At Sea South of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
Greetings:
Here's chapter three of the "Resolution" odyssey. The first took us from Bellingham to San Francisco and the second from San Francisco to Turtle Bay, Baja California.
We're enroute to Puerto Vallarta, where we'll spend Thanksgiving. We'll be in Costa Rica in a month, fly home for Christmas, transit the Panama Canal in late January, be in Belize by late February and Florida in late March.
All is well aboard, everything is running fine, and Mike McFadden and I
continue to have a great time.
Cheers,
Andy
Chapter Three - "Resolution" to Europe
Turtle Bay to La Paz
Tuesday and Wednesday, November 9th and 10th, were quiet days at sea.
Wednesday, over Pinnacle Rock, west of Magdalena Bay, we trailed a line.
I’d overheard a sport fisher say on the VHF radio that he’d been catching
lots of tuna and marlin. We got two or three strikes, and pulled a dorado
(type of tuna) up close enough to see him when he broke away. The sea was
full of turtles, 20 miles off the coast, just basking in the sun. They are
about two feet long, dark green and quite fascinating. I got a couple of
pretty good digital photos. Once I’m organized enough to put this journal
on a web site, I’ll be able to add these sorts of photos.
Dawn Thursday the 10th saw us approaching Cabo San Lucas. I stopped there
last spring, and was appalled at the crowds, the high prices and the
total “tourist” atmosphere of the place. Mexico it’s not, except in a
Disneyland sense. So we passed it right by, along with the huge cruise
ship “Norwegian Star” anchored in the bay, with two more cruise ships
steaming over the horizon into port.
Thursday at noon as we approached the sheltered bay of Los Frailes,
about 50 miles north of Cabo San Lucas, we tried fishing again. This time
we were successful. After about a 15-minute struggle, Mike and Ryan pulled
in a beautiful dorado, about 30 inches long and I’d estimate about 20
pounds. We’re all amateurs at this, but I managed to filet the dorado into
two lovely pieces, flinging the guts and the remains back into the sea.
We stopped for a swim in Los Frailes in lovely warm, clear water – about
80 degrees. Mike and Ryan jumped off the boat deck, being the
adventuresome types, but I just made a few lazy circuits around the boat.
Back underway just before dark, we beat our way north into the teeth of
short and steep six foot head seas, with a 20 to 25 knot north wind on our
nose. This was the roughest weather of the whole passage from Bellingham
so far, but it calmed down after midnight. We ran the air conditioning
(using the generator) for the first time, since the weather was hot and
humid, and we had to keep the boat closed up because of flying spray. The
aircon made sleeping possible – and keeping the crew well rested on
overnight passages is important.
Friday morning at about 9 a.m. we pulled into Marina Palmira, a nice modern
spot about two miles north of the center of La Paz, where I had stayed
last spring. By 1 p.m., I’d cleared us into La Paz, Mike and Ryan had washed
the salt encrusted boat, I had hired a lady to wash all the sheets and
towels, and I’d been downtown to the Aduana (Customs) to start the boat
importation paperwork. Everyone has heard horror stories about the
Mexican bureaucracy, but the folks in the Aduana couldn’t have been more
pleasant and helpful. When I explained we were leaving Monday noon for
Mazatlan, they worked out sending the inspector down Monday morning,
instead of the original plan of Thursday.
We had lunch in La Paz, then came back to the boat for the afternoon. Mike
and Ryan swam in the hotel pool just up from the marina, then we had a
great dorado dinner. Mike seared it in oil, oriental style. After dinner
Mike and Ryan left for town, where they’d secured a $20 dollar hotel room
for the night. Friday night - time to party.
I went to bed early – time to catch up on sleep – and woke in time for the
8 a.m. daily La Paz cruiser’s net on the VHF radio. Saturday morning I spent
reading – Colleen McCullough’s “First Man of Rome” – a great novel of the
Roman Republic around 100 BC. She wrote the “Thorn Birds”. I bought
paperbacks of her four novels of Rome in a used bookstore in Eureka,
California, on the way down the coast in October.
Mike and Ryan made friends with Mark Henninger and his friends Lee and
Elaine on a 45-foot catamaran called “Tranquilla” just down the dock from
us. Mike and Lee, in their ‘40’s, had sold their businesses in the Denver
area, and now were in a position to play. So they did, partying with Mike
and Ryan. They all went out sailing on Sunday. I stayed and supervised
Olivia, who cleaned the interior of the boat to within an inch of its
life, for about $20.
Monday was “Aduana” day. I went downtown and collected the customs
inspector. He came out and inspected the numbers on the boat, and by
10:30 a.m. I had the “ten year importation” papers. Really quite efficient, and
the Aduana staff, including Jose, the deputy administrator, an Arizona
grad, were great. No fee either, and certainly no hint of need for a bit
of “mordida” (a bribe), just the taxi back and forth to the marina for the
inspector.
So off we set, in the direction of Isla Partida, a lovely barren island
about 20 miles NE of La Paz. We fired up the generator to run the
watermaker and replenish our water supply, however it wouldn’t make more
than 50 volts on the 240 volt side or 25 volts on the 120 volt side. We
anchored in Puerto Ballandra, about ten miles east of La Paz, and weren’t
able to solve the generator problem, even after phone consultation with
Mike Rusk at Tri County Diesel in Bellingham. So we swam, and barbecued
steaks for dinner. Tuesday morning I sent off an email to Alaska Diesel
asking for advice, and we went back to La Paz for water.
By 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 16th, we were anchored in Colleta Partida, at
the south end of Isla Partida. This is a beautiful sheltered cove open to
the west, with a sandy beach to the east. Mike and Ryan took the dinghy
out to a reef west of the cove to go snorkeling. I read, and then swam. Just
at dusk Mark Henninger and friend Todd arrived in their Grady-White, with
“Tranquilla” following. Mark and Todd stayed for a beer, then went back to
the catamaran at dark. We have an 8 AM departure planned, for the 32-hour
run overnight to Mazatlan, so the batteries don’t get too drained sitting
at anchor with no generator. With AC refrigeration and freezer,
“Resolution” uses at lot of juice at anchor, and normally we need to run
the generator twice a day if we don’t move.
The 36-hour crossing of the Sea of Cortez was uneventful, with four to
five foot seas and north winds to 20 knots on the beam. At dawn, about 60
miles west of Mazatlan, we did run over a fish line strung out a mile from
the fish boat and suspended by gallon milk bottles. No damage and no
entanglement. There’s a lot to be said for a rudder and prop protected by
a full skeg below them.
Mazatlan
240 nautical miles across the Sea of Cortez to the southeast from La Paz
is Mazatlan, one of the popular Mexican mainland Pacific coastal resorts.
It is also the ferry port for Baja California – across to La Paz. We
arrived at about 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 18th, snaking our way
through a very narrow entrance flanked by two jetties, across a sand bar
with about eight feet of water. There was a dredge with large pipes
stretching out in both directions just inside the jetties, thankfully not
operating and pulled over to one side. Marina El Cid, connected to a
lovely hotel with beach and two swimming pools, was our home for the next
three days.
We were greeted by Ed and Barb Gobel on “prn”, a 50 Kristen (steel BC
built powerboat) out of Chicago, Howard and Judy Wong, on “Lelia”, a
45-foot catamaran out of Ventura, California, and Peter and Glenora Doherty,
on “Wanderlust V”, a 45-foot custom sailboat from Vancouver, B.C. Nice to
feel welcomed so quickly. Check-in with the marina office was painless,
and I found that the “ten year importation” permit I obtained so easily in
La Paz would have taken about two weeks here!
On Friday Mike and Ryan slept in, after spending Thursday evening on the
Costa Dorada, the tourist strip south of the marina, and then they washed
the boat. After an hour at the pool we took a ‘pulmonaria” (literally
“pneumonia”) down into town. Pulmonarias are open-air jitneys, which seem
to be converted VW beetles. We walked the back streets of town looking
into the little shops, then had lunch in a typical taco stand full of
local people, checked out the cathedral (Europe it’s not!), had good ice
cream cones from a sidewalk push cart and rode another pulmonaria back to
the marina. We stopped along the way at a liquor store, so Ryan could get
some fancy tequila to take back to his buddies in Seattle.
The local 8 a.m. cruisers’ net (VHF channel 72) had announced that there
would be a welcome party with margaritas and snacks at Marina Mazatlan at 4
p.m., so we wandered over in another pulmonaria. One look at Marina Mazatlan
confirmed that we’d made the right choice with Marina El Cid. Plenty of
sailboats, OK docks, no shore side amenities, and a dusty, barren place –
quite unlike the very upscale El Cid with its Oceanside sea breeze, trees,
pools and green grass. (I haven’t seen the bill yet, though!) Pleasant
party, and a nice ride across the lagoon back to El Cid with the Gobels in
their dinghy. As I write this, Mike and Ryan have gone back down to the
tourist zone, to the “Bora Bora”, apparently the local hot spot on the
beach, where the gringo chicas (American girls) are supposedly to be
found. Ryan flies home Sunday and Mike and I leave for Puerto Vallarta,
so this is the guys’ last night out.
Mike and Ryan stumbled in early Saturday morning after quite a night on
the town. Seems they ran into some gringo sail boaters in a bar in the
tourist zone, who apparently filled them full of margaritas. On their way
back to the boat in the wee hours of the morning they got taken advantage
of by a gypsy cabby, who relieved them of some cash at knife point. Not
pleasant! Aside from a trip to the pool Saturday afternoon, they’ve slept
all day. Ah, to be young again – I think not!
Bob Buchanan from the Canadian sailboat “Bolias Dream” came over Saturday
afternoon to look at our generator problem. I found him through the
really good cruisers’ net here in Mazatlan. He found that a number of the
wires on the terminal block in the automatic voltage regulator had been
poorly crimped and that one had broken off entirely. I had electrical
tools and new connectors (saving him a trip back to his boat), and after
an hour’s work and $40, the problem was solved. The generator now produces
the appropriate 240 and 120 volts, instead of 50 and 25, so we can make
water again. Hurray! With more confidence at sticking a screwdriver into
the innards of the generator, I could have fixed the problem myself,
especially since the fix was what Alaska Diesel thought was wrong.
Diesel fuel in Mazatlan is 5.9 pesos per liter, the equivalent of $2.00 a
gallon, 20% less than San Diego prices ($2.42 including sales tax). We’ve
used about 450 gallons from San Diego, or about 2.6 miles to the gallon –
not bad at all. We’ll fuel Sunday morning before leaving for Puerto
Vallarta. 1900 miles to go to Los Suenos, Costa Rica, and a bit over
three weeks to do it in. I scheduled us way too tightly on the Pacific coast,
and probably too loosely on the Atlantic side – oh well!
We bid farewell to Ryan McFadden this Sunday morning November 21st, fueled
the boat and departed El Cid, Mazatlan at 10 a.m. onto a glassy sea with
hazy, filtered sun. Warm and humid – a pineapple express says the weather
guru on the morning “Amigo” net on the Single Side Band radio. Puerto
Vallarta is 175 miles south, an overnight run.
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