Author: paulcollister

Friday 11th February

Before we left Puerto Escondido we took a hike up one of the overlooking hills. The views are great looking out into the Sea of Cortez, and while we were there we saw a whale hanging out at the entrance to the port.

Another job I had to do was to dive on the hull and clean as much as I could and get the propellor to look like a prop again, not like the barnacle covered football it currently was. I took this little video to show what I mean, in it I have done as much of the prop and rudder as I can.

So we finally headed out for a test of the boat, and also to see if I could still remember how everything works.
Leaving at around 11:00 we arrived in Loreto about three hours later and anchored just off the harbour. The harbor here is too small and shallow for yachts, but has a small dinghy dock where we can go ashore. It’s totally exposed from every direction other than the west here, but it rarely blows from the west, so one has to pick the moment to anchor. It was too rough to spend a night, and our main purpose for the visit was to get some groceries in.
I haven’t anchored in 4 months and was hoping everything was working, down went the anchor and as Kathy put the boat into astern she shouted something sounded wrong. I couldn’t hear anything of the engine from the bow and so the engine stayed in slow astern as we tried to set the anchor in hard, however Kathy was getting more concerned at the noise so I shouted ‘Neutral’ at her and headed to the cockpit. I hadn’t reached the cockpit when I spotted that we hadn’t brought the line to the dinghy in. We had towed the dinghy here, it has a very long painter (towing/tying up rope). By the time I reached the cockpit I knew from the location of the dinghy, and the very tight rope on the cleat heading straight down to the prop what had happened. I had reversed over the dinghy line, and the floats on the line, designed to stop the rope being sucked down hadn’t worked. 
A possibly very difficult situation as the wind was blowing towards the rocky shore and no chance at sailing off. Fortunately the anchor had dug in enough to keep us there, I couldn’t be sure how well it had dug in, as we never got to reverse on it, so it was just down to the force of wind and waves that had set it.
Now I had been boasting about how the water wouldn’t be too cold for me to enjoy some swimming, I was about to find out. Diving on the rope and cutting it free would take some time so I donned my 3mm windsurfing wetsuit. I haven’t really used this much since I bought it in Galway some decades ago, I was worried that any passing fashionistas might mock me. As it turned out, even with the wetsuit on, the water was cold.
I worked for about 20 minutes with a hacksaw cutting through the rope, until I dropped the hacksaw, and realised the string that attached it to my wrist had come undone. I then got some cramp in my leg and was starting to feel dizzy. I can’t remember the symptoms for hypothermia, but I didn’t want to find out so abandoned the job for a while. Back on board I was shaking with the cold, so obviously it’s a lot cooler than I thought. Once warmed up, I jumped back in with a new, better secured backup hacksaw and managed to swiftly remove nearly all of the remaining rope. Back on board we carefully engaged the engine in ahead then astern and it seemed to be ok. We firmly backed down on the anchor and headed ashore for some groceries.

Returning to the boat, somewhat later than planned, we headed north to anchor for the night at the Coronados islands. By the time we arrived the sun had set so we anchored in the dark. Fortunately I know this spot on the protected southern side of the main island and it’s a doddle to anchor. 

Saturday 12th
A quick walk over to the western beach on the island then a lazy day on the boat. I repaired a dinghy oar that snapped when I sat on it the other day.
We may head back to Escondido tomorrow as the weather looks rubbish for a while. In the meantime I have to start planning for what comes next. It looks like 2023 will be the year we spend in the South Pacific. There’s a massive amount of preparation for me to do. We could be passing through quite a few countries before we end up in the SE Asian area. Many of these countries, like New Zealand are not letting boaters in. Hopefully this CoronaVirus will have eased enough to allow these countries to open up before the end of this year, but I think we have been here before. Also since leaving the EU we don’t get such easy access to the many islands of French Polynesia. I’m not sure what the state of play is with the American islands but if they are on our route we may need to arrange a visa with a visit to the American Embassy in London. On top of the bureaucracy I have to do a lot of work on the boat,  I need to drop the mast and replace the wiring, and some of the lights. The dinghy may need to be replaced soon, the main VHF and the handheld radio are on their last legs, also the watermaker needs to be replaced or have a major overhaul. So lots to consider, but for now the aim was to work our way south to La Paz and try and get a marina space for a while so Kathy can stock up on supplies and I can order bits and bobs for the boat.

19th February
Leaving the Coronados we picked up a lovely bit of Northerly winds and quickly scooted down to Agua Verde.

While in Agua Verde I managed to buy some local goats cheese, we had a great meal ashore on the beach in a small restaurant run by the delightful Leonora, She brought us the visitors book and I was able to find the entry from 2 years ago, written by Jim when we visited here.

21st Feb
We had heard of some old cave paintings/handprints that where a short hike from the boat. We headed off following a buried treasure style map Dirk had sent us. Turn right at the cemetery, then left at the palm lagoon etc.

We didn’t fancy the scramble up the cliff face to the cave entrance, and I was told we would be able to see it from the beach, so I announced I could see it then we promptly started our march back. On the way I figured we could go around the other side of the lagoon, but much to Kathy’s annoyance we found ourselves in quite dense undergrowth with no obvious way out. Kathy has a much more vivid imagination than me and wasn’t at all happy with the ‘lost in a jungle’ scenario. I climbed a rock face at the edge to find there was in fact no easy way out, but could see the direction we wanted to go in, so we scrambled through the trees and shrubs and eventually got out.

22nd Feb
The next day we upped anchor and sailed south for the bay at Everisto. It was a long trip and we made good progress, such that I realised that we could make it to the small island of Isla San Francisco before it got dark, another 10 miles further on. On the way we took in a small rocky reef, home to a lot of sea lions, but the light was failing and we could only make out silhouettes, but we could sure hear them.
We arrived in the lovely bay just after sunset and as always the shore and rocky cliffs looked closer than they where, we anchored easily behind a group of loud Americans on a big catamaran, they were having a great party time, as were quite a few other cats there. For many people this is their first stop away from tourist pangas and free from connectivity with the rest of the world. It’s a beautiful spot and the aquatic life here can be spectacular.
We added the extra 2 hours to the trip to make the next passage a bit easier.

Wednesday 23rd Feb
A lazy start, as we head back to civilisation. We are heading for Isla Partida or Isla Espiritu Santo

En route we spotted some whales, or big dolphins and a very sleepy turtle. We also saw lots of dolphins and whales during our trip down. I have a little youtube video with these guys in. I feel really bad for how we startled the turtle.

To the very north of Partida is a small rocky outcrop known as Islas Islotes, home to a sea lion colony we have visited many times. We swung by and I very gingerly moved the boat quite close to the rocks, the pangas get a lot closer.

We ended up popping into one of my favourite coves for the night, Bahia or Caleta Candeleros. We didn’t go ashore, just rested and hoped the predicted strong northerly winds would not bother us.

By the morning the winds had picked up, but we were sheltered tucked into the corner. We took off for La Paz and managed to sail the whole way to our anchorage. In all from Escondido to La Paz, via Coronados we only used a quarter of the tank, about 50 litres of fuel. Not bad at all.

Setting the anchor didnt work the first time, and we were dragging into the main channel, not a problem, but Kathy did not appreciate the stares from all the other boat owners I was trying to anchor amongst. People here are quite wary about other anchored boats as the currents are strong, and boats often swing around wildly sometime with the wind and other times with the current. Often the current points the boat a different way to where the wind pushes it. In trying to recover the anchor, I forgot to flake the chain and the locker filled up and the chain clumped up under the windlass and jammed, it wouldn’t go up or down, with ten meters still out and the anchor dragging across the sand it didn’t look that cool. I was able to get the chain off the windlass and with a bit of cajoling (bashing with lump of iron), freed the chain. We then motored away from the glares and dropped the hook a little further up the bay from them.

We headed ashore the next day as the wind had now picked up considerably and the waves were breaking all around.

We ended up spending three days out at anchor before I managed to secure a place in the Marina.
My entry to the marina was yet another disaster, the current was flowing strong and the marina were surprised at my request to enter at full flood. But because I had a good handle on the currents I figured I would be able to do it easily, there was going to be over two knots from astern pushing me onto an end tie and with a boat in front of me I had to be able to stop quickly, but we had a lot of lines and cleats available. As I lined up for the dock and approached, the boat took off big time, and the current changed direction enough that I had to abort the approach, however the hard astern manoeuvre only caused the stern to kick around and the current took over and pushed me sideways onto the end of the pontoon where we started to exchange bits of boat for bits of pontoon. The marina staff tried to push us off. I could have left the current to push us away but a mega yacht was in the way and we would have gone under its prow and bashed it with our mast. So I motored full speed ahead and ground my way out of the mess. Kathy was not pleased.
Going around again, with the knowledge of where the current really was, and people on the pontoon giving me guidance I was able to drift into the berth perfectly second time around. everything is repaired now and it all sounded a lot worse than it actually was.

Friends of our friends Jim & Ivana in Canada were in La Paz, so we arranged to meet up for dinner with John, Joan, Dan & Janice all from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We had a great time.

The following morning around 8:30 there was a knocking on the hull and the marina manager was there offering a space closer inside the Marina, and as there was no current or wind at that moment we moved.

We are now in La Paz for a while. There won’t be many more posts until something of interest happens. La Paz is a lot more lively now, and perhaps there will be festivals and parades coming up. For now we plan to just chill.

Paul Collister.

Friday 4th Feb
We are safely back on the boat now, but not without a fun trip from Havasu back to Phoenix.

Monday 24th – Leaving Havasu and London Bridge

We leave Lake Havasu and head south to the Parker Dam. This dam, although not as big as the Hoover in overall size, is the world’s deepest dam.

From the dam we continue in a SE direction, heading more into Arizona hoping to stop in the town of Parker, but there seems little of interest there so we continue onto a strange place called Quartzite. It’s basically a huge community of budget accomodation, many trailers/RVs and some quirky shops including a Camel ride area. Kathy is keen to visit the Naked Mans Bookshop. There’s no naked man present, but plenty of books in the most ramshackle bookshop I have ever seen.

Onto Prescott, where we stop in a once fancy hotel, but now quite tired, that overlooks the town. I think this was once a frontier town, and its proudest boast is a row of pubs called Whisky Row. It dates back to the late 1800s which they are very proud of. I’m always amused as the last three apartments I owned in the UK all predate Whiskey Row. We dined that night in an Indian restaurant in town, but were a little disappointed in the quality and shocked at the prices. But then I think what is considered a cheap night out in England, might be a speciality in Prescott.
On Tuesday we had a lazy day wandering around the stores of Prescott and at sunset we visited a lovely lake just outside of town. Kathy also found an amazing new wholefood type supermarket ‘Sprouts Farmers Market’ real products, but not at Amazon’s ‘Wholefood’ prices.

Wednesday/Thursday
We leave Prescott and drive back across the desert to Sedona. We passed through here at the start of our trip, it’s a few hours north of Phoenix and it looked so pretty we said we would visit on our way back.

We stay in a resort style apartment with a lounge, bedroom, kitchen and dining area. Very comfortable, our own porch and washing machine, dishwasher etc. It’s so nice we decide to extend it for another night but are told the price has doubled and that’s for a much more basic apartment. Instead we find a similar deal at the golf resort a few miles down the road.

We visit Montezuma’s castle, which is an old dwelling situated in the rock face near Sedona. It’s very interesting to see how people lived in caves constructed quite high above the ground, the site was chosen due to the nearby location of a river and fertile land.

A little further along we visit Montezuma’s well, a natural spring that was crucial here in times of drought.
Montezuma never actually visited this area and the names should really be changed as he had no connection at all.

Not far from Sedona we visited an old US Army fort, the type that was in the movies where the ‘goodies’ would gallop too in order to escape the ‘Indians’ , A big gate in a high walled stockade would open, they would ride in and be saved. However as the museum at the fort pointed out, there were no trees in the desert to build such stockade walls, in fact it was just an open field with a few buildings. Still it did the job of protecting the new occupiers of the lands from raids by the indigenous peoples.
The museum had a lot of exhibits showing how difficult life was for the soldiers.

The next day we did a bit of sightseeing in the tourist shops of Sedona before driving off to Phoenix via Jerome.

Jerome was added to the route for no reason other than to try a different road than we used at the start of the trip. It turned out to be one of the best stops we made. A delightful town that had gone from bust to boom, then back to bust and now was thriving as an artist / tourist hotspot in the area. Originally created to exploit the minerals in the area, mostly copper with some other precious metals, it had made a few men very rich. However it stopped production abruptly in 1953 and the population declined from some 15,000 to 50-100. It became a ghost town.

From Jerome it was a two hour drive back to Phoenix.

Our last stop before arriving in a cheap motel near the airport was to see the Roosevelt dam. This is a substantial dam on the Salt river, built to manage the river better and to resolve the frequent droughts there. From there I had planned to follow the river back toward Phoenix along a very scenic route, however the road had been closed, recent fires had stripped the foliage and subsequent rains had caused landslides. The authorities had decided to keep the road closed until the foliage grew back. I wonder if this is how we will first experience climate change, with roads and railways being closed more droughts, more fires, more floods and so on. I’m not sure pouring concrete is a viable way out.

Sunday 30th Jan 2022
An early start and the car was returned, our bags checked in and we are off to Loreto. No Vaccines needed, no forms, just like it used to be. A new car awaited us at Loreto Airport and we drove down to the Boat at Marina Puerto Escondido.
We had been warned by Dirk, our German friend that an Osprey had made the boat its home and we would have some cleaning to do. I hadn’t quite appreciated how much until I saw that we now had a white dinghy, not a blue one!

In climbing over the pushpit rails to clean the solar panels I managed to lean on the WiFi antenna and snapped it off at the N connecter. A bit of a pain as this is not something easily fixed, at least not by me. I did fix it on my second attempt but I think my first fix may have blown up the transmitter stage and so it’s now a bin job. Thankfully Dirk had a spare one and has loaned it to me until we meet up in La Paz in a couple of weeks time. I now need to find a replacement unit.

Consequently my boat data wasnt uploaded, and as part of the fix, some data was lost. But if you are interested, I have a new page that shows the wind the boat is seeing here on the mooring buoy along with todays and three days worth of battery voltage statistics.
As Zuk would know, it’s amazing what raw data can tell you, after sunrise you can see the battery voltage increasing steadily until the batteries have reach the absorption stage, however there’s big dips in voltage during the morning. This is the point when the toaster is running, so from this you can determine how long we stay in bed each day!
Check out the link above Ship’s Vitals

The boat is quite clean now, the dinghy retstored to its original colour and the engine ran for an hour without issue. We are just chilling here in the bay, chilling being the appropriate word for once the sun sets. Next week we will have a day or two at the Coronados Islands before we head south to Marina La Paz.

Paul Collister

Monday 17th January 2020 – Martin Luther King Day.
Another day trip out of Flagstaff takes us a few hours north to the Grand Canyon.
It’s a great drive through forested snowy highways right up to the edge of the canyon. We are off season and so the traffic is light and there are no queues anywhere. Neither of us know what to expect really, and it’s only as we approach that I realise I have been looking at the contours in reverse on the maps, I thought there were big mountains either side of the canyon, but the steep tight contours on the map are of the steep valley down to the Colorado river. Of course we are both stunned by the enormity of the canyon when we get to the edge.

We stay until sunset and catch the shadows move across the valley. Quite stunning.

Tuesday 18th Jan
Time to check out of Flagstaff, but first a few words on the car, it’s a fancy BMW series 530 I believe, I don’t normally have much time for cars, in my mind if they get you from a to b, job done. But it was £800 for 30 days for a basic compact car, and £900 for this beast, so just a few pounds more each day. Car hire prices are crazy in the USA and Europe right now, I believe in part due to the semiconductor shortage.
The car is great, but way too fancy for me, I spent half an hour working out what the dozen or so controls did, and that was just to adjust the seat. Every time I adjusted one of the knobs or buttons, my body was contorted in a way I wasn’t too keen on, then the steering wheel goes up down, in out, and jumps out of the way when the car is parked. It also doesn’t like me wandering off the road, and steers me back, which was very disconcerting the first time it happened. When reversing I can see on the widescreen 4K TV who I have run over in perfect high resolution.

We leave for Williams, just an hour or so to the west, but we are now in serious Route 66 territory with one of the longest working stretches of the road still in use. We take this road, but before we reach it we find an abandoned stretch where a scene from Easy Rider was filmed.

Kathy is very keen to find the exact spot where Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda are refused a bed in a motel. Thanks to Mr Google we find it quite easily. The vacancies sign has been relocated to a motorbike dealer down the road.

Williams runs special trains north to the Grand Canyon, Its main street is Route 66, and it’s possible to buy souvenirs here as well!

For not the first time we find ourselves getting a hearty meal in a Mexican restaurant in Williams.

Wed 19th Jan.
Bearizona is a bear zoo in Williams, but in fact it has many other animals there. You drive through in your car with the windows closed and aren’t allowed to stop. A bit like a safari park, something I am not keen on as I don’t approve of caging animals for public entertainment/profit. However the animals here are mostly ones who have been rescued or for other reasons could not survive in the wild, so have a chance here. The enclosures are quite large and the animals looked cared for. Quite what they make of a steady procession of cars though their habitat we will never know.
The park also has a huge restaurant and gift shop, alongside a more traditional zoo area where you can walk around. Most of the animals here also need to be protected for various reasons.

Thurs 20th
We leave Williams for Vegas taking in the Route 66 towns of Kingman & Seligman.

After the pretty & quirky small towns we head to Las Vegas taking in the Hoover Dam and bridge on the way.

I’m very pleased to be here, I had always wanted to see this marvel of engineering. Of course climate change may have a big impact on the dam in coming years. Of course the damming of the Colorado river has had severe consequences for those downstream who rely on the river for their food and drinking source, especially at the Mexican end where the river meets the Sea of Cortez.

After an hour or so marvelling at one massive concrete pour, we head to another massive concrete creation, Las Vegas. Driving over the surrounding hills and seeing the normal arid desert landscape replaced by a huge shining city is quite a shock. Vegas is nothing like the other cities around this region, and as we turn onto the freeway that takes us right down to the main strip, Kathy scares me by shrieking as an aeroplane almost hits us as it comes in to land at the airport, or at least it felt that close. The first of many assaults on the senses. Getting to the hotel is crazy as we are just off the main strip, 6 lanes to navigate then at the hotel a myriad of choices and Valet parking to negotiate. Valet parking is new to us. The only time scousers normally hand their car keys over to a stranger is when a pointy knife is involved. On top of this we have a porter waiting to take our suitcases, however we have managed to accumulate several carrier bags of vital possessions along the way. The ever helpful concierge organises a big bucket for us to chuck our belongings in before the car is whisked away to some secret cave.

The Vdara hotel provides us with a suite with kitchen and dining room, for not much more than a standard motel room. It’s very luxurious

So instead of rushing off to make our fortunes on the zillions of casinos, Kathy does a fry up of eggs and vegan sausages. Once refreshed we venture out for the first of many visual onslaughts.

We watch the fountains at Bellagio and walk back through the casinos that occupy the ground floor of the hotels. It seems like you could walk many miles through casinos without seeing daylight.

Fri 21st
The next day we pass Caesar’s Palace en route for Venice. I wanted to see the Gondolas, expecting them to be awful, I’m not disappointed.
Kathy and I agree that Vegas is not for us. We don’t gamble, I’m not a drinker, the shows are all a bit mainstream, everything looks incredibly tacky.
When the Eiffel tower was constructed in Paris I believe it was considered a tacky cheap monstrosity, but it grew on the Parisians over the years, much like the London Eye, which was only ever meant to be temporary. The Vegas tower is a cheap tacky version in itself, and I expect won’t get any better.
We couldn’t work out if the cheap tacky feel was deliberate or not. Caesars Palace is an affront to anyone who knows the basics of classical Greek and Roman Architecture, I’m sure the designers did, so these gross proportions used must have been done on purpose to give it a comic appeal.
Still at the end of the day everyone seemed to be having a great time and were enjoying the party atmosphere, and that must be worth something. For us it was great to see, but we won’t be back.

After exploring Venice we grabbed a cab to the Mob Museum, which gives the history of mobsters in the USA going right back to the early gangs of New York, right up to current narcos in Mexico, Triads & Russian oligarchs. Spread over three floors in a building that housed the courtroom where many mobsters from the Al Capone days testified, it provided an excellent history of events. Many primary source exhibits such as the bullet shells from the Valentine’s day massacre, and the actual wall with bullet holes are on display. Kathy has the best photos and will no doubt post them when she writes her blog.

After a few hours in the museum we headed up to Freemont St where a covered walkway is illuminated. It looked impressive, but also a bit sad. There were plenty of beggars and an eatery (I’m reluctant to call it a restaurant) where people who are morbidly obese (>350lb) are able to fill themselves with fatty burger type food for free. Customers have a protective bib to wear and waitresses scantily dressed as nurses provide a constant stream of fatty food and alcohol.

Amazingly we can’t find anything to eat, we don’t fancy queueing for one of the hotel restaurants, and everywhere else seems very meat orientated so we head back to the hotel and cook some vegan burritos up in the apartment.

The next day we check out and are glad to be back on the road heading south to Havasu Lake City

Sat 22nd
We head south from Las Vegas trying to stay as close to the Colorado River as possible. Our destination is Lake Havasu City, a tourist resort on the banks of a lake created by damming the Colorado at Parker, another great engineering feat. This dam, although narrower than the Hoover dam, is deeper, in fact the deepest in the world.
On route we stop for another Huevos Rancheros in a Wendy style restaurant.
I’m extremely pleased to be visiting this city as it has London Bridge connecting a small island to the main city. I distinctly remember as a child of 9 years old hearing that an American had bought London Bridge and was moving it to America. Like many people I didn’t realise that London Bridge wasn’t just another name for Tower Bridge, and there was a rumour that the buyer thought he was getting Tower Bridge and ended up with the considerably more boring London Bridge. I was always fascinated by the story and so was glad to see it for real. I must say it looked splendiferous in its new home.
Once we checked into our hotel we walked along the shore to the bridge.

Sun 23rd
There’s a 3 day balloon festival on this weekend but it’s too windy today. We check out the Walmart just outside town. It’s huge.

We drive around the island and end the day in a lovely Italian restaurant called Angelina’s.

Kathy poses in front of one of some 75 lighthouses built around the resort, I hadn’t realised at the time, but they are replicas of real lighthouses around the USA and the great lakes.

We are nearing the end of our trip now, but we still have a few days we can spend in the Sedona area.

Paul Collister.

Monday 10th Jan
Kathy and I spent the week before our trip keeping our heads down, we had to take a covid test 24hr before our departure, if we failed it, we would be looking at more lost flights, hotel bookings, car hire etc. After the fiasco of Christmas and France/Switzerland we didn’t want to take any risks, we had hoped to hook up with lots of friends over Christmas, but that will have to wait.

So with an early start (6am) and a quick taxi ride to Manchester airport for our flight to Phoenix Arizona, with a few hours at Heathrow on the way. Arriving in Phoenix Sky Harbour, we picked up a very snazzy BMW 5 car and hit the freeway to our Sonder room downtown. Sonder do a serviced apartment where you basically have a studio flat with a very decent kitchen/dishwasher/clothes washer etc. The plan was to use that as a base for the first 4 days while we get over any Jet lag.
Arriving at a huge complex of apartments around 8pm, we located our room only to find another couple in it. A double booking? Not a good start, it was 3am our time, so I was not mad at the idea of chasing around for a bed. However a phone call to Sonder revealed they had changed our room and the email notification hadn’t reached me yet (It finally arrived just as we were leaving 4 days later). It was a great apartment and very relaxing

Tuesday 11th
In the morning we drove to Cave Creek, an old frontier town just outside the built up part of Phoenix. It seems to just be a tourist spot now, lots of shops selling lovely trinkets and clothes. I think most of the original town has gone and what we saw were recreations. We had a lovely lunch there before returning to our base.

Wed 12th
A lazy start then a 15 minute walk to the downtown centre of Phoenix. There’s a heritage square with some of the original buildings that have been restored and house a visitor centre and museum. Frankly it was a tad disappointing, the square was small and mostly closed for winter. The buildings were old, but not as old as most of the houses I have lived in back in the UK. Outside of the square comprised of soulless high rise offices, hotels and apartment blocks. We looked for a shopping area as Kathy and I both had a few things we needed to buy that we had forgotten. We could only find a few artisan or high end designer stores. We wandered back to the apartment disappointed, but did come across a funky bar area a little way from the centre and stopped for drinks.

Thursday 13th
We decided that Scottsdale was the place for shopping and it also had a pretty old town. The town is more like a village that has been amalgamated into Phoenix, but sits away from downtown on the banks of a canal.

We stumbled on a lovely little Mexican restaurant for lunch, I had a very tasty Huevos Rancheros (Ranch Eggs) and Kathy went for Salsa and chips.

We wandered around the artisan shops and the old town, which was totally visitor orientated.

Friday 14th
Time to check out of our Sonder and drive to Flagstaff. Flagstaff is an interesting town, and central for several excursions we plan in the area. It’s just a few hours drive north from Phoenix and we break the journey up by stopping in the lovely town of Sedona. The scenery in the area is stunning. Vast aresa of flat desert then rocks jumping out of nowhere

As we travelled north we gained altitude towards 6000 ft, the temperature plunged quickly from a very warm Phoenix to a cold and snowy situation.

The view from Flagstaff.
In flagstaff we checked into one of the zillions of motels that exist along the side of the highways here. They are very basic, and quite small, but cheap and cheerful, and do the job. We have the room for 4 nights, and it works out just fine. The motel is on a very special road here. It’s got a new number (I40) the I is for interstate, but it is also called ‘Historic route 66’ Most of this historic route has long gone, but bits remain, and for reasons I struggle to understand, it has taken on a great mythic status. From here on in, it will be impossible to avoid Route 66 memorabilia. Kathy, like most people is very thrilled we are travelling this famous stretch of road, I’m enjoying trying to understand what has happened and if I could make Meols Drive just as famous back home. I think getting your road named in a few big albums helps.

Saturday
We head to downtown Flagstaff and wander the streets getting coffee at one of the trendy cafes here. It has a lovely laid back feel and we pop into a thrift shop to buy some cutlery to eat with when bringing back food to the motel.
Something we had stupidly overlooked was how cold it is up here in the winter. There is snow piled up everywhere we go. I was just thinking La Paz Weather all the time.
From the town we drive north to the Northern Arizona state museum. I’m keen to know about the area before these towns were built, before the railway and route 66 arrived. The museum is fantastic, well worth the $15 admission fee (It reminds me how lucky we are to be able to go into museums and art galleries for free back home). I learn a lot about how the lands were occupied by various groups of peoples over time, more recently the well known tribes of the Hopi Navajo and Apache people. The Apache being two separate distinct groups bundled together into one tribe for convenience by the European settlers. To exist in the harsh lands here, the tribes initially were nomadic and relied on a great understanding of weather, crops, animal migrations etc in order to find areas with food at any particular time in the year. Learning about the First Nations in Canada and the pre-hispanic peoples in Mexico has opened my eyes to the indigenous people across the whole of this continent. Later I try to visit a Hopi settlement.

After the museum we head into a national park to look at a volcano rim that has spewed lava in a massive river which has set. It’s quite a sight.

From the lava fields we head to see some ruins at Wupatki National Monument. The website states:

“People gathered here during the 1100s, about 100 years after the eruption of Sunset Crater Volcano, gradually building this 100-room pueblo with a community room and ballcourt. By 1182, perhaps 85 to 100 people lived at Wupatki Pueblo, the largest building for at least fifty miles. Within a day’s walk, a population of several thousand surrounded Wupatki.
Although it is no longer physically occupied, Hopi believe the people who lived and died here remain as spiritual guardians. Stories of Wupatki are passed on among Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and perhaps other tribes. Members of the Hopi Bear, Sand, Lizard, Rattlesnake, Water, Snow, and Katsina Clans return periodically to enrich their personal understanding of their clan history. Wupatki is remembered and cared for, not abandoned.“

The area around here is called the painted desert and is quite stunning. The vastness of the prairies contrasting with the eroded rocks that rise up with big flat tables on top (Mesas).

On the way back we call into a pizza place and order a takeaway. an experience in itself. The smallest pizza we could get was way too big for the two of us, also the same price as a night out in Liverpool.

Sunday
We head off in the morning to Meteor Crater, this is a huge hole in the ground. It’s quite amazing to stand on the rim and look down.

It’s hard to appreciate the size, it’s over a kilometre across (.75 mile) and 170 metres deep (560. feet). There’s an astronaut fully decked out in space suit standing at the bottom. Something to do with NASA training them here (or where they filming something ?). The onsite museum had a lot of interesting information on meteorites.

We accidently ended up taking a wrong turn on the way here and ended up on a bit of abandoned route 66.

So next we head to Winslow so Kathy can stand on a corner. I think that’s actually the whole reason we are in Arizona for three weeks. The Eagles have a song with the lines:

“Well, I’m a standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me”

We are not the only people there wanting a piece of that corner, we have to queue for our pics, but it’s a laid back atmosphere and probably a lot busier in season. there’s only a few shops open as it’s a Sunday, but thankfully they have a lot of ‘standing on the corner’ merch for Kathy to sweep up.

I’m much more interested in an antenna just behind the corner. I presume it’s a microwave dish, but I can’t remember ever seeing anything this shape before.

On the way back we are mostly following the Santa Fe railway which brought much prosperity to the area when first built. It runs from the east coast to the west coast, and takes in our motel front garden. The nuisance is offset by the Casey Jones hooter you hear every now and then, and the clanging bell. You have visions of the old railroad transporting cattle or pigs to the big cities. The reality is more of hundreds and hundreds of 40ft Shipping containers full of Asian goods heading east from the east. These trains usually have three locomotives at the front and sometimes two or three in the middle as well.

On the way back from Winslow we take a diversion to visit a Hopi tribe settlement and ruins, however it’s too late and the park rangers have closed the access road. I have often wondered about the Hopi since I first saw the film Koyaanisqatsi as a young man. It had a massive effect on me then, as did the soundtrack by Philip Glass.

We have such action packed days that I’m going to do a blog post very week, otherwise I will be overwhelmed with photos of places my failing memory won’t be able to recall.
Next stop the Grand Canyon, tomorrow on Martin Luther King day, nothing to do with the fact that National parks are free on MLK day.

Paul Collister

17th December 2021
I have been neglecting the blog somewhat due to all the travel and Christmas related stuff.
I left La Paz, had a few great weeks of sailing around the Sea of Cortez, ending up in Escondido. I then flew home to Liverpool to be reunited with Kathy and prepare for a Christmas in the Swiss alps with my kids. At this point the word Omicron was unknown to me.

November 2021
I have left La Paz and I’m chilling in the local islands of Espiritu Santo. I attempt some boat jobs, starting with the foot switches for the anchor windlass. Sadly the Solenoid is not making a good connection when wanting to reverse the windlass. Later I have a great snorkel around the rock.

Day 3 2nd Nov: Off to Isla San Francisco.
Sail for 2nd half, boat sailing really well to wind, 2 hours at 5 knots close hauled and heeling a fair bit but not enough to get any waves on board.
The bay has a mega charter motor boat, big slide and lots of toys and jet skis etc.

Day 4 3rd Nov
Chilling in the bay and work on the SSB Pactor, get an email out and reply from Kathy. Millions of ferrite rings don’t solve the problem I have of RFI, which means the radiated signal from the transmitter and aerial is getting back into the electronics and causing the system to crash. I have to run at low power, and this varies depending which frequency I use. In the end 10Mhz seems to be a good compromise early in the day.

Day 5 4th Nov
I’m up early and see a few of the party boats have left. As usual it’s a glorious day, blue skies, gentle breeze and the sun rising quickly against the mountains that make the backbone of the Baja Sur peninsula. I might leave this afternoon and head over to San Evaristo, this will break up the journey to El Gato a little, only by a couple of hours, but it all helps, especially if I’m going to skip Gato and push onto Agua Verde, as I have had to do twice before due to swells from the wrong direction at El Gato. 

Today’s main task is to stop the PI computer constantly rebooting. I spend several hours trying to work out why it is rebooting – it seems to crash not long after startup, usually a few minutes. I don’t find out why but it seems to crash when I move the board. I come to the conclusion it’s a power supply problem, and the slightest movement of the power supply cable causes a crash. I’m not convinced, but by suspending it by its ethernet cable, it’s working ok. 

I try to send Kathy an email using the HF SSB rig but I can’t connect to any base stations. It is 13:00 and there’s a lot of static on the airways. I try again at 19:00 and I think it gets sent.

Before this I dinghy over to the North of the bay and snorkel with some lovely big fish. I say lovely, some of them give me evil looks and bare their teeth at me. I don’t hang around.

The water is a lovely temperature for swimming, but this will change over the next month for the worse. I also like swimming just before sunset, and when I get out the water in the setting sun, it’s starting to get chilly.

Day 6, 5th Nov Leave for somewhere north, not really sure, started off thinking of a short hop across the channel to San Evaristo, but decide I should take advantage of the flat calm weather with no wind or waves/swell for several days. I’m getting good wx reports from NOAA over the Pactor SSB link daily now.
I decide to follow the coast of the Island, Isla San Carlos, and anchor near the north end behind a little spit. It goes from 40 metres or more to 2 metres in just a few boat lengths, so I am anchoring on the side of an underwater cliff really, this is great when the anchor is pulling up the hill, towards shore, but likely to pop out if the wind sends me the other way. My first go at anchoring seems fine, but I only have 1 meter of water under the hull and I haven’t really reversed hard on the chain, if it’s set well, I should reverse to just about 1/2 meter under the hull and the pull forward in these still conditions to be in about 4 meters of water, it’s right on low water, so ‘things can only get better’ as they say. However, I bottle it. I can see the bottom and it looks way too close, so I steam ahead and have another go. I set the anchor in 17 metres of water and reverse back until the anchor sets fully and I’m in 4 meters of water. This will do. I have a little kayak around and beach in the ugly lump of plastic and take a walk. Just as I get out of the kayak I’m faced with 4 cows and a couple of herders marching them along the beach. This is an uninhabited island, as far as I thought, yet this is like a scene right out of a Hollywood western.  We exchange pleasantries, and they continue their march, eventually turning off the beach and up a dirt track into the hills where they disappear out of view, leaving me in a somewhat confused state. I say cows, however they had the horns of an antelope

Day 7, 6th Nov, Again taking advantage of the calm, I pop over to Tembici 4 hours north on the Baja peninsula.

Here, there is an old derelict hotel. Apparently, some time ago, a local pearl diver, who was quite poor and couldn’t even afford his own boat, found a giant pearl despite getting very poor offers from the pearl merchants in La Paz, he made enough money to amass a fishing fleet and build a hotel here. When he died, family disputes caused the hotel to fall into disrepair. And now it stands as an empty shell. I don’t know if this was prior to Steinbeck writing The Pearl, which although similar, had a more tragic ending. Here, I dive on the hull and remove as much growth as I can reach. Just as I’m learning to freedive, and feeling comfortable with it, my ears have given up on me. In particular my right ear, which I think has a blocked ‘euston-station’ tube, meaning I can’t get much deeper than a meter before it starts to hurt, and I’m unable to equalise that ear.  
Next stop Agua Verde, let’s hope there are not as many flies there.

Day 8, 7th Nov  (Sunday)
Arrive in Agua Verde, an uninteresting trip, AV is busy with camper vans, and a mega yacht at anchor. Bit of a panic with the anchor alarm. Turned out to be a problem with the app/GPS on the iPhone. It was giving me 48m as best GPS accuracy, however the iPad was fine. A reboot of the iPhone fixed it, but very disappointing. I don’t think Steve Jobs would have let that bug get through. I reconfigure the boat’s external wifi and internal router to work with the shore based wifi, just need to go over to the village tienda and buy some credit now. 

This is where my notes stop. I chilled in Agua Verde for 4 days I think. The road to the sand spit was being widened by a big digger (JCB) and was rumoured to be organised by an American lady who wants good access to the spit. I don’t know if that land is being developed, I hope it remains available to the public, it’s such a lovely spot. I climbed up the hill on the sand spit and took some pictures.

From Agua Verde I spent a week or more working up to Puerto Escondido where the boat is now, via Isla Coronado where I spent a few days.

The boat is swinging on a mooring ball provided by the marina. This costs around $400 / month, which is crazy for a mooring, but there was nothing cheaper on offer and to be fair they have the best showers of any marina I have stayed in. Also it’s a lovely spot, very safe and they keep an eye on my lines. The hurricane season seems to be over now.
27th November 2021
Yesterday I rented a car, and drove into town to get my Covid test. Today I returned the car to the airport and took a flight to Phoenix Arizona. After a 5 hour wait I boarded a flight to Heathrow then onto Manchester. Unlike the Heathrow flights from Mexico City, which are empty, this one was fully booked. It was a long journey, starting Saturday morning at 9am and ending in Manchester on Sunday evening.
It was good to see Kathy waiting for me at Lime St station. I did my covid testing and after a day I was free to join in the Christmas revelry in town. (not)

December.
The main reason for my return was to take my grown up kids on holiday in the Swiss alps over Christmas, I haven’t seen them over the last two Christmases, however we heard that Switzerland had introduced 10 day quarantine for non EU (that’s us) visitors. My son Isaac and his partner were keen to go skiing and so this wasn’t going to work. Thinking that everyone would be cancelling their Swiss holidays and moving to the French alps, we cancelled our chalet and rebooked in France. Our flights were good to Geneva as that airport sits on the border of France and Switzerland and has a French exit. I changed the car hire to collect a French car on the French side only to find out the price had doubled since I booked the Swiss car! Having paid the non-refundable booking fee for the French chalet in Chamonix, which did look lovely, the Swiss removed the restrictions. Too late now. However it became clear we had to enter Switzerland before we could transit to the French sector. Not a problem, until a few days ago when the Swiss brought in new rules meaning we need 48hr PCR tests, which we quickly organised to be taken two days before we flew.
Yesterday the French banned the Brits from visiting their country, so I’m now in the process of cancelling flights, car hire etc.
Hopefully we can find a place in the UK for our Christmas break. Maybe Covid won’t be so bad next Christmas?

Liverpool
Although I tell everyone I’m from Liverpool, in fact I’m from the suburbs over on the Wirral, and I’m only really getting to discover the town properly now as I wander around exploring for exercise. The centre I know well, but the next ring around the town, especially the University campuses is very interesting. Walking around I snapped a few pics of Liverpool.

Liverpool hosted the G7 summit discussing the Russian build up on the Ukraine borders. Above you can see how security ended up closing off many streets in Liverpool.

Paul Collister

Hi everyone, I made it to Loreto fine, and went further up to Isla Coronado.

It’s been a great few weeks, mostly motoring, with a bit of sailing, but mainly lazing around, snorkeling, beach walks and reading.
I haven’t had much internet, and no high speed internet, to allow me to upload pictures and videos, but I have today managed to upload to YouTube a clip I made in the Coronados. The first fish is an Aguilla (eel) and the second I think is a Mobula Ray, it’s hard to appreciate its size from the vid, but from the end of its tail to the front is about the same as my height, just under 6ft or a couple of metres.

If I get a chance I will post a real blog when I get to Puerto Escondido in a few days. Then I fly back to the UK next Saturday.

Paul Collister.

Monday 25th October.
I just have three more days here in the marina at La Paz then I will head off to the north ending up in Puerto Escondido for my flight from neighbouring Loreto back to the UK at the end of November.
The last two weeks have been a bit lazy, the first week was spent mostly at the keyboard trying to get my Raspberry pi working with the ADC, unfortunately at some point the SD card, that contains the operating system and all the software and data got corrupted, I tell myself this happened just before I was going to back it up, but that’s probably a lie. I spent a day trying to recover my software from the SD card, which I succeeded with a little, but decided in the end to start from scratch again. Is there a prize for the quickest rebuild of a LAMP system?
Once it was all back and running, I spent a day working out how to backup the SD card. Next the ADC needed to be connected and I didnt have the right connecters. Eventually I got it all working and reading voltages when I decided a week was enough playing and as I only had 10 days left I better make a list of chores that needed doing.
The usual jobs, like getting fuel, water, supplies, gas (lpg), do a laundry run, wash the dinghy and boat (best to use water while I have it for free), furl on the headsails, refit the sprayhood, take the covers down and load the dinghy onto the foredeck were added to the list and tackled one at a time over the next week.

While the spray dodger was off, I was able to access the teak work on the coachroof and give it a couple of coats of varnish, it’s looking quite smart now, but also highlighting the areas I haven’t done yet.

One job on my bigger todo list was check and replace if needed all the chainplates.Now a chainplate is a long bit of steel, or iron on some boats, that is bolted to the side of the boat and the wires that support the mast are fixed to it with turnbuckles. If they fail, and they can, the mast can snap. I don’t know when they were last replaced, if ever. However there were signs of rust on one chainplate below the deck, so I thought I would check that one out.

This starboard locker had suffered a lot of water ingress when I bought the boat and I had quickly fixed the leak in Malaysia, however it needed to be sorted properly.
The first job was to remove the chainplates and then the damaged vinyl on the surfaces, I had hoped to just do a small area, but the job grew, and I decided to do both chainplates in that locker and also the next locker.

The first chainplate came out and had some crevice corrosion. It’s usually like this, a line running around the plate where it is sitting inside the deck. Water gets in from the deck, but there is no oxygen there, consequently a special type of corrosion occurs. It’s amazing how a bit of water can cause the steel to be eaten up so badly.
I took the chainlate off to a local fabricator to have it copied, I’m still waiting to know if he can do it before I leave on Thursday, otherwise I will be delayed, but out at anchor as I have to be out of this berth.

To be fair, as this boat is a cutter rig there are shrouds all over the place, and the failure of one shroud might be ok if the mast wasn’t under a lot of strain at the time.

You can see below the holes in the deck where the chainplates emerge. There was no obvious damage to the core of the deck, but I raked out the core balsa material to about 1cm back, then I filled the void with thickened epoxy. this will protect the deck against future failures of the seal.

So unable to find the vinyl I bought in Guymas I went off and bought a lot more, only to find the original as soon as I returned to the boat.
I would like to say I have added upholsterer to my CV but you would have to be pretty desperate to ask me for help with any fabric work. Below is the only angle where you can’t see a bad join. Once things are in the lockers it will look very professional.

Below you can see the cleaned up chainplate backing plates on the fresh white vinyl, this is as good as it will ever get. I’m very impressed, if only the other six looked as good. That will take a bit longer me thinks.

Sunday 24th October
So I finally finished cleaning up the boat, I have to wait for the chainplate to arrive before I can fit it and seal them both at the deck level. The second chainplate was in good condition which gives me some hope for the other ones.
So I headed off into town and onto Arturo’s rooftop terrace to checkout some Blue cheese he has found.

So just a few more jobs to do and then I can leave the Marina. I’m really looking forward to being out again, no aircon, but a nice sea breeze, dolphins for company, and after a couple of days getting used to the boat, I will head off into the islands for 3 weeks, with next to no contact with the world, although I will be working on my SSB pactor while out. I returned from the UK with a big bag of toroid rings so I’m hoping to sort out the RF interference.

It’s been a little difficult writing this blog with the knowledge that one of my favorite readers, commentator and friend is no longer going to be reading any more of my posts. Kathy’s sister Bobbie very sadly passed away just a couple of weeks ago, Kathy was with her in Milan and has now returned to Liverpool. Bobbie was a lovely person and took a lot of interest in our travels, she understood and enjoyed my slightly dry humour and I always had her in mind when trying to pen something funny. We will miss her terribly.

My next blog will probably be mid November from Puerto Escondido.

Paul Collister.

I enjoy problem solving, which is just as well and probably why I’m living on a boat happily, there are no end of problems to solve, some not even boat related, like my next trip home. Firstly though an update on the fridge

Monday 4th October 2021
I head off to the ferreteria (Hardware store, I’m assuming from the latin Ferrum (iron), as in Ironmonger) to pick up some squirty expanding foam. As commented last week, you get a lot of foam, presumably reusable, but probably not in reality as it will gum up the nozzle and hose, still at $10 for a can, it’s not the end of the world, and a small cost in the larger fridge scheme of things. I have read one should treat it like sikaflex, in the sense it will make a mess everywhere, but I think not, it seems easy to manage and it’s only at the end when I try to wipe up some excess that I start getting it all over me and the locker. Fortunately it clears up well. I have the fridge on full now and I have just started to get ice crystals in my diet coke, so that’s perfect. Also the Tilapia fish fillet I put in the freezer bit is rock solid.

Tuesday
Now the fridge is finished, I stow everything back in the Lazarette and tidy up the cockpit. I have the air con running a lot but I really don’t care for it. The boat is either too hot or too cold and noisy, can’t seem to find a good balance.

Wednesday
I have ordered a small ADC for the PI computer, in fact I ordered two from MecardoLibre, the Mexican version of eBay, postage was free for two and the same price as a second unit! This little device should plug into my Raspberry PI computer and allow me to monitor voltages (and currents via a shunt) around the boat. The plan is to get the data displaying on this website for all to see, in particular so that I can monitor the health of the boats batteries and also if the bilge pumps are running and when, while I am away from the boat over Christmas. In all honesty it’s really just an excuse for me to do some programming and as I have said before, make a light come on in England when the bilge switch lever moves in Mexico. The ADC which stands for Analog (variable voltages) to Digital (0s and 1s) Converter, is very sensitive, and it will be interesting, and probably a challenge to use. I’m expecting large current flows, like the Starter Motor or the Windlass or Bow Thruster will create voltage swings in the earth loops that will cause it to go crazy with it’s readings, then when you add in the fact that my cable runs to the sense locations will behave like antennas for the SSB, the data is open to much corruption. Perhaps software Low Pass Filters might be the answer, we will see.
I visit Arturo to try a selection of cheeses we have acquired here. I insist he tries the Brie, which he later admits to quite liking, despite the fact he winced the last three times I made him eat it. I think like most vices, smoking and spirits, there is a pain threshold you have to go through. I presume the French are fed it as babies so won’t understand this.

We sit on his rooftop terrace looking out over the bay, it’s quite a view, perhaps one of the best in La Paz. In the distance the cruise ships are preparing to return to service as many have already done at various Mexican ports.

Thursday
A potential Hurricane appears on the forecast, a long way south, and not looking like a threat yet. I had secretly hoped we had escaped the season but hurricanes have been known here right up to December, albeit very rarely.

The UK government announced the removal of Mexico, and scores of other countries, from its Red List today, which makes it a lot easier to get home. I start to look for flights from Mexico City back to England but find the British Airways site crashing. I wonder if this is due to demand. Will demand mean prices rise now, or will more airlines start up old routes and the prices drop.

Friday
The plan is to leave La Paz in 3 weeks time, and spend November slowly sailing my way up to Puerto Escondido, near Loreto, so I can leave the boat there on a mooring ball for Christmas, and catch a flight from Loreto to England. I log on and find BA have sorted their website out, it’s still a bit slow, but not crashing. It seems like the flights are very expensive £1000+ return, but when I check out the flights from Loreto to Mexico city I find there aren’t any. This is a blow. I had just assumed all regional airports would connect to the capital. It seems if I want to fly back from there I will have to go via Phoenix/LAX or Dallas. It’s difficult if I have to get back to La Paz or Cabo San del Jose, and will involve a long bus ride or taxi and hotel. So here’s a rough idea of what I need to coordinate with my guess at prices so far

Water taxi from Boat to marina	$5?
Taxi from Marina to Airport (Loreto)	$40
Flight to Arizona (one way)	$300
Arizona Hotel 1 night	$60
Flight To Manchester via European Capital (return)	$900
Train from Manchester Airport to Kathy in Liverpool	$15
Total	$1220=£900
Boat storage at Loreto for 2 months	$800
versus Boat storage at La Paz for 2 months	$1630

Saturday
Up early and off to the street craft/organic market for some Vegan pesto. I manage to converse in Spanish, and the lovely lady there humours me and lets me pretend I can speak Spanish for the transaction, which included me asking if she would be there ‘con pesto’ on Tuesday. So after nearly 2 years in Spain, studying the language and I can now buy pesto in the market, to be honest, I was hoping for a bit more.

From there I head to Steren, this is a computer/electronics store, I think it’s a bit like Tandy, or Maplin, I get there at 9AM it’s starting to get hot now, and I’m pleased to be there before the sun starts burning me, however I see the store is not going to open until 10AM, I can’t wait an hour here out on the edge of town. I cycle on to Home Depot, maybe they might have the cable I need. I want some two core shielded flex, I’m thinking or running this to the battery shunt and feeding into a differential input on the ADC which I believe has arrived. They don’t have any, but I do buy 20m of Satellite receiver cable for about £10, this will allow me to run sensor leads that can be screened from RFI (SSB interference).

On my way to Home Depot I pass a very nice area with expensive looking houses down pretty side streets, when I emerge onto the main road, on one side there are lots of offices, mostly Abogados (Lawyers/Solicitors) and on the other side of the road a big prison.

I can see why the legal fraternity might have offices close to the jail, but I wonder if they live in the fancy houses too. everything on your doorstep.
I cycle on to the best electronics shop in the centre of town, and he has some microphone cable with 2 cores, so I buy 10 metres of that, it may come in useful, who knows. What I can’t find is a 12v USB Hub, I have seen them online, I want to find a way to power the PI computer and an attached hard disk all from 12v.

Cycling along the waterfront at the western end of town, I see it’s a big tide and the car park has flooded. I’m not sure they are quite ready for a 1m sea level rise here.

Looking out into the bay, I spot the remains of another abandoned ship

Sunday
Arturo had left some items in Ventana on Saturday, so for a change I decided to hire a car for the day, head over to ventana, an hour drive and then afterwards we would use the car to do a big shop. Ventana is some distance along the coast from here and is much more exposed. It’s opposite Jacques Cousteau Island. Arturo is doing his divemaster course here at the weekends. We hire a car for just MEX$800 around US$40, or £28, which is not bad for a day however no sooner had we left the centre of La Paz than I was pulled over by a policeman on a motorbike.

He informed me, via Arturo, that I had gone through a red light, I didn’t think I had, but they are easy to miss, so it’s possible. He took my driving license off me and explained there was a fine of 1660 pesos. Around $80 or £60. Arturo offered him 100 pesos, but had to up his offer to 200 quickly as the cop was not amused and kept saying it was 1660, even producing a sheet of fines I suspect his mate had printed for him. He also explained the fine could not be paid at the station as it was closed on Sundays and so I would have to visit the station on Monday to get my license back. I suggested to Arturo we offer him 1000 to be on our way, but stupidly, I took it as a chance to practice my bigger numbers in Spanish, as soon as I said mille peso, the cop’s eyes lit up, and Arturo gave me evils. The cop took the 1000 pesos and we drove off with Arturo cursing me, convinced the cop would have accepted 200 pesos if we had tried harder and I hadn’t been so stupid to say mille peso out loud. Anyway, I figured £35 to get off with a traffic violation, which would have got me points on my license back home was not the end of the world. Arturo disagreed for the next 15 minutes, until we were pulled over by another cop in a big 4×4 travelling the other way, he thought perhaps we were going too fast, but somehow, despite the fact we were in a group of ten cars all travelling at the same speed, it was me, Mr Gringo, that caught his eye. Arturo was quick off the ball to tell the cop we had just given a fortune to his mate down the road, and wasn’t that enough for one day. Amazingly the cop looked a little embarrassed and wished us well and took off, probably after his mate on the motorbike. It was turning out to be an expensive trip.

Arturo is doing his divemaster course at a dive centre/family resort in Ventana, the place has lots of cabinas (chalets) were people stay and can take boat trips to go fishing/snorkeling/diving or learn to kite surf. It’s a fantastic spot and we had a huge breakfast before exploring.

There were a group of buzzards flying around, they look like eagles to me. I caught a bit on video which might work.

The countryside is looking pretty green thanks to the recent close passes of hurricanes which dumped a lot of water. Much more may arrive next week.

One of the problems with driving at night here is that cows and other largish animals can wander out onto the road, and without any lighting, they can be a big problem.

Once we were back in La Paz, we scooted up to Walmart and I picked up a stack of drinks which are always a pain to fit on the bike. Just need to stash them all away now.

Back on the boat I sorted out Kathy’s paperwork so she can get back into the UK from Italy and also checked to confirm my flight booking for Loreto to Phoenix hadn’t gone through, despite American Airlines saying they took the payment. They didn’t take the payment, but I bet they will the minute I rebook it and refuse to refund me. I’m looking forward to some fun on the helpline tomorrow. It seems by some convention, a Brit can only pay in pounds and a Mexican can only pay in Pesos. Good games.

Paul Collister.

Tuesday 28th Sept.
Today Carlos and his uncle Arturo arrived to clean the boats bottom, it looked bad from the waterline, but Carlos was happy to report the antifouling was doing a great job and what barnacles were there scraped off easily. For those who don’t know, I have lumps of Zinc or Aluminium strapped to various parts of the boat underwater. These zincs, or sacrificial anodes, to give them a more proper name, exist to protect the boat from galvanic corrosion. Basically, the metal underwater, like the propellor/prop shaft, thru hulls and bow thruster will all dissolve in the water over time, due to small electric currents there. We put Zinc, or Aluminium in the case of the bow thruster, on the metal parts so that they will dissolve first before the less noble metals. Carlos told me the Zinc on the Max Prop had gone completely, which is bad news, he replaced it for me, the hull zincs are 80% good but interestingly the bow thruster zincs are down by a third. I told Carlos that I was pleased that they were working. I had replaced them in the spring because the previous anodes had not worn out at all in the 5 years since the bow thruster was fitted and I couldn’t understand why. I showed the old ones, which I had kept, to Carlos and he quickly spotted that there was a sealant on the mating face of the anodes, he was right, and I didnt notice that when I replaced them at the last haulout. So the yard in Malaysia that fitted the bow thruster has put something like sikaflex behind the anodes and consequently they had failed to work, and had not been protecting the bow thruster properly.

In the future somebody may be staring at the corrosion inside the bow thruster and scratching their head, being the optimistic type, I’m hoping there isn’t much damage. At least the anodes are protecting the device properly now.
Having that job completed, the fridge was next. I had been researching options for a few days. Back home a complete replacement of the fridge system, all the parts, would set me back around US$1000, I could buy that system in the USA for the same price, however I would have to pay a lot in shipping and taxes, possibly another $500. I could replace the faulty evaporator only, this part is only around $250, but the connecters between it and the compressor have changed over the last few years, so I would have to buy one compatible with the old compressor, and if the compressor failed later, I would have to find a replacement compatible with the old connectors, which might be difficult in a few years time. Also the old connectors require you to get the gas refilled when the connection is broken/made, so that’s two callouts to an engineer to cost in. So I took the plunge and ordered a new system, with shipping/taxes etc it’s costing me $1400, a lot of money, but as Kathy says, we do need it. The current system has worked well for over 12 years so I can’t complain.

Wednesday
My fridge has been delivered to the freight forwarder DekoMarine in San Diego, So today I may start to remove the old system in preparation for the new. I’m waiting to get an idea of delivery times as I have never used this freight forwarder before, but they come highly recommended.
The morning VHF net mentioned that a boat was being moved into the anchorage by the navy, it’s the closing stages in a sad story of a sailor with mental health problems that has been struggling for many years here to get his boat repaired so he could sail south. He seems to have become more and more delusional over the years and was living on his boat here believing the whole world was out to persecute him. Recently he had shot at fishermen passing too close to his boat on their way back to port. I heard he has now been deported after claiming title to a dissued boat yard. He keeps a blog, in which he appears to still be here, it’s confusing. I can’t help thinking if he could have got timely professional medical help things might have had a much better outcome. As it stands, one man loses his boat and dreams, and La Paz gets another rotting hulk to deal with one day.

Thursday arrives and I have stomach ache, last night I had a big fry up, it was meant to be a healthy salad, but something went wrong at Chedraui and I ended up with potato fritters/eggs/tuna steak and mushrooms.
I spend the whole day in bed. I receive an email to say the new fridge will arrive Friday, which is great.

Friday:
24hrs in bed, but I’m feeling better today. I check at the office in the afternoon and the fridge hasn’t arrived yet, it’s too late to do the install anyway. Arturo calls round for a beer later and we have a good chat and ponder over the anomalies of our respective languages, I get very confused over the word ‘sided’ as in ‘two sided’, and wonder how to explain to him the logic in that. He surprised me by not being able to hear any difference in the words, dog,dock and duck when I say them, presumably because of the ‘g’ sound in Spanish.
Just crazy wild evenings eh!

Saturday
Up early and the fridge has arrived. I’m impressed.

First all the old bits have to come out, the compressor, the evaporator and the thermostat.

The new one is an isotherm 2501 model, it’s top of the range in capacity, but quite heavy on the electricity, about 4 amps on a high cycle here. Made in Northern Italy.

The fridge is surprisingly hard to work with, it looks easy, but all the angles are wrong to be able to turn a screwdriver and see what you’re doing.

Eventually, after 6 hours of solid fiddling, I get the old evaporator out and the new one fitted in.

After that, the rest was easy, but I really struggle with the quick connect refrigerant line connectors, you have to tighten them just right (9.5n/m), and I worry I have over or underdone them. Anyway it fires up and the ice box is getting cold quickly. Success, I refill the fridge with cans of drink and head off to by some food to stock it up.
As the evening progresses I become more disappointed with how long my beers are taking to cool. By 10 pm I see the thermostat has cut out, meaning its as cold as it thinks it should be, however it’s nowhere near cold enough yet. I’m wondering if it’s because that whole area has been hot for a day or two now, or perhaps it needs to settle, maybe there’s an air lock trying to work it’s way through 😉 . I feel I already know way to much about fridges and don’t want to have to learn more. I set the thermostat to maximum volume and decide to see what’s there in the morning, probable some very frozen expensive lettuces! It’s a price I can pay.

Sunday arrives and the fridge is very cold, but not freezing anything as it would have done on maximum before. However the cans of drink are just the perfect temperature, and everything is great, except I don’t know if things will freeze in the ice box. Later in the day I work out the problem. There is an option for either the fridge thermostat or a fridge/freezer thermostat, a quick google reveals I had the fridge/freezer thermostat on the old system and the new one came with the fridge only thermostat. I’m still a little confused, but I’m happy I can fix things easy now, should I need to get it colder. We have a real torrential downpour in the afternoon, great for the vegetation, but the roads are all messed up and one young woman dies when a part of a road is washed away.
Once the sun comes back out I head off for a couple of hours kayaking around the moored boats, I’m interested to see what this troubled man’s boat, SV Disperser, looks like. It’s a huge ferro-concrete ketch with a Jet Ski on deck, two big wind generators, and looks in reasonable condition compared with many other older boats left to rot here. It needs to be protected and sold, I’m sure it could be fixed up reasonably easily, but I’m expecting it to be stripped, and left to drag onto the shore in the next big blow. Very sad.
I walk up to the cow supermarket later and get some fruit, I need to improve my diet. The rain water has brought mud, sand and possibly other less desirable things onto the malecon and adjoining streets. There’s also a noticeable increase in bugs around the place.

Tomorrow I will try to hunt down some foam filler to fill the hole that the fridge hoses pass through, then I can put the boat back together properly and start making her seaworthy. Next weekend I may go out for a spin.

Paul Collister

Sat Sept 25th 2021.
I’m back onboard after 8 weeks back in the UK. All is good.

Hurricane Nora wimped out before reaching La Paz, but was soon followed by Hurricane Olaf. Olaf was potentially quite dangerous, but turned left before La Paz. You can see the satellite pictures below. Nonetheless there were significant winds here, I believe in the 50-65knt range. Several boats dragged or broke free in the moorage and I have seen one on the sandbanks of the Magote, I think there are more. Despite warnings, headsails were shredded in the Marinas.

My journey back was uneventful. I lost my kindle somewhere along the way. Goodness knows how, I’m so careful these days with my possessions. I await lost property to contact me, it seems BA have no interest in helping, and like most airlines, hand over anything they find to the airports lost property, who in London subcontract that to another company who can turn a profit on my loss. Lost Property in Mexico city are impossible to contact remotely.

So I started from Liverpool at 5 am, on my journey by train to Manchester International Airport, to connect with my Heathrow flight in the afternoon. The lady below was very helpful but seemed a little deaf. Is the the future?

Due to arriving in Mexico in the evening a hotel was called for. However my morning flight was at 6AM so I only got a few hours sleep before the alarm was ringing at 4AM. Thinking I would have the airport to myself at this silly hour, I was surprised to see the place rammed.

It was great to get an uber back to the boat from the airport, La Paz hadn’t changed much in 8 weeks, but it was getting very hot in the cab.

Back on the boat all was fine, I spent Thursday cleaning up, I couldn’t see any water damage, with the boat being very dry for a few years now, then torrential rainfall during the hurricanes, I expected some of the seams around the hatches, or deck fittings to have leaked, but there was no sign of that. The high humidity and heat had taken a toll in the form of bacterial growth (mould type growth) nothing a quick wipe down didn’t fix.

Below you can see how the oven started to rust, but again, it soon cleaned up. Ready for my lovely new Joy Division oven gloves. Which is a reference to a song by Birkenhead group ‘Half Man, Half Biscuit’, Birkenhead being my home town for many years. A great band, they have a video here

After clearing up, installing the Aircon on the coach roof hatch, and putting up some canopies I headed out for fish tacos with Arturo.

La Paz is getting better for Covid cases and many of the restrictions have been lifted, the Malecon and the jetties are now open again. A lot of people have stopped wearing masks, and the waterfront bars look busy.

Below you can see a tree downtown that didnt survive the storm. I noticed when cycling around that many roads have deep holes in them where the tarmac was washed away.

The biggest issue I have right now is the fridge. As expected the gas has leaked out, and I need to find a new Evaporator, or possible a whole new system

For now I use the fridge as an ice box, and top up each morning with a 3kg bag of ice which I pay $1 for.

It’s 35deg most days now and on Friday I launched the dinghy, fired up the outboard and headed out to the Magote for a very relaxing swim.

I will be here for about 9-10 weeks before I return to Europe to spend Christmas with the family. I expect to get sailing north in a few weeks.

Paul Collister.