5/9/2011 - Just a short note

Just a quickie tonight to let you all know we're still safe and sound anchored at Timbabiche. Our friends Neil & Lisa on s/v Gypsy showed up this afternoon and we spent the evening on their boat having dinner and visiting. We're thinking about leaving tomorrow for Ensenada Las Ballenas. I'll write more later. Maybe tomorrow morning.

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5/7/2011 - Mangle Solo... or not

We got underway from San Evaristo this morning about 10:00 AM. There was no wind to speak of. Once we got out into the San Jose Channel, we started to experience swells from the SSW. They caused the boat to roll from side to side as we were taking them almost on the beam. It dawned on me that the anchorage at Mangle Solo, being completely open to the south was probably going to be kind of uncomfortable. So, we decided to save the Cardon cactus forest for the trip back down this fall when the predominant winds should be from the north.

We adjusted the GPS and set our course for Puerto Los Gatos, almost 30 miles to the north. We hadn't originally planned to stop at Los Gatos because there were anchorages just below it and just above it that we wanted to check out. But the one below, Timbabiche in Bahia San Carlos is open to the south while Los Gatos is open only to the east, providing better protection.

It was a motorboat ride as what little wind we had was directly from the north most of the way and only a few points off of north the rest of the way. This got me to thinking and I'm pretty sure you know how dangerous that can be. If the wind is from the north, maybe the SSW swells in San Jose Channel were a local phenomenon and we can go ahead and anchor at Timbabiche. We adjusted our course once again.

Saw a whole bunch of manta rays jumping out of the water along the way. As far as I know, no one really knows why they do this. To rid themselves of parasites on their skin, to evade predators, just for the pure fun of it? Who knows? Sure is fun to watch although it would have been nice if they'd gotten close enough to get a decent picture. Lulu got a couple of shots. Maybe she got lucky.

We arrived at Timbabiche and had the anchor down and secure at 1700. It's very hot. Little to no breeze. We finally jumped in the water to cool down. Worked great but it doesn't have any long term staying power. Good place to practice some of our "stay-cool" techniques which will be very important as the year progresses.

We're currently anchored with s/v Sea Change, s/v El Tiburon, and s/v Tequila Mockingbird. Tomorrow we'll go ashore and explore around Casa Grande, the remains of an old house built during the height of the pearl industry days in Baja and subsequently let go to ruin. There's also a lagoon to visit and, possibly a small village of sorts.

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5/7/2011 - composting toilet revisited

First, let me explain why I keep writing all these articles about our composting toilet, containing what to some of you may be TMI (too much information). If you're a boater who spends more than a few hours at a time on your boat, waste disposal is a pretty big issue. Boaters are often looking for alternatives to the standard holding tank approach to waste disposal. Composting heads are one of the alternatives that come up during these considerations. But, until recently, there hasn't been an awful lot of info available about how they actually work. Lots of info from manufacturers about how they're supposed to work, but we all know how objective manufacturers are. So, I'm trying to put a little more first-hand info out there. In case the subject doesn't interest you at all, just look for the word "compost" in the header. If you see it, don't bother proceeding.

Okay, now to the subject at hand:

As you may remember, we have been getting about 3-1/2 weeks of use out of our solids (composting) tank before it's time to dump it. That's with 2 adults using it full-time. This last time, we thought that we might be able to extend that time by not including toilet paper in the mix.

The question of toilet paper comes up in almost any honest discussion of marine heads. People with conventional heads eschew flushing toilet paper because, if anything is going to clog the pump, that's what will do it. These folks put their used toilet paper in a wastebasket or zip-loc bag or something and dispose of it separately. Now this always seemed really gross to me. But that was before we came to Mexico. Down here, we've found that this is the norm. Ran into it first in Ensenada at the Baja Naval marina. There was a sign very explicitly explaining where the TP was supposed to go and there was a wastebasket sitting right next to the toilet. Strange thing was, it wasn't gross and it didn't stink.

In La Paz, we ran into the same practice and again, it wasn't gross and it didn't stink. I think that's partly because of how the people use the wastebasket. When you wipe, one side's dirty and one side is where your fingers are, right? Well, you just deposit the paper in the wastebasket dirty side down. So, little or no poop is ever visible. Everyone does it, and everything's fine. Why doesn't it stink? Beats me. Maybe it's because there's actually very little poop in the wastebasket. Anyway, we decided to try this on Siempre Sabado. No zip-loc bags as are occasionally recommended in the letters section of Latitude 38 magazine. Just a small open wastebasket lined with a Chedraui shopping bag (got a gazillion of those). The thinking was that, with that volume of paper, albeit biodegradable, removed, we'd have that much more room for poop.

So, how did it work? Well, even with no paper at all, the compost bucket was still full and ready to be dumped at the end of 3-1/2 weeks. What the heck happened?

If you're familiar with composting, you know that some fibrous organic material is needed in addition to the poop. This helps absorb moisture and fluff things up so that air can pass through easier keeping things aerobic. We add coconut fiber for this although some use peat moss and I've even heard of sawdust being used. Everything started out hunky-dory but as time moved on we noticed that we had to keep adding handfuls of coconut fiber to keep this mess from turning into poop pudding. At the end of the 3-1/2 weeks we had a somewhat more objectionable, and much heavier load to dispose of than before. Our conclusion: the fibrous toilet paper was helping to do what we had to rely on just the coconut fiber to do during this experiment.

Now, we don't want to overload the mix with paper so we still use the absolute minimum amount we can. But now, we have the luxury of mixing practices if we want. First wipe a little too messy to do comfortably with just 2 or 3 squares? No problem. Just grab a handful of paper and then deposit that one in the wastebasket. Then put the subsequent small pieces in the composter. Best of both worlds.

I'll let you know in about 3-1/2 weeks how this approach worked.

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5/5/2011 - Still anchored, San Evaristo

The anchorage started getting swells in from the south during the wee hours of the morning and so, was a little rolly. Not much wind, though. Doug & Jody on s/v Gitano headed out for Los Gatos at about 0900. As they left the anchorage they were motor-sailing into a very still and placid sea. However, within an hour, a north wind came up that I'm sure caused them some fits. The wind blew hard enough here at San Evaristo that we weren't overly interested in launching the dinghy for a trip ashore. Maybe if the outboard had been mounted but it wasn't and I just didn't feel like going ashore bad enough to bother.

I had great intentions to get started trying to stop the water incursion we'd suffered on our way here. But, after I got one piece of the ceiling in the v-berth off, it was pretty evident that the source of the leaks is the caprails. The caulking between the caprails and the hull-deck joint is old and cracked and falling out. It needs to all be picked out and new caulking injected. However, this will have to wait until we reach somewhere that we can buy caulking. I have a few small tubes for little repairs but this is going to take several large tubes. Until then, we'll avoid rough water and, if we do hit some that we can't avoid, we'll just have to pile the bedding in the middle of the v-berth, away from the sides. We'll manage.

After that I inserted a shim between the tiller and the rudder headstock as the tiller was getting kind of wobbly. The shim didn't do the job so I'm back to door shims driven in and then taped/tied in place. We're beginning to compile a list of projects we need to do during a haulout. Maybe we'll spend September on the hard at Guaymas before we cruise back down the Sea for the winter.

Lulu did a couple of small sewing projects, using her machine. Even with the sewing machine running, we're ending the day with the batteries closer to completely full than we ever have before. Vive el sol! Tomorrow I believe we'll tap in to that stash by running the water maker for 4 hours or so.

Although yesterday I wrote that there apparently no fish here, I found out last night how wrong I was. I stepped outside once and the water around the boat was very noisy with splashing. I got my spotlight out and lit things up. WOW! The water was thick with krill and there were these strange looking invertebrates swimming around as well. They looked sort of like what the bottom of an anemone looks like and were fringed with dozens of short stubby tentacles or legs. They looked like they were about 1.5 to 2 inches across the long way and maybe 1 to 1.5 inches wide. Although their shape changed, they were basically more or less oval. There were also lots of skinny fish maybe up to a foot long. Everything except the krill was very light-shy and dispersed as soon as they could after I lit things up. But, as soon as I extinguished the light, they came back. Looking forward to seeing them again tonight. Maybe I'll be able to get a picture.

Sent most of the day reading. I'm currently reading the part of Steinbeck's "Log From The Sea of Cortez" that deals with Isla Espiritu Santo, La Paz, and Isla San Jose. I'm only reading about places we've been or are at. Don't want to read ahead. My main read right now is H.G. Wells' "Around The World In Eighty Days". One of the great things about having a Kindle full of all these old titles is that I'm finally reading a lot of these books that I've heard of forever but haven't read. Got Lulu hooked on H. Rider Haggard. She's currently on book 3: "Allan's Wife".

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5/3/2011 - In retrospect...

..probably should have waited until tomorrow to leave Isla San Francisco. It was still blowing when I got up this morning although two separate weather sources assured me that the wind speed would be dropping off this afternoon. Of course, "dropping off" could just mean that the wind would drop from the 15-20 knot range down to the 10-15 knot range and, as it happens, that's exactly what they meant. But we'd been anchored in Isla SF for 4 days. The last two days we'd been seeing winds of 15-20 knots with gusts to 27 knots. We were ready to move on and if the winds were only going to be 10-15, what the hey?

Although we didn't get up early to be on our way or anything, by 10:30 we were ready to go. The wind was going to be right on our nose heading up the San Jose Channel so we didn't even bother uncovering the mainsail. If things went to crap, we'd unroll the jib and head downwind towards La Paz. Or back to Isla San Francisco. The diesel was warming up by 11:15 and at 11:30 we were on our way. The GPS predicted a 2-1/2 hour trip for this 10 nautical mile leg.

As we got our into the channel between Isla San Jose and the Baja mainland, the wind picked up and so did the waves. Before long we were pounding through 3' swells and straight into 15 knot winds. The autopilot just could not handle the load. First we'd be way off to starboard of the rhumb line and then the A/P would overcompensate and we'd be way off to port. Then the waves and the wind would stop us cold, we'd lose steerage and the A/P would completely lose its mind. Finally, I gave it a rest and took over steering. This is the only time I've ever steered a better course than the autopilot.

Other than the taking of water over the bow as we plunged into the swells, it was a fairly uneventful trip. However, most of the trip we were lucky to make 3 knots. We were often down to under 2 knots. Not the most fuel-efficient trip we've ever made. When we finally made the turn in to San Evaristo, things got really uncomfortable. Until then we'd been taking the seas head-on. The dodger protected us from the worst of the spray. But, after we turned, the seas were hitting just forward of our starboard beam. This meant that I was getting lots of the heaviest splash and spray directly. Got wetter the last 1/2 hour of the trip than the whole rest of the way. Ultimately, our "2-1/2 hour trip" took us 4 hours.

We had gotten a VHF call from Doug and Jody on s/v El Gitano a little earlier so we knew they were already in San Evaristo. As we entered the harbor we gave them a call to find out where they were and to get their recommendations on good anchoring spots. They directed us to one where we dropped 100' of chain in 20' of water. Once we got the boat secured, we dinghied over to El Gitano for a couple of brews and some visiting.

We're now hunkered in for the evening. Tomorrow we'll join Doug & Jody ashore to see what the tienda has for sale (we're really hoping they have cerveza). There's also what we hope is a palapa restaurant/bar. San Evaristo is a small village with about 20 full-time households, a small tienda, and a desalinization plant. Should be a nice place to spend a few days.

Oh yeah, and from now on I'm taking a page from Doug's rule book: If you see whitecaps out on the water, don't go until they're gone.

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5/2/2011 - Sailmail and the news

Still at anchor at Isla San Francisco. Might be able to head out tomorrow as the weather dudes are saying that the brisk north winds we've been getting will drop dramatically on Tuesday. Sure hope the tienda in San Evaristo sells cerveza as we're getting dangerously low.

Got an e-mail late last night from our friend Scott, telling us of the death of Osama Bin-Laden. In his e-mail he mentioned that he'd just gotten an e-mail from me and was hoping to get this news out while I was still "on-line". It occurred to me that, unless you've used Sailmail or Winlink on a high frequency radio, you probably don't realize how it works. Here's what I know so far.

Once you connect, via radio, to the Sailmail post office, things are out of your hands. The software looks in my outbox to see if anything is queued up to go and, if so, starts uploading my outgoing e-mails. Then it looks at the "WDE8358 outbox" on it's end and downloads any e-mails it finds to my inbox. I also use a little feature called Shadowmail. With this, Sailmail looks at any of my other e-mail accounts that I've given it permission to look in (it does this every 6 hours) and then puts the header information (who, when, subject, size) in my mailbox and downloads the list along with the rest of my e-mails. Then it disconnects me from the station.

So, I can't actually read my e-mails until I've been disconnected. Then I read them and answer them if necessary. They are then placed in my outbox where they'll sit until the next time I connect. I also look at the Shadowmail headers and, if I see one that entices me to download the entire message, I right-click and say "retrieve". This request is then added to my outbox along with my outgoing e-mails. Next time I connect, the retrieve request will go out but I won't get the e-mail in question until the next time because it won't be in my outbox during this connection. At least I think that's how that part works. I have one e-mail set to be retrieved tonight so I guess I'll find out then just how fast the transfer happens.

So, in the case of the Osama Bin-Laden news, I just happened to decide to answer some e-mails and reconnect and that's when Scott's e-mail came in.

BTW: these blog updates are actually just e-mails. Blogspot has a feature that allows me to set up a special e-mail address to send messages to. It then treats these messages as blog posts and posts them.

Okay, thoroughly confused? What it boils down to is that all my messages are set to go out before I connect to the radio and I can't read my incoming messages until after I disconnect.

And now, the news...

The OBL information reminded me just how far removed from events of the day we actually are. I always figured that any news that was really important would get to us and, so it did. However, it would be nice once in awhile to get some timely updates. All the books and such always say they get their news from the BBC World Service. But I haven't been able to find a frequency or schedule that will allow me to tune into their broadcasts. Guess I'll have to wait until I'm back in internet land to do some research. If any of you know, please let me know via the comments or e-mail (if you happen to have this e-mail address). I won't see the comments until we're back in internet land but you could save me some research. In the meantime I managed to find Radio Australia (7.238 MHz AM) which I can get pretty clearly in the morning. I'll have to try it this evening to see how it comes in at night.

Oh, and if you're not familiar with HF radio, it's not like your AM/FM where you just go through the dial until you light on something. You can do that but it's very tedious. My dial is set in 0.1 KHz increments. So, say you were tuning your radio at home and just wanted to see if there was anything on between say, 550 KHz AM and 820 KHz AM. On my radio you'd start at 0.5500, then go to 0.5501, then to 0.5502, etc. Each step is one click on the dial. You can spin the dial some but you still have to go through each step along the way. This would take awhile on your home AM radio which only goes from about 520 KHz to 1300 KHz, a span of about 780 KHz or 7800 clicks on the dial on my radio. My HF radio goes from 500 KHz to 29.999 MHz (29999 KHz), a span of 29,499 KHz or about 250,000 clicks on the dial. So it's kind of nice to have a starting point. Granted, I can narrow it down some since not all of these available frequencies are going to be used for voice broadcasts, but still.

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5/1/2011 - Windy night, rolly day

The norther blew pretty good during the night but it didn't have any appreciable affect on the sea state so we slept soundly. All of the other boats in the bay have moved closer to the rock face on the north side of the bay for protection from the wind but it just doesn't seem all that bad to us. And, knowing the anchor is dug in deeply makes me loathe to move unless there's a really good reason.

By mid-afternoon, the swell caused by the norther outside the mouth of the bay coming down San Jose Channel had built up sufficiently to start wrapping around the headland and make the water in the bay somewhat bumpy. I watched the motion of the boats who were tucked under the cliff to see if they were riding better than us but it looked to me like they were pretty much the same ride. S/V BunGee did move in even closer late in the afternoon but, at least from out here, he looks too close to the rocky shore to me. I'm sure he knows what he's doing but I think we'll just stay out here and roll the night away.
(note: I wrote that at about 4:00 PM. It's now 9:40 PM and the winds have died down to a more or less steady 10 knots or so. Maybe a few gusts to 15. The seas that were coming around the corner have quit so we should have another good sleeping night like last night.

Ran the watermaker for around 4 hours today making about 22 gallons of water (had it off for a little bit while trying to track down a water leak - which we found and fixed). In spite of this and the fact that I forgot to turn off the anchor light again today, we still made more electricity than we used. Thank goodness the anchor light is an LED.

It was too rough to have much fun fishing today so instead we mostly just sat around and read our books and, in Lulu's case, played games on her Kindle.

The weather I heard this morning calls for this norther to ease up a little tonight and then kick in again tomorrow, peaking in the afternoon and then laying down a little bit again tomorrow night. Tuesday, it's supposed to start to ease but it'll be Wednesday before we're back to "light and variable" winds. My trusty Kestrel 1000 handheld wind gauge recorded readings of 10-15 knots most of the day with the occasional gusts to 22 knots. So, it's blowing but it's not BLOWING! If the weather does as predicted we'll probably be here until Wednesday when we'll depart for either Bahia Amortajada on Isla San Jose or straight up to San Evaristo where there's actually a little tienda.

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