Okay, its time to go sailing.
May 4th and 5th – We spent these two days taking care of business, before leaving town. I checked out of PV with the Port Captain. We made sure we had enough groceries and beer. Got the stuff out of the storage locker (Judy's Durango) that we wanted to take with us, and put the stuff into it that we didn't want. The crew caroused on shore.
Freyja sucked up a bunch of electricity to cool off the stuff in the refrigerator and to make a lot of ice. It takes my one year old Seafrost refer compressor a very long time to cool things off because of what seems like the lack of insulation around the refer box and freezer compartment. The insulation around the box is from 1983 and many Passport owners say they have found that it doesn’t completely surround the refer box. Refrigeration is the single biggest user of electricity on Freyja, it uses way too much and is a huge PITA. The compressor uses 7.7 amps per hour when it is running in 90 degree weather. It literally wants to run full time, which translates to almost 200 amp hours per day. Getting that box torn out and rebuilt with modern insulating materials and attention to detail in closing all the gaps is the top priority. Maybe I’ll just grab some blue foam board and line it around the inside of the freezer and refer as a temporary fix.
May 6th - Day One: Left PV at 9:50 am on May 6th, 2010. Rick Gaines, Dave Gray, Judy and me. There was a little 10 to 12 knot breeze blowing, so raised sails and set off for Punta de Mita and then north to Isla Isabella, heading for La Paz. I estimated it would take four to five days to get there.
We started motor sailing when the wind dropped to about 8 knots around 2 pm. We were beating into the little breeze and the foot or two high wind waves and swell, and they were slowing the boat down a bit to 3 to 4 knots. It felt like there was some current against us, too. Dragged a fishing line, but as usual had no reward. There is a hazy cloud cover. I used the Fleming wind vane instead of the Autohelm 5000 while sailing and it seemed to hold the course pretty well. It takes a little practice to dial it in and to learn how to tweak its settings before it will hold the course for more than a few minutes.
Judy made chicken fajitas for dinner, very tasty. Rick has a 43’ Serendipity built for two tonner racing and thus has lots of sailing and racing experience. I let him be in charge of trimming the sails and while most of what he did I was able to anticipate in advance he did show me a thing or two.
I really had to laugh, though, when it came time to talk about our course settings with Rick. He kept looking at the charting software and saying, look, the land is here, so we have to go there. I’d say, no, look out of the cockpit, the land is there, so we have to go here. He wanted to know what was wrong with my charting systems and really had a hard time believing that the land is not placed accurately on the charts! Really blew his mind.
I’m setting 3 hour night watches, with Dave 9 to 12, Rick to 3, and then me. I saw a meteor and a billion stars. It was a pretty uneventful night, w/ 8 knots of wind on the nose. Dave and Rick both are competent watch men, which is really nice.
Got to Isla Isabella. The guide books all talk about the rocks on the bottom here capturing anchors and not releasing them. In fact, the bottom looked very rocky and not great for anchoring, so we hung out looking and then carried on. The guys wanted to continue onwards, Judy had on her snorkeling gear and swimming suit and was ready to abandon ship into the clear beautiful water. She was right, we should have anchored and snorkeled…… In hindsight, we should have anchored. It was a chance to check out a really neat place. Maybe it was that the guys wanted to have the sails up and to feel the wind driving the boat.
May 7th - Day Two: Sailed close hauled after about 1130 or so in about 15 knots of breeze. Wound up about 50 miles off Mazatlan, then quit sailing around 2030 and started motoring towards La Paz. I used the Fleming wind vane all day, it worked perfectly. Rick had the boat really nicely balanced so the helm was light and steady and I sorted out the control lines and dialed in the wind vane. Fleming held us steady for hours at a time. Having it working is so exciting and important. The Autohelm 5000 sucks up a bunch of electricity and is old and could break sometime, so having the Fleming working as the first up system on ocean passages is really important. Dolphins came and played with us.
Caught a small mahi mahi and cooked it right up. It was maybe two feet long. To avoid the usual complaints from Judy about fish blood getting all over the cockpit, I killed it with a knife to the gills in the ice chest cooler thingy. As we didn’t get a drop of blood in the cockpit Judy was happy. Most of the women sailors I’ve met seem to get really crabby about fish blood in the cockpit, so it is a blue/pink issue. But what are you supposed to do? There aren’t a lot of options on a little sailboat. And somebody always washes the blood away afterwards, so it is just a temporary thing.
Freyja has nice motion close hauled and bashing into the wind waves resulting from the 14 knot wind that blew all day. Dave had the first watch starting at 2100.
May 8th - Day Three: The wind died off in the night so we motored for awhile during the night. Dave woke me up from where I was sleeping in the cockpit to let me know the engine was overheating and the oil pressure was really low. We stopped and shut down the engine. Dave and I cleaned the raw water intake filter, though when we inspected it it seemed clean enough. I checked the oil and water levels and they were fine. Turned the engine back on and ran at 1800 instead of 2200 and everything seemed fine. We shut the motor down and sailed from maybe 0900 or so. SW to W winds so we made some good north-westing. Nice day, uneventful. Ate, slept and read. Cocktail hour at 1700 with the requirement that everybody be sober by 1800. Judy made the drinks a little stronger than that, but not too bad, so everybody was sober by 1900. We saw no other boats or ships so I got teased for warning everybody repeatedly to keep a watch for ships. I rigged the preventer for sailing with the wind abaft the beam, broad reaching. Sails down, engine on at about 2000 or so. More dolphins.
May 9th - Day Four: started sailing on a broad reach just after midnight, following seas, preventer, made a lot of northing, which we needed but not so much westing. Still having trouble with battery bank 2 over voltage when charging, up to 15.5 or so. Had about 11 to 13 knots of wind all night, boat pretty rolly. Getting ready to gybe to the port tack about 9 am. Heading mostly northerly and gradually forced more westerly through the day. Had 17 knots true of wind steady, some periods of 19. Saw GPS boat speeds of 7.0 knots and not as rolly by afternoon. Freyja really responds to the wind, she leaps forward eagerly and wants to move.
The Fleming has really come into its power. I’ve got it dialed in so we can sail for hours in roll-ey 4 foot seas on our broad reach without touching it. It worked nicely on day 2 when we were close hauled, too. Rick was impressed with it, I suspect but didn’t confirm that it had been his first exposure to a windvane steering system.
We had a major dolphin show. They were leaping two body lengths out of the water, three together, 30 or 40 or 70 in a big feeding and sporting pod.
Turned on motor around 7 pm as the broad reach wind died to about 9 knots around 6:30 pm and that isn’t enough to power Freyja to any decent speeds. The crew broke out cigars and margaritas, following the ship’s rule of getting drunk as you want at 7 pm but being sober by 8 pm.
May 10th – Day 5: Entered the San Lorenzo channel with winds of around 20 or so, and sailed down along Om Shanti’s way points to avoid the reefs. Very brisk and rousing sailing, great fun was had by all, with Rick forgetting that he wasn’t racing and constantly trimming the sails and urging us all to sit on the windward side of the boat to squeeze an extra eighth of a knot of speed out of her. I enjoyed his sail trimming and learned a little from him. He was a great asset on the trip, as, of course, was amigo Dave. Made it into the Costa Baja marina, a first class marina and the first one you come to as you begin the long narrow approach into the La Paz channel. The inner harbor of this marina is the best one around La Paz to be in if you are going to weather a hurricane, but otherwise it is a bit out of town and isn’t surrounded by cool little local bars and restaurants and local color and chandlery stores. Awesome infinity pool and dynamite mojitos at the Costa Baja resort bar!
We checked out of Costa Baja the next day and went down the channel to the Marina La Paz and checked in. They handled the port captain formalities, as do all the official marinas that I have checked into so far, other than Paradise Village. Life is good. We are in the core downtown area, with lots of local color, bars, restaurants, boat supply stores, all within walking distance. The Malecon is right there, too, to stroll along after cocktails and dinner.
The weather is perfect here this time of year. Deliciously cool from the time you wake up until about one pm, then too too hot until about 6 pm, then the evening breeze always comes up and cools things off so you need a couple of shirts or a jacket to stay warm enough, and a blanket a night to sleep.
I like it here in Marina La Paz. And many thanks to Dave and Rick for coming along with me and Judy and making the sail easier and more enjoyable.
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