Author: paulcollister

Sunday 27th June 2021
I’m back in La Paz and all tied up in the marina, close to where I left a few months ago for my solo circumnavigation of the lower half of the Sea of Cortez. A trip of about 1000 nautical miles, started 15 weeks ago and covering three states, Baja California Sur, Sonora and Sinaloa.

Monday 21st June
Stepping back a bit, it’s Monday and my dove has gone, I start preparing the boat to leave and head over to the office to clear out in advance for an early start on Tuesday. The office lady chats with me about the dove, and says she thinks the dove knows the weather well and decided to leave before the storm. Which is nice. However she also tells me the port is closed, so I’m not going anywhere in a hurry. The red flag is flying from the port capitania’s office. The recent storm, Dolores, to the south, which didn’t make it to hurricane status did create some walloping big waves which are creating huge swells at the entrance to the marina. I dinghy out and sure enough the waves are crashing over the breakwater. Maybe tomorrow.

Tuesday: Maybe Tomorrow
Wednesday: Maybe tomorrow

Thursday, Yes, a yellow flag is flying so I pass my key to a security guard, throw the bike on board and head off around 10:30, which is when there will be enough water to get out the channel. I cautiously motor through the swell at the entrance, some of the staff at Marina El Cid which is right near the entrance, wave me on. They know me now from my daily visits in the Kayak to check on the waves. After 15 minutes I’m in the sea and past the rollers and big swell. It feels great, I hoist the main and get the other two headsails out. The wind isn’t where it’s meant to be, and I can’t lay a course direct to La Paz, so I head a little north, close hauled but making great speed in 10-12 knots of wind

It takes me 35 hours to cross the sea, 5 hours better than I had expected. besides a bit of sail trimming, watching dolphins and flying fish, there was little to do. I didnt see another vessel for the whole passage, not even on AIS once I was offshore. I stayed in the cockpit and had modest meals I had ready to go. Napping for 15-20 minutes in the night.

Spanish omellete

Having arrived on the BCS side, the wind had picked up, I think it’s a corumel, but I’m not sure. I decided it would be too exposed to go into la paz bay, and despite the southerly swell I changed course and headed for the safety of a bay on the east side of Espirito Santo called Bonanza. It was quite dark and I was trying to remember if I had ever anchored this boat in the dark, or done it solo in the dark. Thinking it through I realised that I wouldn’t be able to see the markers on the chain as it went out. I need to put out just the right amount. I had a secret plan to go to the waypoint where I dropped the anchor last time I was here, when Tim & Asta visited. However somebody had stolen my spot and there was a boat either side of them. The bulb has stopped working in the depth sounder again so I couldn’t read it. I grabbed a couple of torches and set course for the beach. It’s amazing at night how close the beach looks. By the time I got the anchor down, the wind was gusting 28 knots, but we had the island protecting us from any waves so I slept well

The next morning was a little calmer and I headed round into the main La Paz bay, I was determined to get a swim in before I hit the docks and dropped anchor in Balandra Bay. This is a stunning area with picture postcard beaches. I snorkeled some rocks and a small reef, saw some great fish, and forgot to look under the boat while I was down there! Maybe I will take the boat out again.

Sunday morning and I leave for the Marina. It’s been blowing hard all night and around 20 boats have all taken shelter in the corner of the bay I’m in.
On the way back I spot the cruise ships are still here.

I was a bit worried about getting into the slip as the wind was gusting quite strongly, but as it turned out the marina staff turned out to take my lines and all went very smoothly.

A short time later, the boat is washed down, plumbed into the marina’s electricity, water and broadband/ethernet. Tomorrow I have to try and get as much canvas down as possible, if the wind allows me as a hurricane is headed for us. How exciting is that. More below.

Hurricane Enrique

Below is the forecast for the waters south of me, and a good five hundred miles south. The hurricane is tracking slowly to the East of North right now and that means it may well travel up the sea of Cortez and reach us soon

PMZ023-280930-
Entrance to the Gulf of California including Cabo Corrientes-
228 PM PDT Sun Jun 27 2021

...HURRICANE WARNING...

.TONIGHT...HURRICANE CONDITIONS. Near Cabo Corrientes, NW to N
winds 65 to 75 kt, shifting to E to SE late. Elsewhere, W winds 
60 to 65 kt, becoming SW to W 45 to 50 kt late. Seas 11 to 17 ft 
in S to SW swell. Period 15 seconds. Scattered showers and 
isolated tstms. Vsby 1 NM or less. 
.MON...HURRICANE CONDITIONS EXPECTED. Near Cabo Corrientes, S 
winds 60 to 70 kt. Elsewhere, SW to W winds 25 to 30 kt, 
increasing to 35 to 40 kt in the afternoon. Seas 10 to 16 ft in S
to SW swell. Period 16 seconds. Scattered showers and isolated 
tstms. 
.MON NIGHT...HURRICANE CONDITIONS EXPECTED. S winds 55 to 65 kt 
Near Cabo Corrientes, and SW to W 45 to 60 kt Elsewhere. Seas 9 
to 14 ft in S to SW swell. Period 15 seconds. Scattered showers 
and isolated tstms.

Below is the forecast for the area La Paz is in, much more manageable, but things could change. To think I scooted all the way here from Mazatlan to be in the path of a possible hurricane!

PMZ021-280930-
Southern Gulf of California-
228 PM PDT Sun Jun 27 2021

.WED...TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS POSSIBLE. 
.WED NIGHT...TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS POSSIBLE. 
.THU...S winds 20 to 25 kt, diminishing to 10 kt in the
afternoon. Seas 2 to 4 ft. Period 16 seconds. 
.THU NIGHT...S winds 10 to 15 kt. Seas 3 ft or less. Period
16 seconds. 
.FRI...S winds 10 to 15 kt. Seas 3 ft or less. Period
16 seconds. 

Th

I’m pretty confident it will fizzle out and it will be wet and windy here, but at least it will be cool and the boat gets a good washing.

Paul Collister.

Tuesday 15th June 2021
Last night and this morning was spent playing with the pactor modem. It’s working now and I briefly connected to a shore station (HAM) and sent an email. However if I use high power, or anything more than quite low power really, I get interference back to the modem. Apparently this is very common, in fact a few weeks ago, I just happened to be chatting to my neighbour on his T37 about SSB and he said he couldn’t use his modem for exactly this reason.
When I was 15, I operated my HAM station (G4dly) out of my bedroom and initially caused interference on everyone’s TV and Radio, I remember the neighbour had the home office radio engineers out they were so fed up with it. I offered to help, but they insisted I was the problem, not their telly, however once they were told by the home office that there telly was in fact illegally receiving my transmissions, and I was in the clear, they were happy for me to fit some filters, which I think solved the problem. Anyway, the reason I mention this is, that during that time, I researched the socks off radio frequency interference (RFI), and I think got quite good at it. So solving the problem here should be a doddle, if I can just remember what I knew 47 years ago 🙁 .
If I can get this working well, I will have a way to get weather forecasts and update friends and family on my whereabouts, wherever I am in the world. For the South Pacific passages, I may well have satellite comms, and if Mr Musk hurries up, I might even have broadband, I’m on his waiting list. Having this is a good backup.
So lunchtime Tuesday and I head off into the heat on my bicycle to search for Ferrite Rings, these are the modern way of reducing interference. Pictures below.

Sadly after a few hours of cycling and visiting 5 electronic component shops I had to give up. It looks like an amazon.mx job now.
I pop into Ley on the way back, and find the vegan section, I now have a selection of Chorizo sausage and meatballs to try.

Wednesday
I arrange for Rafa the fridge engineer to call back and see if he can find the coolant leak, this involves emptying out the cockpit lockers again. Before I do that, I take the SSB ATU connections off and remake these, I notice the earth of the ATU is connected to a 2″ wide copper strip/wire. This stuff snakes around the bilge and I’m not a fan of it. A bit of a waggle and it crumbles apart. I’m wondering if it was doing any good at all so I fire up the SSB without the earth on, and it tunes up just fine, telling me the ATU is finding its earth back from the SSB rig via the coax, or down the 12v cable. Either way, this is not good for the rig, tuning, transfer of power to the backstay/atmosphere, and especially not good for keeping the stray radiation inside the boat to a minimum. I dig out some heavy cable and route it from the ATU down into the bilge. While rummaging for said cable, I find a couple of ceiling fans that run on mains power. I tie one to the ceiling, remembering how well it worked in the past somewhere, probably Malaysia, before realising it’s 240v, so not a lot of use unless I run long leads around. So I head off to the Hipermarket to see if they sell a 110v version of the same thing. There’s something comforting about having a large revolving fan in the ceiling, perhaps I have some British empire colonial DNA kicking around.

And this is what I ended up with 😉

Thursday
Rafa confirms there is a slow leak from the evaporator in the fridge and that I might as well buy a whole new system, $1000 in the USA but more like $1700 by the time it gets here with shipping and taxes. And that’s between countries that have a trade deal and a land border. I would be tempted to sail up to San Diego and buy it there and fit it myself, as I could also get a load of other stuff I need, like a VHF Radio, VHF handheld, Watermaker stuff etc etc, but I don’t have the required visa anymore, and would have to get that in London, also Covid would probably stop me anyway.
While the locker is empty, I crawl down to inspect the earth bonding connections, and tie in the new cable I pushed down for the ATU. Perhaps I should explain, the ATU is the Aerial Tuning Unit and makes the backstay that holds the mast up, appear to be the perfect length wire for the SSB transmitter. The SSB being the radio I use for long distance, over the horizon, communications. I clean a lot of connections up, put new lugs on a few wires and tighten down the connections to the sintered bronze earth block and the Zinc Anodes.
Back at the SSB, the background noise seems much lower, and the rig is tuning up better, so I’m very pleased, however with MF/HF Radio signals, you can never be sure if it’s just a good/bad day for radio propagation. I try the Pactor modem again, and it’s slightly better, but still falling over as the radio transmissions are getting into the Modem. Later I pop over to have a chat with Denis on Ultegra, a fine sloop from Vancouver, the boat that is. We have a nice chat, he was a pilot operating float planes out of Alert bay for a while, I feel so cool to be able to just say, “Oh yeah, we know Alert bay well, been there many times” , of course he knows Sointula / Malcolm island well as it’s only a mile or so away and confirms my suspicion that there’s a little bit of tension between the two islands. Alert Bay is on Cormorant Island which has very strong roots with the First Nations people, whereas Sointula looks to Finland for its history. As far as I could tell, both Islands got on well but it’s a reminder to me how tensions exist between practically every grouping of people, no matter how similar they and their situations are. Enough philosophy, the main thing here is that Dennis had some ferrite rings which I borrowed.
They helped a lot and I managed to send an email to myself via a mexican HAM Pactor station. I also sent one to Dirk, but I’m not sure if that arrived yet. I need more ferrite, and perhaps a different routing of the cables. But all in all I think we are almost there with the Pactor/SSB.
No sign of activity at the top of the mast, it has been 16 days now since I saw Egg number 1, it should hatch anyday, however I think it might take a little while before I can see any babies up there. I’ve just realised that I don’t know much about this, I presume it’s one baby per egg? How do double yolkers fit into this? And if you want to tell me hens eggs for eating are different to chick carrying eggs, then I say visit the markets in Thailand!

Friday 18th June
Rafa returns, he has left his pressure gauge on the fridge overnight, and he confirms the pressure has not dropped. He, and I concur, that the leak is in the evaporator. I don’t know if you remember I went on at some length about the overwhelming urge I have to hack the ice off the evaporator when defrosting 🙁
Anyway, it seems that with the ice buildup from the last two recharges, that the ice is stopping the leak. So as long as I keep the fridge frosted I might get away with it. It sounds like a plan, and I’m going for it. Just as soon as I can get a replacement I will though.
We have a tropical storm that is threatening to turn into a proper hurricane and it’s only a few days away. It’s heading towards Mazatlan, at least that’s the clickbait version of things, I expect it will fizzle out before it gets here, and even if it does get here, it’s unlikely to harm us given our location up a long channel inland.

Still it’s a worry, and we will almost certainly get some wind from it. I worry for my feathered friends as they might have a job coping.
I take a walk around the marina to stretch my legs and on the way back I notice it has got dark rather quickly, looking up I can see very menacing clouds racing above, very soon the whole sky is a dark grey and the wind has picked up. I know it’s not storm Dolores, as she’s been named, but I expect it’s a squall thats spun off her, or at least been in some way affected. It could also just be caused by a local heat spot, either way, back at the boat the wind has picked up to maybe 20-25 knots in gusts, and I have to take down some covers I had up to deflect the sun, as they are trying to head north. I hope the bird(s) are ok.
Just before sunset I head over to Dennis’s boat to return the ferrite rings and upon looking up the mast I can’t see the nest. I grab the binoculars and wander around the pontoon to get a better view but I can’t see the nest anywhere. Now I’m quite worried. It’s too late to be going up the mast to check, and when I’m at Dennis’s boat he says he can see the nest from his angle, I can’t but perhaps they have squashed up against the light to avoid the wind. I decide a mast climb is in order for first thing in the morning.

Saturday.
The Hurricane hasn’t happened, the storm headed inland, but we can expect some wind and rain soon. So with some trepidation I head up the mast, I have already had a good look with the binoculars from various places in the marina and I’m pretty sure they have left. As I approach the top it’s clear they are not there. The mother has flown away, and there’s no nest, as for the egg I think there were two possible scenarios. 1) The squall blew the nest away and the egg crashed to the ground, or 2) the egg had hatched and the mother and baby flew away when the squall started, and the squall scattered the nest to the winds.
Now in all my years I have generally found that stuff that falls of the mast ends up on the deck, despite the strong wind, the boat wasn’t rocking much at all, and so I am certain if egg or chick had fallen, it would be on the deck below, and it isn’t. I have had a good look. So I am going with the fact that Mother and Baby are safe and happily cooing away from their new home.

I have started to tidy the boat, and have booked my place in Marina La Paz for three months starting next Saturday.
I hope the baby bird got away, I can’t think that I could of done much more to help, in the end it had to deal with the forces of nature, as birds have been doing since birds began I expect.

Sunday
It rained last night, around 3am, there was lightning and thunder and a serious downpour. This will not seem like much of an event to those back home, but for me, it was the first decent downpour I have seen for probably a year now. we have had maybe 2 or 3 showers in the last year, but no propper rain. The only downside to this is that the mosquitos now have plenty of places to lay eggs.

In the morning I load up the dinghy with 6 * 20 ltr empty diesel cans and head around to the fuel dock, only to find they must all be at church. I will go back tomorrow. I have a full tank of 200 ltrs, but at 5 litres/hour (on a bad day) thats 40 hours of motoring, and it’s about 220 miles to La Paz, at 5 knots, that would be 44 hours, so I would like some reserve. Saying that, I plan to sail for most of the passage. After launching the dinghy, I scan the foredeck closely for any signs of egg, and there’s nothing.
Another trip to Walmart to stock up on a few things for now, and for the passage. I took a snap of a missing manhole cover en route that I nearly cycled into the other night. It was dark and I just picked it up with my bike light. My bike would easily fit through that hole. One hopes that after sailing two oceans, one might eventually be able to go out in a bit of style, lost at sea, is fine with me. But not by falling into a drain on the way home from Walmart.

So I will publish the blog now as tomorrow, Monday, I’m going to be quite busy preparing the boat for sea. I have to take down tarps that have been keeping me cool, stow the bike and the new fan, get the fuel and provisions, get the dinghy back on board , etc etc.
I plan to hit the sea on Tuesday morning around 8:00, I have to find out the latest dredging schedule. It’s looking good for swell at the moment, and hopefully once I’m out of the marina it should be a simple 2 day passage.

I’m desperate for some peace and quiet, without the tourist boats blasting out their Banda and Rap music, so instead of going straight to La Paz, I will get within a half days sail and slip into a cove near Balandra or on Espiritu Santo and enjoy some peace and do a bit of snorkeling and swimming. I have booked a place in Marina De La Paz from Saturday until the end of September. Once there I will start to strip the boat outside, sails/covers/canopies and even the solar panels will come off as I will be leaving the boat all alone during hurricane season, it needs to have the least wind resistance possible. Just in case.

Tuesday 8th June 2021
Rafa seems to have done a good job on the fridge, it’s very cold and holding up to the seriously hot temperatures here. It’s now hitting 35c inside the cabin and only drops to around 32 at night. Outside it has been hotter. People in La Paz warned me that Mazatlan would be very hot, but funnily enough it’s been much hotter in La Paz, getting into the 40’s there I hear.
I have decided that if the worst case predictions come true, then the eggs may not hatch before my flight home. I would then either have to book new tickets at some cost, or not go home. There’s no way I’m going up the mast to kill two baby doves while there mother flys around me going crazy.
However I haven’t seen the mother today, and perhaps she has abandoned the egg(s). I decide to climb the mast, take some pictures with the GoPro as that’s easier to handle, and if she is not there, to take the nest with the egg away and try to set it up in a new home. If the new home doesn’t work, it should still be less stressful than the alternatives I hope.
If I am delayed here by the doves, then I may have to move the boat if a hurricane approaches, and that’s definitely a possibility, if I move the boat, I expect the nest and eggs or baby doves will come crashing down onto the hard deck as the boat rocks.
I’m very optimistic as I approach the nest, until I’m very close and the dove appears in front of me, sitting on the egg, and I think there may be a second in there. As I move around her with the camera, she flaps her wings at me in an offensive gesture, they make a very loud clap sound and it certainly makes me jump a little. I’m hoping she will fly away, but she’s resolute in protecting the eggs so I realise there and then, I’m here for a few more weeks at least.
You can see the video below.

My right hand is outstretched holding the GoPro camera, like a selfie stick, and my feet are in the mast steps, and I’m basically holding myself on with just my left hand. I feel confident because my safety harness is attached to the mast via a bit of rope, it’s only when I start to head down and I check the harness that I notice the knot is undone, the rope dangling down and I would have just had time to briefly think on that as I sped past at 9.8 meters per second per second.
Must try harder on the safety front.

Wednesday
I ask in the marina office if they have had any experience of this, while explaining my 7 day stay here may turn out to be 5-6 weeks. The lady in charge says she may be able to get someone in to relocate the nest, I ask her to investigate, but I’m worried if they will really relocate or just pop it all into a bin on there way out. It’s not an issue now as they never got back to me.

Above I have put a stock picture from National Geographic of a mourning dove, next to mine. It’s close enough for me, but others may point out that one is a dove and the other a rare orangutan, I’m not very good on animal or bird identification. I think it’s time she had a name.

Thursday
I’m being very lazy, if she’s sitting around all day and night on an egg, I feel like I can slow down a bit too. I do a little programming for a customer, that will cover the cost of the fridge repairs, and I start to read the “Handmaid’s tale”
Later I visit the Soriano supermarket in search of some veggie/vegan goods, but it seems like Sinaloa is not the place to be a veggie. I pop into Office World to get some printer cartridges for my little cannon. It’s a model 6100, I have ranted about this before, and in my mind this should be on the G7 agenda this weekend, as they don’t stock cartridges for that model anymore, I mean why would they, It’s 6 months old. There is a new model, the 6110, Cartridges that look identical, but apparently won’t work. I wonder if the EU can put an end to this madness, how about all ink cartridges must be easily refillable, or let’s go back to ink ribbons.
I eat out at one of the bars that line the edge of the marina. I sit down with my kindle, hoping the pounding house/banda rap music coming from the boats opposite will stop soon, once their passengers have disgorged but no, the music is coming from above my head, and as the sun sets I notice there’s also disco lights sweeping around and my table turns bright blue every 20 seconds. And it’s not several boats making the noise, it’s the restaurants either side of me playing similar music, but competing with each other for who can make the worst mix of drums and bass. At least Margaret Atwood’s writing is interesting enough for me to ignore this for the time it takes to eat a hamburguesa camarones, (Shrimp Burger). Very nice it is too.

Friday
On Friday I’m starting to suffer from the heat, or more specifically the humidity. I dig out the Plastic covers for the boat I had made in Miri, Borneo, some time back and after an hour of tugging heavy plastic around the boat is covered. The inside temperature drops from 35 to around 30 over the next 24 hours.

Saturday
It’s funny how one still thinks Saturday must be approached differently to the working days of the week, even though I’m in a country where most people seem to work a six or seven day week anyway, and I retired long ago from the normal routine. Still I feel shopping is in order, I hate consumerism but feel if I have to go, then a Saturday is the best day to join in the convention. In order to add some spice to my outing, I visit Sam’s club. I’m not really sure how this all works, I think it’s a cash and carry, like costco, and you pay about $20 / year to get their discounts. I presumed when we arrived in Mexico 19 months ago, that we wouldn’t be here long enough to get our $20 back in the discounts. I think I was wrong there. I like the spaciousness of the place, but mostly I like the supply of chocolate they had. Kathy will like the wine supply. Time to join the club.

After Sam’s club, into Walmart then home to the boat.

Like much of my childhood, Saturday started with promise but ended with little achieved. At least as a child I always had Doctor Who waiting for me at tea time. Here I have episode 9000 or so of Leo sanding his hull in Sequim, and RAN sanding his bottom.
On the cycle ride home I feel some rain, the first in a year I think. It’s quite exciting, and as I approach the marina it’s getting stronger. Once on the boat it starts chucking it down and the sky is dark lit up by great streaks of lightning. I feel a little concern for the dove now, being on the top of a mast on water in a lightning storm is not the smartest of places to hang out. These birds often only live for a year, but can live up to 5 or 6, I wonder if this is her first thunderstorm? I temper this by remembering that she is the intruder. When mice invaded my house in London and Liverpool, I was open to the idea that I was the invader, Mice will have been nesting in those spots for millenia, my West Kirby flat was built on what was beach just 150 years ago. But here, on water, and I suspect this has always been a waterway here, there would have been no trees or nesting spots, so she is well out of order to move onto my mast.

Sunday
I feel I should rest today, maybe go to the beach, goodness knows why, I’ve been resting most days now for the last ten years. I load up the bike with my towel and swimming trunks and head north. Theres a spot I saw on google earth, north of the development zone, where it looks like there may be a small beach away from the resort hotels and Condos. When I get there it’s full of extended Mexican families enjoyed the protected waters there. A row of rocks breaks the surf up. It’s lovely and there’s lots of food available, however the humidity has killed my appetite.

We have had a few tropical storms develop near the southern border of Mexico, mostly they have headed out to the west or northwest, found colder water and died. but the side effect is clouds being spun off and sent my way, which is fine with me. I’m bored with the constant sunshine every day.

Weekends are busy in the marina with day trip boats rushing in and out with their revellers. Below is a typical scene.

I am also amazed at how the brass band, I’m not sure if they are Banda or Mariachi, or a combination of both, join the trippers to provide music. As below you can see the band take up half the boat, and are very loud. I don’t quite see how this comes under enjoyable. I love it, but purely for the surrealistic site of a man playing a huge Tuba in a boat that’s not much bigger.

Monday 14th June 2021
The plan was to go up the mast and film an update, she has been out of site, or absent for 2 days now. But as I look up in the binoculars from a pontoon finger two slips away, I can see her sitting there brooding. I won’t go up, it won’t tell me anything new, and I don’t think she thinks much of me so far. Instead I shall give her and her fella a name, how about Mary (Shepherd) for the female. Named after another unexpected guest who stayed a little too long. Fitting for a mainly Catholic country.

I think it’s funny how having the hatching egg on the mast is a pain for me, but would be Sailing Vlog Gold for many of the channels I watch on YouTube. They could really milk this, I wonder if there is a way I can syndicate it 😉

So still no babies, I have no more than 4 weeks left if I want to get my boat to La Paz and fly home. If I keep the boat here I will have 5 weeks. It’s going to be tight.
The goal for the next few days is to get the Pactor Modem working with Airmail, so that I can send and receive small emails from anywhere in the world for free, using the modem and the SSB. This will be invaluable from the south pacific. I have most of it working except for the control of the radio from the computer. If I’m not completely mad, it seems you control the rig via it’s headphone output. That can’t be right.

Finally it looks like I do have a leak in the fridge coolant, as the temperature is dropping daily.

Paul Collister.

Wednesday 2nd June 2021.
I’m getting ready to leave tomorrow, I will need fuel and some food, so I decide to check out the big municipal market before I leave. I’m on deck about to retrieve the bike when my neighbour points out that I have a visitor on the top of my mast. Looking up I can see a nest has appeared. The area that’s available up there is only the size of a beer mat, yet it looks like a ‘Mourning Dove’ has moved in. Apparently they can build a nest in a day if needed, typically 1-2 days.
I’m no expert on these things, but I may be soon.
I climb the mast to investigate and as I approach I can see the mother bird right in front of me, she stares for a few seconds then flies off, revealing a big egg she was sitting on. I take a picture and retreat. Not before I ponder slinging the egg over into the sea and brushing the nest away. I decide there’s no need to make a rash decision just yet, I will go to the market and ponder.

The market is great, one of the best I have seen in Mexico so far. In my mind, I’m optimistically wondering if the chick might hatch while I’m out shopping, and be ready to fly away in a couple of days, I have no idea on these matters. However, I’m struggling to justify killing the baby dove and distressing the mother just so I can meet an arbitrary deadline of being in La Paz by Monday. I can actually wait here for a couple of weeks, it’s slightly cheaper, but I won’t get to spend as much time with my new friends in La Paz as I had hoped.
One neighbour, and a couple of online friends have suggested I be brutal and explain to the mother she needs to start again in another place. A worry is that I could be stuck here for weeks, and then if a hurricane appears I may not be able to make the crossing in time to prepare the boat for my flight home. All to save a chick, that has a low chance of survival here anyway.

As I ponder this, I become acutely aware that I’m wandering through the poultry section of the market and there are hundreds of birds in various stages of dismemberment hanging and stacked all around me. There’s probably worse than Pollo here if I looked deeper. I don’t eat chicken or any meat anymore, so I didn’t feel an immediate guilt or duplicity about this, but I have eaten more than enough in the past. It seems we have a problem killing little pretty fluffy vulnerable things, best let them grow up and get tasty first.

From the market I visit the art gallery which is now open, they only have a small exhibition on but it’s amusing and reminds me of the work an artist friend does in London.

The other museums seem to be closed so I cycle down to the industrial dock area, I’m curious to see where the ferry to Stone Island is. This is supposed to be a great place to visit, miles of lovely beaches, but I’m confused because none of the islands here have any real big beaches. It turns out that it’s not an island at all, just a bit of coast that’s difficult to get to. I feel very cheated and want to complain to some kind of standards body. Surely the definition of an island should be easy to enforce.

I find the ferry terminal, but now feel that I would rather cycle the 25 miles or so needed to get to the beach rather than take a fraudulent ten minute island boat ride.

Friday 4th June.
The mother is still sitting on her egg(s), I’m a little wiser having met people who have had the same issue, two sailors have advised being brutal, another explained how he decided to wait and enjoyed watching the babies hatch in a nest inside his mainsail cover, then fly away. I’m with him on this one but worried his chicks took 2 weeks to learn to fly, I expect mine will be advanced learners. I also heard there’s more than a 50% chance a predator will attack the nest, survival rate is low for chicks, hence the mother’s nest 5-6 times a year I’m told. Somehow the idea of a pelican, or frigate solving my problem doesn’t seem so bad. Nature’s way?
For now I have put out a call to refrigeration engineers to come and fix the fridge, that’s going to take a few days, should they turn up, and I may have to wait for parts, then we can reassess the situation. I’m not sure if these birds are migratory, but if so, most countries have strict rules about approaching / disturbing their nest, in the USA and possible Canada, I think you can be imprisoned for interfering, I have read of people having to leave their boats and move ashore. Fridge man just called to say he will arrive on Monday and can work on my fridge, so that’s good.
A local diver has just finished cleaning the bottom of the boat, he spent an hour underwater, he tells me the antifoul is very good, just a few small barnacles at the stern and that my anodes are all good. All this for $40.
There are a few boats here, that the owners have left for the hurricane season and gone home. I wonder how bad it would be to relocate a nest to their boats? 😉
So I have a free weekend now, I have no work, not many boat jobs, and miles and miles of fantastic beaches and eateries, I guess I will just have to find a way to cope.

The weekend.
Later on Friday I noticed a lot of emails arriving, after an hour I had over 5000 messages from Microsoft (MSN) telling me I was spamming them. I shut my mail server down and started to investigate.
It turns out my server (I rent from Amazon) has been hacked. The email server I configured is secure, I put a lot of effort into that, but I can see ways to improve now. The problem comes from WordPress, at some point I had used a plugin (some fancy code that gives your site bells and whistles) that had installed malicious software onto my server, allowing baddies to upload more evil code at a later date. I actually host about 10 websites on my server, mostly old or test sites I play with. One of them, a wordpress site I used to have at bluehost was the source of the infection, in fact it was almost certainly infected there, possibly by another user on the shared server. The file dates point to this. So it was only the websites on the server that were vulnerable, however the wordpress sites, in fact probably all the sites have the ability to send emails, and that was the hackers intention it would seem, so last week around half a million Wells Fargo Phishing emails left my server for the users of MSN. Microsoft blocked my IP fairly quickly and sent me complaint emails for each one they received. I also had about 25,000 emails, backed up in queues waiting to be delivered.
I spent most of the weekend trying to figure all of this out, and I hope my site is secure again, but the nature of the hack makes it hard to be certain, without re-installing wordpress on all my sites (3 in total). We shall monitor it closely. I also will be throttling my email server so it can’t send more than 1 email a minute or so, once I work out the syntax. One of the side effects of this is that my emails might not get through to people, or end up in junk folders until I re-establish my servers credentials with the spam agencies.

I managed to fit a trip to the beach to cool both days though, so not all work.

And a visit to the supermarket.

Monday and I have a cold fridge again, Raffa, the local fix everything engineer refilled the gas for £50, but tells me the unit is 11 years old and needs to be replaced. The connections are leaking oil and the evaporator is rusting. I might get a few more months before it needs to be refilled. This could be expensive. But for now I have cold Cerveza sin Alcohol.

Paul Collister

Tuesday 25th May 2021
After a slowish sail down from my failed attempt at getting into Altata, I arrived early at Mazatlan, the dredging was not meant to start until 10 am So I was hoping to sneak past that obstacle on the way in. There was a fair amount of swell bring breaking waves close to the entrance so I was a little apprehensive, but I have done a few entries like this before, the scariest might have been in Miri.

The marina had assigned me a berth, but I must have misheard and ended up in the wrong one, It didn’t really matter, there are party boats everywhere blasting out lovely Banda music (not) from there PA systems.

I clear in, the office staff are lovely and offer to sort out my expired visa for me when they see it.

Later I cycle down the Malecon to see what this town has to offer. Sadly I’m very disappointed, The marina is in the ‘Marina’ district, an area that 15 years ago was just fields I expect, but was designated a development site where a big fancy marina, in fact several marinas were built, lots and lots of condos, shopping malls, superstores etc. A lot of it looks very smart, but overall it’s not finished, and large parts are already in decay, while other fields are being prepared for huge skyscraper type hotels and condos. In the UK, Marina generally is used to describe a place where richer people keep their boats. I have noticed in the rest of the world, it means an opportunity for property developers to make a killing. The marina district here only has about 5% to do with boats, the rest is big malls, strip malls, autozone type stores, fast food and lots of condos.

This marina is the base for many day trip / tour boats. Big catamarans, and power boats, plus a few other oddities, like a giant sailboat called the black pearl, that seems to take about 30 people just on it’s foredeck. They fill up with boisterous young people, many of them a little ‘happy’ , many smoking cigarettes that have a very distinctive smell I remember from California 😉
The boats put on some really loud thumping music and head off out into the bay for an hour or so. At the weekend there’s a constant stream of them.
To get to the famous malecon, I have to cycle through the hotel zone, that’s really depressing, massive hotels for a few miles front the beach. Again, only for the use of patrons, I get to cycle along the back of the hotels where the streets are lined with tourist trinket stores, fast food, and fancy diners, casinos etc. People here travel like they do in Thailand, little open backed trucks that take 8 people, often decorated, with disco lights and loud music blasting out. Or they use smaller golf cart type vehicles. Congestion is bad, fumes are bad, noise is bad, plus you have lots of diggers/cranes/trucks delivering steel girders & rebar iron to building sites set up wherever there is a chance to build. In my mind, just one ugly site after another for miles.

When I do reach the Malecon, it’s a characterless concrete affair, next to a busy highway making it noisy and polluted. However the sea and waves do look good. I plan to go to a supermarket, but realise I have lost or forgot (Lost it turns out) my padlock for the bike. So I can’t leave it outside anywhere. I cycle around and end up in the older part of town, things are looking up now. The cathedral looks great, and in a street next to it I find a bike shop, where I buy a new lock for £3.
Cycling back I call into Ley and get some fresh food, back to the boat and an early night. That’s a ten mile round trip.

Back at the marina and I confirm that the boat over from me on the next dock is indeed ‘Sailors Run’ Geoff & Debbie’s baba 40. It’s the same as mine but in Ketch format, an extra mast at the back. I followed Geoff daily as he sailed this boat single handed, non stop, solo around the world. He was 70 at the time, and an inspiration to us all. He was pivotal in my mind in deciding to buy this baba for our round the world trip, and I learnt a lot about extreme weather sailing from his blog updates and later his book. Sadly he’s not on his boat, as I would have loved to say hello.

Wednesday
I head on down the Malecon by taxi to the Oficina de Turismo, I have been told they can help me get vaccinated. Amazingly as I’m looking for the right door, a lady comes out and offers to help, she explains that they can vaccinate me tomorrow, but they only have the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, she thinks the Astrazeneca is better, but that ran out. I book an appointment for tomorrow.
Later that day I realise that there is a Walmart just 5 minutes away on the bike, so I head over there. I hate multinationals, and I prefer to shop in Mexican owned shops when in Mexico, but I have to say, they have everything I have been missing, and spend far too much on European chocolate, spanish omelette, whole wheat bolillo etc.

Thursday
I get a cab to the vaccine location, a big sports hall near the stadium, I’m wandering around, wondering where us foreigners queue when I’m pulled out of the crowd by a young lady who tells me to follow her, it’s the same lady from the tourist office, she is there to help out foreigners. She gets my paperwork done, and within an hour I’m jabbed up and sent on my way. Thank you Mexico for your kindness. You may be a poor country, but you show much generosity & humanity to foreigners.
I’m thinking I should get a taxi back to the boat in case I feel any side effects, but instead I set of an a 15 mile walk around town.

Before I get too far I decide a meal on the beach might be fun

6 Hours later I call a taxi from the far end of town. I sleep well.

Friday,
A man from the Immigration office turns up. I know a lot of people who complain about how things work in far away countries, but in the UK, had my visa expired, (due to covid I haven’t been able to renew it easily), I would be rounded up, possibly put in a detention centre, then deported. However, here I just pay a man from immigration (at least that’s what he said) some money and it’s all sorted. Seems much more civilised to me. I get a visa, he and his family get a night out on the town, everyone’s happy.

Saturday 29th May
Boat chores today, wash my clothes, have a little cycle around the marina. Now I have the vaccine and the visa sorted I can leave and head back to the Baja, but first I want to visit the cultural sights, tomorrow will be a bit arty and archeological, sadly the weather looks like I might have to stay here until next weekend, I’m sure I will find jobs to do.

Sunday
I cycle downtown, the roads aren’t really designed for cyclists here, and the drivers aren’t mad on us either. they have cycle lanes, but they’re dangerous to use and cars treat them like an undertaking lane. Also lots of pot holes and steep drops make them bumpy. The art gallery is closed, so are the other museums. I can’t work out when they should be open, but the lady at the art gallery says Miercoles (Wednesday) we will see. Still I have a great time cycling around the old town. Wonderful spanish colonial style buildings. I’m reminded of Barceloneta, Barcelona in places.

I cycle down to the beach and find a quiet little cove away from the crowds and jump in the sea to cool down. The waves are strong here and there’s lots of rocks, so after half an hour I jump on my bike and head back along the malecon, however the sea is calling again, so I wheel the bike down to the big beach and do some more swimming, it’s just perfect here, the temperature is great, the waves are fun, but eventually I have to head back.
I pick up some ice on the way as the fridge has packed in.

Monday and I checkout a big shopping mall, it has a C&A but no clothes that I want, I do find a big clothing store that claims to be in liquidacion, and I buy 5 pairs of shorts at a very good price, onto Ley and fresh stuff for a slap up fish dinner. I can’t really store food now so it will have to be fresh every day.

Wednesday 19th May 2021
I’m not really a beach person, but when I surveyed the horizon this morning for the first time in daylight, I was amazed at just how stunning this estuary is. It looked so relaxing that I decided to stay a day before heading into town. I tidied the boat up after the passage and restored some of the more fragile items to their normal place on tables or shelves.

Then after breakfast and my last banana I launched the Kayak and headed off towards the beach to explore. I had to use the chart plotter to determine how far away it was. The sand created an optical illusion such that meant I couldn’t tell if I was looking at some small sand dunes or a vast desert of sand. It turned out to be the former. I thought I could see a large building in the sand in the distance, the bottom hidden in a valley, later it turned out to be an upturned crate buried near the beach.

I kayaked around, a lot of the birds were quite shy, and I wondered if the dunes were protected and I shouldn’t be there. I was careful where I walked. I saw a few spots were fishermen had made camp, so I felt I was probably ok. I put a short clip on Youtube (Below)

Of course with this kind of unspoilt remote paradise there is always the bugs, that night they feasted on me, there is a mosquito who I think wants to be my partner, because she, I don’t think the males bite, seems to live in my bedroom and joins me every night for dinner (her dinner). I use DEET a lot, but I’m assuming it’s a pesticide, and the fact it has two of the letters of a famous pesticide DDT in its name worries me.

Thursday Morning
I haul anchor and head into town. It looks like a big commercial port, the main baja truck, car & passenger ferry from La Paz runs daily trips here, and there’s a big oil terminal. The guides recommend calling the harbour master to get permission to enter the narrow buoyed channel so I brush up on my “Puerto Capitanía, Solicito permiso para entrar al canal Por Favor” however he doesn’t respond, I’m deflated. I had phoned the marina and they answered but the girl went all shy on me when I tried my Spanish on her, she put me on hold, then let me time out. When I phoned back she wouldn’t answer. I actually think a lot of Mexicans are a bit shy when it comes to talking with gringos. So I had no idea if there would be a space for me when I arrived. Also the chart doesnt really show where I can anchor safely, the route to the marina is narrow and very shallow.
Still as I have said before, one’s fears rarely turn out to be justified, and I always prefer to take a punt. So off we went, it turned out that the channel was wide enough that I could skate along the outside of it, in 5 metres of water without issue, the secondary smaller channel was always 3-4 metres deep and as I approached the marina I called on the VHF and someone acknowledged me, but wouldnt have a conversation, presumably because they had walked down to the pontoons and were waving me into a big empty berth. £50 later, in the office, and I’m all sorted for 2 nights here. I now have enough Spanish to feel confident enough to start a basic conversation, which is nice. When the topic of where I come from pops up, Liverpool, football is often mentioned, Today I was able to explain, “Tengo dos hermanos, son fanáticos del fútbol, pero yo no.” (I have have two brothers who are football fanatics, but not me!).

Into town for some shopping and to check things out, again I’m in a very poor town, it’s a bit like holyhead not far from my hometown, in that it’s a port for ferries and commercial traffic primarily, the road into town is full of trucks queued up waiting for their ship.

There’s also a big railway line right into the docks. This line goes to Mochis I think, the next proper big town, from where people start their trip up a classic old railway line into the copper canyon. Known as the El Chepe train. I would love to visit this, but it’s a bit complicated with Covid. Perhaps I will go with Kathy, it takes several days to do the round trip.
Yesterday the political leader of the state was murdered on the road into Mochis, assumed by the cartel, It’s election time here, and they take their canvassing pretty seriously. I was worrying about the state of democracy back home, but perhaps it’s not that bad. But slippery slope and all that!

The town has a malecon, with the obligatory sign, several vendors and a few eateries.

I find it to be a very pleasant place, nobody asks me to smuggle any mules into America, and the biggest upset is when I try to pay for 100 pesos worth of chocolate with a 20 peso note, having misheard the lady in the Oxxo. (For oxxo read 7-11) (for 7-11 read Spar)

Friday,

It seems to get diesel I need to take my cans around the corner to the fuel dock at what looks like another marina, but is in fact a private yacht club with their own fuel pontoon. I suspect it also services the shrimp fleets. It’s very rough and ready, and I’m glad I’m not taking the boat there, for one its dock is 10 ft higher than my boat, and has giant ropes hanging over the concrete as fenders. I take 115 litres in 5 jerry cans.

I have visited 4 fonatur marinas. These marinas were part of a plan by President Fox of Mexico in the 70’s. There were to be 22 roughly following the locations travelled by the early missionaries. The tourism ministry was given this task, the same government agency that took Cancun from a backwater to the delightful holiday retreat it has become today. Unfortunately these 22 marinas mostly failed, and in the case of this one pictured above in Topo, never got finished. They all have the same structure, I have been told it’s a French architects design, I have also been told the docking came from Ireland. The prices are very low, being government regulated, and where there are lots of yachties, they are full and you basically have to wait for someone to die, to move along the waiting list. (La Paz and here) In other places like Santa Rosalia, and Guaymas, the staff just keep them going but the original designs for swimming pools, captains lounges, modern facilities etc have gone by the way. The marina at Puerto Escondido, which is now run by a private consortium, with private prices, is stunning in comparison. I find the whole project of the Fonatur marinas to be fascinating and a possible insight into how business/politics/local economies work. I think once Fox lost the presidency, the will to make the project flourish left with him.

Saturday 22nd May 2021

Into town to do some last minute shopping before I leave. The market that looked so colourful and interesting yesterday is not there today. I wonder why, on a Saturday of all days. I go to the Oxxo and stock up on chocolate bars and fizzy drinks. Then back to the boat to ready for the off. While downtown I notice a big ferry, different to the La Paz ship is loading up with big trucks. I don’t want to meet it in the Channel so when I’m back on Sister Midnight I try to work out when it is leaving. Sadly I can’t find any reference to it on the internet, but I do hear the captain call the port capitania and mention 13:15 which is in an hour. I figure I shall wait until then and follow him out. Looking on the AIS I can see the big tanker that was out at sea anchored is making its way in, so hopefully I will be clear of them both.
10 minutes later I hear the oil tanker calling “Sailboat in the channel, this is MV Star” over and over again. No reply from the sailboat, this irks me as it’s bad practice and dangerous. The Captain of the tanker won’t be able to take avoiding action if they wander into his way. In fact he won’t even be able to see them once he gets within a few ships lengths. The situation is even more poignant given that the bow of the shrimper is sticking vertical out of the Chanel from the collision a few weeks back.

13:15 comes and there’s no sign of the ferry leaving, no action on the VHF so I decide to head out. I can stay out of the channel anyway, and follow the path I took in. I’m also not going all the way out to the sea, but will hang a right and park the boat back by the lovely beach I was on. The wind needs another day to turn to be with me, not against me. As I leave the marina, the said yacht passes me, I politely wave while checking that they do have a VHF antenna sticking out their mast, I’m tempted to wave my handheld VHF at them to get them onto 16 so I can tell them they were being called, but I’m pretty sure they know that anyway. They are US flagged and a couple in their late 50’s The boat is called something like ‘Getting Away’ So I think I understand what’s going on, and keep schtum.

Halfway along the channel I turn to the North West and back to the beach I anchored off, but curiosity, and a little too much swell  pushes me another few miles along the estuary. And I anchor off a lovely mangrove beach. It’s so pleasant here. I have a swim but the water is a little too hot. Also it’s very shallow near the shore, and near the boat there are hundreds of jellyfish floating past. 

Sunday, I leave about 10 o’clock and make my way through the channel back into the Sea of Cortez.
The channel is wide and safe, but on either side of me the waves break ferociously, they would easily tip me upside down if I strayed into them. I set the course for Altata, a town inside a bay/lagoon halfway to Mazatlan. It’s a bit of a party town, loads of restaurants, a nice Malecón, and very safe and protected there. I can anchor off the main town and dinghy in to the pier. The wind builds and I find myself sailing well the whole way. These last few nights have been crazy for condensation, actual puddles of water appearing around the boat. I guess the humidity is high. I abandon sleeping/watch keeping in the cockpit, it’s just too soggy, so end up in the passage bunk.

Monday

The approach to Altata is complicated, it’s a small gap where the estuary / bay / lagoon empties out into the sea, there can be strong tidal flows and we are near the spring tides which exaggerates the flow. Also either side of the entrance the flowing water has deposited sand making for a long narrow winding route in, with very shallow sandbanks on each side. These banks move around every year so the charts cannot be relied on. They tried to mark it with buoys, but the hurricanes kept taking them away.

It’s supposed to be safe in settled weather only, and it seems quite settled now, but as I approach I’m struggling to see the entrance. I edge closer, the massive waves that have appeared are right where I had hoped the channel was, and the calm bit seems to be where the sand bank is marked.

I keep my distance from the waves, but the depth is dropping quickly and now I have big waves to port. Holding my calm I move forward. The chart says that dead ahead in about half a mile I will be in the lagoon. But everywhere ahead is just roaring breaking waves, maybe 20ft high, the type surfers love in California, and the type that would flip me over in a flash. I presume it’s an optical illusion and some closer waves are overlapping distant ones and there is a way through. Checking the chartplotter, and my google earth images, the way through is into the biggest of the waves, and so, whatever charms Altata has, they will have to wait. I swing the boat around and head back. Thinking I’m out of there, I’m a little bothered that I’m now battling big waves that must have crept up behind me without me realising, some of them are breaking just a couple of boat lengths to port. I navigate through them and into calmer water.

Next stop Mazatlan in 24 hours. 
Later Arturo tells me on WhatsApp that he believes Altata is where Hernan Cortes lost half his fleet on his first expedition to the Sea that got his name. So I saved 100% of my fleet. I feel a bit better now.

Turning SE again, Up with the sails and off with the engine. I’m only making 3-4 knots, the sea is calming which is great as I don’t want to get to Mazatlan too early. One of the worrying things is that the entrance to the marina lagoon in Mazatlan can be dangerous if there is swell racing in, or if you should meet a big party catamaran heading out with or without the benefit of a dredger being at work on the first bend. I got to know a couple in Escondido who lost their yacht in just this spot, they took avoiding action and hit the rocks at the side, losing their keel and sinking. Note to oneself, be careful on that bend 🙂

Tuesday 25th May 2021
Safely tied up in Marina Mazatlan where I intend to stay for a week or two. The entrance through the waves around the dangerous bend was exciting, but as I had it all to myself, basically quite safe. More on Mazatlan to follow.

Wednesday 19th May
Did you see what I did there…
Yes I said goodbye to Guaymas and the state of Sonora and sailed south to Topolobampo, on my way to Mazatlan. I’m now at anchor outside Topo, in the state of Sinaloa. Sinaloa could be famous for its crops, it’s amazing coastline, but I think it’s most famous for its world beating drug cartel. In particular, a certain Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who is now serving a long sentence in a US prison. I’m hoping to avoid having to become a mule or any other awkward moments with the cartel, and I believe Mazatlan is one of the few places Americans are allowed to visit here if they follow their governments advice. I havent checked with mine.

Sunday 16th Guaymas Fonatur Marina
I cleared out with the marina ready for an early departure on Monday morning. If I want to get to Topolobampo before dark on Tuesday I needed to leave here around 5am on Monday. I prepared the boat, which mostly meant stowing stuff away, I poured 40 litres of fuel into the tanks from cans, then failed to get them topped up. Popped to the shops and after an extensive hunt, found some cheap non slip plastic material I could use to keep things from moving on passage.
While out shopping I checked the tides and found that at 5:30am on monday the tide would be very low so I made the decision to leave now and go to anchor locally so that wouldn’t be a worry. If I went back to the bird island I could also shave an hour off the next day’s journey, and sleep in an extra hour.
So back on the boat, it took 30 minutes of work and the lines were cast off and I headed out.

I was soon near the bird island, but decided to push on as I still had an hour of daylight left and headed for a small bay called Catalina, not to be confused with the californian island.

The stench of fish factories was awful on the way, and after one big shrimper passed me I found myself motoring through some horrible sludge, dead fish, and lots of waste, which I presume had just been dumped by the ship. Its big business here and the normally picturesque coves that line the coast were full of big factories with steam/smoke rising from them. My destination was the last cove, and upwind from them, so it was a relief to pull into a calm bay, that smelt ok and drop the hook just as the sun went behind the mountains. Stienbeck wrote about this area back in the 20’s, nearly a hundred years ago, and described the huge fleets of shrimpers dragging their nets along the seabed destroying and killing everything in their path. He wondered how long it might go on for, well sadly I have to report, it’s still going on, probably to a lesser extent.
It looked like I was rather close to a big rock, but the chart had me 100 metres away so I had to trust in the anchor and science.

Monday 17th
Up at 5:15 for a 5:30 departure, a last minute call to Kathy, but she’s out so up comes the anchor and were off, it’s 185 nm which at 5 knots average speed will take me 37 hours , or 24+13, which means now +13 hours tomorrow, or 18:30 arrival. The light is good until around 20:00, so we have a little bit of time to play with. I motor out into the open sea, and a bit of wind has started, I get the mainsail up and as we clear the land the wind picks up. I unroll the heasail and we are soon racing along at 6 knots. what a great start.

The wind is on the beam (Side on) which is the best for speed, but in a big open sea like this, that also means you can have big rollers hitting the side of the boat, which we have, so we are rolling a lot as well. This time the monkey has been tamed, and that’s not a euphemism, it’s just everything is stowed properly now. As the hours pas I’m pleased to be not using any fuel, if it carries on like this I won’t need anymore before Mazatlan. sadly as the sun sets, the wind goes and the engine comes on and stays on until I’m almost at Topo. Except that after about twenty minutes of running the engine I notice the oil pressure and engine temperature are not normal. You see the temp needle intersects the P of Penta on the display just before the stem meets the round bit of the letter, it’s been like that for 5 years now. and the oil pressure is bang on the vertical number, 60 maybe?, anyway the temp is now just slightly lower, maybe 2% and the oil pressure is just slightly lower. I ponder what on earth this could mean. The engine is working and sounding just fine, the readings are only slightly out, but why are they out at all. I don’t like mysteries. So I stop the engine, I want to be on top of things before it gets dark.

I take the engine covers off and check the oil level, it’s a little low, but still within the normal range. I examine the engine for leaks, nothing found, so I top up the oil, start the engine and examine for leaks with it running flat out. Nothing, covers back on, and back in the cockpit the dials are back to where they belong. I don’t understand what that was all about, but watch this space, I’m sure all will be revealed at some point soon. Losing the engine is not likely to be a big safety issue, I have sails, it’s more of a costly thing that can take a long time to solve. Generally they seem to get old and smokey and inefficient, or just stop dead in their tracks. The latter seems to just happen sometimes, people talk about piston failures, con rods breaking etc. How or why they break is beyond me, and how to prevent it seems a mystery. For now I will keep changing the oil and hoping for the best.
The motor runs great for the next 24 hours, devouring half my tank of fuel. I sleep for 30 minutes then the alarm wakes me up. I check the engine gauges, the course, the AIS display and once my eyes are adjusted to the dark I have a good look around. Then the alarm is set for 30 minutes, and I go back to sleep. There’s sod all out here and I see no traffic at all. I do however gaze at the amazing stars out, and the water is very luminescent tonight with the prop making a silver trail in our wake.
Tuesday 5:00 AM
I watch the sun rise, have a few more 30 minute naps then I get up around 8 and start the day. Checking around I see I’m just sailing into a small fleet of fishing boats, crikey, where did they spring from,

I quickly grab the binoculars to work out how they are fishing. I’m worried there might be nets stretched out that I need to steer around. I soon spot the fishermans arms flying in rapid jerking movements, that tells me they are hand line fishing, and they attract the fish to their bait/hook with rapid movements by jerking the line. I have watched tuna being caught this way, but I don’t know what they are after. We are in 75 metres of water here. I’m quite a long way offshore, so it’s a little boring, I can’t see much of the land, but I do see some amazing groups of jellyfish, in strings maybe 6 abreast, with glowing fluorescent centres, a little ‘finding nemo’ ish.
I see a group of sea lions lying down, in a circle, with their fins sticking up, it looks most odd, and later I see a great display of jumping mobula rays. About 3 hours before I should arrive the wind pickups and I kill the engine and get the headsail back out. The wind is behind and it takes a while to get the sails to set, especially given how much we are rolling. The speed drops to to an average of 3 knots, putting my arrival time into the dark, but I’m so happy to have the engine off I don’t care.

As the day is reaching its end I can see my destination. Topolobampo is a port some way inshore, from the channel entrance marker buoy to the docks is about 8 miles, and for a few miles from the land it’s all just a few feet deep. A long channel leads in, dredged to 20 metres, but stray just a bit to the side of the channel and your doomed.

As I come level with the chanel I haul in the headsail and start the engine. I’m able to reach down the channel, but the engine helps push us along. I’m a little startled when I see huge breaking waves maybe ten feet high just a few boat lengths to starboard, it was probably more, just felt that close. It could be very dangerous here in bad weather. I had checked the tides and we are near high water so that’s good.
I can’t make the town in daylight, and hadn’t planned to anyway, halfway up the channel I hang a left into a lagoon area and drop the hook. As I turn into the lagoon I spot something in the water, at first I think it’s a big buoy, but as I get closer my heart sinks, it’s the bow of a big boat, and it’s almost vertical in the water.

You can see the bow/anchor roller on the right, someone has stuck a light on a stick in it. Going left is the stem, then it turns down to the keel. As I write this I remember hearing of a shrimper that sank here just a week ago, after a near miss with the ferry, that must be it, it was right next to the ferry route. It also explains why it is vertical, and not on the charts. How very sad. News Article

The light is going fast now, but I’m aware I’m in a very beautiful place, and the wildlife is making itself known. There must be thousands of birds here. Plus no shortage of smaller flying creatures that seem happy to have a new visitor arrive for dinner, that is to be their dinner.

All in all nothing exciting on this voyage, just some good sailing, and I’m happy that I can do a 40 hour passage solo without any problems.
I will soon head into Topolobampo properly and get some provisions, I think I have another good window to head south for the final mainland leg of this trip on Sunday, so I should be in Mazatlan Monday evening, or maybe Tuesday morning

Paul Collister

Monday 3rd May 2021
I went to bed last night only to find I had left the portlight slightly open on the bash up here from San Carlos and the bed was soaking wet. I grabbed a blanket and headed for the sofa, but remembered that was home to the Aircon unit now, the passage bunk was full of stuff, so feeling around I found a dry patch at the edge and far end of my bed, crawled into that and quickly fell asleep.

Up at 6:30 due to the Port Capitania hailing a motor tanker on ch16, every 5 minutes, at first I assumed the ships radio officer/officer on watch was rubbish in not responding, it was only an hour later it became clear that the ship was a long way off and he couldn’t hear the capitania.
After a call to Kathy I hauled the anchor, it came up with a load of mud, and a plastic water bottle lodged inside the mud. Not sure how that could happen, unless maybe the bottle was there before the major movement of the tectonic plates five and a half million years ago that caused the Baja to form. That would be interesting.

This bay is quite big and home to a Pemex Oil terminal, a large grain terminal, other commercial docks, several large fishing fleets and it’s a navy base with a naval repair yard. It’s also very shallow with several channels marked out with buoys. I was a little bit concerned about the route, I tend to stay out of the main channels in commercial ports and edge along the outside, but with it being so shallow I wasnt sure if this would work, I didnt want to go aground. I also didnt want to meet any big ships on the way. A large navy patrol boat was heading in as I was preparing to leave. Also not knowing if there was a place in the marina was a worry, or if the anchorages were still available outside. Plan B was to just return to where I was on Pajares island. I also knew at the back of my head that these things nearly always turn out just fine.

The other night on the passage over from the peninsula, I messed up the settings on the depth gauge, these navman displays allow you to turn on the backlight for all the units by just pressing one. I normally press the Log unit light button, and hold it in for a couple of seconds, and all the navman displays light up, except that doesn’t work all the time anymore, so I had to press and hold the button on the depth sounder display, this didn’t work either and I ended up putting the unit into program mode where you can change the settings. Without being able to see the display, the random pressing of buttons I embarked on, created a most unusual sequence of beeps, but didn’t get the light on. When I did get to see the display with a torch, I had put it into setting the low water alarm mode, and who knows what else I had changed.

Now as I was sailing past the commercial port and the depth was showing as 2.2 metres, I was wondering if I had changed the offset, for or against me. The offset can make the water seem deeper or shallower on the display. I really need 2 metres to float.

Once past the navy pier I could see the marina and it had a lot of spaces, I called them up on the phone and they answered and gave me a choice of 3 berths, they had more. I went to the first one they said, but the boat in the opposite part of the berth had strung lines right across blocking my entrance, so I went to the one further down, which was a little small. The manager came down, and took my lines and suggested I move to one that he had reserved for someone else, and he would move them when they arrived, so out I went again, and back in on the other side. The neighbours complimented me on my docking skills, but really there was no current or wind, and I had a bow thruster at the ready, more for confidence than actual manoeuvering.
Once tied up, I visited the office and paid the grand sum of £55 for a week. (Water & Electricity may add another £5 to that)

The marina is one of a group all designed by the same guy and pretty much identical, except the one in Escondido is run by a private company and looks a lot better. It does seem that when you put the government in charge of a marina, it tends to fall apart, we saw the same in Malaysia. I can see the staff here try hard, but I suspect they don’t have the ability to raise the cash needed to make it work.

Off to town and I’m impressed, this town seems to have everything I could need. It’s quite run down, but has several charming bits, the market was lovely. I picked some provisions up in Ley, still no decent bread. There are definitely some things they do better in Baja California, Pan Bolillo being one of them.

On the 13 July 1854 the town defended itself against a French attack. For this success it was awarded the honour of being known as ‘Heroic Guaymas’. I heard that later in the revolution of 1910-1920 that the town found itself on the wrong side and most wealthy people left for the USA, and the town never recovered. I think there’s got to be more to it than that. I also heard that the Chinese are expanding the port as part of their ‘Belt and Road’ policy and plan to import goods to the USA through here.

The old churches I was hoping to see have long gone, they were out of town some distance and one has had a new church built on the site. Below is the San Fernando Church, I think this is early 19th C, but I will research more.

The Malecon runs along the waterfront in the centre of town, it seems rather unloved, but maybe it’s just that it’s monday morning, perhaps it comes to life at the weekends, we will have to see.

However I think this is definitely a trip hazard

On May the 5th I had a walk around town, there were many street venders out. Cinco de Mayo, as it is known, is a state holiday here, it commemorates the first Battle of Puebla where the Mexican army defeated the French during the U.S. Civil War on May 5, 1862, but only government offices close, everything else is quite normal.

Friday 7th May.
I start the day with a conference call with my customer in the UK, they want quite a few additions to the software I created for them last month. It’s going to take a few days, they realised that what they asked for wasn’t quite what they needed, and rather than leave them with software they can’t use I agree to fix it up. It’s going to take a few days to do, and I may lose my weather window to head south, so Im not very happy about it all. I agree that they must find someone to take over my role asap as I want to retire properly. Still the money is always useful.
After the call I head off by Uber to visit a pearl farm, the first modern one in the Sea of Cortez, using unique techniques to create and grow the pearls.

I can see the farm out in the bay, below you can see the workers cleaning todays batch of oysters, they are brought in on a regular basis and growth on the shells is removed. Come october the older ones will be harvested

After the farm I walk a mile or so along the coast to an old hotel from the 1930’s

It’s a very grand affair and I expect many celebs visited back in the day. They claim to have invented the mariachi band uniform here when the owners wife made the band dress up smartly in clothes she bought for them. This is supposed to have become the outfit worn these days.

I had been told to look at the wooden carvings that are known as the ‘Rape of Cadiz’ the adorn the bar room and are interesting,

I couldn’t raise an uber so walked back to the boat, it took me a couple or hours, but was great exercise and I took a few snaps along the way.

Mothers Day here is a little different

From the Mexican english news “The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) delivered Mother’s Day gifts to communities in Guanajuato, Jalisco and Michoacán on Monday in the name of leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”
Cartel members arrived in communities in pickup trucks with banners declaring “Mr. Mencho and the CJNG wish all mothers a happy day” with a photo of the gang leader alongside.
With their faces covered, CJNG members handed out household appliances like blenders, microwaves, stoves and irons, according to videos and images on social media.
Some of the women recipients stayed in the area to show their appreciation and pose for the camera, while others headed home to put their new appliances to use.”

Here in Guaymas central, mothers paraded with posters/pictures of their loved ones, husbands, children, family who have disappeared, mostly down to the cartels. Some of the women form search parties and dig up areas out of town looking for mass graves. Very few of the ‘disappeared’ ever re-appear.
Yesterday a young graduate of 23 who had just left university with a Masters in chemistry and pharmacology was killed because he refused to work for a cartel in their drugs lab. Not sure a new microwave will cut it with his mum.

Tuesday 11th May
I have been working on this damm software for 3 days now and have at least one or two more days to go. I extended my stay here, but hope to leave by the weekend, weather permitting and head south. I plan to go to Mazatlan next, which is a few days slog, 400 nm . From there I think I will skip Puerto Vallarta (PV) and instead head back to La Paz. I can do PV with Kathy when she returns.

It’s getting hot now, most days are in the high 20s and will soon be in the 30s. Nights are hot and a little humid. I love it, but wish I was out there on the coast so I could jump overboard to cool down once in a while.

Paul Collister

Monday 26th April 2021

“San Carlos is a beachfront subdivision within the port city of Guaymas, in the northern state of Sonora in Mexico. It is noted for the exceptional clarity and warmth of the ocean water in its shallow bays. It lies on the Sea of Cortez.”
_{Copyright Wikipedia.}

The trip from Santa Rosalia on the Baja peninsula over to San Carlos on the mainland, is a 75 Nautical Mile passage across the sea of Cortez heading roughly North East. As I usually try to average around 5 knots, this journey would take 15 hours. The question always is, do you want to arrive in the dark, and as it’s a new place for me, plus it has a rock near the entrance I had been warned about, I decided a daylight approach was best, as the sun sets around 7pm, subtracting 15, plus a couple more for good measure, means a start time of 2AM, given that the moon rose as the sun set, and vice a versa, then the passage should be well lit, and without issue.
Checking the weather suggested everything would be ok, so Monday night/Tuesday early hours was set as the start time. Marina bills were paid, and the boat prepared. It’s been a long time since I did a night passage on my own, so I had to make sure I was well prepared, a good stock of Milky Way chocolate bars was essential, mars bars can be a substitute. Checking the weather again in the morning showed a change and that strong winds from the north were expected on Tuesday so I made the decision to leave early, and worked back from an arrival time of Tuesday morning to give me a departure time of 7PM Monday. A quick trip to the supermarket, and a farewell ice cream in town with Dirk & Sylvia and then I was ready. I left at 7 as the sun was about to disappear behind the mountains, and headed into a flat gentle sea. The plan was for the wind to be behind me, in calm seas for most of the way. I hoisted the mainsail and the staysail headsail and pointed to boat to San Carlos. It soon cooled and the breeze stiffened, so I put on my oilies and lifejacket and rigged up the safety harness.

Within an hour the skies were very clouded, the wind picked up quickly and the autohelm gave up as the big waves that seemed to come from nowhere overwhelmed the system. I had considered putting a reef into the mainsail, something I usually do when night sailing alone, it can be very difficult doing anything when the wind and waves are trying to throw the boat around, and the autohelm won’t work. You have to stay at the wheel, and stop the boat getting into a bad position. It was surprising how quickly things were escalating, so I turned the boat towards the wind, motor back on, and the autohelm was able to steer a course close hauled into the waves and wind while I rushed to the mast and quickly dropped the mainsail. One thing about lazy jacks, a system of ropes that run up along the side of the sail from the boom to the top of the mast, is that you can drop the sail very quickly and not worry about the wind blowing it into the sea, as used to happen on Lady Stardust. With the main down, I tried to furl up some of the staysail, but the forces were too strong, and I gave up after getting about 10% in. That was going to have to do, turning the boat back on course, the autohelm performed better, but was struggling. The waves were still building all the time, and although the wind was on the quarter, almost behind, the waves were arriving mostly from the side. I could hear things flying around below, looking down into the cabin I could see the floor littered with books and things.

Fortunately I had fitted the rudder and vane to the wind vane steering and after 5 minutes of attaching ropes, it was connected and steering the boat well. The engine was off and we were flying along, above 7 knots, touching 8.5 at times, and rolling like crazy. Time to go below and do some better stowing.

On the chart you can see the blue straight line which was the planned route and the curved red (possibly green) line, which was the actual track recorded, The sweep to the north at the start was to keep the wind away from being directly behind, with the hope that as the wind went more to the north I could correct this later easily, that mostly turned out ok, but I think the tides may have been involved as well.

Once I had stowed a few things, I set the alarm clock to wake me up in 30 minutes and went to sleep. It didn’t take long before a big crash, water on my head and the anti gravity force lifted me from my dreams, and the sofa. Big waves were crashing onto the boat. The portlights (windows) were all shut, but the one above me wasn’t dogged down 100%, so a big wave must have hit it and water squeezed through. I went above and the sea was quite wild, big rollers crashing into the boat, but the course was good so back to bed for another 30 minutes. This went on until sunrise, when we were almost there. It was quite a relief to turn the corner behind the rock face at Punta Doble and make my way into the very protected bay of San Carlos. Anchoring was easy, then 30 minutes of tidying up, breakfast then bed.

The only casualty was an old mug used to hold pens, the coconut monkey head had smashed into the treasure box that had slid along and decapitated the mug.
I quite enjoyed the trip, it never felt unsafe, and I’m pleased I can still handle the solo night passages in my old age.

Not a lot happened on Tuesday, I just tidied the boat a little, and rested. I planned to go ashore on Wednesday, but the wind was blowing strong, the boat was sailing around on its anchor, caused by the gusts coming into the bay switching direction every few minutes. I didn’t want to be too far from the boat, just in case the anchor might slip out.

On Thursday morning the wind had dropped so I headed ashore, there is a lovely marina here, tucked into the corner of the bay, very popular, and I parked up at the dinghy dock and went to the office. There I paid the $2 for the use of the dock, and also checked into the port.

Once officially registered with the authorities I headed off into town. It’s about a 20 minute walk, but when I got there I found a main road with a lot of luxury holiday homes to the side, plenty of eateries and a big Ley Supermarket. Soulless!

I popped into the ley supermarket and bought a few goodies, mostly fresh bread, that turned out to be stale, then headed back to the boat. I took a side road leading towards the beach, but ended up at a dead end, having walked a long way parallel to the beach, but with no way to access it. I could see through the lovely homes right out to the sea. They had a great location, but didn’t want to share the view, or access with anyone else. Still I have a great view, and easy access from the boat if I want.

Just before the Marina there’s a lovely square and classic looking church. Catch 22 was filmed in San Carlos, one of my favorite books and films.

Back on the boat I fixed the port navigation light, on the pulpit. The wire connection had corroded and was an easy fix. I use that light when motoring at night, and the tricolour light on the top of the mast when sailing. The red green and white lights let other boats know which direction you’re travelling in.

Sitting down I put the fan on to cool down, but it didnt want to turn. A little investigation revealed the switch had broken, fortunately I carry a spare, as I expect most of us do. Unfortunately, despite being a perfect fit, it was black, not white. Well I will just have to live with that.

Saturday and I head ashore to get some food, I’m leaving for Guaymas in the morning.

Back at the marina, the place is full of tourists waiting for boats to take them for a whiz around the bay. There are many nooks and crannies here. I’m not sure I approve of outsiders just turning up and expecting to have a good time on the water 😉

I return to the boat and spend the afternoon doing a bit of planning, my flight home is in July, so I divide up the weeks between now and then and assign ports to them. Right now it goes, Guaymas, Topolobampo, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, then La Paz. There will be lots of little stops along the way. I do some Spanish and marvel at the number of pleasure boats streaming in and out of the harbour. I’ve never seen so many in all my travels. For such a small port and bay, they sure pack them in.

Later a loud band kicks off in the marina, so loud I have to go below deck to be able to read. Then fireworks, in the marina, but also around town.

Sunday morning, I decide to skip church (again) and head out to sea. The forecast is for light winds, a calming sea and generally a pleasant 3 hour passage to an island near Guaymas. Nearly 5 hours later, a little beaten up, I arrive at the island. It was a hard passage, and often only making 2 knots against the 15 knot wind with huge steep waves on the bow. I’m going to have to improve my weather forecasting. The boat was thrown around quite violently at times, but nothing broke. The monkey went after the mug this time. I should have left him wrapped inside the towel.

I’m anchored in the lee of an island called Isla Pajaros, which means ‘Birds Island’, there’s a lot of them around, mostly pelicans. Yesterday I saw a duck surface with a fish in its beak that was massive. It flipped it up into the air and caught the end of it in its mouth and proceeded to swallow the whole thing. Very impressive, but I felt bad for the poor fish. A bit like a James bond kind of death!

From here I’m able to see the industrial end of town, I think the bright lights are in the main dock, and oil terminal. Tomorrow, Monday, I will head over and try to get a berth in the marina, which could well be full. If so I will anchor near the town and try to find a way ashore. It’s a very industrial town, and may not be as safe as most of the places I have been to, so I need to find a safe place for the dinghy. Petty theft is more likely here, but shopping and exploring the centre should be fine during the day. I want to visit some churches which I think date back to the conquistadors time.

Paul Collister

Safely tied up in the marina I took off to explore town. It’s not a big town and you can walk all of the streets in half a day.
I love the place, it’s unlike anywhere I have been in before, but some of it similar to the area I grew up in on Merseyside, where decaying industry was all around.
Santa Rosalia was just desert scrubland until a rancher discovered copper in the ground, he couldn’t make money from it, but the French company Compagnie du Boleo moved here in 1884 and built the town and started large scale mining and processing here. The town has a French influence, and although you can see much variety in the houses and shops, they were all built to serve the mine and the company.
The mine (El Boleo) was profitable until the 1950s when the French pulled out, the Mexican government took over rather than let the 10,000 people in the town down. There was nothing else here, and given how scarred the place was due to the mining, there was little chance of tourists visiting. The mine ran at a loss until the 80’s when the government finally called it a day. It must have been hard here until 2010 when a Canadian & Korean consortium reopened the mine and with modern technology were able to make it profitable. Initial delays caused the Canadians to pull out and the mine is operated soley by the Koreans now.
Just a few days ago I read in the Mexican press that Mexico’s often controversial president has announced the the mine cannot be expanded once current reserves are finished, causing the Korean company to say they will pull out in the next year causing much unemployment here once again.

While here I pulled down the Genoa, and put up the traditional, and newer Yankee and Staysail sails. I’m going to be doing a fair bit of sailing I hope along the mainland coast and wanted the best sails up.

Halfway through my stay here Dirk & Sylvia arrived, on Sunday I helped them replace the forestay wire inside their furler. They will follow me across to the mainland in a few days time.

Not much else to comment on, so I will just dump a load of pictures of the town here with some info in the captions.

The harbour wall is mostly build from compressed blocks of Copper slag waste.

Tonight around midnight I will leave for the 75 nautical mile passage over to the mainland, hoping to arrive in San Carlos tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.
My first night passage in a long time, so I’m stocking up on munchies for the passage.

Paul Collister