Well we motored over to the anchorage at La Gringa, must be a lot of gringos there :-) We found a quite deserted cove with only one small light a beach hut at night with no signs of life & no other boats. But the short trip over was plagued by that nerve wracking rattling sound coming from near the transmission; we start making plans to go to Guaymas for major transmission over haul$$ :-O
After a day or so our kid boat friends on 4 Pack have made HF radio contact & they’ll be here the next day. Tropical storm Lowell is also making it’s way up our way so we make plans to meet 4 Pack in ‘Chicken cove’, Puerto Don Juan, the best hurricane hole in the Sea. They arrive & Lowell fizzles out, which is why we’ve come to area in the first place; the storms seem to loose their punch by the time they get this far north. The mystery transmission sound is in full nerve wracking unglory for the trip over.
With Carl’s help we do some extensive trouble shooting on the transmission but we find no signs of serious trouble. We disconnect the prop shaft from the transmission & run the motor, we don’t hear ‘the sound’ at all. The transmission when rotated by hand is velvety smooth (hence the name of the Borg Warner transmission is called ‘Velvet drive’ :-) The motor’s alignment to the shaft is spot on but still the sound is present when we motor over to the village the next day:-O
9-14-09
We motor from the village to La Gringa a day before the big cruiser’s full moon beach party. Our dear friends from Sunbow (my dream cat:-) has given us a forty foot length of high grade synthetic Amsteel single brade line that I will use to replace the broken stainless steel cable that corroded & broke two weeks ago; a job I had been planning to do for years but could find an easy way to remove the old ss cable without much $$ work. The old pin assemble would have had to been bashed, drilled & hammered out, a new pin assemble would have had to been custom made all while paying extraordinarily high boat yard fees to the amount of over $3300. We the broken cable was a blessing in disguise as it solved the problem of how to remove it :-) I used my hooka diving snorkel system & replaced the old ss cable with the new line. This 1/4” line has a holding strength of over 14000lbs! It worked great!
9-15-09
We had about 17 boats I believe there for the cruiser’s full moon beach party, with the highlight even of floating out of the flooded lagoon just after high tide on our floaty toys. It was great to meet the faces of the folks we hear on the HF radio check ins & swop info & boat stories.
9-16-08
We invite anyone who would like to raft their dingies to our boat for a cockpit concert. Now we’ve had a couple or two come over for previous cockpit concerts but this one was one for the books. It seemed like all the boat’s in the cove was rafted up & we enjoyed playing our music. I need to hook up a small PA system for the big crowds one of these days :-)
9-17-08
We invite 4 Packs mechanical wiz guy Dan to ride along with us as we motor over to the village so we can get an expert opinion on our very troubling transmission sound. We have all ready made arrangements for a haul out repairs in Guaymas but we just want a second opinion. The wind is great for sailing which always made the sound very apparent while sailing over 3 knots. We got to be sailing around 7 knots with no sound. We motored at full throttle with no sound. The whole trip over & no sound….Dan must have fixed it by a laying of hands mystical mechanical magic:-)
Later in the town internet place I receive an email from our dear friend Keith. Back in our home port of Ventura he was know as the ‘Mayor of D dock’; we were told soon after moving our boat there that if we had any boat questions that we should ‘talk to the Mayor’. After 4 years & 1000’s of questions we set sail on our cruise but when ever we have any boat issues we still ‘talk to the Mayor’ :-) His email had a few questions for us to help him pinpoint our mystery transmission sound. Picking up that we had an issue with our keel’s lifting cable he asks if the cable could be loose. Well wouldn’t ya know it, I had just replaced the ss cable with the new synthetic line & we couldn’t get the sound to re-appear :-) Although at that time we had only one short passage but it would have surly made that nerve wracking sound. We’ve since made a handful of short passages with absolutely no mystery sounds heard :-)
A few days later we sail over to La Mona anchorage in the south end of Bahia de Los Angeles. The following morning Bobbie Jo & I set out to take a ‘short hike’ up the rocky hills above the anchorage. It certainly didn’t look half as tough as the big volcano hike we did last month so off we went in the full blazing sun of late morning :-O The hike starts off going nearly straight up the huge rocky bluff & then just higher & higher :-O There is absolutely no shade trees here in the Baja, there is no way to escape the sun but at each vista we come to, although we are on the verge of over heating we are encouraged to make the next vista. Nearly to the top Bobbie reaches for a big stepping rock, tests it first for stability then climbs forth only for it to tumble down sending Bobbie tumbling toward a very step drop off towards certain major pain if not worse; luckily she finds her balance before reaching the point of no return. Not until we’ve made the top do we realize that we are nearly spent do to the heat & we are now only half way thru :-O
9-24-08
We had a great sail over to Gecko beach to attend a part for the HF radio net controller of which Bobbie Jo is an enthusiastic member of the club. The great sailing conditions got better & better until the wind is gusting way over 25 knots by the time we set the hook. All the boats anchored there are doing a major rocking horse motion. Some boats abandon the party & flee for calmer anchorages, some can’t even put their dinghy’s together & can’t make the party but for those of us that braved the wet dingy ride to the party at Duffy’s tavern, a cruiser’s party hut on the beach. We enjoyed ‘Duffy Dogs’ which put to shame the Santa Rosilia bacon wrapped dogs although their freshly baked buns made for fierce dog wars :-) There was a dart board competition in which I place 2cd over all, not bad since it’s been decades since I’ve tossed the pointy things.
Tomorrow we will head into the village to do some internet biz & re-supply the beer stash before heading back out the nearby islands. Tonight’s HF radio weather report brings news that there is something brewing the tropical kitchen way down south of Acapulco where it’s been raining 22 out of the last 24 days. Cyclonic winds have been blowing there for days but too close to land to develop into anything of our concern way up here but it may move off shore tonight & by tomorrow morning it could be blowing 50 to 60 knots; 64 knots is hurricane strength. Once that happens it could then come up our way. This time of the hurricane season the chances of the big one developing are decreasing but at the same time the jet stream moves into a position that once develops, encourages them to travel up the Sea of Cortez :-O In that case it would be time to batten down the beer mugs :-O
We then sailed out to Isla La Ventana just behind our kid boat friends on 4 Pack. We spent nearly a week there over a month ago; it seems like a year ago as time goes by quickly. We all took a nice short hike up to a massive cross on a mountain peek with a great view. We did some kayaking & spear fishing; I caught two nice trigger fish for a scrumptious fish taco meal that day.
After a few days we sailed over to La Gringa again, a short trip across the channel so we could get better radio reception & transmission for our radio nets. Carl stepped up to the mike to take on a radio net host. We did our own private version of the cruiser full moon party; our version was a new moon party in which we enjoyed a large tidal flow out of the lagoon on the beach.
We then puttered over between Isla Mitlan & Isla Coronados for another few days of snorkeling, fishing & we all attempted hiking the big volcano. Robin faked a hurt leg (he wacked it that morning so it seemed plausible) but just used that as a ploy to get off the mountain & play Nerf toys with his friend Patrick who also didn’t seem to be up for the brutal climb. His brother Casey scampered up the hill in no time flat, we would of done the whole climb in a faster pace if he didn’t have to wait up for us old folks. After the hike we walked over to a huge whale carcass which was rotting on the beach. Massive spine bones littered the area, along with the huge skeletal remains but the extremely over powering smell made it a short inspection.
After a few days there we sailed back to the village for some supplies & internet connection. Then we went over to La Mona on Saturday 10-4-08 for the Buccaneer’s Cruiser party which is a satellite of the original party held on this same day up on Catalina Island back in our home waters of Southern California. We all dressed up like pirates, spoke in pirate-ineez’ & consumed much grog in the form of Buffalo milk; a drink from the utters of Catalina’s buffalo herds, a tough job that must have been :-O After a few of those drinks we hardly noticed the 20+ winds & huge seas bouncing our boats about :-) After getting smashed on buffalo milk we made for the beach & had a scrumptious pot luck. Someone had gotten the news that this is Bobbie’s birthday, a cake was made & a cleaver pirate birthday card was secretly signed by all…what a huge surprise :-)
The next morning we were all moving a bit slow as we lazed about the boat trying to get some sort of motivation when Bobbie spotted a whale shark near our boat. I grabbed my fins, mask & snorkel & we hopped in the dingy; his may be my last chance to swim with the big whale sharks. I slid into the water just in front of the on coming whale shark & swam along side of it as it came by. It’s huge! This one was a few feet longer than our 10.5 foot dingy. As it swims along, its huge 2.5 foot wide mouth is constantly opening up & gulping in plankton rich seawater; the sound track of ‘Jaws’ playing through my head as I swam along. This one, like most have the smaller Remora fish attached to various parts of the whale shark. They use their sucker mouth to hold on & they eat the dead skin & other parasites while the whale shark doesn’t even seem to notice. I gently touched its wing fin, careful not to invoke a tail trashing; its large tail fin could deliver a mighty wack if it felt the need for speed. The whale shark can reach a length of over 20’ but it’s no threat to humans & even though it’s mouth is huge it only eats plankton & other small critters that are floating in the water.
Today 10-6-08 We’ve motored back to the village, I’ve got a bunch of correspondence with boat systems suppliers. Seems we’ll need to get a generator to help supply more power; we are just barely keeping up with our basic needs & there is never any power left for fun stuff like movies, music & Robin’s Playstation. I’m doing research into whether to get a cheap portable gas unit that would be tied to the deck outside or an expensive diesel unit that can be permanently installed in the motor room & can be tapped into our huge diesel supply. Our water consumption requires us to make more water than we thought which takes even more power. The hot salty water has caused the quality of our water to be a lot less than the manufacturer says is within its normal range, so I’ve done some tests & will soon learn how to deal with that issue.
This mornings HF radio weather report has brought into light some very hazardous cyclonic storm developments. The storm down around the Mexico & Guatemala boarder was very uniquely amplified by wind phenomenon called the Tehuantepecer, a wind that originates from the artic, blows along the Rocky mountains & funnels thru a mountain range in the narrow area between the Gulf of Mexico & the Pacific between Mexico & Guatemala; this winds routinely gets in excess of 70 knots, hurricane force but not a hurricane. This wind joined with a tropical storm, the makings of a ‘Perfect storm’, this storm did indeed develop into hurricane Maria but as I write this it is safely heading west out to sea & out towards Hawaii. The other tropical disturbance which has been reported for the last two weeks by our HF radio weather guru Don Anderson, while no one else would mention it, is now a named storm called Norbert & is forecast to become a full on hurricane as I write this. This hurricane is forecast to make landfall upon the lower 1/3 of the Baja by this Thursday or Friday. This will put a delay in our plans to head south tomorrow, we wanted to sail south to Santa Rosilia in the morning but now it looks like we’ll have to stay near the hurricane hole up here at Puerto Don Juan. If that doesn’t make us nervous enough there is another cyclonic storm just brewing way down south near Guatemala & El Salvador which looks promising to become a hurricane & make it’s way our way in two weeks. All hurricanes that form at this time of the year are very inclined to curve up to the north east, following the jet stream & the Coriolis effects.
10-08-08 We motored out of the village in less than 10 knots of wind towards the southern end of Isla La Ventana. Soon the winds were on the nose from the north at 20 to 25 knots but we kept the motor going since it was only about 6 miles away with lots of small isles & reefs on ether side. The swells were making the seas quite washing machine like but in the Lee of Isla La Ventana it went flat calm. We set the hook near the tip just about 40 yards from the screaming winds & raging seas. Below there were many large rocks that the anchor scrapped along before finally finding it’s hold. Our friends 4-Pack came along soon after & noticed that there was really only room for one boat & the other nearby beach looking places were too deep close to shore to safely spend any time in so they sailed on to Puerto Don Juan. I couldn’t resist the great snorkeling opportunities in this hazardous place, so Bobbie & I hopped in for a look see. It was the clearest waters we’ve seen in a long time. There were a large number of coral fans waving along the bottom. We saw some living coral of several different types & sponge like corals, red sponge bowls; all quite fascinating. Bobbie swam over to what looked like a very large needle fish, except this one was actually the tail of a giant stingray, it shook itself off the bottom & fluttered away along with a few of it’s friends :-O Forget about ‘Jaws’, we fear the stingrays down here & they are very plentiful. Not only do you have to watch were you step but they also have a tendency to flutter to the surface without warning whipping their extremely hazardous tail barb as they flutter by :-O The famous crocodile wrestler from Australia met his quick end from the end of one of those stingray barbs & that thought has always got me on the edge. Here in the Sea of Cortez the once numerous sharks have just about been hunted out of exisitance, can’t say I’m too upset about that although as mentioned in Biogeography papers, another species will likely take up it’s niche & in the Sea of Cortez the ‘Red Demon’ giant squid has bellied up to that sand bar…I guess it has a belly, it does have three hearts & can change colors like a UFO…or so say the ufologists:-) Now I thought that those cute little guys had little rubber like soft suckers but no, first they are not little, some get to over 7 feet long & those suckers…they are really like vicious piranha teeth! Then there’s it’s mouth, hard as a rock & the size of a very large parrot, capable of severing the head off of a 10” thick fellow squid in just seconds. In Santa Rosalia where these ‘Red Demons’ are caught each night by the brave pangeros fishermen, there are reports that during the squid feeding frenzy that sometimes the fisherman accidentally fall into the giant squid feeding frenzy & are quickly mobbed & dragged to the depths in seconds :-O So we’ve got a few things to worry about in these waters. So perhaps it’s no wonder I can’t get Robin to go with all that often.
After our little snorkel we haul anchor & follow our fellow kid boat in Puerto Pollo, where the chickens come to hide at Puerto Don Juan. Hurrican Norbert is blowing over 120 knots today, the next day he’s going on about 140 knots; that’s the lower reaches of a ‘devastating class 5’ hurricane :-O To give a ‘Perfect Storm’ kind of boost to Norbert, a very large north pacific high pressure gale is blowing northwest down the coast all the way to the tip of the Baja at 25 to 60 knots (more off shore & less along the beaches). This is the classic ‘Perfect storm’ conditions that will really make a mess of the seas where they collide as there are currently 20+’ ocean swells freight training down the coast of Baja from the northern gales & there are 20+’ ocean swells traveling up from the south hurricane Norbert & where they collide would make for a very harsh washing machine ride in ANY boat of ANY size. There is a health & welfare report out for the boat ZA ZA, reported to have departed Cabo San Lucas a few days ago heading north. With Norbert expected to make landfall around Magdalena Bay they should hope to be north of there, the only relatively safe place to anchor would be Turtle Bay, otherwise the wise thing to do would be to stay way off shore & ride it out :-O
On 10-09-08 the other tropical disturbance has become hurricane Odele blowing around about 80 knots down there in the tropical kitchen & likely to come our way as well.
Today, Saturday 10-11-08 after a few days of very calm (before the storm) clear weather the effects of the northern gale is blowing through our anchorage at 20 to 30 knots just after I get back from a successful spear gun run; I’ve bagged a couple of very choice fishies for lunch. Robin would have loved the fish tacos but I’m sure he’s diggin’ his time with his friends on 4 Pack. With the high winds we agree not to dingy back to get Robin, besides they have made plans for a sleep over with an unexpected ‘awake over’ all day…we own ‘em one :-) Now that Norbert has bashed into the Baja just below Mag Bay at over 85 knots the counter clockwise winds are in a position to let the northern gale blow on through the northern Sea of Cortez area where we are. As I type this Norbert is halfway across the Sea of Cortez making it’s way toward San Carlos, the place we had considered hauling our boat out into the mud boat yard held up on tiny metal sticks for transmission work… glad that didn’t need to happen :-)
We will want to be heading south as soon as Norbert, Odele & the strong northern gales calmed down a bit :-O
Ship’s Log after Bahia de Los Angeles
Hurricane Norbert was over 140 knots a day away from landfall at Magnalina Bay on the Pacific side, it hit Mag Bay with 120 knots & destroyed 95% of the homes there where we had enjoyed a weeks stay on our way down the outside. It blew over Agua Verdi, a small fishing village we also spent about a week at on our way up the Sea of Cortez this early summer; we don’t know about the damage done there, it didn’t make prime time TV :-O As the eye crossed the Sea of Cortez the cyclonic winds now became from the north which drew the already gale force winds of the north pacific high into it’s influence. We had 25 to 40 knot north winds for 5 days & nights in our well protected hurricane hole. Just as those winds began to die out we went to the village one last time for supplies, by the afternoon the Santa Anna winds began to blow which gave us a nice down wind run of about 30 hours to Santa Rosalia. We barely had to use the motor & ran wing & wing & wing on our ketch with our front sail poled out to catch the wind; the jib poles out to starboard, the main is prevented to port & the mizzen is prevent out to starboard.
We arrived in Santa Rosalia on 10-17-08.
We were away from a slip this time for 85 days & boy was the boat dirty :-) I hadn’t done much boat projects in the last few months, heck not really much since we left Ventura Ca., so now I’ve got a big list of small things to do around the boat & upload a bunch of pictures to our web site. Bobbie & Robin will be going up to the states to visit her daughter Aubrey & friends & to pick up a boat load of stuff for the boat; of course Robin has spent weeks working up a huge list of American toys he needs :-O I’ll be here for a month before we head on south towards La Paz, then Matzatlan & …
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