Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Lindor headed south

Sister ship
Our friend Lindor has headed south from Ensenada bound for LaPaz.  She picked up a crew position on Stargazer, a Rawson 30, a very sturdy William Garden design sloop. 

We wish her a safe and fun trip down the coast.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Sailing out to Isla Todo Santos

We made another trip to Ensenada for boat chores and some sailing. January 7, 2012.  It takes a day to get to the boat and another day to clean the boat and stock provisions.  Sandy grit covered the topsides.  A few mooring lines had parted and the good people at Baja Naval had re-tied the boat for us, knotting together the shredded pieces.  Of five fenders, two were completely destroyed, shards of plastic hanging useless from the stanchion bases.  The next day we went to Agencia Arjona on Blvd. Teniente Azueta and got a very good price on a hundred feet of 3/4 inch three strand mooring line and two 15 inch round fenders.

Master of Electronics
Our stereo had its CD changer had gone on the fritz so we had brought a new one from Seattle and brought it across the boarder.  Connie proceeded to rip out the old stereo and install the new one.  Lots of little wires and lots of little connections. Doesn't she look like a little elf with her glasses and pointy chin?


Isla Todo Santos on the horizon
We next went to the Senora Leather shop on the corner of  Macheros and Adolfo Lopez Mateos and bought some leather scrap and a metal leather punch from the very nice proprietor there.  He helped us later with his good english/spanish translation skills to find other merchants in the area.

My brother Bernie arrived along with our friend Lindor and Bernie set about splicing loops in the new mooring lines while I whipped the ends and Connie created chafe gear out of the leather.  After a couple of days work we had new or repaired mooring lines, all with chafing gear.

We set out for  Isla Todos Santos wanting to anchor for the night. On the way out of the marina we had some circus moments as I managed to swing a couple of 360s inside the fairway and scare the hell out of other boat owners clustered on their stern decks ready to fend off the 34K monster. That boat will not ever back straight.. never.  So I really do need to plan on backing to starboard in every docking situation.

Catching some wind about a mile out, we kept the full genoa and main.  Eventually she heeled over, got in the groove and made an astonishing 6.9 knots in about 10 knots of wind. 


Napping on the port side settee, I awoke to a commotion as we neared Isla Todo Santos.  Up on deck I saw we were about to sail into a field of fishing floats just off the shoreside of the island.  We tacked about and cruised around the fish farm pens and floats looking for depths of less than 80 feet.  Nothing to be found.

Isla Todo Santos Fish Farms
The sun was about two hours off the horizon so with no place better to go we turned tail and headed back the ten nautical miles back to the harbor.  The wind died and with Bernie at the helm we ran the diesel back across the bay.  I went below to start charting just in case the darkness caught us before we gained the harbor entrance.

Dolphins played on our bow wave as Lindor washed clothes and hung them on the lifelines for drying.  Down below I found that not only one but two GPS units had failed.  Both Garmin handhelds would boot, look for satellites, then lock up.  I charted our location on the paper chart in case we needed to dead reckon back but we arrived in the harbor just as darkness fell and I was able to dock the boat without incident.

All in all, a good day's outing on the boat.  Now where's that bottle of 7 year old Havana Club?