Calm day after a rough night.
We arrived back at the boat on October 22nd to find her in good shape. It would take us a couple of weeks to put her back together from the hurricane preperations so that we could sail away again. The weather has still been in the 90's so we are a little slow moving. Of course, spending a few hours a day at the beach club hasn't really helped us get things going either! We got the bottom cleaned and finally fixed the large refrigerator. The big fridge has not ever worked since we got the boat. It would turn off and on, but the thermostat would not stop it from dropping below freezing. Rich looked over the manual and talked to various people over the years, and the general concensus was that the thermostat was broken. We decided to have the local refer guru Hector come look at it. He said he would be there at 10 am, so we waited until 12 before calling him again (this is Mexico). He said he was on his way. About an hour later, a young man showed up at the boat and said that Hector sent him to look at the fridge. He spoke very little english, but we managed to describe the problem. He looked into the fridge and in about 10 seconds touched the temp wire from the thermostat and said that it needed to be hooked up to that screw. I said "that's it"? He said no problemo and left the boat without charging us anything. So Rich hooked the wire to the screw, and the darn thing started working perfectly immediately! This was not in the manual!
Although we were a little aprehensive about the 244 mile trip to Mazatlan across the Sea of Cortez, we were anxious to explore new territory. We left La Paz at 7:30 am on Nov. 6th. The first night at sea proved very uncomfortable. We had a south swell off the Pacific and a north swell from the Sea of Cortez. There was also a north wind of about 15 -20 knots almost all night. There was no moon until after midnight, so we surfed waves in the dark until the winds finally died at about 2 am. We rolled rail to rail and even took our first wave into the cockpit, not fun. The next morning was glassy calm and we would motor for the next 24 hours straight. We were joined by a pod of dolphins that swam in our bow wake for about 20 minutes in crystal clear water. They would constantly roll on their sides at the surface to look at us looking at them. We motored through the night and had to slow the boat down after midnight because we were going to arrive before dawn, and the breakwater into teh marina area is reported to be very dangerous with breaking waves, strong currents, and a dredge that parks right in the middle of the narrow channel. We wanted to go through while it was light.
Sunset at sea. Red sky at night sailors delight.
Our timing was perfect. Total time for the trip was 47 hours. We arrived just after the sun came up, and just after high tide, and just before the dredge operator started work. We radioed the marina security at about 6:30 am and they said they were expecting us, and that they would meet us at the dock to help us tie up. It's nice when a plan comes together. At 7:15 am we cracked open a beer to celebrate, and took a nap until the office opened so we could check in. A local recomended a cafe across the street for breakfast, so hiked over and had a really fantastic breakfast before returning to the boat to pass out again. We only had slept about 8 hours each in the last 48 hours, so we were spent. We will probably stay here for about two weeks to really get to see the entire area.
Entrance channel. Barge is 5 feet to the left of the boat here.
View behind us to the entrance with the dredge to the side. It's narrow even when the dredge is not working!
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