HEADED SOUTH FOR THE WINTER

Mirador is once again anchored at Playa Burro in Bahia Concepcion. It is Sunday, November 2, and the final match of the Playa Burro Fall Invitational Cribbage Classic just concluded. We had eight two-person teams compete in the double elimination tournament that began Saturday morning and was held in Bertha's Bar. There are currently 15 boats anchored off Burro Beach but most of them are leaving this afternoon or tomorrow morning for the 55 mile run south to the San Juanico anchorage.

We are getting far enough into the fall cruising season that "northers" are become a weekly event and most trips are planned around those winds. A moderate north wind is supposed to begin tonight and increase to 20 or 25 knots by Monday afternoon. That means the seas from Punta Concepcion southeast toward San Juanico will build to six feet or so by Tuesday morning.The waves in the Sea of Cortez seldom get much over eight-feet but they build quickly and have very short periods which can make them rather uncomfortable. Consequently, those boats going south want to ride the first day winds south and then tuck into an anchorage that has good north wind protection before the seas build to their steep short-period maximums.

This north wind will not be generated by the typical high pressure system over the 4-corners area (New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado) that brings Santa Ana winds to Southern California. Rather, it is due to a very large high pressure system off the US West Coast and will, therefore, not last as long and will not be as intense as most "northers" we'll see later in the year.

Here is sunrise over the hills to the east of Playa Burro and Bahia Concepcion. The boat is Lightheart, a La Comte 45. The Sea of Cortez is about 5 miles east of the hills in the picture.

I am not heading south quite yet because I need to hitchhike into the town of Mulege tomorrow and buy some plane tickets. On Friday I went to Mulege and was able to purchase a roundtrip ticket from Cabo San Lucas to Seattle for a very reasonable amount.

I will fly to Seattle on November 25 and will fly back to Cabo San Lucas on January 6. I now need to purchase a ticket from Seattle to Fort Meyers, Florida so I can visit with my family before Christmas. I'll be in Tacoma with Arlene for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years but plan to spend the first part of December in Cape Coral, Florida.

The trip down here from Sweetpea Cove on Isla San Marcos was mostly a motorboat ride but was made exciting by a big Marlin and clogged fuel filters.

Lady G, Tackless II (a CSY44 that is being single handed by Gwen because Don, her husband, is in the states helping his father recover from knee replacement surgery), and Mirador left Sweetpea about 8:30 AM on the 30th. It is about 44 miles from Sweetpea to Playa Burro. Actually, it's a little shorter than that if you go thru the Craig Channel but I scared myself so badly in there last year (see OCTOBER_15_2002) that I decided to go around the outside of Isla San Marcos. Lady G caught a four person Sierra Mackrel within an hour of leaving Sweetpea so Tackless decided to put her lines in the water. . About an hour later Gwen came on the VHF to report a "fish on." A while later she reported the fish was too big to land but wouldn't shake the hook loose. I watched with the binoculars and saw a nice four to five foot billfish doing one tailwalk after another and a series of spectacular jumps.

The last thing Gwen wanted to deal with was a big fiesty billfish. Normally if you give them slack they will quickly shake the hook and be gone, but not this one. Gwen had to hang onto the rod to keep from losing it because she did not have it tied to the boat and it wouldn't stay in the rod holder. She couldn't retrieve the fish and didn't want to cut the line so Lady G and I decided to motor back to Tackless and try to help bring in the fish. As we approached the fish finally broke the leader and swam away, much to Gwen's relief.

Later in the day the wind came up nicely from the SSE and I rolled out the genoa for an easy reach past Punta Aguja and into the north entrance of Bahia Concepcion. The wind then died a little and I turned on the engine and was running it a 1600 RPM which was just enough that along with the genoa, we kept speed over the ground of five knots. The tide was coming out of the bay and I wanted to make it to Playa Burro while there was still light to anchor by.

This was all occuring as we motorsailed about 1/2 mile to windward of Santa Inez Island and rocks. I went below to check the fuel tank levels and vacuum reading for the fuel filters. I was getting below 1/4 on diesel Tank 1 and had had problems with Tank 2 when I got that low. I was not surprised to see that the vacuum guage was reading 13" which is about three times normal for 1600 RPM. A vacuum that high indicates the fuel filter is badly clogged so I switched to filter 2 which was brand new and unused. Within five minutes the diesel started stumbling and running rough. I again checked the vacuum guage and saw 15" Hg with it visibly increasing. The engine was barely running so I switched back to filter 1 which allowed the engine to run normally. But that guage was also showing a slow but steady increase in vacuum.

I switched to Tank 2 which was full of clean fuel I had just picked up in Santa Rosalia but it was too late and there was too much dirty fuel in the suction line between the tank 1 and the filters. The vacuum in filter 1 kept climbing and the engine started stumbling again.

I shut the Yanmar off rather than let the engine starve for fuel which would mean I'd have to bleed the injection pump before I could restart it. The wind was sufficient to keep Mirador moving at about 4.2 knots at a slight angle away from the island and rocks. I radioed Lady G and Tackless telling them about the problem and asking them not to run over me since they were both behind me but motorsailing.

I replaced both filters with new 20 micron Racors and restarted the engine with no problem.

I discovered that the reason the new unused filter 2 clogged so quickly was that it was a 5 micron filter. The dirt in tank 1 clogged it almost instantly. I remembered that when I replaced filter 2 I couldn't find the 20 micron filters. Never before, in 1970 hours of operation, have I had dirty fuel so I figured that a 5 micron filter would be no problem. WRONG!

I was just lucky this incident occurred where Mirador had wind to sail with and room to manuever.

As we sailed into the Playa Burro area we passed about 1/4 mile from Isla Blanca and were surprised to see a nice 38 foot ketch sitting high and dry on the NW beach as you can see in the picture above.

Here is a closeup of the boat on the beach. Our understanding is that the boat was anchored in Santispac, an anchorage about 2 miles NE of here, and was blown onto the island during Hurricane Marty.

We were told that the boat is owned by a Canadian couple who have come down to inspect her but then returned to Canada. No one knows what will happen next.

The person in the ski boat is working on the beached boat at times.

The boat to the right is Chimera, a beautiful steel boat sailed by Mike and Dana and their "Wonder Dog - Zephyr". Chimera is from Bellingham, Washington. The palapas in the background are on the southwest part of Playa Burro.

I'll be leaving Playa Burro on Tuesday or Wednesday and head south toward La Paz. It is still about 220 miles to the big city but I'll probably make that trip in about five 40 mile hops. The only remaing longer leg is the 50 miles from Santo Domingo to San Juanico.

I want to be in La Paz by November 14. I need to meet with an insurance adjuster and make arrangements to get Mirador hauled out and her repair and cosmetic work started.