December 6, 2009 Bellingham to La Paz

As I left off with my missives, we had stopped at the CA-OR border to get some respite from lumpy seas. That was September 20th. Since that time, we’ve completed that passage, and another. The boat is now in La Paz. On Tuesday, Danny Long and I will fly down to La Paz and get underway for Mazatlan. We plan to pick up my brother, Paul, there and start south. How far we get, before we all go home for Christmas remains to be seen. To continue the chronology from where I left off:

On Monday, September 21st, Zach left ship’s company. He’d started the trip with enough time to finish it and still get to the first family reunion with Stephanie’s since they’ve been married. With the delays at Bellingham, Neah Bay and here that was no longer true. We were happy that Rudy Prendiz could join us, keeping the total ship’s company at a comfortable watchstanding level of 4. We got underway as soon as Rudy arrived, back on our way at about 6:30 pm.

Tuesday, the 22nd we were underway all day. With the paravanes down, the ride was not too uncomfortable, although if you canvassed the crew you’d probably get some disagreement with that statement. Rudy caught a couple of nice albacore.

Wednesday, the 23rd, we passed the Farallon Islands and San Francisco at about 6:30 am. We were 15-20 miles offshore, so we didn’t catch sight of them. We did see several ships on AIS, lining up on the shipping lanes for the Golden Gate, but had no difficulty avoiding them without the need for radio conversation, or even course correction. On advice from the weather router we moved closer to shore, passing only a couple of miles off the Monterrey peninsula.

On Thursday the 24th, again on advice of the weather router, we shifted course to pass seaward of San Miguel Island, giving Pt. Concepcion a wide berth. Things stayed pretty lumpy until we gained the lee of the island, shielding us from gale force North winds and attendant seas. The seas were essentially flat from that point onward on this passage.

Daybreak on Friday the 25th found us approaching Catalina Island on the South, or seaward, side. We tucked in closer to drag our lures across the banks there, but didn’t catch anything. At this point, we started to reduce speed somewhat, with the intention of arriving at Ensenada at daybreak on Saturday. We cruised close in to San Clemente Island, just as the sun was setting. Almost immediately after we cleared San Clemente, we encountered significant fog. We navigated under radar, with our foghorn sounding for the remainder of the trip. We made several course changes to avoid AIS and radar targets during the night.

The very first things visible to the naked eye on the morning of Saturday the 26th were the red and green lights marking the entrance to Coral Marina in Ensenada. I’d manually entered that way point from one of my cruising guides. The chartplotter was showing us aground at that point, but the waypoint proved to be spot on. Phyllis and Will arrived just as we did. Tom Burns, Ray Hofmann and Rudy Prendiz left ship’s company and took a shuttle provided by the Marina to meet my brother, Paul, in San Diego and home from there. I went to town to attend to the Mexican arrival formalities. Unfortunately, Dave and Sally Chambers, the first owners of Arcadia 1, had opened a temporary importation permit on the boat several years ago and had not cleared if when they sold the boat to Dean Philpott. The Mexican customs people needed to close the first one before they could open the first. I got progressively more confusing instructions as to how to do that, all of which required a notarized signature on a document from the Chambers. Since I couldn’t complete the process, we cleaned up the boat and went home on Sunday afternoon. Bad decision! We were crossing the border on Sunday evening, which had us in mostly stop, with very little go, for 2 ½ hours.

On the 1st of October, I returned to Ensenada armed with a notarized letter from the Chambers empowering me to act on their behalf for any matters relating to Arcadia 1. The whole thing seemed totally redundant to me, and to them, since they don’t own the boat any more and we do. Nonetheless, I’ve learned the folly of getting into battles of wits with unarmed bureaucrats, so we jumped thru the hoop. I had to go to the Mexican DMV and file a “loss” report explaining that the sticker had been destroyed. They gave me a copy of the report, after about 3 hours, which I took back to Customs at the port. After 2 ½ hours watching a very nice customs man practice his duo-digital typing skills, he gave me a cancellation document to take to the adjacent bank window, where it was typed all over again with about the same keyboard skills. I paid for that, and walked the 12 feet back to the Customs window, where he stamped it, then typed out the new Temporary Importation Permit, (known to boaters in Mexico as the TIP). I took this new document back to the bank where it was again re-typed and paid for. Finally, I took the TIP back to the Customs window, he stamped it and the whole process was finally complete. I am now authorized to take the boat anywhere in Mexico for 10 years without doing this again. Hallelujah! I went back home that night, totally exhausted and hadn’t accomplished any work on the boat.

I came back down to the marina on the 9th and 10th of October to get some work done. I got some minor cleanup done and rebuilt the forward head. UGH.

The boat was left in the Coral Marina, watched by some friends we’d made on neighboring slips, until the 25th when Phyllis brought me, my neighbor Brian Bumgardner and Mike and Cian O’leary down to get ready, then start down for La Paz. We changed the oil in the main engine, (now at 6540 hours total). Re-provisioned and gave everything a good washdown.

On Monday, the 26th, we completed provisioning and refueled with 605 gallons, (the first fuel since Bellingham). Phyllis left for home, and we got underway at 3 pm. The weather router told us to expect near gale force winds from the East and deteriorating conditions and he proved right on. By midnight, we were just North of San Quntin, staying pretty close to shore to limit the “fetch” that allows the seas to build. Nonetheless, it was an uncomfortable ride.

On Tuesday, the 27th, we were underway all day in increasingly lumpy seas but no one was sick and with the paravanes down, this crew was actually enjoying the trip.

At 3:40 am on the 28th, we turned into bahia de Tortugas, (turtle bay), and dropped anchor in the dark. After sleeping in, we moved a little closer to the beach and rigged the dinghy down so we could go ashore. We walked around the surprisingly prosperous little town, (the only road there is unpaved for about 30 miles), and had a nice lobster dinner ashore. When we got back to the boat we changed the oil in the generator. While working on that we noticed a lot of salt crystals on the shaft and around the shaft alley. We determined that to be coming from the manual bilge pump which, with the seas slapping our port side, was backflowing into the bilge. At midnight, we completed taking it apart and cleaning who knows how many years of accumulated salt crystals from the valves and putting it back together. Hopefully, I can avoid that in the future by simply using it occasionally with fresh water in the bilge.

We left Turtle Bay on Thursday the 29th at 9:00 am. By noon we had three nice yellowfin tuna aboard. As expected, winds built to near gale force from the East during the day but the weather router said conditions would be improving on Friday. Things got a bit rough off Punta Abregos even though we were staying pretty close to shore. The seas weren’t particularly high, but they were confused, making for a rough ride whenever we went offshore to cut across a bight in the land.

On the 30th, we were still underway all day. Winds abated somewhat and were in single digits by noon. By sunset, the seas were calm.

On Saturday the 31st, we were approaching the Morgan Bank by about 9 am and started catching dorado. We dragged lures through the banks we could cross over without zigzagging too much. Final count was three small dorado and one nice-sized one. Freezer is full so we stopped fishing. Seas are now quite calm, so Mike O’leary cooked up a splendid batch of fish for lunch. We rounded the Cape at Finisterra at about 7 pm and kept going.

On Sunday the 1st of November, we passed thru Canal Lorenzo into La Paz bay at about 3 pm. We entered the long channel to tour La Paz and look at all the marinas. After looking things over, decided to go back to the most expensive one, Costa Baja, because it looked to have better facilities and, most important, it was out of town and we thought security would be better. That was important because we were going to have to leave Arcadia I unattended for extended periods here. We refueled on the way in, and went to town after tying up for a shore dinner to celebrate Cian’s birthday.

On Monday the 2nd, Brian Bumgardner left ships company, flying out of La Paz to LAX. We rented a car when we took him to the airport.

On Tuesday the 3rd, Mike and Cian O’leary left ship’s company. We drove them to Los Cabos airport. Good roads! Much better than I remembered them. We drove down the West road, through the mountains. I drove back up the East side, through Espiritu Santo. Much better road through the mountains, much of it is divided 4 lane highway. I was back at the boat before dark.

Wednesday the 4th and Thursday the 5th, I stayed aboard for cleanup and minor projects. Authorized “Zeke the Boat Guy” to get some minor repairs done to the upholstery and to strip, sand and varnish the exterior woodwork.

I left to come home on Friday the 5th, taking a three leg flight through Mexico City, then back to Cabo, then to San Diego. It took all day, but the price was right and nothing else worked from La Paz.

On Friday the 20th of November, Phyllis, Willie, Zach, Stephanie, Autumn, (the dog), and I, started driving down to La Paz. We left early made it to Guerrero Negro that night. It was a long, but uneventful day. We resumed our travels on Saturday, arriving at the boat about 7:30 pm to sleep aboard.

Sunday, the 22nd, Larry and Zach replaced the handrails on the stripped and partially sanded rail while Phyl and Stephanie cleaned and re-provisioned the boat. Zeke brought the cushions back in the afternoon and we shoved off for Espiritu Santo Island, anchoring by ourselves in El Meztino cove. Had a pretty rough night with a strong westerly coming in right after dark that disturbed our sleep.

On Monday, the 23rd, we moved up to Cardonal cove. The wind was still strong but had shifted to northerly, rendering fishing in open water uncomfortable. We rigged the dinghy down and cruised around in the shelter of the cove. Zach and Steph did some snorkeling.

We remained in Cardonal cove until 8:30 Wednesday when we picked up with the intent of fishing but the winds were still high enough and had been blowing long enough from the north that we decided to get in the lee of small islands and make our way leisurely back to La Paz. We were back in our slip by noon.

Thursday morning I met with Zeke to arrange for completion of the varnish work and procurement of new house batteries. The old ones are shot, forcing us to run the generator way too much. By noon, we were on our way home. We stopped in Loreto Thursday night, San Quintin on Friday night and were back home by mid-afternoon on Friday the 27th.