Exceso Sodio Exceso Azucares

 

We're in the tomato products aisle at the big Guaymas box store and every single bottle and aseptic package has a large warning label saying that the product contains excessive salt and excessive sugar.  There are no options here without excessive-ness.  I suppose the wise consumer would take themselves over to the vegetable aisle where an entire pallet of tomatoes lie waiting to be cooked down into sauce.  Then you could add your salt and sugar in a non-excessive amount.  It's good that the Mexico consumer protection people are looking out for everyone, but I don't think these labels are doing the trick.

We are provisioning for the umpteenth time, each time thinking we are just about ready to start our voyage.  We provision, we fix things, and wait for stuff. We eat our provisions. We provision again.  Too much salt and too much sugar.

We bought a boatload of stuff and headed to the parking lot where we found our truck with three perfectly good tires and one that was completely flat, but only on the bottom.  Get out the jack, the spare, the tools.  Once we got the wheel off, four guys who were part of the team of pilots ( the guys who escort wide loads down the street ) jumped out of their van and decided to take charge of the situation saying something to the effect that I was too skinny and old to be doing such work. 

Respectfully, I stood back.  Connie was still cranking away at the car jack.  " Connie.... let them do it."  Reluctantly, she handed off the tire iron and the pilots finished the job quickly and in good humor.  Lots of hand shakes all around.  How wonderful are the Mexican people?

30 minutes later we stopped at the San Carlos llantera place where they fix tires.  I pulled out the flat tire and our good man Juan Hernandez aired it up, tossed it into a vat of greasy water, found the leak, and pushed in a patch.  He jacked up the car with Connie sitting in it, changed the tire and put the spare in the back... all in the space of 10 minutes.  "Cuanto?"  "Cien Pesos."  That's 100 pesos, about 6 bucks.  I gave him 200 pesos.  How wonderful are Mexican people?

Connie and I were provisioning for the umpteenth time in preparation for crossing the Sea of Cortez, the Golfo de California. Earlier in the day we spent the entire morning with Beto, the mechanic, as he adjusted the valve clearances, cleaned up the salt water pump, changed out the alternator belt, and changed the oil and filter.  We had finally put the required 20 hours on the newly rebuilt engine and it was time for Beto to follow up with his last blessing of the Isuzu.

When we left you last we were preparing for what we hoped was our final launch.  We'd already had two launch disappointments where we ended up hauling out again to fix a leaky thru hull.  On this latest launch day, the crew dipped Nepenthe into the water, running the big hydraulic armed trailer down the ramp.  I jumped aboard and checked the bilge and each individual thru hull fitting.  Way back in the ass-end of the boat I saw water.  Another one of the thru hull fittings was leaking water into the boat.  I - BLEW - UP !!!

Dinner at La Palapa Griega

How can this be? How can we have now four out of six new thru hull fittings fail?  And why did they fail one at a time?  I signaled to the driver.... Haul us back to the yard.
Back on land, I grabbed a ladder and fixed it to the boat so we could climb up.  Garth arrived looking pretty sad. We had a quick conversation where I said, " This one's on your dime."  

"Yep" he said.

We removed the fitting, found the problem, and re-glassed the opening.  The next morning at 7:30 AM we drilled new holes, applied the sealant, refitted the mushroom, sea cock, and mounting screws.  I arranged for a launch that afternoon at 1 PM and put a coat of bottom paint on the repair at noon.  Garth went to the office and forked over the $450 in launch fees.

By the time we launched the wind had piped up considerably.  Normally we would not launch so late in the day, especially when a norther was ripping down the coast.  But it was the day before the marina services were set to shut down for four days to celebrate Jesus returning from the dead.  It was holy week, Semana Santa.  And all hell was going to break loose as the locals were descending upon San Carlos to party down for four days.   Either we go in the water now or we live in the boat yard while the party continues around us for four days.  

We launched.

No leaks.  

The guys on the launch team took our lines and walked Nepenthe backwards out of the slip entrance.  They tossed the lines aboard and I hit the throttle to turn Nepenthe into the wind.  The wind had other ideas though.  She (the wind) pushed the bow down and we found ourselves heading deeper into the marina instead of pointing out into the bay.  In order to get control of the vessel I had to get more way on so I sped forward hoping the rudder would bite.  At the next fairway I slammed the rudder hard to starboard and tried to do a 180 degree turn to point me back into the wind.  We almost made it but came up a bit short, barely missing a few very expensive boats.  I nosed the bow in toward a piling next to an empty slip, thinking that maybe we could take refuge there.  Connie fended off at the bow.  Then many, many active Mexican dock workers, charter captains and charter crew members showed up at the slip finger and they grabbed our bow pulpit and flung it around the piling, through the eye of the wind, and out towards freedom and a clear fairway to exit the marina.  A cheer went up all around us!

Full throttle, we drove Nepenthe into the wind.  It must have been 20 knots by then.  Slowly we drove out of the Marina and into the bay where we executed a perfect drop of the massive 60 pound CQR anchor and let out 120 feet of rode to come to a blessed stop in 20 feet of depth.  Connie and I looked at each other and started laughing.

Anyhow, we launched, we floated in the bay during Semanta Santa, we drove the boat around the get some hours on the engine and we watched 30 or 40 charter boats in an endless parade in and out of the harbor.  Every one of those boats had their choice of music blasting at full volume.  Later in the gathering dark, the parade showed a crazy array of lights as the sound of tubas and accordions echoed off the cliff sides.

Beto was scheduled to pay us a last visit to adjust the valves and check the engine so we got a slip at the dock to make it easier for him to come aboard.  He replaced a belt that was too wide, tightened up a little drip on the raw water pump, and set the valve clearances.

In the meantime a raging norther started up again so we choose to remain dockside while it blew it self out.  Dinner at La Palapa Griega was a treat.  We had two Canadians playing guitar and drums and singing old Hank Williams tunes.  A few big families came in with a pack of youngsters so the performers played them a couple of appropriate tunes about how "The Bottle Let Me Down" and how "White Lightning" effects your mental state.  I'm sure the little kids appreciated it.

And now we sit in the bay, at anchor, waiting until late afternoon to give the seas a chance to calm down.  This morning, even though the wind and gone down from 20 knots to 5 knots, the seas were still 3 to 5 feet.  You have to give the seas an extra day to give up the extreme bumpy-ness leftover from a big blow.  We hope that by waiting here in the bay for a few more hours, we'll get a calmer night time crossing to Isla Coronados. Wish us luck! 

In and Out

 We seem to be plagued with the Ins and Outs.  With our old boat Traveler we had a couple of launches that ended up as a launch, a haul out, a fix and another launch.  You think you have everything ready for the launch and then when she's in the water, some of the water is somehow managing to get inside the boat. 

Nepenthe's March launch was no different.

The yard crew loaded her up on the low bow trailer, drove her down to the ramp, and eased Nepenthe into the water.  Beto jumped aboard and started checking out the engine.  I jumped aboard and started checking thru hull fittings.  At first everything looked great.  On my hands and knees, headlamp glaring, I saw a drip run down the new thru hull fitting in the head.  Then another drip, then a little stream.  Darn!

We got Garth onto the boat so he could have a look.  He's the one who put that thing together so he had to witness the mess.  "We gotta haul her back out"

The low-boy trailer was still under the boat.  The big hydraulic arms were still holding the six pads against the hull.  We signaled to the crew to bring her back out.   Heads dragging, we returned to the yard.  Garth arrived a few minutes later and he and I began to remove the thru hull mushroom from the seacock.  There is a special tool to spin the mushroom flange out of the assembly.  We inserted the tool, put on a cheater bar and twisted it out.  On examination, the sealant was complete except for a 1/4 inch gap at the top.  So.....The sealant was not applied properly and the connection leaked. It was Garth's fault and he guaranteed his work so he was on the hook for the haul and re-launch fees.

We cleaned it up, applied a LOT of sealant and reassembled it.  The next day, we launched her in the morning and had a successful splash and test drive.  

One of many shrimp boats

This time we had a slip on B dock reserved so we took a few days to get the boat cleaned up, the sails back on, and the engine run for a bit at the dock.  We needed to run the engine for 20 hours to break it in. After living the life on B dock with the other boaters, we went out to the bay and anchored for a few days, getting a chance to motor around a bit and accumulate a few more hours on the engine. 

We decided to take her out for a multi day cruise.  First, we filled up the starboard side diesel tank.  This got the boat back on her lines as she had been listing to starboard a bit because of all those new batteries.  Then we pointed her out of the bay and ran up the coast about 15 miles to Bahia San Pedro to anchor for the night. Connie ran the Mexico flag up the spreader and furled out the U.S. Flag on the stern.

 

 On the way north, Nepenthe's engine ran strong, pushing us along at 5 to 7 knots as we varied the speed every 15 minutes.  Halfway there, I checked the engine compartment for the second time and noticed the bilge water level had crept up to a few inches under the engine pan.  We had taken on about 15 gallons in three hours.

Somehow, water was getting in.

I checked:  The  rudder packing gland.  Dry.  The drive shaft packing gland. Slow drip as it's supposed to be.  Sink thru hulls. No problem.  Sump drain thru hull..... a steady stream running along the bottom of the joint.   Darn!  We're slowly sinking!  I turned on the sump pump and returned a few gallons of water back to the sea.

Traveler waiting to haul out

 

It turns out that the sump drain thru hull sits just above the water line when the boat is listing to starboard.  When the boat is balanced, the thru hull is partially underwater.  When the boat is under power, the stern squats down in the water a bit and that thru hull becomes mostly under water.  

We continued on to Bahia San Pedro to drop our anchor in 20 feet of water along with a few other boats.  The couple on Mano de Fatima, a Cal 46 had their own "shake down" problems, with an inner shroud breaking loose from the mast and water coming into the boat from the dripless shaft seal.  We joked about how boats could really test the patience of the crew.  Beautiful, quiet anchorage.  Nice walk on the beach.  We heard, then saw a coyote standing on a hill yelling out to her buddies, her body silhouetted against the setting sun. 

The following day, we motored back to San Carlos, pumping out the bilge as we went, dodging shrimp boats.

While hiking at Bahia San Pedro a coyote appeared next to us on a hill and started calling out.

And so it was as I had to call Garth and tell him that a second one of this thru hull jobs had a problem.  He took it pretty well.  I mustered up a good attitude and joked with him for a while.  Anyone who has had a boat in Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter, has run into many little complications trying to keep the boat operational.   Boats just have an ornery streak about them.  Try as you might to keep them happy, they will come up with the most frustrating little problems.  If you let it get to you then you are beaten.

Garth and Scott

Garth offered us his mooring ball so we headed back into the bay at San Carlos and got the lines ready to snag that ball.  As I approached, the engine temperature alarm went off.  We were overheating! 

"Connie, drop the anchor."  I switched off the engine and we started drifting backwards.  The anchor bit and we set it in 20 feet of water and 60 feet of chain.  A lady on a trimaran behind us came on deck and started screaming at us.  "I've got 150 feet of chain out and I have no engine.  You can't anchor there!"

 

Bahia San Pedro

We had a few words.  She was not happy.  When some one is screaming at you and you tell them to just calm down.... they probably won't.

Opening up the engine compartment I immediately saw the problem.  A hose had come off and spewed antifreeze all over the bilge. New hoses, new clamps.  Everything should have been checked and tightened after the engine got its first good run.  After the engine cooled a bit, we brought up the anchor and grabbed Garth's mooring buoy, far enough away from the trimaran so that the owner could stop screaming at us.

We arranged with the yard to come haul us out at 7 am the next morning.  What followed was a long dinghy trip to the marina and a long drive into Guaymas to get the correct anti freeze coolant. By the time we got the engine full of coolant and all the hose clamps tightened it was time for bed.  Up at six AM it was a smooth motor to the ramp and a quick haul out back to the yard. 

Garth arrived and we started in on removing that second bad thru hull. We'd had a problem with that one when we put it in a few months ago.  The hull there was in layers with an outer layer of glass, a foam core, and an inner layer of glass.  Every other hole we drilled in the hull had been solid fiberglass. This one had some delamination between the layers.  We decided the safest thing now was to pull the thru hull fitting and glass the entire thing over.  We cut a cedar plug and epoxied it in.  Then we cut multiple circles of fiberglass cloth, ground out the edges and layered everything in place.  

Since Garth didn't have his helper that day, I had to help, handing him tools and steadying him as he stood on his cooler grinding away.  He's 80 years old, I think I told you.  So his balance if a bit off and his eyesight is not so good.  We worked well as a team and ended up having a pretty good day working together.  I tried not to think about how much this haul out was costing us.  $600.00 USD.

 

Upside Down Puffer Fish

The second day in the yard I spent most of the day rerouting the bilge pump hoses so they drained out of one of the cockpit thru hulls.  There was a long run into Guaymas for parts and a lot of cursing on my part as I tried to squeeze my lanky old body into the ass end of the bilge.  

It's now a few days later and our new launch date, our third this year, is tomorrow at 10 AM.  Please let this be the last one for a while.  We're eager to get back into the water, eager to get the engine broken in, and eager to set sail across the Sea of Cortez.  We're ready for the ins and outs to be over.

You know what, though?  We're still having fun.  Connie and Scott are together, in Mexico.  And that's a very good thing.

 

Nepenthe Redux

Gosh Howdy, it's been a while since I posted on this blog, almost two years perhaps.  When a blog goes silent it usually means that there has been a life change and those people have stopped doing whatever it was they were doing, or they disappeared off the face of the earth, or some other calamity has occurred.  And that's what happened to us.  Calamity.

View from boat yard.  Looks scenic but that water is mostly sewage.

Our last sailing adventures revolved around the good luck (or misfortune) of acquiring the sailing vessel Nepenthe.  When we returned to Washington State in the spring of 2021 after sailing from San Carlos to LaPaz and back, Ms Connie was experiencing quite a bit of digestive discomfort.  A colonoscopy found cancer.  Radiation, chemotherapy, radiation, chemotherapy.  I'll not focus on the challenges and life changing features of all of that because that's not what this blog is about. THAT is another big story altogether which we'll be glad to share in person.  

Instead, let's talk about the boat stuff.  Last November, Connie and I drove to Phoenix from Olympia, taking a week to drive/camp our way south.  She had an open ten day period between treatments so she was able to make the drive, taking shifts with me driving the Ford Ranger with the Scamp camper behind, winding our way down the Oregon and California coasts before tacking to port and running downwind to Arizona.

In Phoenix, Connie got on a plane to Olympia and I headed south, picking up my buddy Leo in Tucson before heading into Mexico, and then on to San Carlos where Nepenthe had been sitting in the storage yard for almost two years.

Poor dusty Nepenthe.  We moved her to the work yard and Leo and I rolled up our sleeves and started right in, cleaning the layers of desert dust and sand and testing the systems on the boat.  First bad thing.... all the batteries were dead, cooked by the unrelenting heat of the Sonoran desert.  Instead of replacing the two big 8D AGM batteries, we opted to get four Group 31 AGMs for the house bank and a separate AGM starter battery.  I found Garth Jones, an 80 year old expat who I'd worked with before in San Carlos and who had lots of local connections; he found a good deal for us.  In a week and a thousand dollars we had all new batteries. 

  

Engine is out and I'm out of here.........

  

Batteries connected, all systems go, all connections made.  We turned the key and..... nothing.  A click maybe.   The starter engaged but nothing turned.  We put a wrench on the flywheel and a cheater bar and stood on it with my massive 155 pounds, but the engine would not turn.  I consulted Google then removed the fuel injectors and squirted lubricant into the head, hoping they would free up a stuck piston ring.  We waited a few days and tried again.  Nothing.  The engine was locked up tight.
Garth brought in his 70 year old (youngster) mechanic Beto who removed the head and found the #3 piston seized.  A rebuild or re-power was in order.  Bummer.  We scheduled the engine to be pulled out of the boat.  Meanwhile, Garth and his niece replaced four old thru hull seacocks with new ones that I had brought down from Olympia.  At least now, we've changed out every one of the old thru hull fittings.

     

Leo and Scott at La Calaca

 

But all our plans were up in the air.  Everything changed.  Instead of getting the boat in the water and having Connie fly down for a couple weeks to go cruising, we had to give up and leave San Carlos.  Leo flew home out of Hermosillo and I hooked up the Scamp and drove north across the border.  Forgetaboutit, I'm going home.  Home to Connie where I belong.  In Nogales I looked at the road conditions between California and Oregon and saw snow and ice and rain and I became quite disheartened. A winter time drive across Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington would be quite a challenge.  Instead of driving home, I found a little place in Picacho Arizona to park the Scamp trailer.  Then I drove on into Phoenix to Connie's sister's house, parked the Ford Ranger and hopped a flight home, getting caught up in Alaska Airline's debacle of planes out of service because of missing door bolts and bad weather.  Connie picked me up at SeaTac after midnight and we drove home in the cold, wet nastiness that is Olympia in January.  She brought a pint of wine and a hot thermos of soup.  What a partner!

At the kitchen table in Olympia, I spent four days listing out parts to rebuild the Isuzu 4LE1 diesel engine, finding three different sources to get the best deal.  Gasket set, rings, a piston, valves, rods, and other parts.  We shipped them to a mail drop in Tucson and got them hand carried down to San Carlos.  It took three weeks for Beto to have the parts in hand.  He disassembled the engine, cleaned up all the parts, and sent the alternator, heat exchanger, and starter out for servicing.  Two weeks later Garth sent me a five second video of the engine running.  Incredible!

    

Diane, Buddy, and Tom

 

So......  Come mid-February, we're looking at flights.  End of February, Connie is getting another PET scan.  This one shows no new metastatic growth, just like the previous two.  So off we go on the Flix bus to Seatac Airport in the cold 40 degree rain, and then fly to Phoenix to visit sis and hubby, pick up the truck, drive to Picacho and rescue the Scamp, and then stop in Green Valley at the GV RV Resort for the night, treating ourselves to a site with power and water.  What a trip it is in an adult RV park.  Old folks from far and wide, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Saskatchewan, all packed in tight and semi-permanently in the Arizona sun, walking to the club house to commune with their elder equals.  We were a great hit, the crazy young couple in the tiny Scamp trailer, just passing by on the way to Mexico.  Was this our future I was seeing?  Would we end up in a senior RV park in the desert flats of southern Arizona?  Noooooooooo!

We had smooth sailing through customs at Nogales and before you know it we were zooming down MX 15, charging along at 60 MPH with Connie playing the uke and singing all the way to Hermosillo.  Then on into San Carlos before dark.  We booked into the Totonaka campground in San Carlos.  
I spent the first day down at the work yard watching the marine electrician Salvador ripping out wads of useless decayed wiring and running fresh wires with good connections to the beautiful, freshly painted, sexy, Isuzu 4LE1 diesel engine from the oil pressure gauge, the tachometer, the overheat buzzer, the pre heater and the ignition.  When I got "home" at the campground, my dear love Connie cooked me dinner while I sat outside and listened to the doves cooing in the waning light of a very successful day.  That was Monday.  The first day of the rest of our lives.

     

  

Tuesday, day two at the work yard, was a fortuitous day much like when the Moon and the Sun and Mars align.  In this case it was Salvador the Electrician, Beto the Mechanic, Garth the Grand Wizard and myself, all present on Nepenthe and a miracle occurred.  The engine rose from the dead, it started and roared.  The water pump pumped water, the alternator charged the batteries, and all was good upon the earth.  I took a video of the water spurting out of the exhaust pipe.  Spit, spit, spit.

Like the dog that caught the car, I did not know what to do next.  Garth gave me a shake, "Did you reserve a launch date and a slip at the marina?"   Off I flew to the marina office where the gal toyed with me a bit, seeming to not have space, and then magically finding a slip for me next Monday.   Then back at the yard office, Guillermo toyed with me a bit and found a Tuesday launch opening at 1 PM.  We settled on next Tuesday when the tide will be just high enough and just before the afternoon winds normally kick up.  

Back at the boat, with the triad of boat fixers gone, I surveyed the damage.  Bits of clipped wire and rusty hose clamps, a pervasive smell of oil, and dark hand and finger prints on the fiberglass.  Dust and desert dirt everywhere.  But it is ours.  Our new home for the next two months.  Wish us luck!

Tetakawi - also known as the Goat Teats