Yet another Nordhavn has embarked on an exciting adventure. This time it’s Ken and Roberta Williams who are heading out to explore the great unknown – well, unknown to them, anyway. The duo will be cruising about 2,000 miles from Mexico to Costa Rica.

The Williamses are no strangers to traveling via Nordhavn. They purchased their Nordhavn 62, Sans Souci, in 1998 and traveled up and down the West Coast as well as crossed the Atlantic on her as part of the Nordhavn Atlantic Rally.

They sold her shortly after the NAR’s conclusion, opting to play in the Bahamas on a 27’ Glacier Bay while waiting for their new Nordhavn 68 to finish construction. They took delivery of their new Sans Souci last August, brought her up to Seattle and then back down to San Diego to participate in the FUBAR rally. It was a nice warm-up to their current journey, although Ken admits to being nervous. “The rally was much easier because there were other boats around. Doing this alone will be a whole new experience.”

Thankfully for all of us, Ken is letting us in on the experience with him through his excellent blog. We’ll be updating this site with each new entry Ken submits, but if you’d rather have a copy or the report sent directly to your inbox, click here. Greetings all.

Feb 29, 2008

[Ixtapa 17 40.053N, 101 37.055W]

Today is our last day alone on Sans Souci for a couple of weeks. In a few hours three professional crew (Jeff Sanson and team) will arrive to assist us in running the boat to Costa Rica. I suppose that having three guys fly in to assist Roberta and I over the next 1,800 miles isn’t the macho thing to do. All I can say, in self defense, is: “oh well.” I worked hard for lots of years, and this is retirement. My primary goal, at this stage in my life, is to have fun. We have a long run coming up, and of course Roberta and I “could” do it alone if we wanted to, but we’d rather blast through it quickly, and have more time for fun in Costa Rica.

Even with three guys, it won’t be exactly easy. One of the guys coming (Carl) will be the “cook” and the other two (Jeff and Kurt) will assist in running the boat. I like to run two person shifts on long passages. This means Roberta and I will be doing alternating four hour shifts.

And, on a completely different topic…

Roberta and I have spoken often, over the past few weeks, about our planned South Pacific trip next year. Usually, boaters worry about whether or not their boat has the fuel capacity to cross the Pacific, or whether their boat is seaworthy enough to handle the Pacific. We’ve gotten comfortable on both these issues (It IS a Nordhavn!). But, in our case, we have a third problem that has been the toughest of them all: We have a dog (Shelby).

Shelby, here in Ixtapa
Roberta, I, and our friends the Heathcotes (who were here last week)

Shelby has cruised with us in many countries, including: The US, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. Over the next few weeks we’ll add Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to her resume. We’ve gotten accustomed to the process of getting Shelby a health certificate each time we enter a new country. Poor Shelby has been through more health exams than you can imagine!

There are a few countries that are particularly difficult to enter with a dog. Europe is generally dog friendly, although the UK can be difficult. The South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand are amongst the toughest. I’m an eternal optimist and have always assumed I could “find a way” to get us into at least Polynesia with Shelby. I’ve been working on the project for a couple years, and despite this effort, and the efforts of various consultants, it just hasn’t happened. At this point, we believe we can get her into Hawaii fairly simply, but Polynesia, Australia and New Zealand seem impossible without long quarantines (which we’re not willing to put her through).

Recently, our plan has been to go direct to Hawaii, and then bypass Australia and New Zealand. However, the more we have discussed Hawaii as a cruising destination with various friends, the less appealing it has become. This is tough for me to believe, but apparently, there aren’t a lot of great anchorages, and there is a lot of wind and swell, and not a lot of great marinas. We’re wondering if Hawaii alone justifies the trip to the South Pacific.

Thus…

We’re officially scrapping our South Pacific plans, at least for the foreseeable future. That said, we’re not giving up on our desire to circumnavigate. There is an Indonesia rally (http://www.sailindonesia.net) that we’re going to focus on. We’ll do it in 2009 or 2010, and then continue on around the world from there. We thought about going to the Caribbean, but Roberta’s comment was “Everyone goes to the Caribbean. I want to go somewhere exotic.” I’m not sure she is exactly right, but Indonesia, especially with a rally, sounds good – so, why not?

The tricky part is: How will we get our boat from Alaska, where we’ll be this summer, to Indonesia? My next project is to research freighters that could transport Sans Souci, from somewhere on the West Coast of the US, to Indonesia. As always, I am optimistic I’ll figure it out. If I can’t, Roberta and I will have a new conversation about the Caribbean.

This is my last email for a couple days. Tomorrow (Friday) will be spent preparing the boat for departure. We’ll change the oil, fuel the boat, load the tender on deck (and, clean it), and do any last minute provisioning. My next blog update will be sent from at sea. We will be running non-stop from Ixtapa to Huatulco. This will require a 400 mile run, which we will easily do in two days. I’m not into fishing, but Jeff and his guys are excited about the prospect. Our plan is to run slow during the day (so they can fish) and run fast at night.

And, lastly…

My son, Chris, and my dad in Turtle Bay, Baja California, Mexico (11/2007)

I am very sad to report that my father, and best friend, David Williams, has just lost his battle with lung cancer. For those who may not know, this blog grew out of an update I used to send to him talking about our travels on the boat. My dad was along for the first leg of this trip, from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, and spent a couple weeks with us afterward in Cabo with his wife, Sandra. He is known to many recipients of my blog, and is deeply missed by all who knew him. Even with all my moving around, he and I played internet chess virtually every day for the past few years. Believe it or not: I just checked the stats, and we played 1,455 games! I am also happy to report that we achieved another goal of his last year: watching Tiger play the Ryder Cup in Ireland. Just a couple of weeks ago, he asked that we continue cruising to Costa Rica should this occur during our trip, and we’re honoring his wish. He will be greatly missed by all who he had touched.

Make sure you read the “reader email” that follows. There are some great emails this week! There are some very smart people who read this list, and I always learn something reading through my mail.

-Ken Williams
Sans Souci, Nordhavn68.com

Feb 25, 2008

Greetings all!

Roberta and I are still here in Ixtapa. We’ve been relaxing and enjoying our time here.

The crocodiles have been an unending source of amusement. Roberta and Ingrid (our guest) spent yesterday afternoon feeding a crocodile at the back of the boat. Dean and I reminded them many times that crocodiles are wild animals and dangerous, but I don’t think they got the message. We rolled our eyes several times as we heard the girls saying “Come here baby!” Dean and I played the golf course here in the marina and landed a golf ball inches from a crocodile.

We’ve also been exploring a bit, and walking the beach. Here’s a picture of the beach in Ixtapa…

And, of the beach in Zihuantenejo…

We’ve been surprised by how many Nordhavns there are here in the area; Wayward Wind, an N43, Alter Ego, an N47, Sally G, an N50 and our own Sans Souci, an N68.

Dean and Ingrid have now flown home, but here’s one last picture of Dean and I checking email while the girls shop:

On Thursday we’ll be joined on the boat by Jeff Sanson, of Pacific Yacht Management, and a couple of his guys. We made the decision to bring on crew, because we’re starting to get tight on time, and want to run around the clock most of the way between here and Costa Rica. Roberta and I would like an entire month in Costa Rica just to wander around from anchorage to anchorage.

We have a large freighter (Yachtpath) set to pick up in our boat from Golfito Costa Rica, around April 15th, and transport it all the way north to Victoria Canada. This means arriving by mid-March in Costa Rica, a little over two weeks from now.

Below, you get a bit of an overview of the run we’ll be making. Our goal is to nearly 1,800 miles over the next two weeks!

We run approximately 200 nautical miles a day, meaning we will be running almost non-stop once we start moving. That said, we do hope to spend a couple days each in Hualtuco Mexico, El Quetzal Guatemala, and El Salvador. It will be tricky to make this work, but with the assistance of Jeff and his guys, we’ll figure it out. Once we arrive in Costa Rica, Jeff and team will fly home and Roberta and I will start cruising alone.

Following is an excerpt from a message board posting by Scott Bulger, on a Nordhavn 43, which is on the same course as us, but a couple weeks ahead. In it he talks about running over “long Lines”, by which he is referring to a long fishing line. In this fishing technique a fisherman dangles hooks in the water, hanging from a long line, that could stretch for miles. Wrap one of these around your prop, and you might need to swim with large fish hooks, and possibly some very angry fish who are not too happy about being hooked.

“…last night at sunset we were about 25 or 30 miles south of Puerto Madero when we started to encounter long lines. We navigated around the first one after the panga skipper freed up a line from one of the boats stabilizers, but about an hour later I picked up a line in complete darkness. The panga operator made no effort to guide us around his lines. As we passed over the line it hung up on my port fin, but didn't get caught in either prop. I quickly grabbed it with a boat hook as we were bleeding off speed and could feel that it might pull right through the hang up once cut. Sure enough I cut the line, dropped both ends in the water and 10 seconds later we were long line free! We made the decision to head another 20 miles off shore and only encountered one more line in the entire evening.

We have been told the long lines in Guatemala and El Salvador are often lit at night, so they should be easier to navigate around. Few things are as stressful as managing being caught in a net or line at night. Fortunately for us it was a quick fix, I believe the Gods are with us on this voyage…”

I have three things that I’ll be thinking about over the next two weeks:

1) Pirates – Luckily, none of the countries we’ll be passing through are prone to piracy. That said, I want to run 50 miles or more off shore of Guatemala and Nicaragua for added safety.

2) Weather – We’ll be running the Bay of Tehuantepec. This 200 mile long bay is situated where the land dividing the Pacific and the Atlantic is very flat and narrow. Dangerous wind storms sweep across the bay 200 days a year. We’ll be watching for a weather window, and running “One foot on the beach” (close to shore).

3) Fishing – I NEVER want to hook a fishing net. Sans Souci has a cutting blade in front of the stabilizers, and on the props – but, I don’t want to test whether it works or not.

The photos above were taken from Google Earth, which I’ve found to be extremely valuable for trip planning. Here’s a tip I think other cruisers will find valuable. Google Earth has an option to create a large local “cache” on your computer. For those non-geeks out there, I’ll explain. When using Google Earth, the satellite pictures are on Google’s computer, and are downloaded to your computer via the internet as you explore the planet. In order to speed up Google Earth, you can tell Google Earth to use more of your hard drive space to store images, so that if you display the same place more than once, it doesn’t need to be down-loaded through the internet. Roberta and I do a little “trick” which utilizes this feature. We’ve told Google Earth it can have a 2 gigabyte space on our hard drive for caching pictures. We then zoom in on everywhere we’ll be before leaving shore. If during our trip we want to see an overview of a bay or marina we are entering we bring it up on Google Earth – EVEN WHEN WE DON’T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION. It’s amazing. Google Earth works perfectly with no internet connection, and we can see everything just fine – because it is pulling the images from my own hard drive (from the cache).

Lastly, here’s a picture I thought some of you might find interesting:

The laptop-sized thing sitting on top of my printer is a satellite internet antenna. It’s a Hughes 9201 BGAN terminal. With it I can get broadband internet from virtually anywhere in the world, at a tenth the cost of the Fleet 77. Unfortunately, it’s not a stabilized antenna, meaning that I need to be sitting still to use it. The antenna seems to be very forgiving. I haven’t tried it yet at anchor, but do believe it would work fine if there isn’t much swell. I’m using it here at the Ixtapa marina because the internet in the marina has been very poor. It’s frustrating to have such unreliable and slow internet in such a nice marina. I use the marina’s internet whenever it is working, but then use the BGAN terminal when I need access and it isn’t.

That’s it for today. My next report will be late this week when we start our run south.

Following my update are your emails, and my responses (preceded by +++). I enjoy receiving your email! Just remember not to send me my own update back. Text emails are fine to send me, but anything with pictures is expensive for me to receive.

Thank you!
-Ken Williams
Kenw @ seanet.com
Sans Souci
www.nordhavn68.com

Feb 20, 2008

Ixtapa 17 40.051N 101 37.054W

You may recall that at the end of my last update I mentioned that we were hoping to leave Manzanillo on Sunday, but that we had been advised by the weather router to relax until Tuesday. When I first set up our account with the weather router, he asked about my style of cruising. Specifically, he wanted guidance as to the weather threshold that I considered “too much”. I replied that I never wanted to be in a hurry, and that I would always rather wait for a smoother ride than go out and get beaten up. This said, the forecast wasn’t really that bad, and we really wanted to go –so, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of ignoring my weather router.

I don’t know why, but we didn’t “click” with Manzanillo. It’s a beautiful city, and I think we never really gave it a chance. We were focused on Ixtapa, and I think we had mentally written off Manzanillo as nothing more than a place to stop on our way south. Two days was enough. We wanted to get rolling.

That isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy our time in Manzanillo. From our anchorage in front of the Las Hadas marina, we had easy access to two large bays. The larger bay, in front of the little town of Santiago had the more popular anchorage, and in my opinion, the better beach. The sand is “hard pack” and good for walking. We walked almost the entirety of both beaches, stopping for lunch on the beach at Santiago at a disappointing beach-front restaurant. With only a couple of exceptions, there didn’t seem to be a lot of huge beach front hotels. Manzanillo doesn’t seem to be quite as “tourist-centric” as other resort towns, like Cabo or Puerto Vallarta, and most of the people on the beach were locals. I guess it could be argued that this was our chance to see a “real” Mexican town, but we live half the year in Mexico, so a desire to discover an “unspoiled” Mexican town is not our top priority.

Saturday night was Roberta’s birthday. We decided it was a special occasion and told Roberta she could pick any restaurant. Roberta wanted Italian food, and we found a really nice Italian restaurant on the beach “Portofino”.

Over dinner we made the decision to start for Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo the next morning. This would mean a 22 hour run. We discussed how we would allocate the shifts and who the teams would be. Our guests, Dean and Ingrid, have a Nordhavn 55, and know what they are doing, so we decided Roberta and I could be a team, and Dean/Ingrid would be a team. I normally like to run four hour two-person shifts. After debating all the pros and cons, we decided it was a silly discussion, because it was too short of a voyage. Everyone was going to want to be awake all day, and also for arrival. All we needed to really think about was the eight hours of night. We decided Roberta and I would run from 10pm to 2am, and Dean/Ingrid would take 2am to 6am, with everyone on deck for arrival.

I made a last call to Bob the weather router, and the forecast was unchanged. Given that I had a high-speed internet connection I also consulted every weather service I could think of. Overall, our run didn’t look bad. The outlook was for 6-8 foot seas from behind us, with 15-25 knot winds, also behind us. I mentioned to Dean that I’ve had problems in the past with following seas. The auto pilot tends to over steer, and the boat zig-zags much more than it should. Dean showed me some settings in the stabilizers for adjusting to different sea states, and we read through the manual to the auto pilot, trying to find any adjustments that might be relevant.

Departure went as smooth as a departure can go.

We ran with the flopper stoppers out, but the “fish” sitting on deck

Underway, the seas were as expected. This was a pleasant surprise. We had a calmer forecast coming south from Puerto Vallarta, and were negatively surprised by 15 foot seas. The auto pilot had no problem with these seas. Once in a while we would get pushed around a bit, but for the most part we ran straight, and FAST. I ran at 1350 rpm, which usually gives me 9 knots of speed. We left at 11:30 am, based on my projection of 8.5 knot average speed. I had expected the following seas to slow us down (because of the zig-zagging). On the run south from Puerto Vallarta, in 15 foot seas, we averaged under 7.5 knots. Instead of running slower, we were being pushed along. We had a 15 knot tail-wind, and apparently a current going the right direction. The maximum speed of the boat is 10.6 knots, but I was looking at speeds consistently at or over 10 knots, and for a while we were running at 11.4 knots!

I do hourly engine room checks. On Sans Souci we have a Simon monitoring system which is constantly monitoring 200+ different points on the boat. Theoretically, if something isn’t right I’ll know it immediately. That said, I’ve been around computers too long to really trust them. There is no replacement for standing in the engine room, using all your senses. Dean wanted me to walk him through what I do on an engine room check. I look under the engines for any oil spots or fuel. I lift the floorboards in a few places to see if anything is in the bilge. I look at the belts for any wobbling. I look at the oil level on the hydraulic tank. I look at the bolts on the big steering arm to verify they look right. I use the temperature gun to shoot several things; the shafts, the transmission, the hydraulic cooling tank. I usually look at the valves for the fuel system, just to see if it looks like fuel is coming from where it should. I sniff the air for anything that smells different – in particular the odor of something burning. This sounds like a lot, but engine room checks are typically 5 minutes or less. I noticed that Dean has more of a tendency to touch things himself, whereas I rely on the heat gun.

On our first engine room check I did notice that the temperature on the port transmission was at 190 degrees, whereas the starboard was at 150 degrees. Generally there is a 20 degree or less difference in the temperatures. I didn’t like this discrepancy and couldn’t account for it. I expect some difference in temperature between the two engines, because one is usually working slightly harder than the other. Here’s why: There is a hydraulic system on the boat that provides power to the stabilizers, thrusters, windlasses and more. For those not familiar with hydraulic systems, it is a simple concept: there is a loop of hydraulic fluid that runs around the boat. At the back of the main engine is a “PTO” (Power Take Off) that is a hydraulic pump that keeps the hydraulic fluid flowing. If something, like the thrusters, need power, they just open a valve, which lets the hydraulic fluid turn an impeller, causing the thrusters to spin. While under way, the hydraulic system is normally used only for powering the stabilizers. Pumping the fluid requires horsepower, and I have the option to use the hydraulic pump (PTO) on either, or both, engines. When at low speed or while I am using the hydraulic system for more than just the stabilizers I tend to run both pumps. In this case, I was running the PTO on only the port engine, so I just swapped to running the PTO on the starboard engine, and then monitored the temperatures.

After swapping the PTOs, the port transmission did fall back to 150 degrees, and the starboard transmission heated up to 170 degrees. Life was good again. My current thinking is that there was never a problem. Remember, I mentioned that we were in reasonably high following seas. The stabilizers were working harder than usual to keep the boat on track. The seas did drop to 4-6 foot after the first six hours of our passage, so perhaps I was seeing nothing more than a higher-than-usual temperature associated with the heavier load. Perhaps the right answer would have been to just turn on both PTOs.

On a different topic… and, perhaps someone reading this knows the answer to this one. My Nobletec navigation software is showing extra “targets” which I’m not sure what are. Here’s a picture:

What are those things labeled as “Base Stations?”

At 5pm, a little over five hours into our run, I was at the helm, while Dean was down doing an engine room check, and the girls were napping, when I heard a strange broadcast on the radio. “…Yankee { … unintelligible …} this is the Mexican Navy … We are declaring an emergency ….” This was repeated several times, about once every few minutes. Dean was doing one of his first engine room checks alone, so he was being particularly diligent. I wanted him back on deck to see if he could make more sense of what I was hearing than I could. It sounded far away, and there wasn’t one other boat on the radar, even when zoomed out to 24 miles, so I was fairly sure they weren’t talking to us. It just didn’t make sense that the Mexican Navy would be broadcasting in English, and that word “Yankee” was bugging me. I was 99.9% sure that it was just something being spelled phonetically, but the other .01% was the worrisome part. When Dean came back up he was able to hear the broadcast a couple times. It was softer and we apparently were moving away from wherever it was coming from. It sounded to him like someone in distress calling FOR the Mexican Navy, whereas I was positive I had heard them identify themselves as the Mexican Navy. In any event, it was nowhere near us and irrelevant, other than to remind me that we really were in the middle of nowhere, and very alone.

Ingrid resting in the “Pilot Berth” at the back of the pilot house, and a picture of the pilot house on our moonless ride

Sans Souci has two radars, and I normally run with both active, on different ranges. On this run, I made the decision to try running with the night vision, and give up one of the two radars. We were running close enough to shore that there could be pangas around fishing. The seas were rough enough that a little panga could easily be missed on the radar. Given that it was pitch black out the window the night vision actually was kind of comforting. In it we could see the waves, and at least for me, it was reassuring to see them.

During the passage, we saw almost no other boats. One boat did pass us going north, and we think it was a sailboat running without lights, because it was running at only about 4.5 knots, but we were never sure. We passed a couple of non-moving, but well lit objects that we couldn’t identify. Our best guess was that these were oil drilling platforms, although they could have just been ships sitting still for some reason. Overall, it was an uneventful run.

Roberta and I were scheduled to sleep from 2am to 6am, but with the increased speed, I thought we were going to arrive early, so I set my clock for 5am. As predicted, when I reached the helm at 5:30am we were already approaching Ixtapa, nearly four hours ahead of schedule. None of us wanted to tangle with anchoring the boat in the dark, and I had assumed we could slow down – but, we were too close for that. Thus, I made a U-turn and headed back to sea.

We needed to burn off nearly 1.5 hours to arrive in daylight!

Our first view of Ixtapa, with an exhausted Ken at the controls

We anchored just off Isla Grande, a small island in front of Ixtapa. The island is nothing but palapa restaurant after palapa restaurant. The anchorage was small, with quite a bit of swell.

One embarrassing story from the morning “net” … Each morning at 9am on channel 22, there is a moderated radio chat amongst all the “cruisers” (boats in the area – primarily sail boats). It is very informative, and a good way to meet the fellow cruisers. There is always a section of the discussion where individual cruisers can seek the assistance of others. I decided I’d ask a question - “I’ve noticed that the only wireless internet signal here is from the Melia Hotel and the Club Med, and both are password protected. Has anyone gone to the front desk at either hotel to see if they can get a password for access?” I thought this was a reasonable question. After about 30 seconds of no response, I just said “OK – thank you anyhow.” At that point someone jumped in with “Hey. Stop thinking about internet, and start enjoying life at anchor.” The best I could think of to say was a feeble, and perhaps poor-taste, attempt at humor: “Sorry, but some of us have to work for a living.” The moderator wisely moved on. My response was not entirely in jest. I have worked hard to set up our lives so that we can cruise six months a year or more. Our bill-paying is automated, and people have long ago given up on sending us anything via post-office mail. I receive lots of documents via fax, which is automatically forwarded as email. For a combination of personal and business reasons I really need access to a high speed internet connection once a week. I can usually work around it, when that just isn’t possible, but it isn’t easy.

We decided to go check out one of the palapas for lunch, and approached the beach on the tender, but the surf was too high, and we had to give up. This turned out not to be a problem, in that a water taxi followed us back to the boat, and then delivered us to shore. The water taxi dock was a good five feet above water level. The surge had the water taxi ricocheting off the wall while three locals tried to hold it in place and help us off the boat. Once ashore we hiked restaurant to restaurant looking for a good place for lunch and “hanging out.” A vender from each restaurant chased us as we walked. As we were walking we walked past a central massage area. There were at least six people getting side by side massages. I guess that is part of what one does here (not me!). We finally chose the restaurant with the least annoying “sales person” and proceeded to have the worst meal of the trip. Isla Grande is probably a very nice place, but we were off to a bad start.

Back aboard Sans Souci we decided we had seen enough of Isla Grande, and wanted to take the tender to the marina to see what the entrance looked like. Elsa, the harbormaster, sent an email saying I could only enter the marina between 12:30 and 1:30pm, or after 5:30pm, due to dredging. Another boater had mentioned to me having to “surf a wave” into the Ixtapa marina. Apparently a sand bar forms at the entrance to the marina, and the shallow entrance needs frequent dredging. Before approaching the marina with Sans Souci I wanted to see it from the tender.

The run via tender from Isla Grande to the marina was only 3 miles, but it was a LONG 3 miles. The wind came up unexpectedly, and we were caught in the tender in very confused seas. I wanted to turn back, but realistically, we had gone too far. We had to just do what we could to stay safe.

When we arrived at the marina entrance, I could see waves breaking on both sides of the entrance, and a swell going into the entrance. I was reluctant to attempt entering the marina, but in we went. The entrance channel to the marina is only a quarter mile long, but felt longer. I had asked for, and received, permission to enter on the tender while dredging was active. The “wave” at the entrance represented no problem for the tender, but navigating around the dredge put me into water only a couple feet deep. I was worried about how Sans Souci, with its 7 foot draft would do.

Once through the entrance, the water was dead-calm. The turbulent world outside was forgotten immediately. Instead we found ourselves in a beautiful modern marina, surrounded by a wide variety of fantastic looking restaurants, marine stores, convenience stores, etc. We had planned a couple more nights at anchor, but almost immediately everyone said “Let’s move the boat here tomorrow!” We took the tender to the fuel dock, filled it, and then started walking to the harbormaster’s office.

As we were walking we passed a “No swimming” sign, with a drawing of a crocodile. A few moments later, we saw a crocodile swimming amongst the boats! I asked about the crocodiles and heard several different stories ranging from “Don’t worry,” to “Keep your dog off the dock or it will be eaten.” I’m not sure what the truth is, but we’ll be carrying Shelby until we do.

The marina staff was amazing. Elsa, the harbor master was incredible to work with. She arranged for us to arrive in the marina earlier than our reservation, offered to help track down a rental car, gave restaurant reservations, and then when I mentioned our insane tender ride to the marina, she suggested we park the tender in front of her office overnight, and take a water taxi back to the boat. It took us less than a second to say “yes”. I asked about the channel depth coming into the marina, and Elsa said that the channel was dredged to 8’ at low tide. This would work just fine for Sans Souci.

It was a sad evening on Sans Souci, because we knew this was our last night at anchor for nearly two weeks. We will be at Marina Ixtapa until March 1st, when we begin the next leg of our journey south.

Entering the marina with Sans Souci was anti-climactic. The seas had calmed, and I was able to sit at the entrance and watch two other boats enter before trying myself. There was still a swell coming into the marina that I had to “surf” but aside from needing to do some quick steering as I entered the channel, this was a non-issue. In a few minutes we were inside the marina and all was well. We had had a tougher time entering on the tender than on Sans Souci!

Our first day in the marina was a rough one. We’ve been fighting problems with our shore power converter on Sans Souci (the “Atlas” system) and I spent the day on the phone with Atlas as they walked me through swapping in various spares, without success. The final result was that an Atlas technician is going to have to fly here. Dean (our guest) took on another challenge while I was battling the Atlas. Sans Souci was refusing to connect to the marina’s wifi, and we couldn’t figure if it was a hardware or software issue. I suspected it was a bad wire. While I was messing with the Atlas, Dean traced wires and resolved the problem.

By dinner time we were ready for a little luxury. Both Roberta and I made the comment that the marina had a very European feel, and I mean that in a good way. There are a lot of large expensive power boats here, and the marina is lined with nice restaurants. We had the best meal of our trip thus far, and as you can see above – so did Shelby (our dog). The people at the next table seemed quite unhappy that Shelby was admitted to the restaurant, but Shelby didn’t seem to mind. Over dinner, our guests, Dean and Ingrid, commented a bit on how this trip has compared to cruising they did last year in the Sea of Cortez (the area between the northern coast of mainland Mexico and Baja). We’ve had nothing but good experiences: Calm warm weather, nice marinas, great restaurants, good anchorages, etc. They said that once they were north of La Paz, there was essentially nothing but high winds and desert landscape. They almost rejected our invitation to come along with us, based on their experience in the Sea of Cortez, but would now be back.

That’s it for this update. Your email follows….

Thank you,
Ken Williams
Sans Souci, www.nordhavn68.com

Feb 16, 2008

Greetings all!

I’ll start today’s blog update by talking about our last day in the bay of Tenecatita.

We decided to take the tender and explore. Our first stop was the little town of La Manzanilla, at the back of the bay. Unfortunately, the waves were breaking on the beach, and we didn’t want to risk trying to land the tender. We were returning to Sans Souci, when I remembered that I had heard rumor of a golf resort named Tamarindo that had a dinghy dock. It was fairly close, so we headed towards it.

As we were on our way, Ingrid suddenly shouted “There’s a sea turtle!”. Although we had seen hundreds of them while passing by here a few days ago, it wasn’t the same as seeing them from a tender, where we could get low enough, and close enough, to take pictures without risking accidentally running one over. As we moved closer our mood was shattered, as we discovered that the sea turtle was dead and wrapped in a fishing net. This wrecked our appetite for sea turtle exploring and put us back on the track of seeking a dinghy dock and lunch.

As we approached the beach in front of Tamarindo, we did indeed see a dinghy dock, and it was too good to be true!

Our first thought was that it was someone’s home, and that we would soon be asked to leave. But, we were hungry and the idea of being able to tie up the tender and walk on land was just too tempting. As we were tying to the dock, a uniformed man approached, and I started thinking of an excuse for why we were there. As he reached us, instead of yelling at us he stooped to assist us tying lines. This was a very promising start, so we asked “Is there a restaurant here?” He took out a walkie-talkie and immediately started making reservations for us! Things were looking up!

The luxurious resort around us took us completely by surprise. To understand how we felt you need to understand how rugged the boondocks of Mexico can be at times. We knew that lunch wouldn’t be cheap, and we stopped on the beach to count money before we reached the restaurant. Lunch was excellent, and we thoroughly enjoyed being pampered.

Back on Sans Souci we had visitors from Voyager, a Selene 53 that was anchored near us. Les and Rosemary Dobbe are like Roberta and I, in that they retired young and are spending the bulk of their time cruising. I had corresponded with them via email about possibly traveling together across the Pacific. They previously had a sailing catamaran which they ran across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, their plans have changed and they are now heading into the Caribbean. We spoke about Roberta’s and my plans to cross the Pacific, and Rosemary nailed it succinctly when she said “If you can’t get Shelby [our dog] into Polynesia, Australia or New Zealand, will Hawaii alone justify the trip?” We said “Yes. We think so.” There’s an Indonesia rally that we want to do: http://www.sailindonesia.net , and I’ve already confirmed that Shelby should be fine for the rally. Once we are out of the South Pacific we think Shelby will not be an issue. Les also mentioned a weather site which he was surprised I didn’t know about: MagicSeaweed.com --- ( http://magicseaweed.com/Mexico-Pacific-MSW-Surf-Charts/19/ ) I am using a weather router on this trip (Bob Jones of Omni – http://www.ocmarnav.com), but I also consult all the weather sites as well; both to get a second opinion, and to help me learn about interpreting weather. At first glance, MagicSeaweed.com seems like it will be amongst my favorites. Hopefully Roberta and I will cross paths with the Dobbes again. It’s one thing about boating that is hard to get used to. You encounter cool people, but then realize they are cruising one way, and you another – and, it may be ten years before you find yourself anchored in the same bay again.

On a completely different topic, here’s a fun picture of me, Roberta and Dean getting into the freezer trying to find some chicken. We have a large deep freeze which is buried under the berth at the back of the pilot house. To get into it one person has to hold the heavy temperpedic mattress up while someone else practically climbs into the freezer. As soon as we get the boat home (wherever that is), I’ll be exploring if some sort of lifting mechanism is possible. What we have isn’t working well…

And, here’s one more fun picture from our last evening in Tenacatita:

Believe it or not, these are fish gathered at the back of the transom. There were a few more than usual because I turned on the lights, but we saw huge numbers of fish with, or without, the lights. The fish seem to be everywhere at night. We entertained ourselves during dinner watching a pelican who was floating about 20 feet from the boat. He would wander over about every 15 minutes to eat one of these fellas, then go rest for a bit, before repeating the process.

And, our last picture from Tenacatita – the sunset!

It was finally time to start thinking about moving on. Our last night in Tenacatita was Feb 13th, and we had reservations at the marina in Ixtapa on the 14th, 250 miles south. Clearly we weren’t going to be able to get to Ixtapa in time. Thus, I emailed the marina at Ixtapa, and to my surprise they were VERY accommodating. I also begged them for the largest, and easiest to get into slip they had. Sans Souci is a new boat for me, and it would be my first time in the marina.

“… Dear Mr. Williams,
Thank you very much for letting us know the new dates for your stay in our Marina. I did confirm your reservation to Karen in an smaller slip, but now I am going to reserve you a larger one, just to try to make your boat operation easier (I hope so).

Please let me know if your electricity request is only 50 amps single phase. If you want, I can send you by email a marina map just in order you know what can be your slip assigned. Please check our rates information according with the length of your boat on our web page www.marinaixtapa.com Also I want to let you know we are dredging the main channel access and our schedules for boat trafic from monday to saturday are as follow:

Before 8:30 AM
Between 12:30 a 1:30 PM
After 5:30 PM

If you may need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Best Regards
Elsa …”

I asked for a full week delay, so that we could have several days in Manzanillo, and I also want to allow for a few days at anchor in the Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo area before entering the marina.

Our run from Tenacatita to Manzanillo couldn’t have gone smoother. I decided to waste a bit of fuel and run fast. We made the run at 1450 rpm, burning 17 gallons per hour, at 10.5 knots. We left Tenacatita at 9:30 and by 1:30pm we were sitting in front of the marina in Manzanillo.

Manzanillo [19 06.035N 104 20.551W]

Our first view of Manzanillo – we dropped anchor on the right side of little peninsula above

Ken, Roberta and Shelby – tendering to shore (with Sans Souci in the background)

We thought about trying for a spot in the Las Hadas marina, which is right in front of a resort. But, we decided it was even better just to anchor in front. This gave us use of the internet connection, and the dinghy dock at the resort – while maintaining an amazing view.

This is the resort where they filmed the movie “10”

We had Valentine’s day dinner at L’Recif Restaurant

As you can see from the photos above, life is good on Sans Souci. That said, there is one cloud on the horizon. We really only wanted two nights here in Manzanillo. However, Bob (the weather router) is telling us that we should consider waiting until next Tuesday, before we roll for Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo. Our preference would be to depart on Sunday, but the weather gods, and Bob, have alternate plans for us. Looking at the forecast, there is nothing dangerous, or anywhere near what a Nordhavn is capable of. That said, it’s a 24 hour run, with no good place between here and Ixtapa to hide if we don’t like the weather. The forecast is for winds to 25 kts, and swells to 8 feet – both from behind us. This isn’t bad, but if we wait until Tuesday, we could have a 2 to 4 foot swell, which would be a much more comfortable ride. We’ll be watching the weather closely, and see what happens tomorrow (Saturday).

That’s it for day.

Thank you!
-Ken Williams
Nordhavn68.com

Feb 12, 2008

Tenacatita [19 18.079N, 104 49.953W]


Greetings all!

Before I begin today’s update, a quick reminder on some important notes:

• When emailing me, do NOT include my own blog update in your response (four people made this mistake yesterday!). I often need to do internet via my Fleet 77, which is reliable, and I love it – but, it is EXPENSIVE to use. Emails with text are fine, but it kills me when I receive emails with pictures (such as my own blogs). My email address is: kenw @ seanet.com·
• If you want to stop receiving these emails, look at the bottom of this email. You should see a grey box. In it is a link you can click that will unsubscribe you from my blog.·
• On the other hand, if you know someone who would like to start receiving my updates, go to my website: http://www.nordhavn68.com and look for the link that says “Register to receive Ken's Blog updates via email”.
  

This is a picture of us dropping anchor in the bay. I’m standing on the bow, preparing to drop anchor while Roberta is driving. You can’t tell it in this picture, but we were experimenting with some little wireless headsets that we bought. While I’m standing on the bow, Roberta and I are debating the best location to drop the anchor (which is usually a vigorous debate), and she is feeding me information about depth. I also have her reporting every 25’ on how much anchor chain we have out. We’ve experimented with walkie-talkies in the past, and this is the first system we really thought worked well. It’s the TD900, by Eartec. It’s full-duplex, meaning it works like a telephone – there’s no buttons to press. We just talk naturally.

While we were in Puerto Vallarta we had dinner with Steven and Carol Argosy, Nordhavn 62 owners. During dinner they mentioned that we should check out the “Jungle Cruise” in Tenacatita. They described it as an hour long passage through a shallow narrow canal that culminated at a beach with several decent restaurants. This sounded like a perfect Ken/Roberta adventure. We had Steven show us on Google Earth where the shallow parts were. Steven cautioned us that we would be certain we were on the wrong path, and that passage was impossible, but that we should just keep going.

Here you see the anchorage at Tenacatita, and the narrow entrance to the “Jungle Cruise”

The entrance to the river was easier than it appeared. There were breaking waves, but fairly small ones. The bigger problem was that we needed to get into the water to walk the boat across the sand bar. I had overheard on the radio someone describing receiving a stingray bite the day before. Apparently the stingrays like to lurk on the sand in the shallow water, and a bite can be quite painful. I hadn’t brought shoes, and Dean had, so I was quite happy to delegate this duty.

Note the depth – about 9 inches!

Only about the first half mile of the river was particularly shallow. We had to move very slow, and watch for the “deep” water (by which I mean anything over about 12” deep).

As we continued, the river was continually narrowing. The depths were running from 3’ to about 10’.

For about another mile, the river continued to be perhaps 20’ wide, twisting through high dense vegetation. We assumed that this would continue for several more miles, when suddenly it started becoming much more narrow.

I’m not accustomed to thinking of our 15’ AB Inflatable tender as large, but it suddenly felt much too wide. We were constantly rubbing one side or the other against the brush. I was worried that we would hit one of the many protruding branches, pop a tube, and be literally “up the creek.” We had decided that Roberta would drive us up the river, and I would drive us back down. Roberta was doing an exceptional job of navigating the narrow passage. However, even the slightest error meant bouncing off of the trees, and getting wacked on the head by a branch. This was terrific practice in tendering skills. With only a foot, or less, of clearance on each side, we needed to learn quickly.

It was exactly like being on a jungle cruise at Disneyland, except that we kept reminding ourselves that this was a real jungle. There was more than one comparison to the movie African Queen where Humphrey Bogart has to push his, and Katherine Hepburn’s, boat through a similar river, only to find his body covered with leeches when re-entering the boat. We also wondered if there were crocodiles and snakes in the water. None of this conversation was particularly calming.

Here we see Dean reacting to a brief encounter with a low hanging branch,
while awaiting the next encounter

For perhaps two miles, we battled through the incredibly narrow river, with vegetation so thick that we couldn’t see the sky.

Shelby, our dog, thought this was all great fun

Ultimately, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a large lagoon. At the end of the lagoon was a “tender parking lot”.

After parking the tender, we walked another 100 feet, and discovered the
promised beach and restaurants!

This had been planned as our last day in Tenacatita, but we were having serious fun! Conversation over lunch focused on “Why do we want to leave here so soon?” We do need to get rolling farther south, but perhaps an extra day wouldn’t hurt….

Ken and Dean pushing the boat TOWARDS the approaching waves

On the way back I did indeed drive the tender, and after a disastrous start, which provided much amusement, I made it fine through the jungle. I then decided to brave the sting rays, and jumped into the water to help Dean bring the tender across the sand bar. I was hoping that my hat would frighten away any lurking critters, but it did not work. We did see a couple stingrays, but avoided step on any.

Before closing out for today, I received an email asking me to do a bit of reporting on what immigration issues we’ve had traveling with a dog.

Shelby has cruised with us in France, Portugal and Spain, without problem. We had all the proper paperwork on entering France, but on all occasions they’ve just waved her through. She has been to Italy without incident, and I can’t imagine troubles in most of southern Europe (Croatia, Greece, Sardinia, Corsica). England is a problem, and it is unlikely we’ll ever take her there. I don’t know about the other countries in Northern Europe, as I have a strong warm-water bias. We’ve also cruised with her in Bermuda and the Bahamas, without problem (beyond having her shots and papers in order). She has cruised in and out of Canada many times.

My current focus is on Polynesia and Hawaii. We’ve been planning to go to Hawaii rather than Polynesia, because we knew we could get Shelby into the country with a short 5-day quarantine. I have had a hard time receiving a response from Polynesia, but then just received this disheartening response this morning. We had hoped that once Shelby had been admitted to Hawaii and spent time there, we could then go to Polynesia, and not have a problem. It now appears that Polynesia would insist on a 30 day quarantine, which is more than an older dog like Shelby could take. Hopefully there is a workaround.

As always, thank you! And, happy cruising. But, don’t stop reading. Excerpts from emails I’ve received appear below. My responses are preceded by +++

Ken Williams
Sans Souci, Nordhavn68.com

PS I may not send an email for a couple days, until we get someplace new…

February 12, 2008

Greetings all!

This will be a short update, because there’s not really a lot to say.

We’ve been in the marina at Barra Navidad since Feb 1st. I mentioned in my last update that it was a special place, and my opinion hasn’t changed. The marina is in front of a luxury hotel (The Grand Bay Hotel), and the marina guests are treated as hotel guests. This meant days lounging by the pool, and fancy dinners in the hotel. We also quickly discovered that there is a water taxi, that would pick us up at the boat, and take us the short 5 minute ride into the town of Barra, where there is a beautiful beach, and many beach-front restaurants. Virtually every restaurant accepted our little dog, Shelby, which made her very happy.

Yesterday, we took the tender to explore the lagoon next to the marina. There are approximately 50 boats anchored in the lagoon. Listening to the radio, my impression is that many boats consider Barra their ultimate destination for the summer. We noticed a lot of the boats in the lagoon with long strands of moss beneath them, a hint that they have been anchored a long time in the same spot. My guess is that there are boats that come here year after year to spend the winter. And, why not? The water taxi picks you up at your boat, and drops you in Barra, or you can tender to the many restaurants, where cruisers can spend the afternoon hanging out with friends. I heard pot lucks, volleyball games, evening listening to music, etc all being planned on the radio. Of course the primary reason everyone is here is the weather. The days have been perfect; mid 80s, light breeze, sunny.

You’ll note that I used the word “Cruisers” rather than “Boaters” in the prior paragraph. Several people have sent me emails telling me that the “community” here is comprised of cruisers, NOT boaters. I’m not sure I understand the distinction, but those who have corrected me seem passionate about it – so, I shall be more careful going forward.

One warning about the lagoon: Watch the depth and get good information from someone who has been in before Earlier this week, I was able to spend an entire day at my computer, looking out the window into the lagoon, and watched as three different vessels went aground. Two large power boats, each of which was successfully pulled to deeper water, and then a sail boat that had to spend the night aground waiting for the next tide cycle. [Note: I confess to having been aground once. There’s an old saying ‘There are two kinds of boaters: those who have gone aground, and those who will go aground.”] Roberta and I circled the lagoon in our tender checking the depths, and saw lots of places under five feet, and even some two foot water. Clearly there is an approach to the lagoon we couldn’t find, because lots of boats make it in and out just fine every day, but I’m not sure how they do it. There are lots of opportunities for mistakes.

A large power boat stuck in the mud – the tender in the front is trying to drag the nose off the sand bar

A group was organized to pull this boat off the boat, for 8am the next morning
When the time came, the tide was higher, and it was off in seconds

New guests have arrived on Sans Souci; Dean and Ingrid, who own a Nordhavn 55, based in Seattle. Although our goal is Costa Rica, 1,400 miles south, we decided to backtrack and head back to Tenacatita, which was an anchorage we enjoyed 20 miles north.

We shall miss Barra. Here’s our last look at Barra as we exited the marina, and a picture of Roberta who was enjoying running the boat:

I used the short run to Tenacatita to do some experimenting. There were two things I wanted to test.

1. I’m still doing planning for our trip next spring across the Pacific. We are probably going to Hawaii (2,100nm), but I’m also researching what it would take to go to the Marquesas (2,600nm). We made the decision on Sans Souci to go with twin engines, which reduces our range. Either of these trips is possible, but I need to do some advance planning to develop a strategy for the passage; particularly if we were to decide to head to the Marquesas. As a simple test, I knew that I needed to run the boat such that I could make at least 1 nautical mile for each gallon consumed. A perfect goal would be to run 8 gallons per hour at 8 knots. However, we were consuming over 11 gph at 8 knots. To finally achieve my target ratio, I had to kill one engine and run single engine. All of these numbers are very preliminary, but my current sense is that if I alternate engines, running single engine, I will have no problem – and that I will be able to make either passage at roughly 7.5 knots. If you have a twin engine boat, I put together this document with tips for twin engine Nordhavn owners planning extremely long passages.
   
2. I have been told that Sonar is important in the South Pacific. Sonar is like radar, but works under the water. It can look a thousand feet or more in front of the boat to tell you the depth. Whereas radar is fairly straight forward, and I have trained persons to use the basic radar functions on Sans Souci in 15 minutes, I’m struggling with accurately interpreting the Sonar. Dean and I experimented throughout our run yesterday, and never really got it right. I will master the Sonar, but I can tell that it will require frequent experimenting.
   

Entering the large bay of Tenacatita, we observed whales, dolphins, and a LOT of these:

We saw hundreds of these strange shapes in the water everywhere around us. Having cruised extensively in the Northwest, it felt like I was back to dodging logs. When passing close to one, I finally realized what they were – Sea Turtles!

At anchor, Dean and I decided to check out the dive gear. On Sans Souci I decided to go with a Hookah system rather than a dive compressor. I don’t have a picture of us diving, so here is a picture from the Brownie’s website showing how the system works:

You do not wear tanks. Instead, there is an air compressor on Sans Souci. You simply spool out a long hose, that provides air for up to four divers. The diver needs nothing more than a weight belt. I’m certified as a diver, but don’t dive often, so I thought this would meet my needs. All I really want the set up for is to be able to untangle a net should I ever catch one in my prop or to look at the anchor should it ever be stuck. Dean and I decided to go check out the anchor, which was 40’ down, and 200’ in front of the boat. The water here in the bay was a major disappointment. Visibility was under 10 feet, and we didn’t see any fish. We also didn’t reach the anchor. About half way to the anchor, we realized we had run out of air hose. I can buy extension hoses for the hookah system, and now know I need one. I was actually happy to turn back. The lack of visibility was bugging me. I really don’t like large fish sneaking up on me when I can’t see.

The afternoon was spent just being lazy and playing in the water. Here’s a picture of Roberta and Ingrid using the lines to the flopper stoppers as a rest stop while swimming around the boat:

Lastly, if you’ve ever been curious what we really do most of the time aboard Sans Souci, here’s a very typical scene. Dean’s laptop is just behind where I’m standing to take this picture of Roberta and Ingrid, and my laptop is just out of the photo to the right. To my great surprise we have discovered a wireless internet signal which works here in Tenacatita. All four of us ran to our computers!

As I type this, we’re waiting for the tide to come up so we can try to take the tender on the “jungle cruise”. It’s a ride several miles back a narrow channel which is accessible by tender – maybe. The tide isn’t very high today, and I may not make it into the channel. If we do, I’ll have some great pictures for tomorrow.

That’s it for now. Thank you everyone! We’ll only be here for another day or two, and then begins the real voyage. We’ll be running 50 miles south to Manzanillo, stay there a day or two, and then do a 24 run another 200 miles south to Ixtapa. Someone sent me a picture of a crocodile in the marina at Ixtapa … If it was a real picture we may not be doing much swimming….

Until the next time,

Ken Williams
Sans Souci
Nordhavn68.com

February 2, 2008

Greetings all!

Yesterday, we departed our anchorage at Tenacatita, headed for the marina at Barra.

Before I discuss Barra, permit me to digress for a couple paragraphs, to talk about some trip planning I’m doing for our 2009 cruising….

Because it was a short two hour run, I decided to do some experimenting with running at slow speed. We are planning a run to Hawaii next spring. Although Sans Souci is capable of running at 10.6 knots (a little over 12 mph), the fuel consumption rises disproportionately to the speed. I haven’t spent much time running at maximum, so I’m not sure of the exact consumption, but I’m sure it is over 20 gallons per hour. Most of my cruising has been around 9.5 knots, consuming around 15 gallons per hour. I wanted to check the consumption at 7.5 knots, to see whether or not this would give us plenty of fuel for a passage from San Francisco to Hawaii. I discovered that I could go 7.5 knots, at 1050 rpm, consuming 7.3 gallons per hour of fuel. By doing a little math, I see that my miles per gallon, at 7.5, 9.5 and 10.5 knots works out to .97, 1.6 and 2.0 nautical miles per gallon respectively. I carry 2,900 gallons of fuel. Doing a bit more math, I see that I can go approx. 3,000 miles at 7.5 knots. It is 2,100 nautical miles to Hawaii, so I can even run a bit faster and still have a healthy reserve. As to time, 2,100 miles, at 7.5 knots, works out to about 12 days. This all sounds great! Faster would be better, but these numbers are acceptable. I might load on some fuel bladders (eg. http://www.turtlepac.com/superdetails.htm) so that I can make the run faster. These are very preliminary numbers. As we get closer to the trip, I’ll tie these numbers down more precisely.

I’ve been seeking other boats who want to make the crossing at the same time as us (http://www.rtwcruising.com ). Thus far I have only around 10 boats signed up, most of whom want to cross directly to the Marquesas. As spectacular as Hawaii is, it doesn’t seem to have a great reputation as a cruising ground. Too much wind, and too few great anchorages (or, so I’ve been told). Roberta’s and my problem is our dog; Shelby. She goes everywhere with us. I’ve had a heck of a time getting good data on how hard she would be to get into Polynesia. Whereas, we know we can get her into Hawaii. Also, I like the idea of starting our circumnavigation with a little “civilization.” I like the idea of spending a season with great restaurants, a good marina, golf courses, etc. before entering the south pacific, where things will be a bit more primitive. I’m hoping we find a few other boats who want to cross to Hawaii, as I’d rather not be out in the middle of the Pacific alone …

Anyway, it’s probably bad luck to think about next year’s cruising plans, while this year is still just getting started, so …. Back to Barra….

I was very nervous about entering the Barra marina. My slip assignment swapped three times in the final hours of arriving at the marina, and I had heard rumors of shallow water in the entrance to the marina. Things changed again as we were on the final approach to the marina; they now wanted me to camp out at the fuel dock for a couple hours until they could find a place to put us. To my great relief, another Nordhavn owner, Bill from Wayward Wind, overheard our exchange with the marina, and offered to jump aboard ship and help guide us in. We were warned that there was very shallow water in the middle of the channel on the way to the fuel dock, and that an 85 foot boat had gone aground the prior day. Bill showed us the correct path to stick to deeper water. We were also being guided by two other Nordhavn owners, Neil from Senjero, and Rich from Samurai, who were monitoring us from on shore. Arriving at the fuel dock, they were there to catch our lines.

Within 20 minutes of tying up at the fuel dock, the call came that they had a place for me in the marina! All three other Nordhavn owners jumped aboard Sans Souci for the short ride to the marina. We were told we were going into a temporary slip, just for the night. To my delight it was a huge slip, right at the entrance to the marina, and probably the easiest slip in the marina to get into. This morning we found that we’ll be able to keep the slip we are in. Yay!!!

How do I begin to describe Barra? I’ve been in a lot of marinas, and can say with no hesitation that this is my favorite. Here’s a quick list of reasons I’m saying that:

• The marina has access to all the hotel’s facilities. We are welcomed guests at the hotel. This means the: spa, restaurants (there’s even a Thai restaurant!), pool, tennis courts, gym, bars, etc.
  
• Each morning, the first thing you hear on the VHF radio is “Good morning. This is the French Baker. I will be on the docks in a few minutes.” This is said in a thick French accent, and the pastries are incredible.
  
• There is a water taxi, that runs 24 hours a day, that is fast and inexpensive and takes you to the charming little town of Barra and the beach there
  
• The staff at the hotel and the marina are very friendly and helpful
  
• We are near great anchorages.
  
• There’s a world-class 27 hole championship golf course here at the hotel
  
• The water is warm enough and clear enough for swimming, diving, snorkeling, etc
  
• There’s a lagoon just behind the marina, if you prefer to anchor
  
• There’s a fuel dock
  

I’ve heard Barra described as like “Disneyland for boaters”, and can’t argue with this. It’s almost too good to be real… Here’s a few more pictures, of the hotel, and the small town. These pictures just give a small taste, the reality is better!:

My first project on arriving at the marina was to solve a problem with my electrical system. For some reason my 25kw generator was refusing to operate the air conditioning. I also have a 16kw generator, so it wasn’t a big deal – UNTIL, I discovered that the a/c would not work with shore power. As we will be in the marina for nearly two weeks, this was not going to be acceptable. I know that I will get no sympathy from most of you, who are probably shivering as you read this, but getting the a/c going was a priority. I called Nordhavn who put me on the phone with their electrical guru: Mickey. He walked me through diagnosing the problem, and identifying a relay that needed replaced.

Mickey said that Nordhavn would ship me the part I needed replaced, but I needed an immediate fix. He then devised a way for me to install some “jumpers” in the electrical panel that would jerry-rig thinks until a replacement part could be found. I explained several times that I am a software developer, not a hardware guy, but my options were to fix it myself, or explain to Roberta and her parents that there would be no air conditioning for at least a week. This quickly overcame my fear of electrocution, and soon I was cutting and stripping wires, and screwing them into the electric panel. When the a/c came on, I was quite proud of myself.

And, on a completely different topic: I mentioned a few days ago that I had followed my own tracks to work my way out of a marina. I received an email asking me to clarify what I meant. Here is a picture of my navigation software screen showing my entry to this marina, with the side trip to the fuel dock:

There are a few things to point out about this picture. The most obvious of which is that the boats are a half mile inland. The lack of accurate charts here has taken some getting used to. You’ll also notice the red line. This red line is generated automatically by Nobeltec and shows exactly where I have gone. If you follow the path traced by the red line, you can see where I bypassed the marina to go to the fuel dock. One boat is at the fuel dock in this picture. You can also see how I retraced my original path almost exactly. The “L” turn you see is the shallow water that I would not have known about had Bill not jumped aboard my boat to assist.

That’s it for today, and actually for a few days. I only send out my blog when we are actually cruising, and it isn’t clear when we’ll next leave the marina. My guess is that we won’t be out of here until the 12th, nearly a week and a half from now. In the meantime we’re going to enjoy life here, and sight see. I’m in no hurry to leave this marina…

I will probably post a paragraph or two every few days to the “what’s new” page on my website: http://www.nordhavn68.com. So, if you are really curious what we’re up to – check there.

Thank you,

Ken Williams
Sans Souci, Nordhavn68.com

PS Just as I’m about to press the send key on this email, I’m listening to the radio chatter from the boats anchored in the lagoon. We’re having a surprise burst of wind. One boat is slowly but surely dragging anchor, and could strike some other boats. The boat that is dragging isn’t answering on the radio, and the other boats are offering “helpful” suggestions. I have overheard “fire a flare gun at it”, and most recently “Someone fire a torpedo at it.” Life is never boring on a boat….

previous page