Author: paulcollister

Sunday 26th April 2020:
It’s getting hard to justify being a lazy slob on Sundays now, when I’m doing very little on all of the other days, but today was a very lazy day. Yesterday I had a great long chat with my son Isaac on his 24th birthday. And today I had another lovely long chat with my daughter Yasmin.
I did a lot of reading up on viruses and realised they are bloody complicated things and that the scientists are a long way still from understanding this new Coronavirus. Here in La Paz, the lockdown seems to be working, I heard from a local that the hospital has next to no Covid patients, and that the deaths in town were really low, much lower than normal as car accidents make up a lot of the deaths here, and not many people are out, especially at night as there is a curfew after 10pm for all travel except emergencies. Like most places there hasn’t been much testing going on so it’s hard to know how many people have had it, but as everyone seems to be observing the strict lockdown, it may well be down to a handful of cases now. Of course once they start lifting restrictions here it could / probably will all kick off again. We shall see.
In about 2 weeks time, some airlines are planning to double the number of flights in and out of Mexico.
I used skype to call British Airways in the USA about my cancelled flight, I asked for a refund and within two minutes it was processed, the next day the money was in my account, hats off to BA, so glad I booked direct and missed out on the £5 saving via expedia.
So today I had my usual hour trying to learn a few more Spanish words. I watched a lot of dolphins frolicking around the boat, checked the hammock was still working ok, and had a great time watching boaters getting into trouble with the authorities. Recreational boating is not allowed right now, so going out for a day trip fishing has been banned, yet for some reason about a dozen sports fishing boats headed out this morning, full of Mexican families looking to have a fun day out in the bay fishing and picnicking. I sort of felt for them as they headed back, screaming past Sister Midnight riding high on their bow wave doing about 25 knots when they spotted the police boat and its support Jetski. The happy laughing folks on the speedboats suddenly stopped laughing as they killed the throttle, fell off the plane and then tried to sneak behind our yachts and make their way over to the far side of the bay where they were hoping to sneak in around the back of the authorities. It didn’t work as the JetSki roared over to intercept them, they had to wait until the big motor launch came along side and spent some time investigating them before they were released. This went on for a couple of hours and I saw about 8 boats stopped and interrogated. I have no idea what their punishment was but if you break the curfew it’s a few hundred dollars fine, so this could be similar.

Not long after the sun set and I decided to make another effort to find the north star Polaris. I did try when Jim was out here as the stars were so bright further up in the Sea of Cortez away from the city’s lights. but now I had the laptop and a wealth of online resources. I soon found Ursa Major and followed the two stars at the end down until I found the north star, I checked with the boats compass and it was close enough, I doubt if I could do more than hit a continent if I had to steer using that as my only guide. Those norsemen did pretty well to find there way around with that and a rusty nail hanging from a bit of string.

Monday:
It’s getting hot here now, so I went for swim around the boat at slack water (No current to take me away), the growth on the hull was bad. I swam around and wondered if the boat would be able to get back to the marina with such bad growth. In theory with my new diving certificate/knowledge, I could dive myself and clean things up, but for $40 I will get a local guy to do it soon.

The video above shows the extent of the growth. The prop and bow thruster were much worse, but I powered up the engine and gave them a spin, that removed a lot of the growth. As you can see at the end, it scrapes off quite easily, but it will take a while.

I spent the rest of the day in the hammock reading about Baja California South and hearing all about how they shot the Titanic movie here and how many famous stars from Hollywood would pop down here to party. The area was very popular in the period when gambling was banned in the USA and before it was banned here. Kathy and I visited a cultural centre in Ensenada which used to be a famous casino built by Jack Dempsey, a famous boxer?, possibly funded by AL Capone and frequented by many hollywood stars of the day.

Tuesday:
It’s going to be very hot all week, 37 in cabin today, hotter outside. I headed off to to supermarket early to avoid cycling back in the heat, but sadly by the time I reached the boat on my return the chocolate I bought was liquid and sloshing around inside the wrappers. Interestingly, the hershey’s bars tasted better after a second setting!
I called in to see Mike on SV Elsie Jones on my dinghy ride back to the boat, he’s an interesting guy from Manchester UK, but has been living in Thailand. Like many people he’s stuck here unable to continue onto his South Pacific voyage and now has to worry about where to put his boat for the hurricane season.
I did more swimming, reading and watching the dolphins who now visit every day.

Talking of hurricanes the season has started early, some people are predicting a quiet season this year, I’m not sure why as NOAA are predicting a few more hurricanes than the average, as the oceans are hotter than normal, and warm water is the main ingredient for a successful hurricane. NOAA issued a notice about the possible early formation of a tropical storm that looked rather close for my liking. This caused me to start my hurricane planning a few weeks earlier than I had planned. A bit of research showed me how devastating recent hurricanes have been in the area. My research is ongoing, but I may decide to head north soon, depending on covid. This particular disturbance fizzled out quite quickly.

Wednesday:
Chucked out a few emails to see what was needed from me for some possible programming projects.
Later for dinner I had pasta, now I usually cook my pasta in sea water, but this time when I filled the pan with water there was quite a few bits in the water, I usually ignore these, very small, probably a bit of yesterday’s dinner I missed in the wash? however these dark specs were darting around the pan, closer inspection revealed that they were very very small fish. I was a bit shocked so dumped it and used fresh water. Later I wondered what was wrong with me, I almost had big fish for dinner, so my logic was completely irrational, just like I would love to be able to eat barbequed crickets in a nice Thai sauce as we saw in Phuket, but really struggle with the whole idea.

Thursday:
Got some replies re work, so started to get myself back in the zone. However the holding tank was smelly so made concentrating difficult. I ended up spending the day fixing the toilet/holding tank and cleaning the bilge. Not a lot of fun, but needed to be done. All is good now, however I need to replace a few parts on the head, including a very expensive Y valve.

Friday:
Getting into the work thing now, but not really enjoying it. I can tell how much I’m into the work by how many other jobs I find that are essential to be done asap. For example, while searching through emails to find a work related thread, I noticed just how dull the table in the cabin had become. Work would have to stop while I gave this a polish, of course this only led to other essential cleaning jobs. In fact by the end of the day, the cabin was looking great, but I hadn’t got a lot of work done.

Saturday:
Guilt at the lack of work had me starting early before it got too hot.
I decided to reorganise my work, over the years I had often reorganised things to make it easier, I usually forget what I have done and start all over again. Today will probably be no different. My plan is to go over all the work I did on these projects, refresh the documents and move them and all the code to GitHub, a safe place where I can keep one master copy of everything I do up in the cloud. I’m quietly confident this will work, that is until next year when I forget that’s what I did, and go looking for the code elsewhere and end up in a mess again.

Most evenings at sunset I sit in the cockpit and munch on either homemade guacamole & tostadas, or some fruit. This week has been a disaster, I forgot to buy avocados early on, then the ones I bought mid week refused to ripen, despite the heat. Don’t worry (as if you would), I’m on top of it know, in fact, I may have 6 overripe avocados to get through in two days!

Yesterday on the morning radio net one of the local gringos came on to let us all know the coronavirus thing was a complete hoax (he had the official figures no less!) and we had all been part of the biggest con job ever. Nobody replied to him and the net controller politely moved onto the next subject of ‘Local Assistance’ for anyone wanting to find out where to buy stuff or get services etc.
Quite incredible.

Paul Collister.

I have given this page the title above, not to be a smartass or make a political statement, it’s just I want to make sure I’m reminded of this great wisdom that was recently imparted to me when I look back over the blog in years to come and we are back to more normal times.
Everything is just lovely here, out in the bay it’s very relaxing, quite calm and quiet. The anchor is firmly in place, and I’m popping ashore every 4 days to restock on bread, fruit & veg, and Cerveza Sin Alcohol.

Saturday: Out with the hammock. The temperatures have been steadily rising here, today we are hitting 35 Degrees Celsius. It’s expected to be getting up to the 40s next week.

Sunday: Saturday was exhausting, what with putting the hammock up, adjusting it, and chasing the pillow that blew out and went overboard So I decided to take Sunday off and just relax.
One thing that can be a worry out here is a phenomena they call ‘The La PAz Waltz’, this describes the crazy motion of the boats as they swing around at anchor. The reason it’s weird here is that in the bay we have two main channels separated by a shallow sandbank that runs down the centre, just a few feet below the surface. The bay is quite large, but has a narrow entrance at the end of the bank and consequently the tides can run quite fast, several knots most days.
As I mentioned before the current was enough to cause the boat a few hundred feet in front of me to pull their anchor out and he drifted down and almost hit us. So it’s always a worry that the anchor might come out and then I might drift onto the sandbank, into another boat, or get swept out of the bay with the current. There are several ways to deal with this. Firstly I have a chart plotter showing my position running 24/7 I can look at at any point to see where I am, I drop loads of markers down whenever I think I am at the extreme range of the chain in any new direction.

I have an anchor alarm App on my iPhone that makes a loud horrible klaxon sound when I drift too far from where I’m meant to be. This is a horrible way to be woken up at 3AM I can assure you, especially if it’s just because the iPhone couldn’t get a good GPS fix for a few minutes.
Finally I have the transits I take from the deck. For those who don’t know, transits are imaginary lines I make up between this boat and other objects, usually that don’t move on the shore. I did have a radio mast that lined up perfectly with a yachts mast when the tide was flowing into the bay. However that yacht left. Lining up masts of boats is problematic as unless they swing around the same as me, and none of them do here, then the transit is only good for one state of tide with the wind in a certain direction.
I do have one transit I love here, I have a picture below, when the tide is flooding strong, if I look between the masts of the ketch to port of me, it frames the two masts of the schooner behind it, and behind the schooner, bang in the middle is a third boats mast. It’s very reassuring when these all line up, as they have been doing for the last two weeks, as it means my anchor is well and truly set fast in the mud.

Monday: Off shopping to Chedraui, the big hypermarket where I’m shocked at the checkout to only be allowed to buy 2 cans of beer. It’s not even real beer. I could have bought two cartons of 12 cans each, but I only wanted 6 cans. It seems you can only have two, two cans, two cartons, possibly two 40ft containers of beer, but only two. I don’t really understand this, but I expect it’s bad software in the till that won’t let you have anymore than two items marked as alcoholic. I always hated it at the self service checkout when I had to get approval for my non alcoholic beer, and in America where often you just can’t put cerveza cero through an automated checkout. Come on ’till vendors’, get your act together.
As an aside, one of my first paid programming jobs in the early 80s was writing software for the tills in Austin Reed, on Regent St, London. I wrote a networking protocol that allowed the tills to communicate with an MP/M server and download PLUs and upload transactions. I had to connect all of the tills together and a grand total of the days sales appeared on a big monitor in the boardroom. I was astounded when the grumpy old directors were complaining that they took until 1pm to get their first million pounds of the day into the tills!

Tuesday: I decided with all of this sunshine, I should be making water with the surplus power from the solar panels, The batteries are fully charged by mid morning. The machine hadn’t been run in many months, possibly a year and when I fired it up it wasnt pumping sea water through the system.

Upon further investigation it seemed that there was a problem with the high pressure pump. I pondered on stripping it all down and investigating, but decided instead to make some Guacamole and have a gentle time for the rest of the day and to convert some left over nylon rope into baggywrinkles.

Wednesday: Mike on Ikigai had anchored next to me in the bay, he needed to get some minor repairs done on his engine and we had a great chat, mostly about how crazy many of the yachties were here ignoring the social distancing. I stayed onboard and Mike was in his dinghy while we chatted. I lent mike my outboard to save him rowing ashore.
Time to rebuild the watermaker. The pump came out easy enough and it appeared to be seized, but may have just been very stiff.

One of the bolts snapped off during the process, crevice corrosion again, probably caused by sea water leaking into the pump casing. Fortunatley I had the exact spare on board, which made me think the previous owner was expecting this? I was able to get the piston out and clean everything up and re-assemble the pump. What’s that phrase people often say to me, ‘Don’t give up your day job Paul’. The pump leaked badly and also didn’t pump, making me think the real problem might be in the motor that drives it. It could also be the membrane is so blocked that no amount of pressure will get water through it, but I doubt it.

The watermaker is over 20 years old and so probably due for replacement. I always wanted to build my own using off the shelf components, membranes can be bought easily around the world for under $100, but this unit has special proprietary ones, that will cost $800 to replace, last time I looked.
This is on the back burner now. I’m not going anywhere so no big deal.

Friday: another shopping trip, I bought a six pack of Cerveza Sin Alcohol this time, and that went through no problem. On the way back to Sister Midnight I stopped by to say hi to Mike on Ikigai, and drop off 20 ltrs of water he had asked me to get for him. He’s heading off to the north shortly, hoping to do some charitable work helping the locals who are in remote areas and might be struggling. Mike gave me a very fancy bluetooth speaker, RRP $$$, it had died on him, so I was hoping it might be a simple fix.

Now here’s a note of caution, not all teardowns on youtube are good. This one gets 90% of the way and realises he is doing it all wrong. I got 90% of the way and found out that he was right! bugger, still I managed to get this seemingly one mould piece of kit into lots of bits. I was hoping for a fuse, or a flat battery or something obvious, but Nada, so facing the second defeat of the week it is boxed up and waiting some inspiration before I take it apart again.
I retreated to the Hammock for the rest of the day and watched turtles and dolphins swim by while I read about the Myths and Legends of Baja California.

Thursday: Spending so much time sitting in the cockpit looking out I realised I had a lot of stuff on the back of the boat that didn’t need staring at, all the life saving kit like the Danbuoy, the horseshoe etc aren’t much use when solo and at anchor, so I moved them to the quarter berth where they will be spared the UV degradation. I also set about rewiring and tidying up the multitude of wires that run up to the solar panel and antenna on the rear arch. It’s looking quite sparse out there now and is begging to be polished. I also brought in the self steering rudder as the Marina will want to charge me for the extra foot it takes up sticking out the back of the boat when I finally move in there.

I recently saw Jamie on his ‘Follow the Boat’ vlog making a mat out of rope, this is a bit like baggywrinkles, in the sense of ‘what to do on a boat when you are bored’ I’m never bored, but always planned to do this on a long passage one day to while away the hours on watch. I have done a 5 week passage and never once felt the urge to make baggywrinkles or a doormat, but somehow this piece of rope was screaming out to be made into a rug.

So I decided to get into this slowly and I have started with a small Celtic Knot. I might move onto the harder stuff later, but it’s kind of fun.

On the way back from the shopping trip I took a detour around the anchorage and was taken by how pretty this Canadian ketch was looking.

If you can’t read the next section in a Philip Marlow/Private eye voice, then just skip it, otherwise it’s too silly.

“It had been a while and i was about to run out of the hard stuff, Jimmy the Shark had hinted at a place a few blocks away, that for the right price might sort me out. I made my way over, and was let through the door by a wary old man. There was a grill between us, but he knew why I was there, 140 peso he said, as he slid a bottle of the stuff my way. 70% pure he said, I suspected it had been cut with some cactus juice, maybe aloe vera, but it looked the part. I handed over the money and made a quick exit before anyone took an interest.”

So back to Saturday, and work, and I mean real work. I have been wondering about making some money for a while now, and today I sent out a few emails about projects that I have been asked to get involved in to do with the solar power monitoring systems I built a while back. I’m not sure what my customer is doing now as a result of the virus, but I love the way their solar panels and the wind turbines have just carried on feeding power into the grid and raising invoices without a second thought to Covid-19. Wish I had some systems like that.

Paul Collister.

Being at the cutting edge of technology on board Sister Midnight, I decided I should make preparations in case any of the ship’s crew ( i.e. me) come down with the virus. To this end I have fully equipped the ship with an emergency ward known as Sister Nightingale.
For those not familiar with British myths and legends, Florence Nightingale sort of invented hospitals in the old empire, and is thought of highly there, however some of her first ideas, which were experimental, killed off an awful lot of the british public unnecessary, so quite fitting the my government have decided to follow her example and build these ‘Nightingale hospitals’ around the UK.

This all started as a byproduct of installing the fan I had promised Kathy a few years ago. Once this was in I realised I was well on the way to having my own nightingale ward. Just needed to add a few extra items….

I have instigated a quick checklist I will have to follow before I can admit myself into the ward. Details below

Now I feel fully equipped to take on whatever comes my way.

Seriously, I hope you are all well, everything is great here. I’m working on the boat, I go ashore every 3 or 4 days for fresh bread and drinks, and spend the rest of the time being lazy, reading zillions of tweets, or doing boat jobs.

Last Saturday I polished the steel on the bowsprit pulpit, this gets mucky quickly as it’s in the firing line for spray when bouncing around on passage. I have found this pink cleaning liquid that everyone uses here. It’s magic on stainless steel. It’s basically oxalic acid with some other stuff. you just rub it on and the rust disappears and everything is shiny. If you wait a minute, it goes dull and grey, so you have to wash it off with fresh water fairly quickly, then a quick rub with a cloth and it looks like new. The only problem is if you get it on your skin, which of course I specialise in, then it stings like hell for a long time.

My tooth which had been hurting for a few days now was getting bad, so I made an emergency appointment with the dentist for Monday.
On Sunday my tooth was not so bad, so I had a lazy day and did a bit more cleaning in the main cabin.

On Monday I headed over to the dentist to find I have an infection and will need root canal treatment, and a crown. What joy, a lot of money, but worse a lot of time, it might take as many as 5 visits to the dentist, and the crown has to be made in Mexico city and sent down here. I can’t return home during this process so I’m wondering what to do. The pain has almost gone now and I have antibiotics to take should I need them. I also don’t think it’s the safest of things for me or the dentist to be doing at this time given the rapid increase in virus cases in Mexico.
After the dentist, I headed off to the Supermercado and stocked up on supplies, then back to the Marina. I had dumped a load of washing into the launderette machine on my way to the shops and it was ready now to be dried back at the boat.
Once all the washing was up and drying on the boat I remembered the main job I had been putting off, the toilet! It seems like only yesterday I was getting acquainted with the pipes and valves, but I think it was March last year when I last had it in bits. The lower valve was sticking, so I took it apart and cleaned it all up, and once it was reassembled it seems to be working a lot better. I usually flush it through very thoroughly, then let some bleach sit in the system before I start work, it’s quite a clean operation, what always gets me is the amount of calcium that is built up in the pipes and valves, this scrapes off easily enough, but as I’m looking at it I’m always thinking, ‘Is that really my bones that are wasting away’.

Wednesday was spent rubbing down the teak trim on the coach roof in preparation for varnishing. Thursday I popped ashore again, did some shopping and back to the boat in record time. More rubbing down of the teak, ready to varnish now.
Friday was meant to be varnish day, but by the time I was up and about the sun was already heating the boat up way too much, the wood was very warm, so the varnish will have to wait for a cloudy day or I will have to get up earlier. So I decided to do a bit of polishing today.
One of the things I love about the indefinite shutdown is I don’t have any deadlines at all right now. So I don’t have any excuses for not doing a proper job. Usually I have to weigh how long a piece of work takes and consider that I will be leaving port, or flying home, or some other event in x days time, hence giving me a great get out clause for only doing part of the job, or even rushing it. Now I have no excuse for not taking as long as it takes to do it properly.
Today I started at the bow, starboard side and worked my way back doing everything I could see that needed attention. Starting at the windlas, some ropes were fraying, so they were tidied, then I remembered that while Tim was here the windlass clutch was sticking a bit when he was deploying the anchor.

So I took the gypsey/clutch apart and gave it the best cleaning its ever had. It runs lovely now.
Next onto the stanchions/shrouds and lifelines. These came up lovely as well.

Earlier today I managed to catch some fish being chased acros the bay, there’s a little video below

Finally a very happy golden wedding anniversary to Kathy’s sister Bobbie and her husband Bruno, I’m sorry you aren’t able to get out to celebrate, but I hope you have a great day all the same.

Paul Collister

I took the trip into the marina by dinghy on Monday and booked a slip for the next 3 months. I explained to the manager that I would be staying at anchor until I needed to come in and use the slip, which will probably be when I run out of water or have a flight home.
As I write this I’m sitting in the cockpit watching the sun set with a glorious red sky, while dolphins swim around the boat. In the distance I can hear two dogs conversing across the bay from different boats anchored out here. I expect they are complaining about the virus. All in all it’s extremely peaceful and relaxing.
The government of Mexico have issued a 96 hour curfew for all of Mexico, and no one is allowed out of their homes or off their boats unless it is an emergency. This is fine with me as I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

I do get a little irked by some of my fellow yachties who don’t think the curfew applies to them and that they can go off sailing elsewhere and ignore the restrictions, however it seems the military are quite active now patrolling the islands and evicting yachties who have pitched up there.

Tuesday was quite a lazy day, as most days are now. I wrote some software that allowed my Raspberry pi to pull in GPS data from my little usb gps stick ($10). I was mostly using gpsd for those who might be interested in linux/gps stuff. It was great seeing all the NMEA packets piling in off such a cheap device. I started to write some software to pull out the interesting data but hit problems with finding the right libs and header files for C, but that’s normal and at least we are on the way.
The main excitement of the day came just before sunset, I stuck my head out of the cabin and was rather surprised to see the big whale museum ship in trouble ahead of me, it was drifting down on me as the skipper was trying to get the anchor up and get out of the way. He must have been dragging. I felt bad as I had anchored quite close to him, and he probably could have dragged some way if I wasnt there a few boat lengths away.

However I expect he didn’t want to be dragging at all and as he wrestled to get his anchor up, it became clear his chain was tangled up in some of Davy Jones’s debris. He ended up motoring past me with his anchor still down, until he was in a deeper part of the channel where he then spent an hour, into the approaching darkness, struggling with what looked like a metal step ladder attached to his chain.

Eventualy he sorted it and went and anchored some distance away from me.

I have had quite a few people getting in touch concerned for my well being, and anxious about the situation here. Well I am grateful for your concern, but to be honest, I couldn’t be happier sitting out here at anchor. The only thing missing is Kathy. Hopefully she can get out here if I can’t get back there. It’s very safe here, the state authorities are taking the virus very seriously, even if the Federal government is struggling. Things will get worse I’m sure, but hopefully not as bad as they are back home. To get home right now, which is an option, requires a long bus ride, then 4 airports, and a lot of hanging around. I will probably end up back in Liverpool, exhausted, infected, and stuck in a small apartment self isolating for a few weeks. Give me dolphins and great sunsets any day.

Wednesday came and I started on the boat jobs. I got the wood glue out and repaired a broken galley draw that smashed sometime when a big wave hit us and the draw shot out and flew across the boat, I think possibly on the pacific crossing. I did some deck repairs in the cockpit and much to my delight I repaired the foot powered ‘galley gusher fresh water pump’. This is a foot operated pump that pumps fresh water into the galley sink. This has two purposes for me, firstly, should the main pressure pump fail, I can still get fresh water out of the tank, but more usefully it delivers a much more controlled amount of water. So helps to preserve precious supplies, especially when away from potable water for a while.

Thursday was a quiet day, like wednesday it was quite overcast and cool, raining at one point. I headed into town to replenish supplies. I also had a water pump to drop of with Mike on Ikigai, getting to him was going to be interesting as the Malecon is closed so I had to take the back streets which are quite hilly.

It was good to see Mike, he is planning on sailing north just as soon as he can. His boat is looking much better, and is probably much more seaworthy than when I first met him back in Turtle Bay last year.
Marina Palmira is a nice place and I was reminded of just how many classic looking boats, a bit like my own are hanging out down here. I mean old fashioned looking, double enders (Pointy at both ends), ketches, schooners etc. These are considered good boats for crossing oceans, and that’s what most people down here are doing or have already done.

This is in stark contrast to when I would walk the pontoons in Greece, Spain or even Liverpool, where most of the boats looked the same, Beneteaus, Jeanneau or Bavarias basically. We oddballs refer to these as AWBs or Average White Boats, that’s a bit unfair really, as they are often great boats, just a very popular. I quite fancy retiring to the med on a 32ft Bavaria, will be great for the grandkids, whenever they arrive.

So today is Friday, I didn’t do much today, polished some stainless on the bow, wired up the wind generator, and did a bit of tidying.

I have been listening to the BBC World service podcast of the apollo 13 mission, I just stumbled upon this and it’s been fantastic, it came out a few years ago and is being repeated. I thought I would listen to all of the episode in a run this week, but was gutted to find I have to wait a week for the next episode, they are almost home, but barely alive. I have to say, it helps put the corona virus in context for me. These guys really were in trouble. Lovell at one point thought ‘this is really bad, Let’s just go home’ before instantly realising that wasn’t an option. I would have been terrified.

The picture above is of an Albacore dinghy that sailed past me earlier today. The guy was having a great time, despite the fact it’s a two man boat. The reason I particularly liked seeing this was because it’s a British design, by a guy called Uffa Fox, there are a large fleet of these boats back in my home town of West Kirby, and they race often on the lake. The boat is basically a bigger version of the firefly dinghy, also designed by Uffa Fox. A firefly (1069) was the first dinghy I owned, probably when I was around 15 back in the early 70’s. I used to sail it on the lake as often as possible and had a great time in it.

Paul Collister

I motored into La Paz and dropped the hook close to Marina Cortez, which is where I last sailed from when Tim & Asta arrived.

I was able to dinghy in to Marina de la Paz and pick up my mail that had only just arrived there, despite being posted 4 weeks ago and arriving in Mexico 3 days after leaving Liverpool.
While I was at the marina office I bumped into the manager outside, asking what the state of play was regarding slip availability in his marina. He informed me that he had slips but was only offering them on a minimum of 3 months rent. I said I may well be interested. The marina is relatively safe, I don’t know how well it would do in a direct hurricane strike, but it’s probably the best option available around here, plus there is good security and a strong community of Americans and Canadian liveaboards (often known as die-aboards) there to keep an eye on things.
Everything is closed and gloves and face masks are mandatory in the marina, and now also out on the streets.

I retrieved my bike which had been chained to the railings for the last few weeks and headed off to the supermarket.

The roads were quieter and the supermarket wasn’t busy and fully stocked.
Back at the marina dinghy dock, I loaded up Kathy’s bike and headed back to the boat. I thought I would leave my bike in the marina as I would probably do one last shop before I head off to the north to hide away.

The thought of where to leave the boat for the hurricane season, or where to leave it should I have to return home sooner was my number one worry.

One of the reasons people don’t like to anchor here is because it’s crowded and very busy with tourist boats and pangas racing through the moorings at all hours. However as I sat in the cockpit devouring a lovely tuna salad freshly made, I realised it was very peaceful here. The sun was setting over the El Magote sand peninsula, all the tourist boats have long stopped, even the fishermen seem to have disappeared.

This might be the quietest it has ever been since the days when Steinbeck visited on the Western Flyer in 1940.
The desire to go home to see Kathy and my kids is quite strong, however the lockdown in the UK means I couldn’t see them easily anyway. I would have to self isolate from Kathy, given that I might have to traverse 4 airports and maybe a few train stations to get back to Liverpool, I risk bringing the virus back to the UK.
Every day the Mexican authorities, locally and at a federal level are closing things down. The latest is the closure of the breweries. This has sent several dieaboards into a tailspin judging by the comments on the local VHF radio chat freq CH22. I don’t drink, and feel very strongly that drinkers should not be allowed to buy my alcohol free beer (Cerveza sin Alcohol) unless they are truly giving up the demon.

When faced with so many variables and unknowns it’s hard to make good choices. I like to whittle things down to what I do know for certain and also to try and get priorities sorted. My main worry is that the marina berths will sell out before I decide where to go. Without anywhere to keep the boat I would be forced to stay here and sail around until the pandemic and hurricane season is over (November for the wind, who knows for Covid), that’s not a great option, but might be fun. I have an option here that solves many issues if I need to go home, so upon reflection I decided to take the marina up on their offer of a slip for 3 months. This is not cheap, but when I put the cost I will pay here, against the cost of any other place the difference isn’t massive, and compared with how much money my investments (Pension fund) have lost, it’s miniscule. So I now have a place here for 3 months.
My next problem is that once I go into the marina I am expected to stay until the crisis is over. No day trips out, or jaunts around the islands. The boat is my home, and I am supposed to stay in it and not travel anywhere. The marina seem clear on this and I don’t want to go against the flow. I think it’s important that as visitors from a richer country we don’t appear to the locals, who will be suffering terribly from this, to be carrying on with our rich hobby on our luxury yachts without a care for anyone else.
My concern is that within the marina, the expat community are a tightly knit bunch, with a few virus sceptics amongst them, I think some are just ignorant of how easy this virus can be spread, and they are all mingling together, meeting for dinner in each others cockpits, sharing beers at sundown, using the communal showers etc. I really fear for them, many are elderly and this sometimes feels more like a retirement home than a marina, once the virus gets a grip, if it hasn’t already, they may be in big trouble.
The berth I have been assigned is right in the middle of this group!
So my current thinking is that I will dinghy in tomorrow (Monday morning) and do the paperwork for my berth, pay my dues and explain I will be bringing the boat in at a later date, probably when I run out of water on board. In the meantime I can sit out here, over 100ft from anyone else, feeling quite safe, and watch developments from afar.

I need to make a trip up the channel anyway to take on fuel as I only have 1/2 tank and there is talk of fuel stations being closed, I think this is to stop people travelling over the Santa Semana (Easter) holiday period.

I’m going to be out here at anchor for a while, so I really have no excuse for not doing the jobs.
Firstly I decided to wire up the gas detector alarm I have been carrying around for a few years. Obviously it would have been premature to install it back then as I haven’t had any leaks for it to discover! However I wired it up in a temporary fashion and bombarded it with propane from my stove and an unlit lighter. Not a whisper, I could smell the gas but the detector kept flashing green. I think I need a new detector.
Next I had a look at the power controller for the wind generator. It seems this requires a dump load, a place to dump up to 25Amps of power if the wind generator is making it and the battery is charged. I’m working on how to do this. They also casually mention adding a diode to the feed from the generator, I presume this would need to be 25A, not something I keep on the boat. Another project for after the virus.
Next onto the Marine VHF Radios. I have made a few calls lately with no reply. I suspected both radios have faults, the main one seems to be very crackly and I suspected the cable to the hand mic. Sure enough it was a bad case of snap crackle and pop when I tried it on ch17. I used a UK VHF radio to listen on, this is a great radio I had on Stardust, but it doesn’t have the North American channels which are used a lot here. I took a few inches off the cable where it entered the microphone handset and rewired it. It’s in a bad way, and really needs a new cable, but I suspect the cost of this, even if it’s available would make it cheaper to buy a new one. I think it’s crazy to throw away a perfectly good radio costing around £150 for the sake of a cable that only costs a few pounds to make. Anyway, after my hacking at the decomposing cable, I was able to put it back together again and it works perfectly now. I hope I might get another year or two out of it yet.

Now onto the handheld, the audio level on the microphone seemed very low. It works well as a receiver but listening to me talking on it, I sounded very quiet and distant. As you can see I had to repair the aerial before as the rubber/plastic surround had decomposed, presumably through age and UV. But worse I have a habit of balancing the radio on the top of the binnacle where it tends to jump off and break into pieces on the cockpit deck.
The battery was being held in place by a generous amount of insulation tape wrapped around the body of the radio. I tested the audio level against my UK radio and it was indeed very quiet. I pondered what the problem might be and looking for the microphone slot I realised I had taped over it with a few layers of tape. Duh, I removed the tape and all is well, at least until the battery falls off, but that can be solved with some glue or something.

So a failure on the windgen and gas detector, but great success on the radios.

Paul Collister

I’m writing a slightly longer, and probably more boring blog this week as I have a bit of time sitting at anchor, and I don’t suppose a lot of you are doing much either. Kathy is stuck in her apartment in Liverpool, wondering like most of us , when will things get back to normal.

Tim and Asta got their flights home and are now safely isolated in their house in Galway.

Meanwhile I’m even more isolated, at least from a viral point of view, at anchor on Sister Midnight in the sea of Cortez.

On Friday I tidied the boat up, and converted the guest suite (Quarter Berth) back into a store room. Basically this involved moving 5 suitcases and a lot of diving gear from Kathys side of our bed, into the Quarter Berth. 

The Marina office informed me that I would have to get fuel before 12 o’clock or wait until Monday as a big motor yacht was coming in, I had just ordered water to be delivered to the boat by truck and I wouldn’t have a lot of time after it arrived to get over to the fuel dock, so I prepared the boat to depart and waited for the water man. The water in the marina is good enough for washing with, but not good enough for drinking, so you get big jugs of water delivered by truck. Each jug carries about 20 litres and costs $2, it’s only $1 in the corner shop, but they don’t deliver. I put 12 jugs into the starboard tank and it was nearly full. Then it was full speed over to the fuel dock before the big boat arrived. I found myself queued behind two other sailboats waiting for fuel. If you’re wondering why I say ‘Sailboat’ these days, it’s because in this part of the world a big motor boat is called a yacht, strange I know. I always thought the definition of a yacht was a boat with a sail!

Later as the sun was setting I made a trip to the supermarket and filled up with goodies and dried goods. I have enough food on board for 4 weeks if needed, but for how long I could live on rice and beans is another matter. I’m disinfecting the food packaging as I bring it on board, then storing the dried goods in the QB out of reach to give the virus time to die off. I picked up a few items in the chemists which Im hoping to combine with some IPA (99% Alcohol)  I have on board in order to make some hand sanitiser if needed. 

Saturday was a lazy day, a bit of local shopping, and preparation for going back out to sea. I chatted with a group of Americans who were all very keen to get out of Mexico and return home. They fear Mexico might get quite unruly if the virus wreaks havoc here. Like myself, they are faced with many questions. Firstly their home country has more cases than anywhere else in the world and a leader who seems to struggle with the basics of science. Johnson may be better on the science front, but he heads a government that is happy to ignore facts if they are awkward for him. Both of our leaders seem more worried about their own position rather than the lives of their people. Still I digress. Secondly the Hurricane season approaches, although most of the damage tends to happen later in the summer, hurricanes have been here as early as May. So going home and leaving the boat here is risky. Finally it seems much safer from a virus point of view here than back home. Just ten confirmed cases and no deaths in the state (Baja California Sur). Just two cases in La Paz, but how accurate these figures are is unknown. If I play my cards right, I could be leaving here as things get bad to arrive in the UK as things are improving, or is that just wishful thinking.

I’m planning to find a safe place for the boat before I fly back in early May. Right now I’m thinking of La Paz, Puerto Escondido or maybe over on the mainland in Guyamas or possibly in Mazatlan. For now I’m heading north into the Sea Of Cortez again. I plan to anchor somewhere with good 3g and make enquiries about where to go. I also need to keep an eye on flights as things are changing all the time. There’s lots of military here (La Paz) with a Naval base in town. I expect it won’t be polite(ish) policemen telling you to stay indoors, but military men pointing machine guns at you. That might have more effect!

So this morning (Sunday 29th March) I left the Marina in glorious sunshine to head north back towards La Paz. The boat performed well, and I sailed for the first hour, then the wind dropped, then it turned to be on the nose as I was expecting. The wind was changing all the time and often went behind the boat. At one point the main emptied and filled with an almighty whack and the outhaul on the foot snapped off the traveler inside the boom. 

This meant the loose footed mainsail was flapping wildly around the show with just the reefing lines giving it some shape. After a bit of flapping, me and the sail, I managed to get some rope through the clew and brought the sail back to the boom and under control. An hour later the rope chaffed through and I had to repeat the whole operation, this time I used shackles to the old wire outhaul. Not perfect, but pretty good. After 5 hours of sailing/motor sailing at an average of 3.5 knots, the wind turned to the N and increased in strength to 20-25 knots. I increased the revs on the engine and we moved slowly to los Frailes doing between 1.5 knots and 5 knots, the big waves on the bow often slowed the boat right down.

It was a lot nicer a few days back on the way south with the wind behind, we saw lots of whales, here a video clip of some of them

Los Frailes was very busy with 8 boats at anchor, I’m keen to know if they are heading south or north. I anchored badly and by the time the anchor set I was just a few boat lengths in front of another sailboat, very much like mine in shape. I think we are well set in so it shouldn’t be a problem.

 It’s Monday and given that the wind is keeping me in this sheltered cove for a few days I decide to take on the wind generator. The wind is blowing strong across the bay and the generator would be a great way of keeping the batteries topped up through the night. However it feels like the main bearings for the machine are stuffed, it is seized solid. My first plan was to take the generator off the top of the pole, but I hit the first problem, aluminium fittings secured to a  steel pole,  they aren’t going to part easily, and given that the join is above the solar panels and it’s going to take a lot of force, I don’t want to risk dropping the hammer on the solar panels. So I decide to remove the pole from the bottom fitting, but I have the same problem there. Finally I take the blades off, the vane off and unscrew the base from the cap rail and bring the whole setup into the cockpit. Now I can’t work out how to get the shaft out and the bearings. So the job is put on hold until tomorrow.

Tuesday arrives and after a nice sleep in I get back on the wind generator job. I decide to try again to remove the generator from the pole, and with the help of some WD40 and a hammer I free the generator. By now the shaft is actually turning, but quite roughly. The shaft seems to be solid on the bearing and the bearing is very tight on the housing so This is going to have to wait. I try pouring some light oil onto the shaft and around the bearings. This actually makes a difference, so wherever the salt got into the sealed bearing, so is the oil now. After working the shaft around for 30 minutes of so, it’s running freely. It’s not completely smooth as it turns, but I think this is the effect of the magnets on the stator. Anyway, I put it all back together and attach the blades. 

I take the whole assembly forward of the cockpit. My plan was to hold the generator with the vanes pointing into the wind, I wasn’t sure if they would spin or there was still too much friction. So sure enough they start to turn, I’m impressed, but only for about 1/4 second, in the next 1/4 second the blade are spinning fast enough to do some serious damage, 1/4 second later I’m holding blades spinning faster than a helicopter in flight, and I’m thinking I might be in flight any moment, it’s quite scary, so I quickly spin my body and the generator so it’s end on to the wind, this will stop it quickly, however the blades catch something and BANG BANG it stops as two blades are snapped off. Gutted, it was spinning so well, now it’s a bin job. I already broke one blade in Malaysia and when I ordered a replacement I was told there are no more blades, I had the last one.  The generator is an Aero6gen .and was installed 20 years ago, so it’s done well, but it was of an older solid slow rotating quiet type which aren’t around anymore.

Not to write it off completely, I rearranged the blades so they were balanced, and put the thing back up. Once unleashed it spun like crazy, partly because it had no load, but also because it was quite windy. I’m going to reconnect it next time I’m at anchor for a while.  It never had a regulator, so may have played its part in the demise of my old batteries, I have an old 12v solar panel regulator that I may be able to use. It may not be a total loss.

The only other event today was the organisation of a pot luck dinner on the beach by the Californians from two different boats. In all I heard 4 boats agree to meet up, all organised on CH16. I declined, I don’t think now is the time to be partying! As it turned out the surf was too big for them to get their dinghies on the beach, so they all met up in the cockpit of one of the larger sailboats. It’s a shame, but that is one of the nicer aspects of cruising, gathering with fellow cruisers and talking nonsense all night long in the cockpit. Under the current rules my prime minister has banned me from such get togethers, and to be honest, I think I want to hold off on getting the virus for a good few months, I want to be on the Dyson Ventilator MK2 or preferably Mark 3, not Version 0.12 Beta.

Interestingly, the local fishermen here beach their boats each night by driving them onto the beach at full speed. You hear them motor out a bit, then turn to the beach and at full revs scream up onto the gravel beach. Quite a site. I may have to invest in a real camera to catch these things, but have a look at my little iPhones effort.

It’s an early night tonight as I want to be away before 8AM. Im heading for Muertos, along with at least 8 other boats from here. There’s supposed to be 5-7 days of calmer/southerly weather on the way.

Wednesday, Up at 6 and away by 7. I watched a lovely sunrise, while all the other sailboats scuttled away, most heading North, one heading south and probably around the cape and then north to America.
Two days ago I heard a report that all the ports in Mexico are now closed to all traffic, entering or leaving. This would be a pain for me, but yesterday I heard that this does not apply to private cruising boats, and that La Paz was in fact working as normal, as where many other ports. There’s a lot of confusion. Certainly it seems all the tourist boats have been told to stop, but then again, there ain’t a lot of tourists around.
Up came the anchor and on with the engine as I motored north to Muertos. The weather forecast predicted a southerly wind and when I got some signal I checked again and it was showing ‘Southerly 10 to 15 knots’, reducing to 10 in the evening. Not a lot, but Muertos is very exposed to the south and I wondered if the bay would amplify the waves to make it a bit miserable there. As I approached I could see the waves were quite big so I motored on around to the north side of the Point and anchored off Ventana beach. Very calm, but some left over swell from the north makes it a little rolly every now and then. The Americans, they of the Pot Luck group, ploughed on into Muertos, I wonder what kind of night they will have. Listening to them on Ch16, the VHF calling and distress frequency, I imagine they are all off their heads on coke or amphetamines, they are talking so fast and in a crazy hyper active way. I tried to talk to them, but they seem to only be able to talk, not listen. Very strange.
Salad for dinner before it goes off.

It was a rolly night, every now and then some big swell would hit the boat and find the resonant frequency of the hull, the boat would then rock and roll enough to wake me up. So at 7AM I was up and off. Heading to the La Paz region. I have arrived in a small bay , Bahia Falso, next to La Paz where I have 5 bars of 4G so I can upload this blog and also do some proper research about where to go next.

I have already heard the proclamation from the BCS district governor that everybody is to go into lock down. Everything but essential services are to stop, and people must stay indoors unless they are shopping. Much like everywhere else now. There have been 2 deaths in La Paz so far, so nothing major yet, but as in most poor places, the level of testing is very low.

Watch this space..

Paul Collister

Corona Virus Warning.
For those of you self isolating, you may find scenes of lots of people partying disturbing and they may stir up distant memories. 😉

So once Jim had left for Canada, and I had recovered from my illness it was carnival time. The malecon which runs for several miles along the waterfront here in La Paz was filled with music stages and vendors selling all kinds of stuff, but mostly sweet things like Churros (Doughnuts). There was a funfair and amusement arcade type attractions. There was also a big parade of floats on a few of the nights. The carnival lasted a week and went well into the night starting around 5pm most nights.

The sound stages, as they are called these days, had a very wide mix of bands and performers, from school kids dancing to a very dodgy rap version of ‘My Macarena’ to traditional mexican and Mariachi bands.
I put together a 3 minute compilation of the acts I saw as I strolled the malecon. I know Kathy will be gutted to have missed the exciting brass band that starts about 1:40 in.

The Parade was very colourful and was based on ‘The Feast of the Gods’. Again I made a 5 minute video compilation as I walked along the malecon.

I spent a few weeks in la Paz after Jim left working on the boat while waiting for Tim & Asta to arrive. This was my first time alone here and I took the opportunity to explore on my bicylce a bit. There are some lovely spots here, and quite a few interesting old and new buildings.

I learnt a few more Spanish words relating to fish and headed on down to the beach to see if I could buy fish from the local fishermen. This turned out to be easier than I thought and I ended up with a kilo of Cabrella, filleted, for about £4, it tasted great, I have now also learnt to say, ‘do you have any other fish’

Murals
I posted a short vid to the baba sister midnight facebook page of the murals.
Below are some pictures I took of La Paz’s many murals. I was lucky to be invited to join Colin and family from SV Pristine on a guided tour of the murals. The back stories are fascinating, the mural below depicts the story of how the local fishermen were persuaded to stop fishing for a few years to allow an endangered species to restock. It was an amazing success and this man had a lot to do with persuading the local fishermen to sit on their hands for so long.

The statue below is meant to be Jacques Cousteau, a famous diver that has recently had an island renamed after him.

The Mural above depicts many aspects of the changing life here, but appeals to me as I have just finished my PADI scuba diving course. I was at the bottom of the ocean! (Well 60ft down) taking off my breathing gear, practising emergency ascents and lots of other terrifying feats.

I did a 3 day course, which followed tests on my theory I had been studying for the past few weeks. The first day was in a swimming pool, so nice and easy. The second day we dived off the Isla Islote rock that has a sea lion colony and were surrounded by big colourful tropical fish and sea lions nibbling on our fins (Flippers to the uninitiated).
It was great, however I couldn’t really enjoy the view as I was trying to remember all the important things I had to do if I didn’t want to die, like, keep breathing, keep checking how much air you have left, don’t ascend to quickly, manage your trim, check what the dive computer on my wrist is telling me, etc etc.
On the final day we dived on a shipwreck. I had always thought shipwreck had to be very old and possibly have gold and ming vases on them, but it seems ships keep sinking even in these modern times. This ship was the MV Salvatierra, a big RORO ferry, with quite a few trucks on board and went down in 1976. There’s more on the wreck here. It was odd seeing trucks laying on their side 60ft down.

I also used my time alone to get my teeth spruced up a bit. I had heard good things about Mexican dentists, and I needed a clean, so when the local yacht club announced that they had a discount with the local dentist, where you got a full checkup and clean for about £12, I was in. The view from the chair was brilliant, as you can see below. Even the waiting room had a great arty book on Frida Kahlo, a mexican artist.

Tim and Asta arrive

I hired a car and drove down to San Jose del Cabo international airport to pick them up. This time the drive was a lot easier.
Their plane direct from Gatwick arrived and we drove back to the boat. It was great seeing them and I wondered what kind of trip we might have when we set off, Tim was staying for 4 weeks but Asta was leaving after two. Both needed to be close to San Jose del Cabo international airport to get home. But first they had to get over the jet lag and have a look around La Paz. After they had dropped off their bags we headed to a local beach restaurant called Estrella Mar, where there was a teenage girls birthday party happening, so we got free entertainment from the band. See if you can spot my mate Peter earning a bit on the side 😉 (Sorry Peter).

The next day we walked around town, did a supermarket shop and dined in bandidos, a cool place where they cook the steaks on a hotplate inside an engine compartment of a jeep. I took Jim there and he was impressed, I think Tim & Asta were too.

The next day was Saturday so we visited the organic/craft market and bought some trinkets

On Sunday we untied our lines in the Marina and headed north. We didnt go far on the first day and dropped the anchor in Candelera bay on Santo Espiritu. The next day we hopped around the corner to Partida bay, then continued up the sea to reach our destination of Isla San Francisco. From there we headed south, stopping for a bit at Isla Islote where T&A jumped off the boat and swam over to join the sea lions, while I slowly drifted around waiting for their return. We continued south and had a night at the largest bay in the area on the SE end of Espiritu.
From Espiritu we headed south to Los Muertos, then Los Frailes. We spent 2 nights at Los Frailes as we wanted to explore and visit the reef at Pulmo, which was just around the corner. On the first day we bought some Trigger fish on the beach from the local fishermen, they all seemed very friendly, yet on the next day I watched horrified as they cut the fins off a line of hammerhead sharks that lay dead on the beach. I think these go to make shark fin soup. I had heard the rest of the shark is discarded, but these bodies had been gutted and were later thrown onto the back of a pickup. I believe Mexico is one of the few places that still allows the catching of hammerhead sharks. I was quite shocked to see it for real. At first I was angry with the fishermen, but had to remind myself, these are very poor people, and this puts food on the table for their family, pays for medicine etc and it is legal. Hopefully the law will change soon.

We hitched a ride into Pulmo the next day, but the weather was rough and it didn’t look like diving on the reef would be possible. However we had a nice lunch there, Tim bought some wine and basic provisions.

Pulmo had a lovely property development of small low lying houses within a small grid system. I don’t think they have mains power in the village.

We spent the afternoon diving on the rocks in Los Frailes, which were more sheltered than Pulmo and saw some great fish.
From Los Frailes it was a short 6 hour hop to the Marina at San Jose del Cabo, where Asta would leave us for her flight home. On this last leg we had many whales visit us, or were making a bit of a show nearby. It was wonderful, and I will put up some of our video from that on my next post.

Boat canvas work.
I mentioned earlier that I had some boat jobs done. You can see the new spray dodger and mainsail lazy-jack cover. I had this work done in La Paz by Hector the canvas man. His work is very good.

Hector gave me a great price to redo all of the cushions in the boat, all I had to do was chose the material. I found a great fabric in a local store, however Kathy thought it was too black, she’s probably right, but I realised we werent going to be able to agree on a fabric over the internet, so that job will have to wait until Kathy gets out here.

Another job I tackled was fixing the Starboard water tank level gauge. It was not reading reliably, and we need this to be accurate. As I suspected the floating part of the gauge no longer floated , so a bit of foam was attached to it and it seems to work now. I need to buy a new gauge when I get a chance.

Coronavirus
By the time we had reached Cabo, the CoronaVirus issue had become a big deal for us. Tim’s flight home in 2 weeks time had been cancelled, and Asta’s connecting flight from London to Shannon, in Ireland had been cancelled. The world was shutting down around us and Tim was concerned.
Tim managed to get a flight with Air Canada that got him to Dublin via Toronto, and left yesterday (Wed 25th March), Asta got a new flight from Gatwick to Dublin and she left today, As I write this she is just passing over the Atlantic near Newfoundland. They may need to self isolate when they get home. My flight has not been cancelled yet, as it’s not until May, but I expect it will be cancelled at some point soon. My Visa expires the same day as my flight.
I could have found a way home this week, and still may, but I need to find a safe place to leave Sister Midnight. If I can’t get back for several months, we will be into the hurricane season, which starts in May and runs to November. I will need to spend time securing the boat for this eventuality.
Most of the Americans and Canadians here have left their boats and returned home while they can. The border to America is shut now, and in fact Mexicans are protesting that Americans are being allowed south. In this area it seems the virus was brought here by Americans.

I have been to the supermarket a few times now and as you can see from above, there’s plenty on offer. I’m not sure how long this will last. There’s plenty of toilet paper, but no hand sanitizer gel, or latex gloves.
I have enough food on the boat for a few weeks, but I do worry for the Mexicans here, many of them won’t be able to cope with a serious economic downturn. The area I’m in is totally tourist based, and they have all left now.
Many families just don’t have the money to stockpile anything, so many will die from malnutrition.

I plan to leave this expensive marina in a few days time, weather permitting and make an overnight passage to Mazatlan on the mainland, where there is a good cheap marina in an interesting old town. I may meet up with Mike from SV Ikigai there, and I might even see Brenda and Clay on SV Sansucchi, from there I will sail back to La Paz, or possibly Puerto Escondido and look for a safe place for my boat during the hurricane season.

Next week I will post some shots of the whales we encountered on our way south to take Tim & Asta to the airport.

Paul Collister

The trip back from Puerto Escondido to La Paz was a bit of a sleigh ride. For the first few days we had 15-20 knot winds from behind. The trip was fast. We stopped at El Gato, then Isla San Francisco, and finally at Caleta Lobos on the peninsula, just a few hours out of La Paz.
We fuelled up before setting off, but the engine barely ran at all and we arrived with a near full tank. We had used 100 litres on the trip north. So quite a saving with diesel at £1/litre

We motored into La Paz town around low water, especially low because of the spring tides, and we were shocked to see just how far out the sand banks came to the channel. People had walked out into the middle of what is normally a fast flowing estuary. It looked like fun, and reminded me of the fun times we had with the kids when you used to sail out to the West Hoyle sand bank and ground the boat as the tide went out and picnic on the pristine sand there.

It was good to tie up in Marina La Paz again, just a couple of slips up from where we first arrived back in December. We soon noticed a Sea Shepherd ship tied up at the end of the marina. They have been checking on water quality in the bay here, looking at plastic and pollution levels with the local authorities.
For those who don’t know, the Sea Shepherd organisation are doing great work in trying to protect the Vaquita porpoise in the sea of cortez. The were thought to be extinct here, but a few have been spotted. In an article from their website here they state..
“Sea Shepherd removes illegal gillnets from vaquita habitat to protect the mammal from getting ensnared in nets set to catch another endangered species, the totoaba fish.
Totoaba is targeted for its lucrative “buche” or swim bladder, which is trafficked and sold in black markets in Asia. The bladders are consumed in a soup believed to have beneficial health properties, despite lack of scientific evidence confirming such claims. “

La Paz was more sleepy than when I left, but also a bit warmer which was nice, especially as the UK was being battered by storms and flooding.

On Monday I hired a car and drove Jim to the airport at San Jose del Cabo. I must have caught a bit of food poisoning or a touch of corona virus. We did eat out the night before with Mike and his Californian girlfriend Shauna, but everyone else seemed ok, so I don’t know. either way it was a most uncomfortable ride to the airport, with lots of stops along the way. I drove back along the coast to Cabo San Lucas, and saw the non stop development of the coast with the construction of huge luxury hotels/spa resorts. There was barely an undeveloped spot along the whole stretch of 20km.

Back at the boat the next day I rested and started on my long list of tasks. The first was to replace my stolen visa. We replaced Kathy’s at the airport, it took 15 minutes at the immigration office. and was no big deal. La Paz Immigration was to be another story. It took 5 visits over two weeks, including an interview, a very rude bank clerk, and a few new friends from amongst the crowd seated in the waiting room at Immigration, where we all clung to our numbered ticket, waiting to be called. I spent so much time there the ladies behind the counter new me quite well and would just call out my name “Mr Paul” when I was needed. I now have my Visa, it still expires in May, I was going to ask them to add a couple of weeks to my permitted 180 days, as I had spent nearly two weeks with them!

On the spur of the moment I decided to replace the plywood panel that supports my instruments in the cockpit. It had started to delaminate and the last time I took it apart a large piece ripped off the back. Also it was looking tired and the speaker /thermometer and cigar lighter didnt work, so I figured I could remove them.

The plywood wasn’t the best quality, but it’s an improvement on what I had.
Next I had to find out why the lever on the head wasn’t staying in place. That turned out to be a spring not adjusted properly, so was an easy fix, however when I was doing that I noticed one of the head seacock pipe connections was badly corroded.

Having repaired the hose with 2 new clamps, next on the list was to book my PADI dive course, I popped down to Mike’s boat and we worked out a plan for fixing his two bilge pump problems, and while I was there at his marina I booked onto a PADI Open Water dive course, to start in ten days time. I have a massive theory book to read and understand before my first lesson, I’m a little excited about this, as it’s not that long ago in my mind that I was scared of going underwater and couldn’t even swim when I started the cruising life.

I keep seeing places here that I would love to own, This hotel california looks so classic mexican.

Today the La Paz carnival begins and runs until Monday. It’s mostly performances with lots of stages and stalls along 1 mile of the Malecon. Each day there is a big float parade. It reminds me of the festivals we visited in Barcelona, like the Festa Major de Gracia.

I will know more later as I’m now off to check out the fish tacos that are bound to be on offer, along with a couple of churros (basically long doughnuts) I hope.

I have just started making my own juices, it’s a healthy way to stay hydrated, tastes great and also is very cheap. I had no idea how easy it is to make real lemonade.

I’m going to be in La Paz docked for the next 4 weeks until Tim and Asta arrive, when we will hit the sea again. Hopefully I can finish all my boat jobs by then.

Paul Collister
20/02/2020

PS Apologies for the multiple notifications that were sent out about this blog post, I’m still struggling with the postie system.

Having seen Kathy off on her flight back home in Mexico city, I headed back to La Paz where Jim would be arriving from Canada later that day.

Before going through security, I marched off to the other side of the airport to see if I could see the runway and Kathy’s flight taking off. It turned out the other end of the airport was just as bad for a view, so I headed for security to get airside. At that point I realised I no longer had my suitcase with me, I quick marched back to my starting point and found my bag just sitting there, all on its own. Fortunately nobody had bothered to pay it any attention, so off I went to get ready to board. I had a few hours to kill, so out came my macBook and I started working on the software for my Raspberry Pi computer.

The Raspberry Pi computer is a tiny little thing, that packs a mighty punch. I picked one up a few weeks ago so I could play with automating some technology on the boat. First off I wanted a way to record the wind average and wind gusts constantly so I could work out if the gales were getting worse of perhaps receding by looking at graphs. It’s imprecise, but a bit of fun. Eventually I expect it to be sailing the boat around the world, automatically booking itself into marinas, and sending emails to me at the old folks home, telling me what a great time it’s having!.

While I waited to board, a couple of old folks turned up being pushed in wheelchairs, with matching gold and silver bags, each of which contained a chihuahua .

On arrival at La Paz airport, I found all of the Uber’s to be booked out, so rather than pay 3 times the Uber price for a normal taxi, I decided to wait, and catch up on my emails for a while, a few minutes later a young man approached me and asked for help, normally I would be wary of strangers asking for help at the airport, but there’s something about Mexico, and the people here that puts me at ease. This chappie had flown in with me on the flight from Mexico and wanted to know if I knew my way around La Paz, he had heard bad things and was nervous, he was told there were no hostels to stay in. I offered to let him ride into town with me in my Uber for free and I would try to help him find accommodation. As it turned out, Patricia in the marina pointed him to a hostel just around the corner. My new friend, Arturo, had travelled to La Paz to experience the sea of Cortez, he hoped to get work in a dive school, and explore the sea. He had just finished his exams for a Linguistics degree and his English was very good. We agreed to stay in touch, he might be able to help me learn Spanish and I could help him improve his English. 

A few hours later Jim arrived by coach from Los Cabos, he dumped his bags on board and we headed downtown for a meal. The next day Jim had a look around town, and I chased up the various people who were doing jobs for me. The outboard engine repair man hadn’t done the Suzuki service yet, but promised it for the next day. The canvas man was still not responding to my emails. Eventually a date was fixed for him to come and measure up.  Jim and I took the boat out and we had a pleasant day motoring up the bay to the fuel dock about 5 mies away, and then back.

At the fuel dock we were very impressed by a massive motor Yacht/gin palace, I didn’t see it but apparently there was a high speed motor launch accompanying it, used by the special services. Later we heard that the Motor Yacht was owned by Steven Spielberg and the guests on board were Barrack and Michelle Obama. We heard they had been out paddle boarding and kayaking in the coves and bays around La Paz and the islands. I expect they had been following this blog and wanted to check the place out for themselves. 

A few days later and the dodger had been measured up and templates made for its replacement, this will take a few weeks, but when I return to La Paz with Jim they should be able to get stuck into finishing it.

Jim and I visited a funky diner close to the marina where they cook burgers on a hotplate fitted into the front of a big truck, a bit gimmicky, but the whole place had a nice feel about it.

At last my passport arrived, the main hurdle keeping me in La Paz,

I was expecting the European reference to be removed, even though we are still full members of the EU, but still sad to see it go. By the time I publish this we will have left the EU, a stupid act that I think will harm the ordinary people of the UK massively. Hopefully Britain can realise its new position in the world order and adjust accordingly. I feel confident that it will rejoin Europe in a decade or so and play a more involved role than before.

The outboard arrived back serviced and performing like a new machine, and with my passport stowed away safely, Jim and I provisioned for a few weeks at sea and headed of to the islands of Espiritu Santo. We had a pleasant motor up to our first stop at Ensenada de La Gallena (Gallena Cove). There was a bit of wind and swell, but we had a pleasant night there and the next day we pushed on to Playa Candelero. Here we spent two nights snorkelling and swimming with the many colourful fish. We saw many Rays jumping out of the water and it was so clear we could see the bottom in 30ft of water. We watched turtles swimming around as we dinghies ashore.

The next stop was on the island to the north of Espiritu, called Isla Partida. First we visited Partida Cove. I had a great Kayak ride along the shoreline. There was a small seasonal fishing village here, just a few shacks, locked up. And a little stream that connected the main cove on the west of the island with a cove on the East.

The next day we moved up a few coves to Ensenada Grande, another idyllic setting, white sand beaches, clear water, and a trail we took to the eastern side of Partida Island. 

From Partida we continued north west to Isla San Francisco and a bay known locally as the hook, looking at the picture you can see why.

This was a stunning location, ashore we explored a dried out lagoon, and walked to the eastern shore of the island. Back on the boat we were a bit put out when the large motor yacht next to us started blasting out bland Mexican pop music. The young couples on board were being served by white suited waiters on the fly bridge dining area! Not long after that we saw a huge shoal of fish flying out of the water in panic, followed by a huge whales mouth. The whale chased the fish into the anchorage. 5 minutes later, a huge spurt of water, a snorting sound and the whale was just 20 metres off the side of our boat heading our way. Five minutes later it passed us and resurfaced next to the motor launch. The women on board all screamed in unison, they seemed quite scared. But in true whale watching style, their staff prepared the tender and the all jumped in and took chase after the whale. The whale being no idiot, dived and we didn’t see him/her again.

The next day, Jim decided to climb to the top of the hill overlooking the anchorage. You can see him (just) in the picture.

From Isla San Francisco we continued north to San Evaristo, via the salt mines at Salinas. A processing facility there had been abandoned with bulldozers and trucks left to decay in the elements. 

A short hop from the salt mines over to Evaristo took a couple of hours and we anchored with 8 other boats in the big bay there. It had been a while since we had internet, so our weather forecasts were now unreliable and we needed to get a better prediction. 

San Evaristo is a lovely bay, the people here are very friendly, there is a small tienda (shop) and a little restaurant. Maybe 30 houses in the village, a small school, a desalination plant and quite a few fishing pangas. We were able to buy freshly caught fish on the beach from fishermen as they arrived with their catch. 

That night in Evaristo we had a very strong westerly wind arrive, this might have been a chabasco, which is a wind caused by a difference in pressure between the big pacific and the narrow Sea of Cortez. The winds rush across the peninsula, particularly in the La Paz region where the land is relatively flat. We had mountains here and thought we would be safe, but perhaps not. The wind blew hard and I couldn’t go to bed, as I was worried we might start dragging our anchor. Around 1AM it became clear we were dragging, and soon we were in deeper water and moving fast. Fortunately we were being blown offshore and there were no boats in our way. I started the engine and that woke Jim. I brought the anchor in enough to remove the snubber, a long rope used as a shock absorber on the chain, and then let out an extra 20 metres of chain hoping we might set. However we continued to drag at about 2 knots in the strong wind. I had to recover the anchor now and motor back into shallow waters and reset it. Jim did a great job of keeping the boat pointing into the wind while I brought in ten meters at a time, after each 10 metres I ran below and flaked the chain. Eventually the anchor came into sight, however it didn’t look like an anchor, more like a monster from below. We had collected a stack of weed, probably as we dragged. There was a mound of grass/kelp, maybe 1 metre in diameter and a metre high. I had to get my hull scraper tool out to slice away at it. This took a while, fortunately while I did this, Jim skilfully manoeuvred us back in-between the other anchored yachts and held us there ready for another attempt at anchoring. This was no easy feat for Jim as it was pitch black, and the wind was howling though the bay. I cleared the weed, dropped the anchor and we quickly set in the sand below us. All in all we spent an hour getting the hook up and then back down. Jim went to bed, and I stayed up until 5:30 waiting for the wind to subside a bit. The anchor held well. I still don’t know why it dragged, but suffice it to say ‘nothing is guaranteed’ 

We left Evaristo for El Gato, named for the Cougars that used to occupy the area. So far every anchorage we had visited had to protect us from northerly winds, El Gato could do this, and as the wind was moving to the west/south west, it also offer great protection for that possibility as well.

El Gato has great geology, the rock strata is real school textbook stuff. Sadly it was very overcast during our stay so we didn’t even go ashore to check it out. We have made a note to explore on our way south.

From El Gato it was a short hop to Agua Verde, considered to be one of the most beautiful bays on the coast, and it didn’t disappoint.

We popped ashore and did some basic provisioning at the local shop, really not more than a shed in someone’s garden, but good for eggs, no doubt from the hens we saw wandering around the property. 

While we had a drink and fish tacos at the restaurant, we met Robert, an American from Las Vegas. Robert was typical of the people we meet, by being very untypical of most people. He had been working in the construction industry, house building, for most of his working life and had progressed up the ranks really well. So well he had been promoted to a lofty position which entailed him managing managers, working long hours and not doing very enjoyable work. His housebuilding was mostly about paperwork and stress. He had a heart attack and a quadruple bypass operation. This made him think about his priorities and he quit work and bought a boat. He has sailed down to Mexico and is on his way to New Zealand/Austrailia via the South Pacific on his own. We were discussing the best places for people watching and he mentioned how interesting it was seeing weirdos at Venice Beach while he was remodelling Charlie Chaplin’s house. Later he mentioned how much fun he had when he was gold prospecting in North California. As you do! Robert is such a nice Guy, I’m hoping we will meet up with him in the Pacific again.

Aqua Verde, like many of the places we have visited in Mexico have impressed us with their dedication to the environment and wildlife. The restaurant was advertising the dangers of plastic to animals and fish. It’s great that these communities, that have so little in material things are so committed to the cause. 

A small cruise ship arrived while we were there, the Safari Endeavour, it has about 80 passengers and seems to be trying to be eco friendly, if this is possible remains to be seen.

The local press tout this as a great opportunity for the economy, as there hasn’t been a cruise ship in the sea of Cortez for a long time, citing zillions of pesos for the local economies. Let’s hope they can keep it small and eco focussed.

We left Agua Verde for the short hop up to Puerto Escondido.

We were headed to Loreto, to visit the Missions there. Basically the missions were the churches the original Spanish invaders built throughout the country as bases for the conquest. I think there’s more to it than that, but I haven’t really looked into it yet. However they only built the church, not a decent harbour or Marina, so yachts had to wait another 250 years for one to be built 20 miles south at Puerto Escondido.

Here the hills create an almost landlocked lagoon. It’s considered to be one of the best hurricane holes on the coast here, and I may well consider moving the boat here later in the year when the hurricanes start. The marina was to pricey for me to stay in, so we picked up a quite pricey mooring ball for a couple of nights. We have full use of the marina facilities, including the laundry, showers and swimming pool/jacuzzi. We decided to hire a car and head into Loreto rather than try to anchor off the coast in a very exposed area. Just after we arrived we bumped into Robert, we had seen him on the AIS heading up here from Agua Verde so offered him a lift into town in our hire car, which he gratefully accepted. He had blown out the clew on his headsail and ripped his spinnaker on the way up here. His gas(LPG) regulator had also failed, so wanted to look for a replacement.

Loreto is a lovely town, full of friendly helpful folk. We had breakfast after a walk around the mission church. We did some shopping for presents and souvenirs.

Later we headed up into the mountains of the Sierra Gigante to find the other mission church.

When we arrived we were bowled over by the location and the church itself. Built around 1750 and still the original building, it looked fantastic, surrounded by orange and lemon trees, we sat in a cafe and had freshly squeezed orange juice, no doubt made from some of the oranges lying around the trees there. 

A short ride back into Loreto and we provisioned up at the supermarket with enough food to get us back to La Paz. We leave tomorrow (Wed 5th Feb) for a fast ride back so Jim can catch his flight home. Strong Northerly winds are forecast so we should have a great sleigh ride back.

By the time we had loaded up the dinghy at the Marina for the 10 minute ride back to the mooring field, the wind had reached 20-25 knots and our little dinghy was no match for the waves, we bounced up, off and into the waves. We both got soaked, but at least the water wasn’t that cold. 

Paul Collister

B.C.S stands for Baja California South. We are now in La Paz, I say we, Kathy is actually in Milan as I write, visiting family, and Jim, who looked after my boat in Sointula B.C. (British Columbia) is with me for a few weeks.

Arriving at La Paz, we were greeted by a fleet of oil/petroleum tankers berthed outside the harbour. La Paz has a small oil processing facility, I’m not sure if it’s a refinery or just a storage depot, but is a bit of an ugly affair right at the narrow channel entrance to the harbour. The approach into the town follows a narrow dredged channel that weaves its way behind a large peninsula called Magote, and then either side of a bank that splits the channel into two.

Careful navigation is required here as the channel is narrow and there are lots of pangas whizzing around. We were greeted by a shoal of dolphins frollicking around our boat on the way in. The previous night we had rested in a little cove just a mile or so north of the channel with Clay and Brenda on their boat so that we could arrive early the next day and find a place to anchor.
As it turned out we could get a berth in the marina ‘Marina de La Paz’ and so we booked in for a month, time for a rest.

We had decorated the boat for christmas, which was the next day. A trip to the supermarket and we had everything needed.

The next morning we woke and exchanged presents. This year the presents were limited and not the least bit surprising, as we had discussed what to get each other as we pushed the trolley around the supermarket the day before. We couldn’t be bothered with all the faffing around of trying to secretly check out each others presents, so I threw a couple of bars of chocolate in the trolley for Kathy, and I helped her pick a tin of my favourite spanish tuna for me. Aren’t we romantic in our old age.
Christmas day was great, we chilled, the lead up to the day had been completely stress free, Kathy did a bit of cooking and later on we headed over to Clay and Brenda’s boat for a vegan feast.

While I was shopping I was a little shocked to see the faces of ‘Missing Children’ on the milk cartons. A stark reminder that so many people just disappear every year in Mexico.

La Paz is a lovely town, a little touristy, but that’s mostly confined to the Malecon (Promenade), stepping back is a simpler way of life, with lots of small shops and services. It’s quite laid back here

Sadly a few days after Christmas a boat reversing into the berth next to us misjudged their turn and whacked us across the stern. There was no damage to the hull, but they smashed the rudder on the windvane steering, dinging it and twisting the sacrificial connecting tube. The captain, a lady, was very apologetic, and paid me for the cost of a new tube. She blamed the incident on the fact she was from Alberta, a landlocked province in Canada, and so didn’t have the sea in her blood!

It wasn’t many days after Christmas that Kathy had to head home. We had arranged it so that we would fly to Mexico City on the Wednesday, she would be interviewed at the British embassy for her passport on Thursday, Fri-Sun would be for exploring the city, and on Monday she would fly home and I would fly back to La Paz to meet Jim who was flying in from Canada. What could possibly go wrong. I wasn’t sure if I would be allowed to fly on internal flights with just my driving license as ID. In fact not much did go wrong. I was quite relaxed until the embassy official pointed out that even with the new passport, and a letter from the police, Kathy would not be able to board without her visa exit slip, which was lost with the passport. We would have to visit immigration and buy a new visa for 600 peso, just to allow her to get through the gate. A further search on google revealed horror stories of long queues at immigration causing people to miss their flights. Low stress levels had started to rise!

On our first night at the hotel in the city, we watched a film on my macbook about the life of the artist Frida Kahlo, and her relationship with the more famous, at least at the time, mural artist, Diego Rivera. This was a great film, and it gave us a focus for our exploration of the art in the city. Of course once you know about something in a bit of detail, you can see it all around you much easier. We visited the old presidential palace and saw great murals Diego painted, we visited his house where he lived with Frida for a while, and Kathy bought A Frida Kahlo Day of the dead figurine/sculpture. I really enjoyed that part of our trip.

Of course, no city trip would be complete if I haven’t dragged Kathy through downtown Fruit and Veg markets, I love seeing the brightly stacked goods, seeming to go on forever, the slightly dodgy looking racks of dead animals never seem quite as attractive, but are a sight in themselves.

On Sunday, our last full day in town we headed south of the city to a district called ‘San Angel’. On the way we took in the main central drag which is closed to traffic on Sundays and becomes a huge malecon where the locals come out and ride bikes/skateboards/roller blades etc. The atmosphere was lovely

San Angel has a little area which has been designated a ‘world heritage site’ because of its outstanding beauty. This has to be one of my favorite places ever. It was charming. so peaceful, relaxed, and the air here was much clearer than in the rather polluted centre of town.

We walked around the two town squares, small stalls sold lovey genuine local craft products and paintings. Kathy bought quite a few gifts to bring home. Several houses had been opened to the public and it made me long to own a property here so I could furnish it with these amazing objects.

A little further down the road we stumbled on a concert being performed in a gorgeous courtyard of an old house, now museum.

Further on we visited an old monastery. Inside was a temporary exhibition local school children had been involved with. There were some great day of the dead creations. I love the way they celebrate the dead here. They seemed to have removed the fear from it and made the whole thing more fun.

An example was found in the crypt below the monastery, we watched a young child exploring all the mummified remains of what I assume were once important people, without any fear, just curiosity.

After San angel, we had a final meal in the city centre and in the morning headed off to the Airport early to get in the queue at Immigration. As it turned out, there was no queue, and the immigration official was ever so nice in helping us get the new visa quickly. So far every official I have met in Mexico has been extremely pleasant and helpful. The people of La Paz are ever so nice, I think I might be here a while.

Kathy got her flight without issue, I flew back to the boat and met Jim. We headed off to the Islands to explore. More in the next posting.