Night Crossing

 All winter long and into the spring the northers blow down the Sea of Cortez.  These wind events last a few days or a week, often following each other back to back so that the seas don't have time to calm.  The current norther has blown itself out and the wind had died.  But the seas are still high.  Consulting the wind and wave prediction models we see that the gap between this last norther and the next is only about 48 hours.

That's a problem because our window of opportunity is tight.  
We decide to wait 24 hours for the seas to calm, then to use the next 18 hours for our crossing, and have 6 hours (in the bank)just in case.   

In the bay at San Carlos, we waited until 4 PM then pulled up the anchor and motored out of the bay, heading directly south.  Our target: Isla Coronado.  The closest crossing from San Carlos is a shorter 13 hour run directly west to Punta Chivato.  But by adding 6 hours, we make our landfall 75 miles further south of Chivato, saving two or three days of sailing later. And with the next norther coming in, we will have to hide out for a couple of days somewhere.  

We knew that the southern anchorage of Isla Cornado will give us good protection from the strong north winds and the big seas that accompany them. The south anchorage looks north right at the tall volcanic peak that helps block the wind. We will be fine there for a few days.

  

Starlink Rocket Launch

 

An hour away from the San Carlos anchorage we found a one foot swell at four seconds from the northwest.  Now a one foot swell does not sound like much but when you are motoring in light to no winds, a swell off the stern quarter rocks the boat in an endless corkscrew manner making it difficult to eat, drink, use the head.
 
By sunset the northwest swell abated somewhat and a second, larger wave pattern approached from the southeast.  Now we had a corkscrew with a twist.  Connie took a three hour shift from six to nine.  I took a three hour shift from nine to midnight.  We raised the main with two reefs, thinking we might be able to sail but the wind shifted until it was right on the nose.  We kept the engine roaring along at 2000 RPM making about six knots directly south. The movement of the boat and the roar of the engine made sleeping mostly impossible.
      
Connie took over at midnight and I went below to toss and turn the rest of the night.  She's such a good night passage mate!  She can just keep going and keep going.  I came on deck at 5 AM to see the sliver of a moon rising in the east.  Connie hit the bed.  Soon the sun rose and we found ourselves dancing over the chop, wind on the nose, but making 6.5 knots over ground. To the west I could see the big nose of Punta Pulpito and the lovely bay of Caleta San Juanico.   As Isla Coronado approached we sat across from each other in the cockpit, bleary eyed and bone sore from bouncing around all night.  I'm thinking "I'm too old for this staying up all night stuff."

We made our way through a bevy of panga fishermen to the south side of the island and nosed toward the beach into 20 feet over sand and dropped 120 feet of anchor rode.  The wind continued from the south but we knew that soon, the norther would begin and we'd be facing land and the wind that was able to run across the island and its volcanic peak.  

 

Isla Coronado

 

Boom... I went down face first on the bed and slept until afternoon.  That evening, sure enough, the norther started right up and we could feel 20 to 25 knot gusts pushing Nepenthe from side to side.  However, with our nose only 200 feet off the beach, the waves were inconsequential.

Thus we sat for 48 hours resting, eating, writing, playing music, and getting snippits of cell coverage from the nearby town of Loreto.

We saw a turtle.  We saw pelicans diving for fish. We saw other boats taking refuge from the wind.  We saw a very large yacht come shelter alongside us with a half dozen crew in matching outfits.

Monday morning April 8 we'd had enough of the leisurely life so we headed south and transited the wide passage between Loreto and Isla Carmen, motoring slowly in the light southerly.  Just outside of Puerto Escondido a Lagoon 44 catamaran passed us and entered the harbor.  We made our way into the anchorage and marina complex and headed to the fuel dock where the Lagoon had arrived minutes before.  So we sat, we floated, we hovered, we waited.

   

Gas dock at Puerto Escondido


I cannot tell you how many times we've been passed on the way into a harbor, anchorage, or marina and see the other boat get the last spot or the one spot we were after.  All of a sudden it is a race.  Humans!

On the way into Puerto Escondido everything got a little quiet and I kept taking off my sunglasses wondering why I didn't really need them on this sunny morning.  It was 11:30 AM and the full solar eclipse was happening a hundred miles to our south.

After filling with 70 liters of diesel and 70 liters of water we were on our way, crossing over to Isla Danzante with the jib flying.  As we approached the Honeymoon Cove anchorage one boat came in from the north and another came in from the south and they both swarmed into the little anchorage.  There are only three spots in Honeymoon Cove.  There were two boats in there already so it looked like we were going to get skunked again.  However, those two boats must have been buddy-boating together because they popped right back out and headed south towards the larger anchorage at Los Candeleros.   We snagged the last tight little spot in the south lobe of the bay, dropping the anchor in 30 feet, running out 120 feet of chain and coming to a stop about 100 ft from rock walls on two sides.  Nice.

   

After our big 18 hour run from San Carlos while we were anchored in the lee of Isla Coronado, we had found a loose motor mount and what appeared to be a liter of coolant in the bilge.  I tightened the mount and cleaned up the coolant and checked all the hose clamps, calling it good.

After arriving in Honeymoon Cove I opened up the engine compartment again and again found a liter of yellow liquid in a nook of the upper bilge on the starboard side of the engine.  Connie said, "That smells like diesel to me."  Yep, I was wrong.  We didn't have a coolant leak, we had a diesel leak.  Up came the flooboards.  I got on my work clothes and wormed my way down next to the engine to clean up the mess.  Then using paper towels I tried to find the source, wiping surfaces and hoses.  The #1 injector has a little hose that connects to the return fuel line.  When I squeezed that little hose, diesel came through the outer layer of rubber.  Our fuel leak was thankfully not on the supply side but on the return side.  We were running fuel through the injectors and some of the returning fuel was slowly dripping down the side of the engine, pooling in a spot, then making its way into the bilge.  This would explain our increased fuel usage.  

When rebuilding an engine, it is best to replace ALL of the hoses.  That's the tip I'll give to Garth and Beto when we get back to San Carlos.   I found a section of hose already in use elsewhere on the engine that was the right diameter and by rerouting it was able to gain about six inches of hose that I could cut off and use to make our repair.  Stinking of diesel, I soon finished.  Connie was ever present, giving advice, handing me tools, and using Murphy's Oil soap to clean up the mess.  We ran the engine to test the repair and all seems well. Unfortunately, we were stuck with an unknown amount of diesel fuel in our bilge.

I've never been so intimately involved in the wires, hoses, belts, nuts and bolts of a marine diesel.  I guess it's good for me to have that close relationship.   But I already have one close relationship, and that's with my wife.  And that's all that I need, thank you.

Our new CPT autopilot ran flawlessly the entire trip