Things come in threes

 

Taiko at night in Guaymas

With Christmas approaching it was time to leave Guaymas and make what we thought would be a fast reach across the Sea of Cortez to Santa Rosalia, were we wanted to meet up with Hazel and Paul from Susimi. As happens so often with sailing things did not go exactly to plan. We left Marina Fonatur, Guaymas, and made our way to the harbour mouth to anchor for a night and most of the next day’s daylight hours in order to stow everything properly and get the boat ready for an overnight open water passage.

The next afternoon we started around 4pm, in light wind, we sailed to Cape Hoba, which marks the entrance to the big Guaymas bay. From there on it was open water, with no further protection from the land any more. The forecast promised NW around 20 kn. Anyone who has sailed in the Sea of Cortez knows how nasty the steep short period waves can be when current and wind work against each other. The seas generated by wind against tide are referred to as square waves by veteran sea of Cortez sailors. On this afternoon there was a flooding, north setting, tide against the North West wind. We were unperturbed by this and considered that we should lay a nice course of 250T for a comfortable reach on the Rhum line. How wrong could we be? The wind direction was WNW and the best course we could mage was 235T. The sea state made it difficult, and uncomfortable, to maintain our speed and course with every 3rd wave stopping the boat with the inevitable fall to leeward as she shrugged of the wave to make way again. It was not pleasant.

We discovered that the cam-cleats installed on the tiller would not hold the control lines from the Monitor wind vane sufficiently well. With the hard wave hits to the rudder, feeding back through the system, the lines loosened up in the cam cleat and eventually jumped out completely. We tacked and began sailing northwards to make better progress in more comfort. In 8 hours we had made good only 13 miles, little progress towards our destination. Suddenly the wind died and we did not move at all. We started the engine to motor for a while. It was my watch and in checking the battery monitor discovered that the high output Balmar alternator wasn’t charging the batteries. Being a relatively short distance from our previous anchorage I decided to motor-sail back to our starting point. The wind picked up again and we reached along at a furious rate towards the Guaymas. I kept the engine running for fear of being unable to restart it while anchoring in the dark. At 4 am the anchor was dropped in the same spot we left 12 h ago. What a frustration.

Perplexity at the engine

The next morning, tired and grumpy, I changed the alternator system back to the old one (as mentioned in the previous blog) after I had attempted to find the reason why the batteries weren’t being charged. The reason remained undiscovered despite my thorough perusal of the appropriate manuals.

I had more success with altering the tiller. Two more cam cleats installed vertically on the tiller did the trick. Now the ropes are not slipping out.

The same evening we started once more to make the crossing. Again we had nice sailing to Cabo Hoba, but as soon as we lost all land protection, we got the same or even worse conditions than the night before. Renate and I looked at each other and where wondering, if we really wanted to continue. We decided to abort the mission and turned round again. Both of us were still tired from the night before and were feeling very cold. Being unable to lay the course meant we would have been at sea much longer than planned. We considered that there was no need to undertake a challenging passage, so we turned around and re-anchored just before suppertime in the same spot.

The weather forecast promised a change in two days. After a good night sleep, we felt so much better. We talked about what makes the Sea of Cortez such a special cruising ground and our options for the comfortable crossing. We thought, if we sail further north, than the angle to the wind wouldn’t be so tight.

This time we started in the late morning and sailed around Cabo Hoba with the intension to tack northwards. During daylight hours it was much easier to see, and anticipate, the sea state which made setting sails and wind vane steering for a comfortable sail achievable. The sun was warming and we were sailing well, despite the steep seas, on a course of 235T; as such we decided to continue towards Santa Rosalia up and gave up the idea of tacking Northwards. Later, the wind veered slightly northwards and we were able to complete the passage making five tacks; three long and two short. On arriving in Santa Rosalia at 1000 hours we observed on our i-pad that we had sailed 109Nm to make good 81Nm, as the crow flies, in 25 hours. We considered this to be a pretty good run for a windward passage. Indeed, the boat’s performance pleased us, with good speed and course, though it took some time for me to get the wind vane’s weather helm adjusted correctly for the conditions. When I had done so the difference was remarkable, achieving up to 6 knots. The boat had to be driven hard to push through the steep on coming waves which made it necessary to carry more sail than we really liked, the consequence of which was a greater angle of heel than usual with a good deal of salt spray coming aft.

After what had been a period of mostly light wind sailing in the heat of summer, sailing to windward in 25kts of wind was a good shake down for ship and crew. Among the things that came to light, that will need attention were, the foresail yard, the tiller and crew comfort. Firstly, the foresail yard had a hairline crack in it which ran from the sling to about a third of the way along it’s length. This was something I had noticed about a year ago but thought inconsequential. I was wrong. Secondly, in the strong conditions we noticed that tiller bent somewhat alarmingly between the rudder stock and the attachment point for the wind vane steering lines. It seems I shall have to laminate cheek pieces to the sides of the tiller to strengthen it. Thirdly, It was also irritating to have to leave the relative warmth and dryness of the companion way to adjust the wind vane control lines. We resolved to remedy this.

sailing into sundown

After we tied to the dock in Santa Rosalia Marina, had breakfast and a shower and a following snooze, we saw the marina office for the paperwork. Then we rinsed off the dried salt that was covering the boat after which the day was gone, so we ate an early dinner and retired to bed soon afterwards. 

The next morning Susimi arrived very early, it was Hazels birthday and we invited them for a nice hearty breakfast with home made German bread. While they went back to there boat to have a sleep we donned our masks and went into town to visit the immigration office to renew our expired visas. Our humanitarian visa was issued here 6 months earlier and we were sure that they would remember us and help us with an extension. With that expectation we knocked at the door and entered, but we were soon disabused of the notion of renewal here. The humanitarian visa is a one off, their paraphrased response was that we had 180 days time to get our shit together and we that we hadn’t left the country or done anything to resolve our situation. All our arguments that; the borders are still closed, nobody thought the pandemic would be so long lasting, there were no other places to go to, the boat is our home, and that there are northern and southern hemisphere cyclone seasons to consider. Renate’s strenuous pleading failed to prevail upon the immigration staff so it appeared that there was no other option than to leave the country and enter it again.

From the Baja side of the Gulf we would have to drive 1000km to Tijuana or Mexicali to be able to do this. Both towns have very high numbers of Covid infections. The distances involved were too great to be driven in one day which would make overnight accommodation necessary. Furthermore, in the time of covid, we were unwilling to use a bus service and there are no rental cars available in Santa Rosalia; the nearest car rental, we learned, would be in Loreto a further 100 km to the south. From Guaymas, on the mainland, the US/Mexico border is only 500 km away and the Immigration Office at Nogales is 21 km south of the border. This has always seemed strange to me as one wouldn’t be trusted move 21m into New Zealand without first clearing with Immigration. It became apparent that the easiest course of action would be to return to Guaymas, rent a car and drive to Nogales to renew our visas. We decided to forget about the visa issue for a short while and enjoy our time with friends in Santa Rosalia.

Mask obligation

Santa Rosalia is a nice town and we enjoyed the company we had in the marina. We had an enjoyable walk up the hill to the cemetery to have splendid view over the harbour and town. We again visited the delicious ice cream place and also partook of Sushi at a tolerably good Restaurant that was adept at it’s preparation and presentation. 

The few boat crews that were in the marina organized a Christmas Party with roast chicken and pot-luck salads and side dishes. A very pleasant evening was had by all.

There was some work to be done on board. On Christmas Eve we discovered the foresail yard had broken. The crack in the yard, that I mentioned earlier and considered inconsequential, had opened up into a long split that almost separated the yard into two pieces. The fore sail had carried us along valiantly in brisk conditions while it’s yard was held together only by the robands (sail lashings); it’s condition went unnoticed by us for several days. The repair was straight forward. With the sail bundle still on the mast I unlashed the yard and set about the repair. I ran slightly thickened epoxy resin down the split in the timber and clamped the wood together. Next a fibre-glass bandage was applied to the middle third of the yard and thoroughly wetted out with epoxy resin. So after 3 days of gluing, fairing, sanding and painting the yard was ready to go back in place on the foresail. This is one of the nice things about a junk rig; it is relatively ease to repair with wood, glue and lengths of rope. It does not require expensive stainless steel or aluminium fittings, nor expensive tradesman time, to maintain or repair it.

Broken yard Foresail

In Guaymas Renate painted the cabin sole, which is covered with carpet, white. It looked very nice afterwards but turned out impractical, because now the carpet slipped under your feet, giving no support when Taiko heeled with the wind. We needed something to stop that. We thought about non-slip mats or even an other type of flooring but didn’t want to be tied to a Marina waiting in uncertainty as to if or when ordered material would arrive from the USA. Luckily we found an easy solution thanks to Hazel on Susimi, who gave us some anti-slip granules we could add to our can of paint. In one afternoon Renate had repainted the floor with the anti-slip granules which made a big difference; the carpet no longer slides under your feet.

       

         

Salon-floor Painting

On new years Eve we left the marina and sailed back to Guaymas to rent a car and renew our visa. We sailed into the New Year with a lot of hopes and worries of what the future will hold for us in these strange times of Covid. There are many other cruisers feeling the same way, many in far worse circumstances than ourselves; stuck in a cyclone area and/or isolated from there boats by emergency regulation.