2/24/14 Caleta Campos

A quick correction to the last post; we left Cabeza Negra at 4 in the morning, not at first light. Anyway, using our radar and AIS, we headed into the darkness, fortunately, there was not much traffic in the area, so we settled in for our watches. The wind was blowing already, but I didn't want to put the sails up in the dark, Karin agreed, so we motored until about 6 or 6:30.
We shut down the motor, (which is running nice and cool again!) and sailed for about 3 hours. Sadly, the wind switched to straight off the bow....fire up the motor again!

We've been wanting to take Jack on the local busses, so we thought, if we just carry him like people do with their small dogs, we'd be fine. We haven't tried yet.

Back to the passage; it was different from most days... we saw nothing, no boats, no birds, no dolphins. Thankfully, the thing Karin saw was a fishing net held up by two milk jugs.

We were at least 8 miles offshore, but there it was, right in front of us! Karin was at the wheel, and we decided to go around it, not taking a chance between the floats.

That being said, we had another opportunity to go around. As we approached the anchorage at Caleta Campos, there were two shrimp boats, about 2 hundred yards apart in front of the entrance to the bay. We couldn't tell if they were anchored or not, and it looked o.k. to go between them, but when in doubt; slow down, stop if you have to, and figure out whats going on. Sure enough, the one boat was being towed. Never pass between two vessels if you can avoid it. chances are, there's a cable down there.

We did a slow 360 and let them pass, then headed in to the anchorage, and settled in for the night.

Large surf crashing on the shore eliminated any thoughts of going ashore; and, we'll be leaving at 4 am for Ixtapa.

Along the way, we've been struggling with our dinghy deployment and recovery.

We now have a great system that takes 5 minutes, and we can hang the dinghy on the side for security overnight! 

Bahia Santiago to Punta Cabeza Negra - 2/22/14 -2/23/14

Our time in Bahia Santiago was great. Once we had the windvane stowed onboard, we were ready to leave for our first overnight at Punta Cabeza Negra. As soon as the anchor was hauled, we headed out of the bay. Along the way, we had to cross the entrance channel for Manzanillo, a large port, and Navy base. None of the freighters were moving, but a Navy escort vessel was on a collision course with us, so following protocol and survival instincts, we made a hard turn to starboard and back-winded our sails.

I was wondering why he didn't call on the radio, or anything.. then I looked behind him, and there were three stealth looking cruisers coming out of the base at full steam.

I figured we had enough time to get across before the next ship arrived at our location, ..... frogger with warships!

Once we were clear of the entrance everything calmed down, the wind came up from the Northeast  and the swell was minimal, so we enjoyed a couple hours of calm 6 knot sailing!

A few small pods of dolphins escorted us and played in the bow waves; it's always fun to watch them.

Morning turned to afternoon, and the wind turned to directly off the stern. It is the hardest sailing and steering for us. We probably would have loved to have a spinnaker, but without one, it was constant work to keep the sails trimmed. Also, we have a time restriction; we really need to be anchored before dark. Motorsailing..... we've been doing alot of that lately, but, sometimes, you just have to. I know purists would disagree, however, we are... cruising.....destinations, so we sacrifice sailing to make up time. We did arrive at Cabeza Negra on schedule at about 4:30.

It is a small anchorage, not recommended in rough weather. It can also have large surf, and swells within the bay making for a rolly night. We're o.k. with that, we're going to bed early and leaving at first light. 68 miles to Caleta Campos.

2/26/2014: Zihuatanejo

Just anchored in Zihuatenjo, it's been a busy few days passage from Santiago. We're going to stay here for a little while, so, there will be more posts soon, to bring things up to date.

We're not in the Sea of Cortez anymore!

Self Steering, the Monitor Windvane; 2/19/2014

We have arrived. After 4000 miles of hand steering ( when we make Ixtapa), we will have our Monitor set up. Ironically, the day after we left Barre de Navidad, we heard about a Monitor windvane available on another boat in the lagoon at Barre. We jumped on it! and got a good deal.

Before we got it on board. it took a fair amount of logistics to make the deal. First, I took a bus for about an hour, for roughly three dollars, then walked about 10 min. to the Sandbar, where Mitch picked me up with the dinghy. 10 minutes to his boat; cursory inspection, 

Paypal transaction, 2 minutes, done!

Today Karin and I did the same routine, he delivered it to the Sandbar, and we met Mario, who agreed to takes us all the way to our dinghy for $30. It was totally worth it.

The drive between Santiago, and Barre de Navidad was beautiful, Karin took some great photo's!

A guy playing guitar at  a bus stop, then a family of three on a motorcycle, there's a four year old in between them!

Old Mexico is still here.... I think there are many things, that really haven't changed for centuries. 

The family is the center of the the culture, then religion, then  work, then government.

Enough philosophy... heading for Ixtapa soon. Maybe Sunday or Mon.

While we've been at anchor, several small shoals of fish come by. eating these neon blue things, maybe baby squid? Then the Jack Cravalles come in to feed. And, a pair of dolphins played under our boat for 5 minutes, driving Jack crazy!

The sunrise that started this day!

Marina de Navidad to Bahia Santiago; 2/17/2014

 First a correction, our friends Kyle and Herman are aboard the vessel Pacific Pioneer, not Prospector. Those guys were great!

We had breakfast up at the Wyndam Grand Resort, and hung out with them for a few days while our Mainsail was repaired at Hogin Sails.
 Laura gave us great service at a good price. The repairs were minor; 2 new batten pockets, and replacement of the leech line, luckily we still had some spectra leftover from our safety netting.

The next issue was the engine overheating during our grounding. I checked all of the usual culprits in order of simplicity. I removed the impeller, it looked fine, so I re-installed it, Next was the seawater strainer.. removed, cleaned, and re-installed,.. check the through-hull, fine.

We decided to call Jonco repairs, John showed up on time, and we quickly found out that one of the hot water outlets on the engine ( for the hot water heater) had broken off! So, we had a hole in our engine, that blew out all of the coolant and water we added. Anyway, he removed the broken threads, and plugged the outlet, easy fix, he came back the next morning and in less than an hour, had it fixed. He even commented on what great condition the engine is in. 

We did get into town with the water taxis, and found the prize catch of a marlin tournament.

Incidentally, Pacific Pioneer is a no kill, sport fishing boat, We really commend them for that! Why kill this majestic fish for fun?

 After visiting with Dave from Rogue, and meeting Liz from the sandbar, we got up the next morning headed for Bahia Santiago. The wind was straight off the bow for most of the 7 hour transit, there were strong currents that reduced our speed from 6 kts. down to 2.3!  Later in the day we got  a break and the wind came around enough that we did get the Genoa unfurled for an hour or two. Now, we've heard of a Monitor windvane for sale, we have had 3800 miles of hand steering. We've got to check it out.

Blogging with slow/ intermittent internet is a true test of patience. I'm done for now.

Good times and Bad times 2/5/14 - 2/11/14

Karin wrote


The last week has been filled with some ups and downs, literally!  We left Punta Mita on Wed. after a frustating attempt to renew our fishing licenses.  We were going to go to Chamela but would have arrived there at night so decided to carry on and go all the way to Tentacatita, thinking that going around Cabo Corrientes at night might be a little easier.  Wrong......we got steady north 26 kt winds with gusts to 38 along with 4 to 6 ft breaking chop from the west (not in the forecast).  We have now put a wind vane high on our purchase list, hand steering the whole way made for a very tired crew.
Arriving in Tentacatita we were greeted by some very friendly cruisers and enjoyed our first Raft Up with 31 other dinghys!

Sunday we motored over to La Manzanilla and wandered around the charming little town.
Monday morning we set out to Melaque just 14 miles away.  Here is where we made our first mistake that led to our biggest mishap yet.  Outside of Melaque we decided to continue on and go into the Barre Navidad Marina to get some work done on our main sail.  We quickly changed course and without time to put in waypoints we just decided to visual it, as we entered the Barre I was on the radio trying to reach the marina.  Joe saw a panga in the center of the channel and turned to go left around him, he got confused as to which way the marina was and with me down below on the radio he had no one looking at markers.  I heard him yell for me to come up because we were at 4 ft and then we felt that horrible bump as we went aground.
Some pangas came to help but alas we were stuck hard with a tide going rapidly out.  We had no other option than to wait for high tide.
So we spent the afternoon as a channel marker for what seemed an endless parade of fellow cruisers entering Barre de Navidad.  Flyin Sideways was now Listing Sideways.

8pm we tried, 8:30 we tried, 9pm we tried and it started to look like the tide was starting to switch back out. We gave up and hoped that maybe the little higher morning tide with some pangas to help would work.  9:15 we decided for one last effort and with a little stress on the engine we broke free.  Cautiously we creeped into the marina and were greeted by Kyle and Herman on the powerboat "Pacific Prospector" next door.  They fed us rum,steak and kindness,  we were sooo grateful.                                                                                                                              

 Oh, and during our stranding Jack fell halfway through the head hatch and Joe had to rescue him.  What a day!!!

2/3/2014; Punta Mita

One year ago today, we arrived in Ensenada... the beginning of the journey!

After just 7 months of sailing and living aboard, I wouldn't call us "seasoned" yet...but we're  actually doing pretty good; we're always learning new tricks to make life easier. So far, we've had the good fortune to meet some great people, who enthusiastically shared their knowledge and experience with us.

 Last week in Marina Riviera Nayarit, we did get help for the repairs to the AIS, and head from our neighbor Vlad. And got wired in to Open CPN on our computer from our other neighbor Steve! Santos did a fine job cleaning and varnishing our Teak rail. We also took advantage of a weather seminar offered by the yacht club.

The sailing community does offer information and training, through free seminars on everything from weather, to insurance, to rigging, celestial navigation and many other topics.

Where do we go next? I think we'll try to do day sails, with overnight anchoring for a few days in a row, on the way to Manzanillo. But,... things change!

Punta Mita sunset

The happy crew!