Category: Uncategorized

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

Sunday 11th April 2021
Time to leave the safe and comfortable setting of Puerto Escondido and explore to the north. 

Sunday arrived and I was up at 6:30 to ferry Dirk & Sylvia to the marina dinghy dock. They had a hire car and were heading back to the USA to get their second shots for covid. Perhaps shots is a bad choice of word for the USA these days.

It’s been foggy the last few mornings, and today is the worst, I had to put a waypoint for the boat on my phone so I could find my way back.
Back at the boat I tidy up, have a coffee and start the engine. A msg arrives from Dirk, who is now speeding along the main BCS highway north, he says the bay and the Loreto area is clear of fog. So I cast off the lines to the mooring buoy and motor on out.

To hours later and I’m in Loreto. It’s calm and I motored all the way. A quick trip ashore in the dinghy and I’m stocked up with bread, fruit & veg and chocolate to see me through a couple of weeks. I also buy a big bag of empanadas, these are often just like pasties in shape and filled with meat or cheese etc. However these are stuffed full of sugar and chocolate, then coated in sugar. That’s pudding sorted for a while.

Back on the boat, I download the weather and decide that it’s early enough in the day to go north to the Coronados, One big island and the other very small. I will have two nights there and do some research for the journey ahead. The wind has picked up, from the south so I unfurl the Genoa, and very slowly, 2knts, make my way north. 4 hours later I drop the hook in the northern end of the bay. It’s gorgeous here. Quite a few other yachts and a couple of motor boats share the bay with me, but it’s not crowded.

Monday.
A lazy day after yesterday’s early start, up at ten, lovely bread for toast and coffee, and it’s going to be a hot day, probably in the 30s. I launch the kayak and head off to explore the northern side of the island. I row for 2.5 miles and get it into my head I must be about halfway around the island now so will push on and do the lot. It’s actually 8nm all round, and as I round the next headland I’m exposed to the windy wavy side of the island and it doesn’t feel so good. I’m a long way from the boat now and I start to think about what might go wrong. I’m pondering on the ‘up the creek without a paddle’ scenario, and can’t help thinking that’s got to be better than drifting in the Sea of Cortez with no paddle; surely you can just drift to the side of the creek, grab some branch and fashion a paddle out of it.  It’s very barren here so I decide to turn around and head back. I had been hoping to find some good snorkelling spots as I had brought my mask and fins with me in the kayak. Sadly the best spot was reported as just after the headland, and the second best was where I started from. Should have done my homework before the trip. I stopped in a sandy cove on the way back and donned my mask and flipper and dived in. It was freezing. I only had my trunks on, and jumped out again, however on my second go it seemed ok and I did a 20 minute snorkel, I was keen to test out my new GoPro, it worked great, but visibility was poor where the best fish were. 

I made a huge tuna salad for dinner and lay in the cockpit watching the stars which are so bright out here.
Around midnight I was woken by some fishy business. Going into the cockpit I could hear, what one could only assume to be a giant seal pretending to be a whale, or more likely a whale. Every two minutes a large exhalation and splash was heard, quite close by, and slowly heading north through the bay. 

Tuesday, and a chat with Kathy early on, then up with the anchor and north it is again. This time to San Juanico.

There’s no wind but a lot of swell from the SE, this bay is great for every direction except the East, as I approach the swell is coming more from the east and I’m not expecting to be able to stay there. I decide that as the wind is low, and will be for days, this will be a good time to practice laying out a stern line with the Danforth anchor. It hasn’t been used since we landed on top of the rock in Thailand, some time back. It could do with an airing, and I could do with the practice. The plan would be to load up the dinghy with the anchor and its 10 metres of chain, row to the shore with the remaining 60 mtrs of rope line trailing out from the boat, and position the anchor so that when I tightened the line back on the boat, the bow would point into the swell. 

The bay is very popular according to the guide/pilot book, and I was expecting it might be crowded, but with the swell I expected most people would leave. It’s rare to see an AWB (average white boat) or first timers stay long when it’s rolly.

Turning into the bay I was stunned with the beauty of the place, the rock formations are amazing. If possible I might dwell here a few nights. I saw no boats until I was further around the corner when a boat, looking a bit like mine came into view. But between us the waves were breaking ferociously on a line of rocks. He must have gone behind them. Getting closer I could work out how he got there, and I copied him. Behind the line of rocks, the swell was much reduced, so I dropped the hook, waved to my new neighbour and just spent 15 minutes staring at my new surroundings; Stunning. An hour later a pod of dolphins swam in, but I won’t put pictures on as I have posted the last video I will make of dolphins on YouTube here, I can’t imagine ever getting better footage of them again, so if you like watching a huge pod of them leaping and diving, check it out.
The wind increased, with it the swell, and although I felt safe, I didn’t fancy braving the waves and exploring ashore. 

Wednesday. 

The swell was still rolling in, and I figured there probably wasn’t going to be any places I could stop safely before the Bahia Concepción, so decided to leave early. 7:30 and I’m away heading north, the plan is to go to the top of Bahia Concepción and nip around the corner to a small bay protected from the east and pass the night there. En route the wind moved to the NE which allowed me to sail for a good part of the trip and on turning into the bay, some 8 hours later, the wind was from the NW so my plans to stop at the head were out. Instead, given that I had a few more hours of daylight, I pushed on to a little cove at Santispac, roaring down the bay with the main fully out.

Again the scenery is stunning, volcanic remains all around, a geologists dream. It was just as I was thinking how I really should rig the gybe preventers that the boom took off, A crash gybe, however the dutchman saved the day, a device made of ropes and pulleys attached to the boom that slow it down as it tries to fly across. One of the reasons I like this boat’s design is that the boom is so high and short, it’s hard to get in its way when it crashes across. The end of the boom has foam padding on it, that won’t stop it killing you when it strikes, but it might cut down the amount of blood spilled around the cockpit, especially on the new spray dodger. Turning west out of the wind I arrived at my destination. What an odd place, very pretty, little sandy coves dotted around a bigger cove, with pretty islands dropped in for effect, just one sailboat and two motor boats in this cove. Along the beach of my tiny cove were RVs (Mobile Homes) lined up with no end of attachments adorning them. Further along were groups of tents, and little palapa style huts with cars/trucks backed up to them. Lot’s of families, and extended family groups come here to holiday on the beach. The big RV’s seem to be from the USA, with the tents and smaller setups being Mexican. There are 2 restaurants on the beach, and everyone seems to be having a great time, kids in the water, adults in kayaks and SUPs (Stand up paddle boards).
Come the evening, there are campfires, music and singing drifting across a very calm bay. 

I have a terrible snobby attitude to  RVs , seeing them as souped up caravans, and in some way an inferior mode of travel compared with, say, yachting. Of course, there’s not a lot in it. They can’t visit Santo Esperitu in their RV, and I can’t get too close to the Grand Canyon in Sister Midnight. Other than that, both modes of transport are pretty similar, weird toilets, cookers, electric supplies etc. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t got into this boating malarky I could well have ended up RV’ing it around Europe and further afield. 

One guy, and I don’t know why I presume that, but I’m sure it will be a guy, has his RV towing a trailer with his 4WD SUV on it, hanging from the cars rear is a hammock chair, on the roof of the SUV as fishing traps, on the front of his RV is a barbecue grill. For American readers you will surely know the kind of thing, for the Brits out there, this is not like caravanning as we know it. 

Thursday.

I’m not going anywhere today, so I launch the dinghy and have an amble around the next bay from here. It’s lovely, and proved popular as many houses have been built on the beach and cling to the rocky hillside at the edges of the cove. I suspect the main reason for this development is its close proximity to Highway 1. This is the main road from the USA border that runs the length of the Baja Californian peninsula, ending in Cabo San Lucas. But thinking more about it, the road is probably here because of existing communities. The town of Mulege a few miles to the north has been here a long time. I once read that everything that ever happened, is down to geology, The clashing of the tectonic plates and volcanic activity here created a beautiful, safe harbour, along with fresh water supplies, leading to a safe place for humans to prosper, and ultimately to bring giant mega trucks pounding down the highway behind the beach every ten minutes  or so as they take their goods south. 

Friday.
I weigh anchor, and head further south down Concepción, I go to what I think might be the furthest south worth visiting, a place called Playa Santa Barbara, but later when I do my homework, I realise there’s many more places to explore. However this spot is just fine. I’m alone in the bay, there’s a few holiday homes set back from the white sandy beach, but nobody seems to be in. It’s a little early in the year still. I’m very exposed to the north here, but as we haven’t had a northerly wind in the Sea for a while, I’m hoping it will be ok. Yesterday, the wind from the north reached 25 knots in Santispec, and it was windy the day before, but I’m sure this can only be down to katabatic winds caused by the afternoon cooling of the surrounding mountains & hills. As both evenings turned out to be completely still. I did push on last night and got my boat web system to display a rolling 24 hour wind report, as logged at the top of my mast. A picture is below, it’s the last 24 hours since whenever I screenshotted it around 8pm and you can see the wind falling off quickly as night arrives.

I kayak to the rocky promontory and snorkel around, masses of weed on the rock, loads of fish, but little variety.
I’m away from everybody here, the highway is a few miles inland and the sky is clear. I’m hoping to get some stargazing in tonight, perfect conditions. I can now easily find the North star using Ursa Major & Minor and I can also spot Orion easily. Last night I found Mars, just under the sliver of a moon, I don’t think I have ever seen it before so clearly. I must be due a badge or something for all this.

Saturday 17th
I depart early, not quite sure where my next stop will be, my destination is the marina at Santa Rosalia, a mining town 30-40 miles north of here, but I want to check out the Island of San Marcos on the way. As I progress north I pickup a signal again and download a weather forecast, it seems I’m in for another week of very calm weather, I decide to stop at Punta Chivato for the night and catch up with the internet world. Like a lot of spots around here, it’s a lovely coast line with many low lying areas and beaches. This, and the close proximity of highway one, has caused a lot of fancy properties to be developed here, along with a few resorts.

I anchor off a quite flash looking hotel, but there’s no one around so it’s a very quiet. I’m annoyed to see many of the beach front properties have put obstructions out to make it difficult to walk along the beach in front of their properties. As with many countries, the beach is public property and cannot have access restricted. There have been a few high profile cases here, one where a hotel had a man arrested by the local police for walking on the beach in front of the hotel, hundreds turned up at the weekend to set up on the beach and protest until the policeman was arrested, which he was. It shouldn’t annoy me, especially as no one would want to walk on these beaches, there’s hundreds of others close by that are better, it’s just the principle. Although I’m sure if I had a beachfront property I would probably hate people walking in front of my exclusive view out to sea.

Sunday 18th
Whilst talking to Kathy in the morning a gang of rays swim past the boat, they wave their wings in a funny way to propel themselves, it’s like they make a sine wave shape.
I leave around 10am and head for San Marcos island, around the headland and a little further north. Between the island and the mainland, there’s a channel I have to navigate, it’s about 5 miles wide, yet it’s recommended to stay in a small section under a mile wide, near the coast. A large rocky reef extends from the island’s southern end, it has many visible rocks, but continues much further than you might expect to the mainland. To add to the fun, in the middle of the channel, just before the reef is a pinnacle rock, think of something the size and shape of the eiffel tower, but made of hard solid rock, sitting on the bottom of the sea, with the tip just below the surface. Best avoided, the annoying thing is that it’s not marked on the charts I have, so I add it from coordinates in the pilot book. I use the Eiffel tower as an analogy, as I’m going to visit a church next week made by the same man Monsieur Eiffel himself, Made in France and shipped out here to Santa Rosalia, so the mine workers had a church to go to. I hope to learn more next week once I’m in the marina.

Safely past the obstacles, I motor up the west side of the island, the wind is showing 20 knts now, on the nose, with an open sea ahead, normally I wouldn’t dream of anchoring in this, but I’m assuming this is the normal afternoon blow we have had here for the last 3 days. The forecast has nothing more than 10 knots.
I pass the mine/quarry workings, this island is being disassembled by diggers, loaded into big ships and sent around the world. The product is Gypsum, used in plasterboard/drywall, portland cement, food production and a stack of other things.

Sitting at anchor a few miles away is a large cargo ship, I suspect it’s waiting to load up.

I have seen a few islands, especially in Japan, being carved up and shipped out. This can’t be a sustainable way to behave, surely. So I start to think about volumes, and decide to research how many islands the size San Marcos will be consumed in our need to have smooth walls? a quick wikipedia search tells me that one source in New Mexico (White sands) has enough Gypsum to supply all of the USA’s needs for the next 1000 years, so perhaps it’s not too bad. I drop anchor on a ledge of sand, so the guide says, but it sounded like rocks to me, just north of the mine in a small indent called ‘Sweet Pea Cove’. The wind is already dropping and there’s little swell here. Tomorrow I hope to get a place in the Marina and move there.

Monday 19th April
Not a great night, the wind dropped but the swell continued. When this happens the boat no longer points into the wind, which is usually the direction of the swell, but instead turns side on to the swell and rolls. A boat rolling side to side is much more annoying than front to back. Eventually I fell asleep and at 9 in the morning the anchor was raised as I made the short trip to the Marina in Santa Rosalia. On the way out the fishermen on the small beach camp wave as they work on their nets. It looks so lovely, but I’m wondering if they delivered a load of shark fins to their customer in the night or maybe worse.

I had been trying for days to contact them to reserve a space, I had initially thought if they were full I could anchor off, but I just found out that’s no longer allowed, so I was a little worried I might be turned away and have to return south, the wind change meant I couldn’t go back to Sweet Pea cove, but would be heading back towards Concepción. But as usual, things turned out for the best, as I approached the marina, a man waved me in from the end of the dock, and I could see spaces available. Two guys where waiting to take my lines, which I hadn’t got out yet. Ten minutes later I was safely tied up in the harbour and looking forward to mad crazy shore life again.

After I left the office to check in, I bumped into Karl, I think he is Latvian, but we met him the day after we arrived in Port Hardy, Canada from Japan. He had arrived from Alaska. He said he was sailing to Mexico. Later we met him near Seattle and again in Ensenada. What a small world.

I’m expecting to spend a week here before I cross to the mainland, I have to get the weather right so it’s an easy passage. Rosalia is a working town, not for tourists, but it has plenty to see, including the Effiel designed church, a museum, and plenty of historic sites.

Paul Collister.

March 2021
As the title says, this is a little technical, and probably worth skipping unless you are interested in Engine Starter motors, solenoids, and stupidity.

As I mentioned before, the instrument panel in the cockpit wasnt working and I had to start the engine manually with a hot wired jump to activate the solenoid. The solenoid is just a big electro-magnetically operated switch that provides power to the starter motor, which is just a big motor that gets the engine spinning fast enough for it to start exploding fuel in its cylinders. I also have to pull on a coat hanger connected to the high pressure fuel pump to stop the engine, as the electric panel stop option wasn’t working either.

It turns out that the negative or 0v wire from the battery, via the engine electrics box was broken. As I took the lid off the engine electrical box, sparks started flying around me, eventually I worked out it was coming from an earth wire, that was chafing on the solenoid positive terminal, once repaired, the panel lit up, and the engine started and stopped as expected.
I should have stopped at this point and moved onto the failing herb plants, but instead I decided to work out how the earth system worked, the engine block is floating from the battery negative, the alternator, starter motor, and all the sensors, which would normally have there -ve side connected to the block, were 2 wire isolated devices. This prevents stray currents from flowing through the engine. On my Beta engine on Stardust, these stray currents destroyed bronze bolts holding my heat exchanger together because I didn’t know there was a zinc anode inside it that had to be changed. There are no anodes on my volvo engine so I worry that if the earthing isnt working as designed, some part of the engine might be corroding away as I speak.
So measuring between the battery negative and the engine gave me a reading of 0 ohms, meaning that the intended plan wasnt working and there was a short somewhere. I set off to find this, disconnecting the starter motor and alternator earths didn’t help, I then removed the throttle cable, but didn’t do the gear shift, as that’s hard to get too. There is a route from the throttle, to the steering and from there to the quadrant which is earthed to the boats external zincs and thru hulls. I found the SSB earth wire stuffed under the engine and saw where it had once been connected, the SSB earth goes to the ATU earth, and thru the coax to the SSB case, which is connected to the -ve 12v supply from the battery, so that sets up a route for current to flow, especially when transmitting. I gave up, put it all back together, started the engine to check I had done it properly and nothing. De Nada. The solenoid was clicking, but not providing any power to the starter motor. The multimeter proved the solenoid had given up the ghost, I had wondered why the post that the power goes on was a bit loose, and I had remade the connections to it. I must have caused something inside to move. As I don’t know anything about solenoids, this seemed like a good time to learn. I managed to pull it off the starter and dismantled it in the cockpit. By this time the boat had become a bit of a mess.

The contacts on the solenoid were touching, but not passing any electricity. Looking at them, I could see they were covered in a black crud. once cleaned they conducted just fine and I reassembled the unit and attached it to the starter.

Thinking this was the end, I started the engine, or tried, all I got was a sad groaning from the motor and a lot of smoke coming from the starter motor. I assumed I had not fitted the solenoid properly, so out it came with the starter this time and I took the end of the starter off, refitted the solenoid, connected properly, refitted the lot to the engine, reconnected the big fat 12v cables and started it. The engine started with a whiff of smoke from the starter. I tried to think of a way to make the little whiff of smoke ok, it was way smaller than the last bit of smoke, and the engine did start. I tried again, no smoke, and the engine started, job done I thought, but really I knew I had to come up with an explanation for the smoke. I tried the engine again, and this time the starter groaned, did a quarter of a turn, then looked like it was going to burst into flames, smoke poured out and didn’t look like it would stop, despite me pulling the power pronto. Bummer, starter motors are hard to get for this engine, and cost £300-£400. I hoped it could be repaired, I dug it out and started to take it apart on a sheet of newspaper in the cockpit.

The problem was obvious, somehow I had tightened the nuts on the +12v and 0V terminals so tightly, they had crushed the plastic brush holder inside, this was old and brittle, and as I took it out to examine, it crumbled more in my hand. The brushes had been touching each other and presenting themselves sideways on to the armature. Normally fixing this would be out of the question, but given my predicament, what’s to lose, and I like a challenge.

I figured I could glue it all back together, my childhood expertise with airfix WW2 fighter jets could come in handy, however I had memories of once gluing the wings of a spitfire on backwards, also detail wasn’t my thing, those little tins of paint never got opened, and the transfers often ended up on the scalextric cars.

The first problem was getting the surfaces clean, but just gently rubbing a wire brush over them caused more cracks and lumps to fall off. I devised a strategy, just get some glue on to hold it all together, a bit like tack welds, so i can clean the surfaces better, then more glue, then a final coat over large areas to give it strength, this took 3 rounds over three days, in the end it seemed great and quite strong, the only problem was I had glued one half of a brush socket to the other out of line, so the brush wouldn’t slide through freely. I had to build it up with epoxy then file it back until I was close to the right shape. I reassembled it all but didn’t fit it to the engine.

Then I left it another day, just to give the epoxy a good 48 hours for a final set. This was the hardest part.
I then connected some wires to the battery supply and touched them onto the lugs to see what happened. as you can see in the video below.

When I came to bolt it to the engine, one of the three bolts was missing, this was crazy, I would have heard it fall from the top of the fridge, could it have gone into the bilge to be lost forever, I doubted I had a spare. I’m always thinking my efforts can all be ruined by one stupid mistake at any point. I spread my search further, and found the bolt had hitched a ride with my gopro magnetic gorilla grip to the other end of the cabin. Phew.

It worked, I mounted it onto the engine, being very careful with the connecting lugs, and it fired up right away, without any smoke, confirming my earlier suspicion, that there really is no acceptable excuse for smoke coming from electrical equipment, no matter how much it helps out with the logic.
I do need to buy a replacement starter, and this might represent 50% of my hold allowance when I return from the UK in September. Should I get back there in July. I have started the engine some 30 times now and it starts quickly without fuss, I’m hoping we will get a few more months minimum without any trouble.

Paul Collister

Monday 22nd March 2021

There’s not a lot happening since I got here, I’m just swinging on the mooring buoy with the odd trip into the marina to buy an ice cream and make use of the fast wifi there. My chances of getting vaccinated here look slim. The rich countries are all boasting about the money they have pledged to let developing countries buy the vaccine, yet at the same time making damm sure none of it leaves their shores and recently seem to be stopping other countries that have vaccine factories from having access to the recipe due to patent concerns.

Dirk & Sylvia have returned, vaccinated, after their mad dash up to the states by car. Mike from Ikigai is sailing from Ensenada on a friends boat, and will return to his boat which is on the buoy behind me in 2 weeks.

In an effort to improve the connectivity here I tried putting my at&t android (Hot Spot) phone into a bag and sending it up the mast. It works a bit, but I haven’t worked out how to get the charging cable up there yet.

Kayaking around the lagoon is fun, the stingrays in the shallows are spectacular.
I planted some herb seeds today, Basil and Mint, They should be easy to grow on the boat, and Basil can be hard to get here.

I saw this guy swimming around the marina, I might have talked about manta rays before, apparently there are none here, this might be a Devil Ray, I think a ray from the Mobula species. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but it’s about 5ft, or 1.5 metres across, or OMG when you see it swim past you. Ever so graceful too.

I’ve spent some time walking around the marina estate for a bit of exercise. Somebody had a big dream for this place once, there’s a grid of roads laid out in concrete, covering quite an area, waterways weave through with one property under construction as you can see below.

However most roads go nowhere, some are fenced off, and in places the concrete is cracking and weeds are starting.

Just around the corner is the harbour masters office and a jetty for a rescue boat. I got this picture of some locals reeling in the fish.

After a week here I decided to head out to the local islands, Isla Carmen is only 3 hours away and has the lovely Balandra bay. Leaving the lagoon I snapped this mega yacht, which I overheard someone saying was Steven Spielberg’s yacht, who knows, owners are always secretive, and buy and sell yachts quite frequently. I think John Wayne kept his yacht in this region.

I sailed north into the wind, by heading close hauled towards Loreto, then tacking for Balandra, however either my bad sailing, the boats poor sail trim, or a coincidental wind shift, (most likely the first), when I tacked, I ended up heading back to my start. On came the engine for the last bit. Unfortunately the autohelm had stopped working again, so I hand steered for the last hour, which wasn’t so bad. It turns out the screw that holds the key in the keyway had come loose and the key had fallen out, yet again. I was so sure I had fixed it good last time. This time I used some of the red loctite, I think I needed a less strong one, but thats all I had. It says something about needing nuclear weapons to undo the screw should I need to in the future. This may be why I didn’t use it last time. I feel this story isn’t over yet. There were three other boats in the bay when I arrived and the prime spots had gone, strong winds from the NW were forecast and I would have preferred to be tucked further in. however that night the winds weren’t too bad, the next morning one of the boats left and I moved closer in. another boat arrived later in the day and took my place, they had a rough time of it for the next 48 hours as we had constant 20+knot winds and quite a swell was rolling into that part of the bay.

After a few days just chilling I decided to anchor off Loreto and go into town and get some groceries.

All went well until on my return I tried to start the engine and the instrument panel was dead. This isn’t unusual, there’s a stack of connectors between the panel and the engine, the wiring loom comes in three sections, and each sections suffers from corrosion, so I usually pull them apart, spray some contact cleaner in and wiggle them around. This time it didn’t work, and after an hour I decided to leave and work on it on the way. I jump started the engine so I had some power to haul up the anchor, then I raised the sails and set the now repaired autohelm for Puerto Escondido.

With the engine off I pulled out the wiring diagrams and starting chasing through the fault with my multimeter. The problem seemed to be related to an open earth fault in the engine end of the wiring. That’s complicated as the engine earth is floating from the battery earth. I’ve always been confused by this, Volvo did it to protect the engine I think, but with other parts of the boat being grounded for galvanic corrosion purposes, and then another ground system exists for the SSB radio, I have never been sure that everything was connected and working correctly. What I don’t want to do is have corrosive currents flowing through my heat exchanger destroying it. I decided to spend some time when I get back to port to investigate properly.

The next day started with a trip up the hill with Dirk & Sylvia

It was quite a walk, but led to some spectacular views

Back on the boat I started chasing wires to find the fault, it turned out to be a earth wire to the alternator lug that had chafed on the positive terminal of the solenoid. I remade a few connections around the area and up fired the instrument panel, it worked fine, sadly the engine made no effort to start when I turned the key. It appeared that the solenoid had stopped working on the starter motor, this was to be the start of a difficult few days. I will put up a post on the starter motor separately, so you can all skip that.

I filmed some amazing dolphin scenes on the way up to Loreto, but I haven’t had a chance to edit them yet, hopefully I can put a link in my next blog post.

I’m going to wait for Mike to arrive, he’s due in the next few days, I have booked another week here, and I will leave at the end of this week, maybe Saturday 10th and go North then across the sea to Guaymas/San Carlos on the mainland.

Happy Easter.

Paul Collister.

Monday 15th March 2021
Up at 6:30 as the sun rises, a cup of coffee, then to work. At 7 I will leave La Paz, possibly for the last time, and head north to Loreto. I’m hoping I might be able to get vaccinated there, then I will sail over to the mainland, possibly somewhere around San Carlos/Guyamas and from there head south to Puerto Vallarta. That will all take a month or two, depending how much I like the places en route. Last night I had a farewell meal with Arturo, I’m not sure when we will meet again, hopefully not too long. 

I setup the GoPro 9 on the bow to do some time lapse, I haven’t used it yet, and I’m keen to learn more about it. At 7am I haul anchor and start making my way down the long buoyed channel that leads out of La Paz bay and into the Sea of Cortez proper.

Boat traffic is light, but I’m struck by the five Cruise ships, mothballed at anchor.

Three are sister ships, the westerdam, the zuiderdam, and the edam or something like that. Another two cruise ships look similar, and I think are from the Carnival cruise line. It’s scary to think they will soon be pressed back into service and crammed with holiday makers, hopefully antivaxers and covid conspiracists. Best keep them all together in a big floating box in my opinion, what could possibly go wrong, other than accidentally cruising over the edge of the earth.

Not long after I pass the Pemex oil terminal and power station I’m in open water and I can spot quite a commotion ahead of me. There appears to be hundreds of pelicans and seagulls swarming around a few small boats, I assume it’s fishermen, but as I get closer, they’re right ahead of me, I spot a large pod of dolphins, maybe a hundred or more diving, jumping and generally having a big feeding frenzy. I end up steaming right through the middle of it. The smaller boats who keep out of my way are tourist pangas, who diverted here to see the spectacle. Once in the middle of it, I’m surrounded by dolphins and swooping pelicans. What a great way to get the day going.

Shortly after it’s all over and as the sun gets higher I can tell it’s going to be a hot day. I have a 9 hour passage to San Evaristo, so I settle down and start a few small jobs around the boat.

I don’t catch a fish, but do see many Manta rays doing their dance. 

At 5pm I get the anchor down and relax, The mainsail helped for about 2 hours, but mostly it was motoring. One fact yachties might find interesting, is that you can keep the engine block cold-start heaters on for 2 hours by accident and they don’t burn out on the MD22 🙁 .  After running hard for 10 hours, I feel confident the new timing belt has gone back on ok. 

Retired General Tom and Debbie on the motor boat ‘At Ease’, my neighbours from Marina De La Paz, are anchored two boats down from me here. 

Tuesday 
Up early again for a long slog to Agua Verde. It would be nice to have some time at these stops, but I have been here before, on several occaisions now, and I’m on a mission to get to the clinic in Loreto before they run out of vaccine.

The waves are substantial, and of a short period, i.e. close together, so it’s not a very comfortable ride, but another huge pod of dolphins in the San jose chanel cross my path. We all love them, but they’re a serious bunch of fish committing mass murder as they travel along in these big groups. I don’t feel so bad about trailing a hook behind me now, I didn’t catch anything yesterday, the first time this cedar plug hook has let me down, and today is no better. To make matters worse, as you can see in the video of the trip later, a seagull is convinced the painted cedar plug is a real fish and tries to eat him. As it’s dive bombing the hook, I’m terrified it will get caught and I won’t have a clue how to help it. The thought of reeling in a seagull on the end of the line struggling to escape causes me to bring the hook in as soon as I can and wait until the skies are clear before I launch it again. The wind reaches 20 knots (apparent) on the nose, so we are struggling at 3 knots for some of the time. I have the engine running flat out at near maximum revs for a couple of hours, it’s supposed to be good as it burns off excess carbon at the higher temperatures, but who knows, I’m not a mechanic, despite earning my timing belt badge. After we hang a left at Point San Marceal I manage to get some help from the sails for an hour as we approach Agua Verde. Again, Tom on ‘At Ease’ is anchored there along with a couple of sailboats. It’s a little crowded in the only corner of the bay protected from the swell, and I tuck in behind them, it looks like I’m too close, and I’m worried they might be nervous with my proximity, but I also feel quite sure I know the anchorage well, and there’s not going to be a problem. As it turns out, we are all perfectly separated, even when we swing 180 degrees in the night.

Wednesday
Up early again to get away before the wind builds, that turns out to buy me about 30 minutes, soon after I leave the calm cove and hit the exposed sea, the waves and wind build and it’s a long 5 hour slog to cover the 23 miles to Escondido.

The entrance to Puerto Escondido is via a very narrow channel, perhaps 60ft wide in places and only 10ft deep. I had heard it was being dredged and some special marks were out, but it turned out to be an easy entrance.

The actual harbour is a natural bay and hurricane safe area. It’s like a big lagoon, with huge hills and mountains all around. To the north east there are two gaps, or windows, where northerly winds can blow through. Refreshing in the summer, but in a gale can make some waves in the harbour.

Once in the harbour I picked up a mooring buoy, completed the log book and put my feet up for a bit. Next a quick dinghy ride ashore to check in and book a car for my trip to the clinic tomorrow.

I made a 10 minute condensed video of the trip, it’s on Youtube, but embedded here. It’s 1080p HD so should look ok on a big screen.

Thursday 9AM

I pick up the hire car and head into town. It’s a glorious day and I’m pondering on what a strange life I have these days, I realise I’m more used to driving on the right side of the road than the left now, and as I’m driving through a back road to a small town in Mexico to get a possible vaccine, where I don’t even speak the language when suddenly a couple of mules pop out in front of me. I can’t help smiling.

So onto Loreto, I pull into a deserted emergency clinic where I’m told they have been administering the vaccines, but they have none left, possibly next Tuesday or Wednesday. They take my name and phone number and tell me they will phone if they get any. I’m quite chuffed as I manage to converse in Spanish, with minimal help from Google translate.

I push on into town, but take a different route, just for the heck of it and end up by the arroyo, which is the dried river bed at the side of town. There’s a dirt road across it, and I follow a track along its side to the sea. It’s stunning scenery, and quite green, I expect due to there being a lot of fresh water at some point in the year.

I wander around town, past the old mission, the first in BCS I think, they are remodeling this part of town and it’s very dusty and noisy.

I wander down to the beach, the centre of town is odd as there’s a few trailer parks here, I guess from a simpler time, and big hotels have been built around them.
I drive along the coast a little in town, then decide to see what the main highway is like to the north of town, I have the car for a day, but nowhere to go really. I have just left the centre and I’m passing a few out of town stores when I can see a road block ahead, and I know straight away this isn’t right. there’s no police cars or anything official looking, as I get closer, a man has blocked most of the highway with his car and has just waved the car ahead of me through, to his left is a big grizzly looking guy with a submachine gun across his chest. No uniforms or any hint of who they are. With some relief I’m waved through, but I realise quickly that I have to return this way, loreto has one road in and one road out!

So I drive north for a bit, but it’s just scrubland desert, cactus after cactus and I’m soon bored, it’s a couple of hours to the next town and I don’t want to risk driving back in the dark so I head back to the road block. This time he stops me, I wind down the window, he looks into the car then shouts at me “GO”, which of course I do! I’d love to know what that was all about, Narcos, undercover police? who knows. Loreto did set up roadblocks to stop people coming into town at the start of the covid pandemic, but that was different.

So I push on back to the marina and notice a very odd looking boat in the boatyard, I’m assuming it needs a keel, surely it can’t use a drop-keel?

Back on board I decide to tackle the mess on the chart table.

Finally to wind the day off, some home made guacamole and strawberries as the sun sets

Paul Collister

So if you’re not in the business of replacing your Volvo MD22 timing belt, I suggest you skip this blog entry.
I’m writing this for a few reasons, firstly I’m very chuffed with myself to have completed this task, secondly, I wanted to document the steps I took in case I need to do it again, or in the slight hope it will be useful to others.

When I first bought Lady Stardust, she was lying in Glasgow, Scotland, and I would make weekly/fortnightly drives from Liverpool to check / work on her before Max and I sailed her back to Liverpool. On one of those long drives north, the timing belt snapped on my vauxhall (GM back then) car. The belt had been due to be replaced, but I had missed the service that it was meant to be done on. The result was that the engine was a right-off, and the car as well. In the end, I did get it repaired at around the same cost as buying a replacement car. Since then I have lived in fear of the thing same happening on this engine. The User Manual from Volvo states:

It was this advice that had me avoiding the job, but given that it was now 5 years since I bought the boat, and much longer since the last time an engineer might have changed the belt, I thought it high time I made an effort.

Fortunately I found an entry in the ever helpful yachting and boating forum YBW Forum link on how to do it the easy way. I also found a useful video on YouTube, but this went too deep and missed a few of the important stages out. YouTube link

The volvo engine is actually a rebranded Perkins, the Perkins engine I think is a block from China that was only made for a brief period, I have read reports that the Perkins engine was considered one of their worst, but I have also read the simplicity of this engine made it the go to engine for off grid reliability, back in its day. It was also used in the Austin/Rover Maestro and Montego vehicles for which I have the Haynes maintenance manual, these cars/vans had their fans, but I’m not sure they were ever really considered high quality.

The first job was to remove the cover , this requires the alternator to be loosened and then the belt removed, followed by the pulley on the water pump.

Removing the four nuts that hold the water pump pulley took forever. They were on really tight, and I was worried about breaking anything. Two knuckles gave up their covering to this task.

Once off, the cover came away, revealing the workings. The inside of the cover was quite clean, indicating no other problems.

Now the big deal here is that the timing belt obviously controls the timing of everything, so the valves (Camshaft) open and close in time with the pistons (Crankshaft) and the fuel injectors (Fuel Pump). When the belt snaps, the pistons can smash into the valves and can do massive damage to the valves, pistons, con rods, and other bits I don’t really know about, but it’s a bad deal.
So it’s important that when I take the belt off it goes back with all the pulley/cogs/shafts in exactly the right place. To aid in this the engine designer added a load of holes to help lock things in lace. This is what you need the specialist tools referred to above is all about. Drifts, which is another name for a tube/pipe or cylindrical bar, are inserted in various places, but Haynes suggest using the blunt end of a 6mm drill bit for this job.
The first one in goes into the crankshaft from above, you crank the engine around with a big spanner until the drill drops into the hole. This is at a point called Top Dead Centre (TDC) I think.

Next the crankshaft is locked in place with a similar drift into the flywheel. This part of the engine cannot be accessed easily, but I can see I need to clean it up, I think the water spill from the sea water pump last year has done some damage.

Finally two M6 screws go through holes in the injector fuel pump cog and into the engine block that locks it in place.

Once everything is locked off, the idler pulley and the tensioner pulley are removed and the belt slides out.

What is a little annoying is that the belt shows no sign of wear at all.
I replace it anyway, and ponder on the fact that the arrow on the belt is pointing the wrong way. I don’t understand how a belt can have a direction, it must be a subtle engineering thing, but I’m sure the original was on back to front. I put the new one on, but realise I cant get it to fit on the cogs properly. What’s more my logical mind is convinced there’s no way it’s going to go back on.
At this point I’m wondering why I didn’t do this at the dock, there’s a small gale due at the weekend, If my anchor drags, I will need the engine. I re read the manuals and find I missed a bit, partly because its in a section that refers to some screws that just don’t exist. Later I compare pictures and realise my engine is a little different from the manual. Anyway I have to remove the idler wheel, once I do this everything falls into place and the belt goes back on. I don’t have a meter to tension the belt to factory specs, but instead use the formula everyone else recomends that it should twist no more than 90 degrees at the longest part. It feels just right twisting at around 60 degrees, which is what the old belt was like. It doesn’t need to be over tight as it’s not a drive belt, like the generator.

Once it’s back together I remove the drifts and fire it up. Amazingly it works.

I clear up my mess, and in true Paul Collister style I find a screw left over. It’s been this way since I was 5, but I’m sure it must have fallen out of the toolbox and isn’t relevant.

I retire to the cockpit to have a soda watch the dolphins swim by.

Paul Collister.

PS As I write this, the gales is going well, and the anchor chain just wrapped around the keel, making the boat point the wrong way and heel a lot. I started the engine, and backed away from the chain, and the boat swung back into the wind. I’m so glad it works. The problem is the wind is 25+ knots from the north, yet a strong ebb is making the boat point south, so we are fighting both.

Friday 5th March
It’s friday, I’m meant to be leaving the marina on Tuesday but the weather turns rough next week, the mainland crossing I planned would happen after several days of 25 knot winds from the north, so although I would cross at the end in 20 knots on the beam and go very fast, I would also have big waves on the beam making it very uncomfortable, and maybe even unsafe if they were high enough. There’s a few hundred miles of open sea to the north, which is quite a large fetch for the waves to build in.
So I will leave the marina on Tuesday morning and drop the anchor in the bay here and wait for a good weather window.

The week started with a lot of chopper and boat activity from the local navy base. They were practising hoisting people off and onto boats.

On Wednesday I took a trip down to the shallow end of the bay to see a boat that had broken free from its mooring. I know nothing about it other than that it looks like it was a sturdy ocean going yacht once. It does have the look of a long abandoned boat, the hatches and lockers are open, and I suspect she may have been striped over the years, but I believe she was happy on her mooring 2 miles further up the bay until Monday. She is now aground near the beach and will become an eyesore and hazard. I expect the owner is not interested and the authorities have no budget to allow for recovery. I suggested to Arturo that we rescue the boat, put it back on its mooring and he could move onboard and save some rent. Of course, once the boat had any value, owners or debtors start to appear. I firmly think abandoned boats need to be confiscated and sold/removed asap.

A British ship arrived today, the Michaela Rose, this is a rarity, we hardly ever see British flagged vessels as we sail around the world, no shortage of UK ensigns with daft symbols on them, signifying flags of convenience, cayman islands etc.

It’s crewed by a few English guys I could hear their jolly banter, they also played Elton John and the Beatles quite loudly, I’m not sure this is a strict requirement of being UK flagged, if so I’m in trouble. It’s a 50m older style ship, has come from San Diego and I think is on charter.

The varnish work is done for another year, it’s looking great in places, and the hatchet job it really is , in others.
I’m going to wash the fibreglass topsides tomorrow then load the dinghy onto the deck, ready for the off. I tried to polish the hull with a polishing power tool that’s been lurking in the tool cupboard for many years. I never tried it before as it’s 110v 60hz (USA Power) and in Asia we generally had 240V, so it sat in the cupboard. Anyway, I got nowhere, I popped to the chandlers, thinking the auto polish I had bought in Malaysia and never used, was no good, and bought some expensive boat stuff, against my better judgement, still no improvement, I tried a little gentle rub with some 1000 grit paper and could see the gelcoat disappear rapidly, so stopped that game quickly. I’m going to have another go at it on Sunday, in the meantime I will do some reading and youtubing. It always looks so easy in the YBW or practical boating articles.
Arturo came and cooked a big pan of Shrimp soup for me, very tasty, later I tried to say “In England we would say” in Spanish only to have him give me a hard time on pronunciation as you can see in the vid below.

The authorities have reduced us down to ‘Yellow Alert’ as hospital admissions drop. The Malecon, beaches and piers are open again, and the signs requiring masks to be worn have disappeared, although most local people I see, and myself, continue to wear them.

I decided to give the fridge a good defrosting today, It took a while, and a huge amount of self restraint not to hack at the last bits of ice stuck behind the ice box. The urge to break the ice off is ridiculous, I know that if I poke too hard, i will break the evaporator or pipes leading to it, and that usually ends up with a bill for a few thousand dollars, plus a week or two in dock with no cool drinks, yet I still stand over it, wooden spatula in hand, because that’s safer I think, waiting for it to be safe to poke. Once I start poking I need someone to pull me away. If anyone can bottle that desire/graification and flog it, they’re onto a fortune.

Back at the marina offices, it seems the birds are very active building nests and scurrying around. These lovely classically styled tile roofs make a good nesting spot for the birds as you can see below.

Back on the boat I have a final wash of the cockpit before mounting all the MOB (Man Overboard) gear. It’s not a lot of use when sailing solo, but should I pass someone strugling in the water, at least I have things I can throw at them. A drop of phosphoric acid brought the teak up looking like new.

On Sunday Arturo and I have a final Sunday dinner.

On Monday I realise the boat is heeling far to much to starboard. This was also a problem on Lady Stardust, and I had always thought it was a design fault, which it sort of is. However seeing Greg’s baba 40 in the dock a few months back, sitting perfectly vertical made me decide to do something about it.

To calculate the list (leaning to one side) I strung a bit of cord up with a weight at the bottom, measured the deflection and the length, followed by a recitation of the SOH,CAH TOA rhyme we learnt at school, and went for TOA, tangent = Opposite over Adjacent. I didn’t have my log book with me, I must have left it in the 70’s somewhere, but figured my iPhone calculator could do it.

Several frustrating hours later I had a number, 3 degrees of starboard list

The problem with the list, besides the boat looking stupid in the Marina, and the starboard side of the boat having more growth on the boot top, is that water collects in places around the sinks where it shouldn’t, also it just doesn’t feel right.
The problem stems, in my opinion, from the fact that the best place to stow batteries is under the stb quarter berth bunk, initially the boat could probably run on half the number of batteries I have now. Add to that that the Quarter berth becomes the obvious place to dump stuff you rarely use, like fold up bikes, aircon units, diving gear etc. Also on this baba, the lockers on the starboard side are easy to access compared with the port side, so tend to get very full, especially with heavier things like paints, tools, nuts and bolts, spare rigging etc.
So on Monday I started moving all the heavy stuff that is not needed in an emergency, over to the port side behind the main sofa. The Aircon, which I should sling, was moved to the port sofa. And the empty port water tank was topped off.

As you can see from the baba Swingometer of list, things are a lot better now.

Off to the supermarket for some last minute provisioning and I was intruiged by what looked like dandelions in the herbs section.

Above is a sign many restaurants display, giving the strict rules to observe for dining. I would like to have one of these as I think soon people will be ripping them up and / or burning them as the pandemic ends, yet my great grandchildren will probably look at them with disbelief that such a time existed. They will be on a par with the war museum posters like ‘Dig for Britain’ or ‘Careless talk costs lives’

This is Arturo hanging out with his sea lion friends.

Tuesday 9th March
After 3 months tied to the dock, I cast off the lines, well actually Debbie from next door threw them to me. I timed it for slack water, but as usual the current didn’t agree with me and I started drifting immediately towards Debbie & Tom’s motor yacht. A quick blast on the throttle and we were out of their way, and 15 minutes later I was dropping the anchor just off the Malecon, where the tide did seem to be just about to turn. It’s very quiet out here, it’s also a very hot day, quite humid with a rather grey sky.
On the morning net, I heard there was a free walkup facility for vaccines in Loreto, if you are over 60. So that’s an option I must investigate. I think it’s true here as well, but harder to find out about. I also received an email from my UK doctor today inviting me to take my vaccine.

As the day comes to a close, I presume the Brits decide that if the good ship Sister Midnight is leaving, they must follow, and so steamed out just now.

I’m back into power conservation mode. The batteries are a few years old now, and don’t hold their charge as well, so I have to keep an eye on everything.
I put Diamond Dogs by Bowie on the sound system and cranked it up while I sat in the cockpit, something Kathy wouldn’t appreciate, and remember that it’s about Orwell’s book 1984, which is weird as Arturo just bought me a copy of 1984 in Spanish. Something I plan to read in full over the next few weeks. When we stayed in Deià in Mallorca, Spain we met the son of Robert Graves, the english poet and author. I may have remembered this wrong but I think his mother taught herself Spanish by reading Don Quixote in its original Spanish form. 1984 sounds like more fun to me, I recently re-read the book in english so I have a head start. I can thoroughly recommend both 1984 and Animal Farm as being particularly relevant to these modern times, there’s another link, as when we lived on board Stardust ( a bowie song) in Barcelona, we would often walk along ‘La Rambla’ in front of the building that George Orwell was on the roof of, firing his rifle during the Spanish civil war. I presume he spoke some Spanish.

Paul Collister

Sunday 21st Feb 2021.
So I guess you worked out this isn’t a post from Kathy. It’s a week now since she left and I have started on the task of making the boat look like new. I’m leaving in two weeks as my monthly term with the marina runs out, and it’s time to find warmer water.

Since Kathy left I have been doing small jobs on the boat, a little bit of programming, and quite a bit of lazing around. I’ve tried to up the Spanish learning a bit, but haven’t fully immersed myself as planned. But I’m optimistic I’m going to learn a lot over the next few months.

Arturo is learning the art of varnishing, today he spent two hours stripping old varnish off the eyebrow and grabrails on the coachroof port side. I have asked him to be here for 8am tomorrow so that he can get the first coat of varnish on. I have managed to get a first coat on the rub rails and two coats on the cap rails. I spent an hour today cleaning the steel bars that run along the rub rails to give them extra protection. In all the port side of the boat is starting to look great. With two weeks left I plan to spend one week on the port side, then flip the boat and repeat on the other side.

Arturo unknowingly guided the CEO of an airline (French I believe) around the islands a few months back, he did the whole thing in French, and the owner of the company was so impressed he recommended that a group of his employees use Arturo as their guide when they visit La Paz, so yesterday Arturo led them around the islands listening to him tell them the history of the islands, the story of Hernan Cortez, the mating habits of Sea Lions, and some nonsense on cloud types I taught him. It all went very well, and hopefully Arturo is building up a following and reputation here. I expect he will be running his own high end Eco tour company in a few years time.

Maria has now taken to flying into the cabin and wandering around when I’m not paying attention. Not just to the breadboard, but the length of the boat!

While working on the deck I decided to pour the contents of a diesel jug into the main tank, and then get it refilled at the local station. This will save me taking the boat to another marina to refill. However after I had put about 5 litres of the fuel into the tank I stopped as the diesel looked odd.

I took a sample into a cup and it was definitely the wrong colour, it also smelt of paint. This was worrying, after an hour the fuel looked the same, often a contamination will separate out and sink or float. looking at the container it was stored in, it’s clear the inside is a different colour where the diesel was. I have concluded that the diesel dissolved the inside of the container over time, it may have been in there for a year by now, and that it was so fine it had bound to the diesel fuel like a stain. I disposed of the fuel and the container, I just hope that the fuel I put into the tank isn’t going to be a problem.

I had to do some cleaning in the bilge area of the main cabin and I’m always shocked when I see how much machinary, wiring and plumbing there is. Is this normal, looks more like I would expect on the Space station than in a sailboat.

Another job I finally got started was the starboard whisker stay fitting. This is a bracket that attaches one end of the whisker stay to the boat, the other end goes to the bowsprit, its job is to stop the bowsprit swinging from side to side as the headsail fills with wind, and to some extent when the mast pulls on it.

It had a crack in it, and I have been meaning to do something about it for years, but dreaded taking it off as I suspected it would be very difficult to do. In the end, it took me all of ten minutes. Now I need to find a welder to make me a new one, I had thought it could be repaired, but I think a new backplate is in order.
It’s amazing how stuff like steel can just crack, I doubt this was ever under any real strain.

Monday 22nd Feb
A trip to the optician starts the week off, I wonder if this might be a good way to get the coronavirus and almost back out, but I double up on the masks and take a risk. My eyes are really struggling to read small stuff, and I’m getting headaches if I’m on the laptop for too long. The visit goes well, and they are very diligent in cleaning all the equipment just before I stick my head in it. The poor guy who died in the boat near to us is suspected to have caught the virus from his dentist, but I think they have to get a lot closer than opticians.

The rest of the week is mostly about sanding and varnishing. Arturo is quite handy with a heat gun and scraper now. In trying to find a new scraper I empty out one of the lockers and decide a good clearout is called for. I have a theory if you have done 10,000 miles through countless countries, over several years and you still haven’t used the 7/16″ 6 inch PVC tube, or the vacuum cleaner extension pipe, then they can go. The lockers are a lot more empty, tomorrow I will need a 7/16″ 6 inch PVC tube.
We pop over to a local stainless steel fabricator who is happy to build me a new whisker stay bracket for $2500 (peso), around £90, not cheap, but not outrageous either.

While resting in the cockpit in between coats of varnish, this guy flies in and takes up a sentry position on the monitor steering, and doesn’t seem to care about Arturo and I sitting right next to him. Arturo wonders if it might be one of the local ‘tropical cormorants’ that are around here. It’s quite a big bird and I’m glad Maria and Carlos aren’t here.

By thursday I have slapped about 5 coats of varnish on the port cap rail, and the same amount on the rub-rail. The eyebrow and grab rail also have 3 coats and more will go on, possible once I leave town. The port hull is washed, but not yet polished.
At 3:30, when the tide is turning we leave the slip and head out for a 5 min trip into the bay, long enough for me to move the lines and fenders over to the other side as when we head back into the marina I reverse into our slip so the starboard side is now against the pontoon and we can start cleaning that up.

I take advantage of the engine being hot to change the oil & filter, It’s been 170 hours of engine running since the last change. I think the manual recommends every 100 hours. I wondered if I have recently changed it, but the log I keep says it was last march, a year ago, so that would be about right. I wonder if I forgot to put an entry in the log and as I’m writing this I realise I havent put today’s oil change into the log. So who knows. What I do know is that I aligned the level of new oil exactly to the max oil marker, then I remembered you have to push really hard to get the dipstick to go all the way in, which it did, now I have about 3mm too much on the dipstick. I don’t want to have to extract it, so I need to search the web until I find someone who says it’s ok.

One of the advantages of being ‘Stern In’ is that I get a clearer view of the sunsets from the cockpit, and tonight is spectacular.

The new bracket arrived on Friday and Arturo helped me fit it, I tried to teach him the art of sikaflexing without getting it everywhere, but ended up showing him how to remove sikaflex from unwanted places.

This is one of the things I enjoy a lot about the cruising lifestyle, having to find local trades folk who can make fancy things from basic materials, at short notice, and for reasonable prices. When something like a steel bracket breaks, or a plumbing fitting that’s a bit bespoke fails, just grab said part, head off down the pontoon asking along the way, and you’re soon enough in a workshop with an engineer saying, yes of course I can make that, come back tomorrow.

Next on the list was a leaking deck prism, these are blocks of glass in the shape of a prism, fitted into the deck and when the sun shines, they spread light far and wide inside the boat. I love them, except that they require a large hole cutting in the deck to sit in. This invariable leaks, as this Port/Midship one did.

Unfortunately, as I dug out the old sealant, and criticised the poor workmanship of whoever put it in, I started to recognise the flaws in the fitting. I think the rubbish job, may well have been mine from a few years ago. I decided it couldn’t have been, and proceeded to do the same sort of repair I would have done back then if it had of been me, which means it’s going to leak again. To make matters worse I have decided to rebel against all thing ‘Marine’ that are very similar to non Marine things, like glue and sealant. So I’m using an off the shelf builders sealant at £3 a tube, instead of the fancy Sikaflex at more like £20. I might not be so cavalier if the job was below the water line, but worst case scenario here is that Kathy will get drips on her head if it rains a lot!

Arturo is here every other day or so when there is no work on the tour boats. He is getting better at varnishing and is very good at scraping and sanding. We now have 3 coats of varnish on all the woodwork, with 7 coats on the cap rails. The boats looking a lot smarter. I polished all the steel in the pulpit area, and the bowsprit and platform are looking good.
In 7 days time I will chug on out of the Marina, still not sure of where to go, but the most likely destination is Mazatlan over on the mainland, a sail of around 36 hours, So I would leave at 7 AM and arrive in the afternoon on the following day.

Paul Collister

We had several obstacles to overcome before I could be sure of setting off on my journey back to the UK. I say ‘we’ but in fact it was Paul who took on the research and tasks for obtaining all the forms and documents I would need to present.  The hardest part for me was getting tested for the virus. A negative test result was one of the mandatory requirements for travel and it needed to be taken at a specific  time before departure. I was glad to leave it to Paul to work out the mathematics involved in that, considering time differences and the consistent confusing information emanating from the UK government.

The flight had been booked  just before infection rates increased to the extent that more and more restrictions were put in place, which culminated in the UK’s third national lockdown. My intention to resume work in schools for the employment agency I work for, as well as to see family and friends would once more have to be put on hold. As the weeks went on, there was every chance the flight would be cancelled, borders would close and Mexico would be added to the ‘red list’ of countries. The prospect of spending any amount of time in a quarantine hotel held no appeal at all and when the cost of it was revealed we decided it would be more economical to cancel the flight and rebook later if necessary. All this uncertainty was extremely frustrating for me; not least because I have a tendency of needing to know ‘what is happening when’ (not an ideal trait to have during a pandemic – I’m working on it 🙄). All I could do was keep up with the foreign travel updates and attempt to adhere to Paul’s suggestion to not worry about it until nearer the time.

The place we were in was ideal for this. We had been in the marina at La Paz since the beginning of December, and without regular access to local news, politics and television updates on the pandemic, it was easy to settle in to simply enjoying daily life in the charming capital of Baja California. We were obviously aware of, and heeded, the common sense precautions for avoiding risks, while still safely socialising with our friends, Arturo, and Dirk and Silvia. The weather was just perfect. The searing heat of summer had been replaced by temperatures that allowed for walking and cycling without collapsing in a pool of sweat.

The days were leisurely and relaxing, so I had no cause for complaint. Not until I had the test, anyway! From various sources, I knew it was likely to be uncomfortable but I hadn’t expected pain. The procedure was explained to me by the two female nurses in the tiny Salud Digna testing centre. The language barrier meant that we had to communicate via writing, a translator app and hand signals. When they were ready for me, I adopted my usual stance when undergoing intrusive medical tests – closing my eyes until it was all over. It was the nose swab that caused me to yell out. I thought it was going to give me a pierced nostril! With my eyes still tightly shut in a grimace of pain, they had to tell me it was finished and I could leave. Outside, I had to wait until my eyes stopped watering and the burning sensation in my throat cleared before we could cycle home. Maybe I was just unlucky or it could be that I’m a bit of a baby about things like this. My dad was fond of repeating the story of how I had frightened all the other children in the waiting room once with my yells and sobbing while in the dentist’s chair when I was 10.

Gradually we collected and completed all the forms and I had the necessary sheaf of documents, my bags packed, and a list of provisions for a 10 day quarantine period, ready for my daughter, Tess to deliver to my flat. Two self-testing kits for COVID-19 had been ordered for delivery at my address. No cancellations, and I was ready to go. I had mixed emotions on the day of departure. Although I have a return flight booked for September, it’s still not certain when we will be able to resume our nautical travels, or when Paul will be able to return to the UK. I knew I was going to miss him terribly (as well as our boat birds, Maria and Carlos). On the other hand, I still hoped to be able to earn some money and see much-missed family and friends once lockdown ends.

The journey itself was also causing some anxiety. The first part was easy. Paul had hired a car for the drive to La Paz’s airport, avoiding the risk of taxi delays or infection.  Once inside, we discovered that we had omitted to fill out the health questionnaire, required when departing from Mexican cities. We weren’t the only ones, judging from the amount of people we saw holding their phones up to capture the QR code to fill it out. Paul (again) took that task on while I queued at check in with my bag. Then it was time to say farewell, and I just about managed to hold my tears in until he was out of sight as I made my way through to security. Once on the plane, which was almost full, it was good to see that everybody had a mask on. I had an aisle seat and the couple next to me spent the entire hour and fifty minutes looking out of the window, thus creating a natural social distance for much of the journey. They disembarked us row by row and once I had collected my bag, I found myself in the enormous arrivals hall. It was a lot busier in there, and I kept getting jostled and bumped while I stood looking up at the vast array of signs, trying to work out where to go next. I couldn’t remember if I had to go to immigration then, or after checking in. The flight to Heathrow wasn’t displayed yet as it was still some hours away from departure time and no information desks were open. I messaged Paul, but in the half hour before he replied I had managed to find my way to the BA desks, which were totally deserted, and had taken refuge in a bar near to them until they opened.

By the time I went to check in there was a small queue at each of the two desks for the Heathrow flight. It looked as if Paul’s prediction that there probably wouldn’t be many people on the plane might prove correct. At the desk, I was finally asked to present my sheaf of papers for inspection, along with my immigration card and passport. I was pleased that they were all looked at after so much effort to get them. It’s always a relief to deposit the hold bag and I now had a few hours to kill before the 9pm flight. After clearing security I spent those few hours browsing the shops and then reading in a bar near to the gate. Not many people were in the queue for boarding, confirming that it wouldn’t be a full flight. As we entered the plane and I showed my boarding card I was greeted by name and given a hand sanitising kit by smiling cabin crew, and I hadn’t been seated for long before someone came to check that I had booked a vegan meal. Next, came an offer of a glass of prosecco (with top ups when empty) – and this was all before takeoff!  I had a whole row to myself and could have chosen to move to any number of empty rows. Along with the usual airline tannoy announcements, there were several COVID-related ones. The main and oft-repeated one was that masks were to be worn at all times, covering both mouth and nose except when eating or drinking, with no exceptions. Despite this, the lady in the row ahead of me by the window kept pulling hers down and was repeatedly told to put it back on until she got the idea. We were also reminded about the strict rules regarding passenger locator forms and proof of a negative covid test at the UK border.

It was relaxation for all of the 10 hours after that. I had wine, a delicious meal of rice with roasted vegetables and a savoury sauce and then stretched out to sleep. In the ‘morning’ I asked for a coffee and looked at the flight map on the screen, amazed to see what I recognised as the west coast of Ireland.  After breakfast and more coffee,  preparations for landing commenced and we were informed that the weather in London was ‘dull’ or ‘dreary’ – something like that. At least it wasn’t freezing or snowing. It felt fairly mild in fact for the short time we were outside before entering the arrivals building at lunchtime on the 16th February. From previous journeys I knew I had to follow the purple route for flight connections at Terminal 5. As we all made our way through the corridors it was a lot emptier than I expected, even for ‘these times’. Not empty of signs though – they were everywhere! Most of them held warnings  and information about prohibited actions, penalties for disregarding regulations, new quarantine rules and so on. Frequent announcements about passenger locator forms were played, and ‘requests’ to keep a mask on at all times.  At one point we passed a solitary man holding a sign much like a lollipop man or tour guide bearing the handwritten words ‘passengers from red list countries this way’. No one went that way.

As people began dispersing towards various other gates and onward destinations, a few of us were left following the flight connections route towards A and B gates. By the time we reached the train terminal for transporting passengers to gates, there were only about a dozen people in front of me. They stopped and looked at a sign and then strode on.  The sign had arrows pointing to the train on the left for A gates, as well as straight on. A tannoy announcement made me jump, stating that passengers should board the train to get to gate B and remain on it for gate A, leaving me undecided about what to do. After a couple of moments the trains remained stationary and nobody was inside them, so I decided to follow the the route the other people had taken. They had all disappeared by this time and a long and empty corridor stretched before me. For five minutes I didn’t see another soul as I trudged along and it felt really eerie. Finally a member of staff came out of a lift and I almost pounced on him to reassure me I was going the right way for A gates, poor guy! I must have missed something about why the other passengers had shunned  the trains.

When I reached the passport and immigration area, that too was deserted. I could only see tall Perspex screens at the front of the row of desks but no one was seated at them. A Tensa queue barrier was in place but with no people there it was tricky to find the way in. In the distance to my right, I caught sight of an arm coming from one of the kiosks there, indicating for me to go to the end desk. There, I saw a man  – his head was bent down so I waited politely on the line until he would call me. After some moments I shuffled and coughed to make sure he knew I was there and he eventually beckoned me over. Tiredness and confusion was making me feel a bit irritable, and the thick Perspex screen, along with both of us wearing masks made it hard for me to hear what he was saying to me – and he had a surly manner – so I just pushed all my documents under the screen for him to inspect. Finally, he signalled for me to pull my mask down to check my passport, got me to confirm I had arrived from Mexico and waved me on. More Tensa barriers to navigate made it feel like I was hemmed in when I tried to move forward and the lady who had signalled to me earlier helped me find the way through. She showed me where to scan the passport and told me the way to security. It was something of a relief to be among people again (not something I feel very often 😉). Now it was time to prepare for flight number three, to Manchester.

The departure time had changed from 2 30 to 3pm but it hardly mattered since I was in no rush. From memory, the A gate area was normally a bustling hub of activity with shops, bars and cafes filled with travellers. Some food outlets were open but the shops were all closed apart from Boots and the Duty Free one. I didn’t have long to wait or far to go once my gate number was announced and was pleased to just flop into a seat and wait to board. I was immediately joined by a member of BA’s staff who asked me if I would mind answering a few questions for a passenger survey. I didn’t have the heart to refuse as I was the only one there at the time. The ‘few’ questions took at least 5 minutes, which is a long time to pay attention when you’re  tired and frazzled, –  I could barely focus on the answers!  As we queued to board, it began to rain and once seated we were told that the weather in Manchester was showery and chilly. I pulled an extra layer out of my carryon bag in readiness. The flight was only 35 minutes long, and was more than half full so I was surprised to hear them state that the in-flight service would be commencing shortly. This turned out to be a bottle of water and a bag of crisps. While they weren’t exactly chucked at us, you can imagine how swiftly they were delivered.

The late afternoon air of Manchester was the coldest I had felt for months – and it was raining harder there. Procedure at arrivals was a smoother affair, though and once I had collected my bag, I just had to walk to the station to get the 5 o’clock train to Liverpool. The first thing I noticed outside was that fewer people were wearing masks. It seemed strange to me after 5 months in Mexico where it is compulsory. It seems that if you are given a choice people will make up their own mind despite the risks. At the station, I was paying for my ticket when the cashier alarmed me by shouting at someone to ‘stay away’, ‘stay away’, ‘social distance’. I looked round and saw that a guy was standing right behind me instead of on the 2-metre line. He probably won’t make that mistake again!

On the train, it was a similar story with the masks: not everyone was wearing one. Signs on board state that masks must be worn by all passengers, unless they are ‘exempt’. I gather that you can buy badges and lanyards in shops stating that the wearer is exempt, so if people don’t want to wear them they just won’t.

A short, 10 minute walk from the station and I was home in my flat. It hadn’t exactly been a dramatic journey but it was definitely different. I have taken my first test and the next one is due on Tuesday (23rd Feb). Hopefully it will be negative like the first one. I have also received a telephone call from a government official to make sure I am at home and adhering to quarantine regulations. My self-isolation ends on 26th February so at least I can take daily walks and go shopping then. The view outside is quite a contrast from the sunny one in Marina La Paz. I can see Lidl’s car park in the drizzly rain and the only birds I spot now are the huge seagulls who like to perch on the lampposts. Paul has been keeping me up to date on marina life on our daily chats (videos and pics of our birds are always welcome). I do miss it all and I know I will be back there at some point. Hopefully it won’t be long until I can travel to see family and enjoy drinks in a pub with friends. In the meantime, lockdown life consists of reading, watching dramas and documentaries on Netflix and listening to the radio – not such bad ways of spending time really.

Kathy