too tired

I'm bushed. I'll blog all about today tomorrow. See you then.

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5/10/2011 - Yesterday

Okay, it's Tuesday morning and my first cuppa joe is almost ready. Time to fill you in on what we did yesterday since I was too tired to do it last night after we got back from visiting Lisa & Neil on s/v Gypsy.

It was fairly windy all day so we never really felt inspired to row ashore. Probably just as well as we had things on board that needed our attention. When I was checking something in the engine room the other day, I noticed the Racor filters were all covered with some kind of soot. Then I noticed that a whole bunch of stuff was covered with this same soot. At first it freaked me out a bit because it looked like the kind of smoky soot that is left after there's been a fire. Had we had a self-extinguishing fire in the engine room that I wasn't aware of? Scary thought. On further investigation I saw that what had actually caused the soot was an exhaust leak where the exhaust manifold meets the mixing elbow. There's a clamp there so I loosened the clamp to make sure nothing was broken (didn't appear to be) and then tightened it back up so that there was no wobble. Hopefully, that did it. Then I got started scrubbing off all the soot, or at least the easy-to-reach soot.

While I was cleaning off the Racor filter holders it dawned on me that I couldn't remember changing filter elements since I'd installed the new system 400+ engine hours ago. So, first I turned the valves so the spare filter was put into service (that's part of the upgrade I did on the system: switchable primary filters in parallel). Then I pulled the old filter out of what was now the standby filter and replaced it. Piece of cake.

Also housed in the engine compartment is the big bag that Lulu made so I could stow water filters, spare line, etc. I had to remove the bag to be able to do my fuel filter work so, before I put it back in, I kind of straightened it up. Then it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to take one of the 5 micron water filters out of the bag and change the filter on the watermaker. This filter is for straining sea water before it reaches the Clark pump and, since we had made water in some pretty krill-rich waters lately, it was likely funky. That and it had never been changed before.

This is a pretty easy procedure. The filter housing is under the galley sink and very accessible. I unscrewed the housing and managed to get the unit up into the sink without spilling much. WOW! What a stench! That filter was nasty. All those little krill creatures must have died on it because it flat STUNK! Sealed the old filter in a plastic bag before putting it in the trash so it wouldn't stink up the boat. Also cleaned the sea water strainer (wire mesh screen) that's upstream of the whole unit. It stunk too and was all black but it cleaned up nice. Guess I should pay a little closer attention to these things.

Before all of these adventures, Manuel came up in his panga. Since we still had fish to eat we didn't really want anything today. He hung around and we chatted a little. He wondered if we could spare any cerveza, tequila, rum, anything since there was nowhere to buy any in Timbabiche. I explained that we had a ways to go before we could buy any more so we kind of wanted to hang on to what we had. He understood. He asked us for our garbage so he could dispose of it for us. We didn't have but half a bag since we'd just dumped in San Evaristo but we were glad to get rid of the half bag. I asked if he wanted aluminum cans and he said "yes, for his daughters". He has 6 daughters, all school age and apparently they collect cans for recycling. He didn't have any fish but he had 2 lobsters, one was pretty big and the other was much smaller. I asked Lulu if we wanted more lobster and she said "sure". So I relayed the message to Manuel. He asked me for a bucket, filled it partway with seawater, added the lobsters and handed it back saying it was a gift for my wife. I told him that was very nice and had Lulu fix him up with a 6-pack of beer. He then asked if I could spare another 100 pesos for gas and such which I was glad to do. He left happy as far as I could tell. These guys have a tough life.

This time, I decided to split the whole lobster lengthwise instead of just harvesting the tail. One of our books shows that as a way to go so I figured I ought to try it out. What the book didn't tell me was whether or not I was supposed to carry out this procedure on the lobster while it was still alive and, if not, how I was supposed to kill it. Since it wasn't addressed, I figured that the splitting and killing both happened with the same knife stroke. Seemed sort of cruel but I guess no worse than chopping the head off a chicken. I started with the smaller guy. I laid it on it's back on a cutting board in the cockpit and then laid our big French knife along his length and then leaned over and put my weight behind it. Its shell was hard but the knife went through just fine. Cleaned the guts out, pulled the legs and antennae off and proceeded to the big guy.

This was a little bit tougher. I got partway through and couldn't go any further. Lulu fetched me the rubber mallet and I pounded the knife the rest of the way through. Lulu refrigerated everything and I cooked it up later on the BBQ. She pulled the cooked meat out and refrigerated it for use in a salad or something later. There wasn't really that much extra meat in the body so next time I think I'll just harvest the tails again.

We spent the afternoon loafing. About mid-afternoon we saw a boat that looked like it might be coming in here. The other two boats that were sharing the anchorage with us had left in the morning so we were all the only boat here most of the day. After awhile it was obvious that this new boat was definitely coming into Timbabiche. As it got closer I was able to identify it as s/v Gypsy with our friends Lisa and Neil who we hadn't seen since January. Once they got settled, they invited us over for dinner.

We had a great time catching up with our friends. When it was time to row back to Siempre Sabado, the wind had come up (and not in our favor of course) and there were some waves. Remember, we rowed over which meant we had to row back. Siempre Sabado looked like it was about 50 miles away. But rowing wasn't too bad and we made it but it wasn't all that much fun. Anyhoo, that's why I was too tired to write last night.

We're planning on leaving for Ensenada Las Ballenas later today but right now it's blowing too hard, or at least it's blowing harder than we care to deal with, so we'll just have to wait and see.

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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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