April 14, 2010 Panama back to La Paz

This posting reflects a change in the cruising pattern for Arcadia I. For the first time since we've owned her, we're heading consistently North!

After we bought Arcadia I last June, we cruised around SE Alaska for the summer. We truly loved it, and knew that one season there wouldn't be enough for us. We seriously considered leaving Arcadia I there for the winter, so we could just pick up where we left off. However, I'm getting old enough to know that there is only so much time left for me to enjoy these adventures. I simply couldn't bear the thought of leaving the boat idle for 9 whole months.

We would have liked to bring Arcadia I home for a while, to clean up the "list" while speaking English and close to home, family and tools. However, due to the voracious appetite for taxes exhibited by our home state, we can't do that until we've owned the boat for at least a full year. That means, we'll have to haul her out at least once more before we can bring her home. She's currently back in Marina CostaBaja in La Paz and will remain there until we put her on the Dockwise transporter for shipment to Nanaimo, British Columbia. We could, of course, have taken her on up on her own bottom without any particular concern for safety, but . . . that's a 2,000 nm predictably miserable up-weather trip that I'm happy to skip. I'm sure my friends are too.

Seasoned voyagers have often told me that it takes at least a year to really learn your boat. We're about 10 months into this and I've learned the wisdom of that homily. A boat like Arcadia I has a lot of systems packed into a very small volume. I'm still pretty quick to learn and have more experience with similar systems than most people that buy complex boats. Nonetheless, after almost 10 months, I'll be the first to admit that there are still many things to learn about this boat and the list of "mysteries" and things to repair, replace or simply inspect is still growing.

Accordingly, we started an extended sea trial of learning experiences by embarking on a series of long legs, often non-stop for several hundred miles, that ended in Panama as discussed in my last posting. Along the way, I've reinforced my already healthy respect for the sea, improved my seamanship skills and developed enormous confidence in the reliability and seaworthiness of our little ship Arcadia I. 
 
My best friend, business partner and wife, Phyllis, has patiently indulged me in this "victory lap" that marks the start of my retirement from the business we started together over 20 years ago. Note that I said "my" retirement. Phyllis is still actively managing important aspects of that business with our partners and keeping the home fires burning while I gallivant around on the boat she loves as much as I do. 
 
I'll also be eternally grateful to the many family members and old friends that have shared their love of adventure to join me. You see their pictures in the blog postings where I show those memorable events and beautful sights that are all the more precious for having someone you care about to shared them with. What you don't see is much that reflects the long hours of lost sleep or boredom that represents the vast majority of time spent on the long transits between destinations. In this blog, you will see, once again, two people to whom I owe a special debt of gratitude, Mike O'leary and Rudy Prendiz. Each of them has made three of those long trips with me. On some of the longer legs, each was my only shipmate.
 
As I left off with the last posting, Phyllis and I were together in the Perlas islands in Panama Bay. We stayed there another three days.

Right after I wrote that posting, I had one of those "lessons in humility" that we all get sometimes. I ran the boat aground on a submerged rock! It could easily have been much worse, but no significant damage was done, (Thank you God and PAE). Arcadia I set down squarely on her massive keel, then careened over twice as waves passed under us. She then simply fell off the rock and I was able to back away. When I dived to inspect her below the waterline, there was nothing to show that the incident even happened except for some deep gouges in the first couple of layers of fiberglass on the very bottom of the keel. They weren't serious enough to require repair before the next planned haulout in Puget Sound in May. I wish I could tell you that it was an uncharted rock that I hit, but it wasn't. Old sailors say that there are two kinds of skippers, those that have run aground and those that someday will. While I've joined the ranks of those that have, it's not something I'm very proud of. I will do all I can to keep from hearing the sickening sound of keel against rock ever again.
 
On Friday, we pulled into a very protected little anchorage and were promptly met by a man and two young women that wanted to take us in to see their village nearby. We hopped in, and took the ride. Not much of a town, but the folks were friendly.

On Saturday. the 12th of March, we returned to anchor just outside Flamenco Yacht Club's breakwater in Panama Bay. No slips inside were available. Phyllis caught her flight home that evening.
 
Sunday, I slept in a bit then set out to see if I could get the FloScan fuel meter working for the first time since we've had the boat. I discovered that the forward fuel meter was physically bypasses so fuel didn't even flow through it. Then, I found out why. There is a pulsation dampener that had rusted through which, if still in the circuit, would have disabled the main engine completely. Apparently one of the two previous owner had bypassed the fuel meter and pulsation dampener and simply left it that way. I removed and discarded the pulsation dampener and put the fuel meter back in the circuit. Voila! I have an operable fuel meter. On the following leg, to Huatulco, I determined that the meter calibration was off substantially. However, by applying a correction factor determined on that leg to the readings between there and La Paz, that I was able to predict fuel consumption very closely using an Excel spreadsheet. In fact, the fuel it took to refill in La Paz was within 20 gallons of the Excel prediction. I'd like to get the calibration right, of course, but I feel that I've made a major stride toward intelligent fuel management with what I now have. One more mystery resolved!
  
Monday and Tuesday, I did minor maintenance, including changing the oil in the generator and main engine. In this climate, the three air conditioner units on board do a nice job, but it takes all of them. In this condition, anchored without shore power, I had a rare opportunity to check how much fuel the generator uses when fully loaded all day. (8 gallons per day, both days).
 
Wednesday, I topped off the fuel tanks. I made the mistake of filling the forward tanks first. The tank vents must have low spots in them, because the after tanks simply wouldn't fill without periodically "burping". By using all my fuel absorbing material, I was able to partially fill the after tanks, but very slowly. Total fuel on board is about 830 gallons. That probably means we'll have to refuel at Huatulco, not something I'd recommend to anyone that cares about their boat.
 
Thursday, March 18th, I met Mike O'leary at the airport and we set out to complete the exit formalities. We'd learned a bit about the paper dance when we entered the country, so without too many mis-steps, we had our Zarpe and our passports stamped by 12:30. We were underway by 13:30. The Southbound trip from Balboa to Punta Mala was uncomfortable but "downhill", so not as bad as when we came. 

Friday, we cleared Punta Mala in the wee hours and the seas calmed considerable as we expected. By 16:00 we were approaching Isla Rancherita and caught a nice dorado. We decided to treat ourselves to a quiet dinner at anchor in a beautiful little bay on a tropical island. Weather Bob had encouraged us to make all deliberate haste to catch a series of weather windows, so we only stayed a couple of hours and were underway again by 18:30, travelling in flat seas with a beautiful sunset.

 

Saturday, at midnight we were just south of Islas Ladrones. By 06:30, we were in Costa Rican waters. We would have liked to stop in Costa Rica, but the time to clear in and out of the country would mean we'd miss the windows at the Tehuantepec wind slot and across the Gulf of California that Weather Bob was predicting, so we pressed on.
 
We started Sunday just off Jaco, Costa Rica. During the day, we checked with Weather Bob and he said we should expect to get to the Papagallo just as the winds started to pick up but before it got very serious and, if we hurried, we could catch a good window for the much more serious Tehuantepec slot. We set the paravanes in the water and pressed on. By midnight, we were in Nicaraguan waters. 
 
Monday, things materialized exactly as Weather Bob predicted. (We've come to expect that, by the way. His forecasts have been nearly perfect since we started calling him. If you want a professional forecast for a reasonable cost, you should call him at Ocean Marine Navigation, 302-284-3268) We had a little wind, but a generally good ride across the Papagallo. We passed the Golfo Fonseca at midday and entered El Salvador waters.
 
Tuesday, we entered Guatemalan waters mid-morning. After Weather Bob confirmed his forecast, we decided to cut across the gulf of Tehuantepec on a direct course to Huatulco, saving more than 50 miles and setting us up for a direct run from Cabo Corrientes to the south end of Baja California.
 
Wednesday, the 24th of March, we crossed into Mexican waters. There was a significant swell because the Tehuantepec had been experiencing full gale winds. However by the time we got into the wind slot off Salina Cruz, there was no wind and the swell was smoothly shaped with a long enough period to make a very pleasant ride. About noon, Mike O'leary caught and brought a nice marlin alongside. We released that one and within a couple of hours he did it again, this time it was even larger than the first. Mike grew up in Ireland as a crab and crayfish, (think lobster), fisherman. However, he'd never really done any fishing with a rod and reel. That notwithstanding, I don't know many other fisherman that have brought two striped marlin to boat in as many hours. I was the high point of the trip.

Thursday, the 25th of March, we were tied up in Marina Chahue by 09:00. The chartplotter odometer indicates that we've travelled 1004 nm since we left Panama. Rudy Prendiz and Mike's son Cian were on the float waiting for us. The marina folks, on hearing that we were just there to make a crew change, put in a call to the Mexican authorities to expedite the entry formalities. The authorities came through for us. Mike caught a flight home at noon and we were fully cleared into Mexico by 2 pm. We promptly moved over to the Santa Cruz fuel dock to take on fuel.

This is a lousy fuel dock. Avoid it if you can! There is no float. It's located in a narrow channel with literally dozens of boats and PWCs zooming by without consideration of their wake. The rough pilings are narrow and almost impossible to get a fender placed effectively against. The crew is totally indifferent, destroying one of our dock lines with their macrame knots and rusted-through cleats . We took on 505 gallons of fuel, pretty well filling the tanks, and headed out to sea.

The weather was pretty nice on Friday, although the seas were, as Mike O'leary would have said, lively. Cian fell prey to mal de mer from the outset. By Saturday, as we passed by Acapulco heading for Punta Corrientes, the seas got a good deal lumpier, as expected. We'd been staying in touch with Weather Bob. He was watching a rare good window develop that would enable us to set a direct course from Punta Corrientes to La Paz, but that meant we had to stick with these conditions. By Sunday, the seas were continuing to build. Weather Bob advised us to pull in to Manzanillo for a few hours, to let the winds abate a bit.

Mid-day Sunday, the 28th, we anchored in Manzanillo Bay. Cian's seasickness hadn't improved and we expected at least another 24 hours of the same before there was any prospect that the seas would lay down. Even then, the bluewater trip from Cabo Corrientes to the lee of Baja California can never be counted on to be smooth. Accordingly, we decided that Cian should fly home from Manzanillo, leaving the rest of the trip to Rudy and me who, so far, are unafflicted.

After a nice shore lunch, we left Cian at a hotel to await his morning flight.

 Rudy and I went back to the boat to find that the generator had broken the vee belt that drives the water pumps. The genset is in a "hush box" in the after starboard corner of the engine room. This belt was in a near to a totally inaccessible position as I could imagine. It took a hard three hours to get the hush box opened, remove a totally unnecessary belt guard and to teach my hands and elbows how to tension that belt. Fortunately, we had a spare belt aboard. After completing that task, we took a nap, leaving Manzanillo Bay at 4 am on Monday the 29th of March.

We passed Cabo Corrientes about 20 miles offshore at about 8 pm that evening and set a direct course for the East Cape of Baja California. Almost immediately, the winds abated. The swell was still with us, but it began to assume a relatively benign long frequency smooth shape that gave us a very pleasant ride. Weather Bob predicted relatively light winds for two days, but warning that we'd want to get into the lee of Baja as quickly as possible, since the West wind was expected to pick up by Wednesday morning. That is exactly the way it happened.

Wednesday afternoon, the 31st of March, we realized that we'd have to either stop somewhere or come into La Paz in the middle of the night. We decided to anchor in El Muerte and have a shore dinner. We pulled anchor at about midnight and got on our way again.

Thursday morning, the 1st of April, we tied up to the fuel dock at Marina CostaBaja. We took on 225 gallons of fuel, or 4.11 nm/gal for 925 miles since Huatulco. We then moved over to our slip. We did laundry and minor maintenance the rest of that day and got the accumulated salt crystals washed off the boat.

Friday, we changed the oil in the main and generator, "pickled" the watermaker, and did a general cleanup of the boat, since we expect to leave her here for at least a month before we load her onto the Dockwise transport ship.

Saturday, April 3, Rudy and I flew home.

Some salient facts: We've travelled 6,037 miles since we left Bellingham last September and about 10,000 since we acquired Arcadia I. The main engine now has 7,406 hours and the generator has 4,727. I've made an effort to use the wing engine for trolling or just battery charging since I've had the boat. Even so, it has only accumulated 135 hours since it was new.