Clarion Island

A few pictures from Clarion Island, which we visited on day 6. Lovely rock formations but an untenable anchorage and no chance of landing in one piece, so we stayed only two hours.

Northwest tip of island

Petrel

Bahia Azufre (Sulphur Bay)

Surf on the beach - note wrecked barge behind surf break and military base to left. The swell in the anchorage was impressive!

Poor exhausted petrel passed away in our cockpit.

Spirits of Cerralvo Island

Unlike my better half, I am not normally a superstitious person, but...

We had spent a restful day yesterday in our little anchorage just north of the southeast tip of Cerralvo Island. I scrubbed the propeller and shaft, scraping off barnacles and other growth, hoping this would 'cure' the roughness and vibration we were experiencing at certain RPMs. Rani preserved ginger in alcohol and made a hot lime pickle for the voyage.

We went ashore in the early afternoon and walked the mile of sand beach in both directions. At the south end of the beach we climbed up onto the rocks - uplifted seabed full of fossil shells and corals. There are two light towers at the point - one abandoned to an osprey nest and the other functional. There is also a memorial with a cross and a heart made of stones. Near the osprey's nest we found some worked stone fragments including what could possibly be a quartz arrow head. Magpie Rani added the quartz to her pocketful of shells.

We returned to the boat and after supper an osprey tried to land on the wind indicator at the top of our mast. I stepped into the cockpit just as something fell rapidly in front of me causing me to jump back and curse. Rani thought I had knocked over her racks of drying ginger, but what had happened was that the osprey had broken off the wind indicator vane, which fell into the cockpit, its arrow head breaking off. Later I was able to repair the vane, but restoring it to the top of the mast and replacing the starboard 45 degree indicator, which was also lost, will have to wait for a calm anchorage.

This morning, the wind came up to an unforecasted 25 knots and we awoke around 6 am to a big chop rolling into the anchorage. We started up the engine, but the noise I had thought would go away with cleaning was still there - possibly indicating engine misalignment. As we beat out of the anchorage, the dinghy slipped in its lashings, gouging the hand rails. I lashed it back down. It seems that our luck has left us. Perhaps we offended the spirit of the person who made the quartz arrow head?

And the arrow head? - it rests in the shallow waters off the point where Rani threw it, with a plea to any offended spirits, as we departed.

A rest stop at Cerralvo Island

We finally left La Paz yesterday around 4:30 pm after filling the tanks and spare cans with diesel and water. We dropped the hook in Lobos in the dark after a somewhat tricky entry, dodging fish farm pens near the mouth of the bay. Our final evening amongst society was spent with John from 'Time Piece' and Tom and Jeannie from 'Eagle' playing the dice game, 'Farkle' and chatting. We both won a round of Farkle - a good omen perhaps?

We departed around 8 am this morning under sail with light winds. Tom sounded a horn from Eagle, waking up the bay, and we were off. We made it through the San Lorenzo channel until the wind died completely and a sickening NE swell made motoring the best option. Later, a south east wind came up and we managed to sail for an hour or so in the Cerralvo channel. After much discussion, we opted to anchor off a small sand spit at the south west corner of the island. Tonight we hope to get a good night's sleep and tomorrow will do various tasks that are harder to do underway, such as cleaning the bottom, the propeller, and shaft, and making rotis and curries for the passage.

Last Post - before we leave for the Marquesas

Well it finally feels like we are leaving. Ladybug is heavily loaded - the waterline barely showing - the salon filled with fruit in hammocks and fresh vegetables bulging from the quarter berth locker. We made three shopping runs yesterday to the market and to two grocery stores. We still need to buy our eggs (9 dozen) and another dozen grapefruit today.

As I post this last picture blog from Mexico, Rani is getting ready to take her last shower and skype with her family. She is feeling quite emotional about leaving and the long crossing ahead. We will both miss Mexico, but are excited about seeing new lands (we have been cruising in Mexico since 2008 - hard to believe it has been more than three years).

We will update the blog during our passage as long as we can access HAM land stations from our radio. Should something go wrong with the electronics - radio, tuner, modem, or batteries - we may not be able to update the blog until we reach Polynesia. Our target arrival date is April 20 as we plan to visit a few more places in Mexico including Isla Clarion (about 300 miles southwest of Cabo) en route. The passage is about 2800 miles and we hope to average better than 100 miles a day. If we experience many calms or contrary winds we may be late by a week or two...

Chris and Rani photographing a heron colony. Thanks to Tom of S/V Eagle for this excellent picture.

Jim and Karen leave La Paz for the Marquesas on 'Sockdolager'. The little Dana 24  is showing no waterline, she is so loaded with provisions. You can follow their blog here

A 'Safety Meeting' at Marina Palmira.

Mary Lee provides the entertainment - she is a fantastic Jazz singer and pianist.

Chris joined Mary Lee for a few numbers with his uke and recorder. 

Chris cleans the bottom - note the new lycra hoody made locally.

Chris admires the new autopilot cover - made by Rani.

Enjoying a last quiet anchorage before the final provisioning run.

Rani at coral viewing height - the ratlines were described in a previous post.

Climbing the new rat lines.

John Spicher takes us for a sail on Time Piece - another Coast 34.

Captain Spicher at the helm.

Rani tries to find a place for everything after our last major day of provisioning. She cut her hair short to make it easier to look after on the passage.

Safety Preparations and More Boat Projects

Ladybug is currently anchored in a small cove just north of La Paz. We had our friend off 'Time Piece', John, over the other day to share his wisdom on safety at sea and how we should prepare for the crossing in this department. John has degrees and decades of experience in this area, working in military and commercial marine safety. We discussed what items to put in our ditch bag (in case we have to abandon ship), how to deploy the life raft, how to use fire extinquishers effectively.

Here are a few tips he gave us:

- Towing a line behind the boat. Don't bother - if your boat is traveling at more than a coupl of knots, it will be impossible to hold onto a trailing line, even if knotted.
- Completely empty your extinguisher when fighting a fire at sea - even though the foam can ruin your interior and electronics, this is preferable to a burning boat.
- Bring shoes into the life raft in case you end up drifting onto an island where coral could lacerate your feet.

With John's input We also rigged a webbing jack line that will allow us to move easily fore and aft, with our safety tether running along this line. We also rigged a web strap borrowed from our camera bag for the galley, so that the chef is secured opposite the stove in case of rolling. Finally, John came up with a good simple idea for securing one of our closet doors that has a tendency to swing open when at sea - we lashed a small line from inside the closet, through the thumb hole catch, and seized a loop in the end which just fits over the monkey's fist pull handle. This prevents the door from opening more than a few inches if the light plastic catch pops open at sea.

Rani has been a stern task-master the last few days and in addition to daily pot-lucks on 'Time Piece' and 'Eagle', plus a bit of swimming and hiking, we have carried out a number of projects. We have sewn cushion covers for two square cushions using left-over 4" upholstery foam. These will be used as comfortable cockpit cushions. Rani has fashioned some fruit/veggie hammocks from netting given to us by our friends Karen and Jim on 'Socdologer'.

The latest project is the addition of rat lines that will allow us to climb up the shrouds, pirate ship style, in order to scout or coral heads. Normally these lines are made by splicing and seizing 3 strand line between the two lower shrouds, on one or both sides of the boat, much like the rungs on a rope ladder. In addition, one needs to 'serve' the shrouds where each step will be tied, by lashing small twine around and around the shroud. This is required to prevent slippage because the steel shrouds are thin and slippery. We are trying out a simpler system that uses a knotted line, looped over the spreaders (and protected by fire hose where it loops to protect from chafing). This line serves as the two sides of the ladder and all we need to do for the rungs is to tie lines across and around the knotted side lines and the shrouds - one line for each knot. This method does create more windage, but requires no seizing or splicing, and can be easily removed or adjusted. Pictures to follow when we are back in port.

More Boat Projects and Provisioning

A few more pictures from recent provisioning and boat projects. Both activities are going well and we are on schedule to depart in a few days. However, we have just realized that if we get to French Polynesia too early, we will not be there for Bastille Day (July 14) due to Chris only having a 90 day visa (Rani has EU citizenship and no restrictions on her stay). So we now plan to leave La Paz around March 15, stopping en route a few times so as to arrive in Polynesia on April 20 or so.

Two carts loaded with groceries - about $600 worth. One of the Mega grocery store employees drove us across town in his own car with this load because it would not fit in a taxi!

We are using some of the bilge to store wine and other liquids. We found some excellent Spanish Rioja for about $6 a bottle at the Mega.

Sorting things out in the cockpit. The bottles Chris is holding are Jamaica concentrate and each of these will make about 6 liters of refreshing hibiscus flower juice.

For provisioning, we will carry enough non-perishable goods to last us until New Zealand (6 months away!)  This is a serious amount of food and we have already made 2 substantial trips ($1000 total) and a few lighter ones. We still have one more heavy one for all the perishable items and a couple of lighter runs for miscellaneous. We have made a provision plan for the boat and tried to allocate entire lockers to specific food types (e.g., dry goods such as flours, oats, granolas, rice, tea, coffee, and noodles go under the starboard V berth locker, long term can storage in the port V-berth locker). So far we have found a place for everything, but marvel at our neighbors on a 24 foot Pacific Sea Craft Dana who have stowed similar stores neatly in their much smaller boat.

Chris is spray painting our slightly rusty chain with enamel. He will mark every 25 feet with orange bands to help us when anchoring.

The solar panels were zip tied to the lifelines (pretty tenuous) but are now attached via u-bolts and aluminum cross pieces to 1 inch dowels that are in turn lashed to the stanchions and the pushpit rail.

Completed autopilot cantilever bracket

Slip covers are finished for the settee. We still need to make covers for the dinette. The cushions are more blue than the purple shown in this picture.

Boat Projects

A few pictures from the last two days of intensive boat project work.

Rani provides scale for our storm jib, which flies only as high as the first spreaders.

The dinghy was quite badly damaged around the bow where the tow line pulled through the plastic, putting a big hole in the bow where the eye was, another in the front of the gunwale, and a tear in the port gunwale aft of the bow.

Fortunately, Rani managed to buy some polypropylene rods from a company called Sabic in Coquitlam, B.C., while she was up north last month. We did not anticipate using them before we left for the Marquesas but " C'est la vie"!

Using a small soldering iron to fuse the broken bow eye plastic piece back in place.

Starting by melting a groove around the broken piece, which has been pushed into place.

Melting a polypropylene rod into the groove. The iron is a bit too small for the job and it was slow work.

The repaired bow. Note the eye has been moved up a few inches because the repaired section is too weak to hold it. The gunwale damage is too large to repair by welding as the plastic was lost during the accident. The tube through which the painter was led is visible and has been repaired and reinforced with plastic welding rod.

The gunwale aft of the bow had a tear, which has been repaired with welding rod.

The bow eye is now backed by some aluminum scrap we bought at a window manufacturer.

Filing the plate we will use to reinforce the bow.

Marking the plate for rivet holes.

Plate riveted in place. We will cover this with something soft to protect Ladybug from bashes.

Autopilot cantilever bracket made from PVC pipe and lined with a wood plug to back up the socket. The white and silver plate in the background will hold this pipe and was fitted to hold the autopilot at the right height and distance from the tiller. The duct tape is just in place until the glue dries. 

A few pictures from Bonanza Beach

Here are a few pictures from our recent visit to Bonanza beach. The lovely moth landed on the lines that hold our solar panels. The lines are only about 1/8 of an inch in diameter.

Moth on the rigging

Rani has decided she needs some upper body toning and has decided to work the windlass to bring up the anchor more often.

Rani bringing up the anchor.

We were delighted to hear our friends Frank and Cheryl from Serendipity hail us on the VHF and we joined them at anchor off Bonanza beach.

Enjoying some wine on the beach with Frank and Cheryl of S/V Serendipity

Kurt and Nancy arrived a few days ago, after we checked into Marina Palmira, bringing with them some Polynesian cruising guides that Rani had ordered as well as additional spices and some presents of dried fruit and books. Kurt also gave us a lesson on celestial navigation including how to calibrate and use our plastic sextant. He also wrote up a guide for us on  how to take Meridian sites. We plan to follow his advice and take noon sites each day on passage, so we are prepared in case we lose our GPS and electronics in a lightning strike. It will also be fun to do things in the traditional way.

Day sailing with Nancy and Kurt

Kurt is clearly happy to be back on the water.

Rani's new lycra anti-jellyfish suit, sewn by Katty in La Paz.

Unfortunately, we had a small incident involving the propeller and our dinghy tow line. The engine and prop are fine but the force tore off  the front of our little plastic dinghy. I will try to plastic weld things back together and back this up with aluminum sheet.  We will replace the tow line with a floating one.

Dinghy towing eye from our Walker Bay.

We have revised our estimated departure date from La Paz, to the end of the first week in March. This will give us time to finish most of our projects including installing the autopilot, fixing the dinghy, repairing the jib, and painting the chain.

Bonanza Beach, Boat Cushions, Blood, and Bird Shit

We are back in La Paz again after a rolly few days anchored off Bonanza Beach. We chose to spend our last few Sea of Cortez "island days" in Bonanza because our good friends on S/V Serendipity were resting there after a 3 day crossing from Puerto Vallarta.

This anchorage on the east side of Espiritu Santo island is, as we soon learned, open to refracting northerly swells. We anchored in close to the beach well inside a reef that guards the north east entrance. At all but high tide, the reef knocked down the worst of the swells, but a 15 knot northerly wind made our stay a bit rolly. Visually, this is a lovely anchorage, with two miles of sand and dunes framed by volcanic hills of red and black rock and a granite headland immediately to the north. We spent 3 days here walking on the beach and sharing pot luck dinners with Frank and Cheryl. We also made the first two boat cushion slip covers and with a few tweaks and some Velcro tabbed straps to hold things together they look quite decent. Pictures to follow.

Yesterday I had my second Mexican dental experience. Much better than the one last spring where a Guaymas dentist drilled out two old fillings, breaking a molar and putting in fillings that lasted less than two weeks. The broken molar that I had repaired in Canada had become infected below the gum line and could not be saved, so the very competent English speaking dentista (female dentist) extracted it. Unfortunately their compressor was not working well, so the drill that she used to cut the molar before removing it kept slowing and stopping and the whole debacle took more than two hours with much blood loss. We went out to see the carnaval parade after this but my heart was not in it and Rani kindly took me home early.

I woke up at three in the morning with the blood still trickling into my mouth to the telltale splat of bird shit arriving on our cabin roof and the enhanced bass thump of Mexican dance music from the malecon. From recent experience I know how hard bird poop is to remove if left for a few hours, so I went on deck and scared away the little night heron that was perched on our windex at the top of the mast. A few minutes later, Rani came on deck in a very bad mood - much like a small sleepy bear awakened during hibernation - as I scrubbed the poop off the dodger, sail cover, cabin hood, solar panels, and side decks. My explanation that I could not sleep anyway due to the bleeding and the booming carnaval music did not fly and she informed me that normal people do not stomp around at night cleaning bird shit by flashlight.

Today was better and I managed some porridge for breakfast. We worked on the boat cushion covers and prepared for our guests, Kurt and Nancy, who arrive tomorrow. We will put Ladybug in a marina for a week to entertain our guests and to do the final projects and provisioning before we leave for Polynesia.

Trekking with Chris

As most of my friends will acknowledge, I am a pretty good hiker. Trekking with Chris, however, has put a whole new meaning to exploratory hikes and sometimes leave me wishing for the well trodden trails of the northwest forests where I used to roam with the Cowichan Outdoor Group.

In the Baja heat we venture into the desert, scramble up scree encrusted hills, hop rock to rock and dodge the prickly bushes and cacti in the steep arroyos where rain water once tumbled down the mountains. The anticipated three hours become six and we return with wearied limbs covered in spidery trails of dried blood. Chris rarely complains despite suffering more than his share of this abuse ( he rarely  pays attention to that old addage “look before you leap” ).

Dos Amigos on San Gabriel beach

Off on an adventure!

Making new friends on Bonanza Beach

Puffers can be cool too!

John with staff

Multitude of life under rocks

John lifted some rocks in the tide pools on the southern end of Bonanza Beach and we were amazed at the number of sea stars, cucumbers, worms and shells hiding in the cool shade and shallow water. Writhing masses of brittle stars reminded us of a brood of vipers. Speaking of vipers, John warned us about the poisonous jabs of the pretty cone shells. Having spent a few years in the Marshall Islands, he has seen his share of exotic shells and seems well informed of their deadly interaction with the naive beach comber.

Brittle Star hiding under the rocks

Shells living in the rock pools of Bonanza Beach

I should have warned our friend John of sv Time Piece before we invited him on a cross-island hike on Isla Espiritu Santo.The first leg of the trek from San Gabriel Bay to Bonanza Beach was an easy hike through a well traveled arroyo but the return leg was a detour directed by Chris.

Along the way, Chris invited John to follow him in his "Thelma and Louise" leap off a large dune. Unfortunately, I did not catch the action on my camera, so Chris repeated this twice for my benefit and had a prickly landing on the third attempt. John used his safety training skills to extract the cactus spines from his foot.

Let's follow the coyote trail

But, first, let's go up this dune and jump off the top!

Woweeeeee!

Oweeeeeee!!!!

Chris ran into this beastie at his third run down the dune :(

“ We can climb over that gray looking ridge and come down into an adjacent arroyo which should bring us back behind the bird colony”. It sounded easy enough but what we did not foresee was that there was another ridge beyond the first and traversing those hills would be hard work in the afternoon heat. In this instance we decided that following Chris was not the best idea, so John and I decided to mutiny and scramble down  instead of following him up the second ridge.

We think he ran up to beat us to the dinghies as he managed to disappear rather quickly from view. While hopping along the rock slides and crawling down crumbling sandstone scree, we amused ourselves by inventing stories of encounters with wild cats and near death escapes that we would later recount to our very own Captain Bligh.

"We just have to go over one more ridge , honest!"

Cardon Cactus in arroyo

Rani's cave

Boats beyond the frigate colony

 Finally our arroyo opened into the salty flats behind the mangrove sanctuary of the nesting frigate colony.

Dinghy transfer 

To his credit, Chris rowed out to Ladybug to fetch us all a can of cold beer when we emerged onto the beach, battered and bruised. And he towed John's dinghy from the beach into shallower water, probably to ease his conscience.