. But Don’s weather forecast on Tuesday night promised 20-30 knot easterlies. I thought this would be great. But the other two skippers have decided that the risk is too great and we should all wait another day. We shall probably be motoring the whole way! Good thing I didn’t put my painting stuff away; I can finish some stuff today and put everything away at dusk.
SOLO SAILING TO TENACATITA
Thursday, 26 January 2006
I am awake at dawn and, after making my coffee, I start final measures for getting under way. The cabin interior is quickly done; on deck I get the awing in and strip the sail covers off and throw everything into the forecastle through the foreward hatch. I have decided to tow the dinghy; it is only about 12 Nm and it looks pretty calm.
In fact, as I start the engine and get in the anchor, it is dead calm in the lagoon. Veleda is already on the way out and Curt is fiddling with his anchor on Sea Reach. I follow Veleda at a distance into the dredged channel, determined not to run aground as we did coming in. I try to stay under 1.5 knots, often slipping the engine into neutral and coasting so as not to build up speed. At one point I am overtaken by Curt who says his transmission will not allow him to go that slow.
Just before the final exit into the Pacific Ocean swells, I coast while I put up the main- and staysails. Outside there is a gentle and slow swell and I head due West into them at about 4.5 knots. The bottom did pick up a bit of marine growth in the lagoon though, as far as I can see, no barnacles. My speed does not seem to be impaired, at least, and a few hours of sailing will help to clean things off.
Sea Reach has stopped ahead of me. As I near him Curt says his inflatable dinghy came untied and he had to rescue it and retie it securely. After that he follows me at a distance of several hundred yards. He has automatic pilot, I suppose, while I make due with bungee cords tied to the tiller. I really must get that Navico 5500 tiller pilot adapted to our boat. Bungee is all right for a few minutes so you can dart down below and get another cuppa. But the boat tends to wander off course and there has to be a helmsman to correct it.
It is about five miles to the waypoint off the rocky point. I recall that there is a submerged rock off the point and to leave lots of berth. I continue reading my latest Hornblower novel (Ship of the Line) and almost forget about the rock until, looking up, I realise we are near the point and, just then, I see the waves washing slowly over the rock. I turn more to port to avoid an embarrassing scene. Ahead of me at least a mile, Veleda has rounded the point much farther out and is no heading north into Tenacatita Bay.
At the waypoint, I turn Vilisar north as well. By this time it is after 1100 and a southwesterly breeze has picked up. The main and staysail are already up and I put the engine in neutral for a few minutes to see if I can sail. Definitely! There must be about 10 knots of quartering wind. I lash the tiller down, sheet in the jib and go forward to hoist the jibsail. Back in the cockpit the GPS tells me we have picked up speed to 3 knots. After that it wavers between 2.5 and 4.5 going the final five miles into the anchorage. The engine is off and I am enjoying the feel of the swells and the wind and the sun after two weeks in the lagoon. The day began with some high clouds (at night we have been hearing thunder and seeing lightening inland from the coats and the air has a heavy feel to it). But now the afternoon winds have picked up and life is good again. Not a paintbrush in sight. I admire while I test the foot-support I have place on the cockpit floor at Kathleen’s request. When she is fighting the tiller and the boat is heeled sharply, she cannot reach the far seat to brace herself. Obviously this cockpit was not meant for petite ladies. She will be pleased since I have been promising to make it for months if not years. (I took a piece of hardwood about 18” x 1½“ x 1½”, one of the scrap pieces of hardwood I have been carrying around since we house-sat for a builder of weaving looms in Port Townsend, Washington, back at the beginning of 2002. It is probably oak but might be some other sort of hardwood like cherry. It was unfinished so I roughed it up a bit with 80 grit sandpaper and then scraped and sanded the paint off the centre of the cockpit sole. Then I mixed up some epoxy and smeared the underside of the wood and pressed into place on the bare spot. It will take dynamite to get it off now so I hope Kathleen approves of it. It will get painted when I redo the cockpit area and that will happen when I can find the jug of fine sand for non-skid.)
When I have finished setting and tweaking the sails, I look ahead to see that Veleda has stopped about a mile ahead of me. She is just bobbing up and down in the water. Sea Reach has passed me motorsailing. As Curt comes level with Veleda I see through the binoculars that he has wound in his big Genoa (I have noticed that many boats apparently find it simpler just to unfurl their genoas and not bother with the mainsail. Probably the headsail is easier to do than hauling up a mainsail.) Then I noticed that Sea Reach has taken Veleda under tow. I try to call Veleda on VHF to find out what’s up but Curt answers me to say that Veleda was taking water through the exhaust system and the water was beginning to fill up the boat. Jens requested a tow into Tenacatita. It seems strange that a perfectly viable sailboat would need a tow because its engine doesn’t work. I am making between 3.5 and 4.5 knots and I am definitely slower than Veleda under sail. But there you go. They make good speed under tow and arrive in the anchorage before me.
When alone aboard Vilisar, getting sail down is a bigger challenge than getting sails up. Usually you can get sail up in the early hours while the morning winds are very light or non-existent. Getting them down in the afternoon is a bigger challenge because the wind has picked up and the boat does not want to stay up in the wind without a helmsman. Fortunately, today’s winds (and waves) are relatively light. While we are still running nearly downwind into the Bahia, I go forward and drop the jibsail onto the foredeck while the sail is masked by the big mainsail. I lash it down quickly with one or two sail ties. After the turn to port around Central Rock puts us on a beam reach, I steer for the cluster of anchored boats about half a mile ahead. Eventually, I push Vilisar up into the wind, lash her tiller, scramble forward to drop the mainsail, grab the sail ties and do a very quick-and-dirty furling job (harbour furling will have to wait till I arrive), and spring nimbly back to the cockpit to turn the boat back on to it course to the anchorage.
We are moving much slower now under staysail alone. I steer for the left-hand side where I see there is the least wave action even though Veleda and Sea Reach have anchored much farther to the north along the beach. I also notice that the boats are rolling over there and I don’t want to be there. I decide finally to start the engine and chug in with all the sails down. This is my first time here and there are just too many boats around; I do not want any accidents. Very soon I have the anchor down in 2 ½ fathoms and lay our 10 fathoms of chains. That should hold it. The anchor bites at first go.
I realise suddenly how hot and tired I am after a long half-day out on the water. I would really like a beer but reckon, first, that it is too early in the day, and, second, that I have to ration them anyway until month-end when I can get some money. Despite my weariness, I drag the swim ladder out of the forecastle and set it; I begin to look forward to a refreshing swim after the swim-less two weeks in the Barra lagoon. Then I pull dig out the sail covers and the awning and get them rigged. I do this without too much debate with my innere Schweinehund though it keeps whispering in my ear, “Well done, Old Chap! Have a rest and a beer!” The sun is getting hot and, without the awning, there won’t be any rest anyway. I plug my ears, figuratively. With everything covered, the awning in place and even the anchor ball hoisted, I strip off my shorts and dive over the side. Super! I’ve arrived.
TENACATITA BAY; THE AQUARIUM; “THE JUNGLE TOUR”
Bahia Tenacatita, Sunday, 29 January 2006
Tenacatita Bay
Some cruisers think that Tenacatita Bay is the no plus ultra in Mexican cruising. And, of course, it’s very nice. The bay is well protected, the surf on the beach is moderate, the weather in January is warm, the water refreshing and teeming with Dorado and other fish. The cruising couples, exclusively US and Canadian with occasional Englishmen on boats bought in California. There are little cruiser activities like a swim ashore form one sailboat everyday, botchie ball on the beach and beer in the palapa afterwards. It is a beach holiday, not too harried and the people are friendly. It is all a bit suburban but a chance to meet some cruisers, if that what you’ve mind to do.
I met David and Judy Lloyd from Kelowna, British Columbia, on the new catamaran called Deja Too that David built himself. It is fast and roomy. David is a high-energy fifty-something with a high adrenaline level that needs plenty of long-distance running, mountain-climbing, surfing, and whatever else that requires the expenditure of energy. Judy is a professional accountant and no slouch when it comes to running, swimming and hiking. I was interested to hear that he was a stay-at-home Dad and raised two kids along with building the boat. She also did a volunteer stint in Kenya advising villagers on how to market their agricultural projects. It made me want investigate volunteer projects for the periods of the year when we are not actually sailing.
I also met John and Donna aboard S/V Cohilo, Hans-Christian double-ender out of Seattle. Long before meeting John, Donna had once had own catamaran. There next stop is Palmira Island, an American “protectorate” some 1,000 miles due south of Hawaii. It was the deserted atoll that was the scene of a grisly murder some years back when one cruising couple was murdered by another and their boat stolen. Actually, the man was convicted of the murder and his wife/girlfriend got off by convincing a jury that she had known nothing of the deed at all. John and Donna would be caretakers there for six months on behalf of the Nature Conservancy, I think. It might be a bit remote and off the beaten track for me but, after Rancho el Nogal, who knows. John borrowed my British Admiralty Ocean Passages for the World and lent me his Virtual Passage Planner.
I also ran into Carl from S/V Voyage, San Francisco. We met him and his wife Julie in Mazatlán. At first I recognised his face in a group of cruisers but could not for the life of me place him. Later he came by in his dinghy and refreshed my aging memory. This is somewhat worrying since I wanted to recall and, once he nudged me a bit, it all fell back into place. A really nice couple that it would be nice to stay in contact with.
Our friends, Jens, Alice and their son Steven are here aboard S/V Veleda and so is my new acquaintance, Curt, aboard his 41-footer, S/V Sea Reach.
There is a lot of talk amongst the cruisers of their voyaging plans. Some are heading away from Mexico, most of them to French Polynesia in March or April while others, like us, are heading for Ecuador/ Galapagos, or Central America, chiefly Costa Rica. One or two, like Carl for instance, is planning to return to California. Carl is going to sail back in late June or July when he should have following southerlies for much of the trip and still be ahead of the summer tropical storms. Many others will head back to the Sea of Cortés; they are already starting north. A few will attend the so-called SAIL FEST in Zehuateneo, a charity event lasting a week and made up of regattas, dinners, parties, and lectures. Mainly parties, I think. Then they will head back north.
We are still planning on sailing to Ecuador. The open questions are how much motoring we will have to and are able to do and whether we can carry or get enough fuel. A direct sail in one thing, a stop at the Galapagos is another and a stop at the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica the final. Of course, it’s possible to do them all. We shall see. We are planning a week in Acapulco with friends from Evanston in a time-share apartment before jumping offshore. The whole passage is much on my mind at present and I am attending to a lot of little projects on the boat to prepare.
I shall likely stay here until Tuesday or Wednesday before returning to Barra de Navidad to check emails and see if I have any money on the bank account. I need to re-provision and perhaps refuel and at present I am, shall we say, cash poor. Then I shall jump off for Zehuateneo and stops between. There is at least one overnighter to be done.
“The Aquarium”
Yesterday I rode with Curt in his dinghy and Jens et alia followed in their inflatable dinghy. We went round the point and over to the “Outer Anchorage” where Kathleen and I had anchored on the way to Barra de Navidad. The reef right next to where we anchored then is called The Aquarium by the local cruisers because of the huge numbers and varieties of tropical fish there.
I wore the broken face mask that I have to keep against my face with one hand while swimming. It was a bit annoying but I enjoyed the hour in the water before I got too cold and came out. And it’s true: there are lots of colourful fish and in great number. It was fun to feel the Pacific-Ocean surges and slide right up to the fish. I saw needle fish, angel fish, sergeant-major fish, and many, many more, too many for me to name or describe in a short essay. This was basically only my second time snorkelling and I intend now to get a proper face mask for this. It will also be useful for cleaning the propeller and boat bottom.
In the morning yesterday I started my sail-repair project. The mainsail is held to both the boom and the mast by synthetic tapes that attach to little bronze slides. Like the stitching in the Dacron sails, these tapes have begun to rot through and, by the time I came over from Barrad de Navidad, there were four more hanging uselessly along with the three others we had when we arrived. It was trial and error. The first try using normal, 1-ounce Dacron sail thread was clearly not going to be stout enough. I switched to whipping twine and that worked fine. Then, with some patience, after getting the sail off the mast (though not the boom), I spread the sail out on the cabin roof and got sewing. Another job well done by Captain Ronnie; Boy Spot-Welding King of the World; Captain Epoxy!
“The Jungle Tour”
This morning was out date for “The Jungle Tour”, as the cruisers call it. There is a huge mangrove section behind the beach and the tide floods it twice daily. Where the brackish water enters and exits is at the beach near where Vilisar lies anchored. We took the same two dinghies and motored the 5 kilometres up the creek that leads to the lagoon behind the Outer Anchorage. At one point the trees were growing right over our heads. Fortunately, someone, probably panga fishermen who keep their boats in the lagoon, had trimmed back branches to allow passage. The flooding tide made for quite a strong current and it was difficult to guide the flat-bottomed inflatable dinghies while being pushed by water moving at 2 or 3 knots. There was some wildlife but surprisingly little. Curt said he had rowed up there one midday and saw quite a lot more. Today is Sunday and there were quite a few boats up in there, Mexican pangas and cruiser’s dinghies. Perhaps we frightened the birds away. We did see snowy egrets and nesting pelicans, however.
Salad Days in Tenacatita Bay
Bahia de Tenacatita, Tuesday, 31 January 2006
This is I guess what people imagine a cruising holiday in Mexico to be. I spend my leisurely days puttering around the boat, undertaking little visiting expeditions to other boats to chat and have a drink, or I row ashore to the palm-thatched palapa where I often find other cruisers to chat with. There are always about two dozen boats anchored here in the bay though there is also a steady coming and going, mostly to/from Barra de Navidad to replenish, refuel or check emails. The daytime temperatures are in the high 70’s F ° or low 80’s F ° and nights are warm enough to get through most of the night without a blanket. The days are lengthening slowly but noticeably and now the sun pops over the mountains to the ESE at around
0730 and sets behind the hills to the WSW at around 1845. We are cooled by gentle land-and-sea breezes each day. It’s beginning to feel hot in the direct sunshine. But the breezes are cooling and the water is so clear and inviting it is hard to resist jumping in for a refreshing splash. I fail to resist several times daily, in fact. Since there are enough boats nearby I have given up skinny-dipping; don’t want to frighten the children.
You can tell the number of pensioners and social-security recipients by how many boats are leaving today or tomorrow for Barra de Navidad, twelve sea miles away around the point. In the money again!
This includes yours truly! I am totally out of cash and nearly out of provisions again though I could probably live from spaghetti, baked bread, pancakes and some tinned goods. I have not been assiduous about catching fish though the bay literally teems with them. I find lots of little needle-nosed silver fish in my dinghy each morning that I use for bait. I always have a couple of hooks hanging over the side. Too passive this fishing, I supsect. When they are being chased by bigger fish like groupers of Dorado’s, swarms of bait-fish leap out of the water, attracting the pelicans and boobies who go into feeding frenzies. When some other boater crows over the vhf that he has just caught a mahi-mahi off the boat, I suddenly see men appearing on decks of sailboats around the anchorage with fishing rods in the hand. I can see the swarms of bait fish around my boat and not infrequently I can clearly see pairs of groupers or Dorado’s chasing them. Big and small, they roil the water with the hunt. Pelicans crash dive and boobies shoot deep into the water to pop up a few seconds later with a flash of silver in the beak. Although we have occasionally caught a fish when we are out sailing and trolling a lure, our most conspicuous successes in hunting-and-gathering have been when other more successful fishermen catch too much and make a gift of a nice tuna or Dorado to the crew of Vilisar. With only one person aboard, a kilo of meat would be more than enough for a big meal and some left over.
I myself might actually have left today with Veleda. But I wanted to put another couple of coats of finish on the hatchcover and the aft-deck brightwork and the first gloss coat. That’s done now (Monday afternoon). After a visit from another cruiser (Al aboard S/V Monrova, Vancouver, B.C.), I pull up the cabin sole to address the water leak under the starboard settee. A few days ago I was sure it was coming slowly through a seam in the planking. But today I realise it is a slow leak from the freshwater tank. So I get out underwater putty, mix it up in my fingers like play dough and pack some around the inside of the water through-hull inside the water tank. I mop up any water in the bilge and put a fan down there to see if it will dry up. After a few hours I can see that although the water drip has slowed it is still coming. I pack putty around the outside corner of the tank where I suspect there is a hairline fracture. Now as I sit at the cabin table, listening to duets sung by Rita Streich and Maureen Forrester and writing this, I see that the bilge under the tank is staying dry. Otherwise the bilge is dry except right aft under the engine and the water level there is so low that I cannot pump it out. So, another success story for Captain Ronnie: Boy Spot-Welding King-of-the-World; Captain Epoxy! I shall leave the cabin sole open till dark to give it a good drying and a good airing.
And now here is another piece of good news: While I was searching for the net dip so I could start slushing the rig, I accidentally ran across the big jar of sand that I need for the non-skid in the cockpit. Hurrah! It has gone missing. Of course I didn’t find the net dip so I guess the trick is to search for something else and the net dip will miraculously turn up. I have no idea why it can be so easy to loose things on a small boat. Quien sabe!
There is a lovely afternoon sea breeze at present why the three sailboats have just come in from Barra de Navidad without their sails up. It is basically a perfect sailing day. I shall get all the painting stuff put away, the awning and sail-covers stored before the heavy dew sets tonight and try to sail out of here on the NE land breeze that blows around dawn. Maybe I shall be turning to the SE around the point way out there and pick up the later morning land breezes for the five-mile shot to Barra de Navidad.
Last night I paid a visit to Chris and Heather (and their two Portuguese water dogs) aboard S/V Legacy. A really nice couple from Juneau, Alaska, which is why I went over: Vilisar’s home port used to be Juneau when the vessel was a USCG-documented boat belonging to Joe May up in Clarence Strait. Chris had heard of Joe but did not know him.
We discussed sailing plans; they are thinking of going through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean since, with the dogs, they would not be welcomed in the South Pacific or New Zealand and they do not want to the leave them in a boarding kennel for so long. They also told me that Zehuateneo, a couple days of sailing to the south, is noticeably hotter than Tenacatita, on the average about 10 ° F hotter, and therefore up into the nineties each afternoon. The SAIL FEST over, most of the cruising boats either head north again or offshore to French Polynesia. Some, of course, head for Costa Rica where they leave their boats and go home. That’s what Chris and Heather are planning, I think. They also pointed me to a website called “Southbounder” where cruisers themselves add the latest information about harbours and seas. There might be some stuff about Ecuador and the Galapagos. Chris put all the emails on a disk for me to read at my leisure (Leisure! Who has leisure around here?!). To sign up for it you have to email eric@sulaadventures.com. He screens submissions for spam and viruses.
The last few days have been mildly overcast with high thin clouds. Today is clear again so I decided to use the strong solar-panel input to write. First, I wrote up a basic Sail Plan outline that included the detailed description of the vessel and all her systems (ground tackle, rig, sails, colours, auxiliary power, pumps, communications, lights, life-raft, etc.) in preparation for our 2-3 week offshore cruise to Ecuador in early April. I only need to add the dates and destination of any voyage along with the crewmen and all their personnel details (DOB, NOK, medical conditions, etc.). If our 406 MHz EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) is switched on in an emergency, Search & Rescue, where the EPIRB is registered, call the contact person where, I hope, I have lodged the Float Plan. The EPIRB alarm will give the nearly-exact position and the information that, indeed, an emergency exists. But beyond that the SAR personnel do not store the latest data on the boat or crew. They call the contact person.
BACK TO MALAQUE
Thursday, 02 February 2006
Pure inertia leads me to postpone my departure a couple of times from Tenacatita Bay. But I finally get everything stowed below on Tuesday evening and strip the canvas off the sails before having a quick meal and rowing over to S/V Legacy to watch a DVD with them. Heather and Chris are going to Barra de Navidad for a couple of days; they are picking up visitors and replenishing.
I am uncertain whether I should get up before sunrise and catch a faint land breeze out of the bay, or wait till later in the morning for the NW sea breezes to fill in. I am determined to sail the whole way so it makes a difference: when you motor or motorsail you sail if there is wind and you want to make the effort. But otherwise you just drive to your destination. If you are a true sailor, you calculate all the wind and current advantages you can get. Revealing myself to be neither, I pick up the anchor at about 0915, i.e. just as the early-morning land wind dies and before the sea breezes have picked up. I regret not having hanked on the red drifter but decide that I shall make my single-handed sailing life a little simpler and go with the headsails I already have hooked on. As I ghost east out of the anchorage I am passed by several larger sailboats, all motoring, all with their sail-covers still on. After about half an hour I turn past Centre Rock and head south toward the point some five miles away. Through the binoculars I can see whitecaps and waves out there. At one point the wind dies to nothing and I consider throwing on the Lister engine. But I stick to my plan and exercise myself in patience.
After twenty minutes of uncertainty, the winds freshen and soon Vilisar is doing over three knots. As we approach the point we are up to 5 knots. I am still being passed by sailboats under power but now they take longer to go by, at least. I follow the procession around the point and turn SE towards Bahia de Navidad. It is only five miles away on a downwind run. I swing the big solid fir main-boom out to starboard and try to get the staysail and job to go wing-on-wing. The attempt fails because the big mainsail is masking them. I decide not to worry about it and just enjoy the sail. Ahead of me all the sailboats have unfurled their genoas for the downwind leg; many modern cruising sailors never bother with their mainsails because they are more work to get up and douse while the genoas can simply be unfurled and furled again from the cockpit with a minimum of effort. I hear them talking on VHF and hear their motors in the background. I do see two ketches beating to windward out of Barra de Navidad, heeled way over and bobbing up and down in the waves so that I can see their bottoms.
The winds are definitely fresher now and small whitecaps are passing under Vilisar. She seems to like it. Sailing Vilisar solo is never really a problem until you want to put up sail or take it in: the staysail and the mainsail are self-tending, i.e. when you tack they will simply go over to the other side, though, with the big main, it is better when gibing to pull the mainsail boom amidships so it does not crash out the other side when the stern goes through the wind. The jibsail also needs to be handled over when tacking. But if you are quick, you can very quickly pull the jibsheet in fast enough to make a winch handle superfluous. However, when running, you have to be careful not to let the jibsail sheet out suddenly and allow the jibsail to wrap itself around the jibstay. This is not only hard on the sail but a big mess to get sorted out. I try to let loose the one sheet while tightening up the other at the same time. Not always successful especially if you are single-handing and need to pull the mainsail boom amidships and let that out the other side too. The result is can be a Chinese fire drill. This time everything works out.
I am more worried about the dinghy that I am towing. A friend used it to sail a few weeks ago and I noticed on the way to Tenacatita that the cover for the daggerboard is letting in more water than it used to, and even that was too much. I curse myself for not doing something about it in the last few days. By the time we round the point the bow half of the dinghy is already full of seawater and getting sluggish. I let out all the tow line attached to and the dinghy sits nicely on the back of the wave behind me. A drag, to be sure, but manageable. At least it is not trying to surf down a big wave in order to give Vilisar a kiss on the rudder. But I know that when we arrive in Malaque it will be difficult to pull the dinghy up to the side of the boat in preparation for anchoring. I debate heaving to, pulling the tender to the boat, climbing into the dinghy and bailing her out. I decide to wait till we are in more sheltered water around the distant point. But I renew my pledge to myself not only to make that cover watertight but also to perfect a manner of getting the two halves on deck when I am alone on board.
I look forward to going ashore in Malaque to check if there is money on the account and then buying some fresh foods. Jens told me of a supermarket that carries America items like peanut butter. I will stop off at the internet café and see if Kathleen has written from Germany in the last week and if perhaps I have work.
Under full sail I round the rocky point and see some half-dozen sailboats anchored in the bight. I round up, drop the mainsail and staysail, pull the dinghy alongside and secure it, and head under jibsail into the anchorage. Unfortunately, with this sail arrangement I cannot get to windward where I want to anchor out of the refracted waves coming around the rocks. So I run the engine for fifteen minutes, douse the jib and motor slowly forward. There’s Veleda and there are Jack and Monica on S/V Belle Via, a junk rigged double-ender from near Comox. In fact, of the seven boats in the anchorage, six are Canadians. There’s from Bella Bella, B.C., too.
Having been here before, it takes only a few minutes to anchor in twenty-five feet of clear water. It is hot in the sun and I want to rig the swim ladder and jump in. But I force myself to get the sail-covers on and the awning rigged before I finally go overboard. Given the density of the local population I decide I had better wear a bathing suit. In the water I note that it is time to clean Vilisar’s hull again and that I need a good diving mask. Another job to be done by Captain Ronnie, Boy Spot-Welding King-of-the-World. While I am drying off in the sunshine, Jack and Monica row by on the way to shore. “You looked fantastic coming in under sail!” they shout as they go by.
In the evening I check emails ashore, go to the bank to pick up money from the ATM and head to Fruterias Hawaii. Before that last stop though, I walk into the little alley outside the mercado that is lined with lunch counters. There are no customers since it is already late afternoon and the mercado is closed for the day. But the restaurants are all still open waiting for the evening trade, I guess. I pick a nice clean looking one in the middle of the row and have a discussion with the lady about what’s available. She wants me to try her chilli relenos (green chilli stuffed with mild cheese. I am not a fan since this dish is far too bland. She has no fish any more and I finally go and look in the two pots on her stove. One has a delicious looking dark stew, a guisado, with beef, potatoes and chillies. I order this and sit down while her ten-year-old son is sent to get me a soft drink. Doña Ilena has offered me agua fresca, a non-alcoholic iced drink made in this case from a white nut that tastes vaguely like coconut milk but which does not really appeal to me.
I take my time over the delicious meal, realising how weak I had become during the day because I had not really eaten anything. But I get to talk with Doña Ilena for a while. She says she will make sure she has a pesca for me if I come back tomorrow. The whole meal cost only Pesos 40 inclidng the large cola and the tip. With an “addios”, a “muchos gratias”, and with a full stomach, I wander out of the alley into the main street and across it to Fruterias Hawaii.
It is full of tourists buying like mad. But, Jens was right: it has most of what I need including peanut butter and bouillon powder. I buy lots of fruit and vegetables, some cookies and a few other things for the boat. There is no chance to pick up meat or chicken still today since that must come from the mercado. Tomorrow, then. After that “rico” and filling meal, I don’t plan to cook anything on the boat tonight anyway. I trudge back along the long beach to the dinghy with my plastic bags, and then row out to the boat through the light surf. I made a meal of cookies and fruit yoghurt. I’m a solo sailor and I can eat what I like.
posted by rjb @ Thursday, February 02, 2006
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