{"id":10013,"date":"2021-12-19T22:04:18","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T22:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sistermidnight.co.uk\/?p=10013"},"modified":"2021-12-19T22:36:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T22:36:24","slug":"christmas-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sistermidnight.co.uk\/?p=10013","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in England."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

17th December 2021
<\/strong>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Leaving La Paz as a tanker is arriving.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

November 2021<\/strong>
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Time to get a new solenoid, the relay contacts must be worn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Anchor chain when Kathy isn’t flaking<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Track from La Paz to Espiritu Santo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Coronados bay on Espiritu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Day 3 2nd Nov<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Track from Espiritu to Isla San Francisco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Isla San Francisco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Toys<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 4 3rd Nov<\/strong>
Chilling in the bay and work on the SSB Pactor, get an email out and reply from Kathy. Millions of ferrite rings don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 5 4th Nov<\/strong>
I’m up early and see a few of the party boats have left. As usual it\u2019s 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\u2019m 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s 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\u2019t find out why but it seems to crash when I move the board. I come to the conclusion it\u2019s a power supply problem, and the slightest movement of the power supply cable causes a crash. I\u2019m not convinced, but by suspending it by its ethernet cable, it\u2019s working ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to send Kathy an email using the HF SSB rig but I can\u2019t connect to any base stations. It is 13:00 and there\u2019s a lot of static on the airways. I try again at 19:00 and I think it gets sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t hang around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s starting to get chilly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 6, 5th Nov<\/strong> 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\u2019m 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\u2019t really reversed hard on the chain, if it\u2019s 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\u2019s right on low water, so \u2018things can only get better\u2019 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\u2019m 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\u2019m 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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 7, 6th Nov<\/strong>, Again taking advantage of the calm, I pop over to Tembici 4 hours north on the Baja peninsula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here, there is an old derelict hotel. Apparently, some time ago, a local pearl diver, who was quite poor and couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t know if this was prior to Steinbeck writing The Pearl,<\/em> 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\u2019m 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\u2019t get much deeper than a meter before it starts to hurt, and I\u2019m unable to equalise that ear.  
Next stop Agua Verde, let\u2019s hope there are not as many flies there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n