THE HERD IS HEADED SOUTH

Mirador is anchored at what is called the Punta Chivato (Young Goat Point) anchorage in the company of eight other boats, almost all of whom I spent the summer with in the Bahia de Los Angeles area and are now headed south to La Paz. I arrived here early Sunday afternoon following a lovely and spirited 29 mile sail south from Santa Rosalia. SV Tortuga, Rick and Marilyn, arrived moments before me and showed me where to anchor. They have been coming to the Sea of Cortez off and on for over 20 years and have lived aboard Tortuga for 25 years.

The anchorage is actually SW behind Punta Santa Inez which is 1.9 miles SE of Punta Chivato but Chivato is the main geographical feature sticking out into the Sea of Cortez so I guess the anchorage came to be named Chivato.

The anchorage here is well protected from winds north of east all the away around to SW so this is essentially a fall and winter anchorage. It is an interesting place because there is a nice resort on the point with tennis courts, cottages, and a restaurant. There are also about three dozen very nice homes along the beach to the west. The resort is "temporarily" closed but Marilyn says it has been closed more often than open during the last ten years. I suspect the 10 mile 4-wheel drive only road in from the highway is a handicap as well as the $250 per night (US) that they were charging last time they were open.

The homes were all built by Americans and each one sits on a lot about 200' wide and 400' deep. They all share a common taxiway for airplanes and a 4000' dirt runway. Most of the homeowners are also pilots and many of the homeowners keep a plane in either a hanger close to their homes or on pads near the taxiway. I was surprised to learn that they actually own their property. The deed to the land is contained in a long term lease held in trust by a Mexican bank. The deed/lease automatically renews every 50 years, contains terms stating the lease cannot be revoked, and that it can be sold by the owners or transferred thru the owners estate.

The homes share a common well but each home must supply their own electricity and propane because there are no public utilities. Jim and Marry Johanson are ex-cruisers who have settled here and built a very nice house on the beach. They have a large solar array on their roof and have 20 T-105 batteries (2250 amp hours) and a 2400 watt inverter. They also have a 4 Kw generator but seldom have to run it. Jim is a pilot and flies a beautiful Mooney airplane from the local airstrip. The Johansons really take care of the cruisers who stop by the anchorage. Tonight they are having 16 of us over for cocktails and appetizers.

I left the Santa Rosalia Marina about 11 AM Sunday and sailed most of the way down here. I took the "inside" route between Isla San Marcos and the Baja Peninsula and then thru the Craig channel. The wind was an almost perfect NNW 15 to 18 knots the whole way as I sailed a SSE course. The trip was a lot of fun except for another one of my stupid navigation tricks caused, once again, by the one mile NW offset of the boats actual position compared to the GPS position plotted on the chart.

The south end of San Marcos island forms a reef that extends SSW 1.2 miles into Craig Channel which is 2.4 miles wide, including the reef. The water over the reef varies from one foot to nine feet while the water between the reef and the Baja shoreline is somewhere between 8 and 20 feet deep. The reef has no distinguishing characteristics on the surface, except for Roco Lobos which sits 18' high right in the middle of the reef. It is difficult to locate the SW end of the reef, except by using range and bearing. Thus, you find your way thru Craig channel by trying to stay less than 1500 yards off the Baja side, recognizing of course that there is only six feet of water, 300 yards off the Baja side.

It would have been nice to use the GPS to get thru the channel since I was sailing at seven knots with a full main and genoa in a slowly increasing wind. The boat's GPS location, as shown by Jeppesen Marine Map, was always 0.87 NM to the SE of where I placed it by using a radar range and bearing line plotted on the same Jeppesen Marine Map. I had determined that once Rocos Lobos (Sea Lion Rocks) was at a bearing of 110 degrees Magnetic and AT LEAST 1.25 miles away I would be clear of the reef and could then head up to a bearing that would keep me one nautical mile off of Punta Chivato which should be 9.9 NM ahead at 99 degrees magnetic.

I also knew that if I ALWAYS kept Rocos Lobos at least 1.25 NM from Mirador I would always be clear of the reef, no matter what course I sailed. I had worked all of this out ahead of time, placed the range rings on the radar, and noted all the bearings on a note pad by the radar. And everything worked, almost perfectly.

I was so concerned about staying clear of the unknown and ill-defined SW tip of the reef that I allowed Mirador to be carried too close to the Baja shoreline by the leeway induced by the press of a little too much sail and the south flowing current. When Rocos Lobos came to a bearing of 109 degrees on both the radar and by hand bearing compass I changed course from the 134 magnetic I had been sailing to 99 degrees magnetic that would take me to Punta Chivato at all due speed.

And indeed, Mirador sped up to 7.8 knots as the wind had increased to 20 knots true at an apparent wind angle of 65 degrees. Now that is perfect, a little too much wind, warm air, and a clear course on a tight reach. WHOA! why is the depth sounder showing 20 feet, 18 feet, 16 feet? I was sailing slightly away from shore and was truly puzzled, not to mention scared -_____.

I took another very quick range and bearing on Rocos Lobos and plotted it on the Jeppesen Chart. I could not believe what I saw! I had to run on deck to confirm what the chart showed. Sure enough-

There was a very low, very round point of sand sticking out from the Baja shore about 400 yards ahead of me. My eyes had been following the four foot high sand ridge rising from the water and continuing as far north and south as I could see. I had not see the point because the shoreline behind the low point looked just like the shoreline beyond the point. The offending point was so low and indistinct that I had to look twice to be sure it was there. The radar barely showed the low point after I increased the gain and decreased the sea clutter.

But, never the less, Mirador's present course would have taken her within 50 yards of the point. The chart showed there to be less than one fathom of water around the newly found point of sand. I immediately headed Mirador as high as I could point her and trimmed the main and genoa for hard upwind work. We can make a course of 35 degrees apparent with Mirador but we have about eight degrees of leeway when pressing that hard.

And, too much sail on a close reach, is way too much sail when sailing hard upwind. The depthsounder stayed at 17 or 18 feet and we were sailing at 45 degrees to the beach after hardening up and trimming. Another glance at the charts indicated that we would make it back to deep water OK if the leeway was no more than 10 degrees. Thank goodness I have a lot of experience putting a fast reef in the main while over powered and single handed. Three minutes later with a reefed main and really tight genoa Mirador had found her way to 20 feet of water and my heart was starting to slow down.

I wasn't really comfortable until I saw 35' of water which indicated we were back in the main channel. Then it was time to ease the sails and fly on down to the Chivato anchorage.

I left Bahia San Francisquito (from which I sent in my last WEB update) very early Monday morning, October 7. I had been studying the tides pretty carefully during the week I was in San Francisquito and felt like I knew when high and low water would be. As you will recall from my September 9 update I was pooped and scared badly as I rounded Punta Gabriel while trying to enter Bahia San Francisquito. The tides for several days on either side of October 7 were going to be around nine feet which was the same change in level as during my previous rounding of San Gabriel. (That only makes sense since both September 6 and October 6 were new moon nights).

I use tide charts calculated on my computer by WXTide32 which is without a doubt - the best tide program I have seen - anywhere from the North end of Vancouver Island at 55 North to Cabo San Lucas at 23 North. WXTide32 is shareware available off the Internet and does tide calculations for most of the world.

I had determined that the Punta San Gabriel high and low tide occurred about 90 minutes BEFORE the time predicted for Bahia de Los Angeles which was 55 miles north. That explained why I ran into such a fierce tide rip coming north and trying to round San Gabriel. The tide chart predicted high tide on September 6 to be 4:09 PM so the tide at Punta San Gabriel turned from a north going flood to a south setting ebb at about 2:30 PM. I arrived at Punta San Gabriel at a little before 4 PM on the 6th. The cruising guides all say that the maximum current occurs several hours after the tide turns so I was probably trying to go north around San Gabriel, riding a 10 knot south wind, directly into a strong south setting tide.

Well! I wasn't going to make that mistake again. High tide for B of LA was at 3:27 AM on October 7 so I knew slack water would be at about 2 AM at Punta San Gabriel. The wind was predicted to be out of the north at less than five knots and had been blowing like that for several days. Therefore, my plan was to leave Bahia San Francisquito at 2:30 AM and round the point before 3 AM and then ride the tide south.

I went to bed at 9 PM with the alarm set for 2 AM. Everything was ready to go so all I needed to do when I got up was make a cup of coffee, pull the last 50 feet of chain in, turn on the radar and go. I fell asleep with visions of a quick 85 mile trip to Santa Rosalia. I woke up a short time later, or at least it seemed so, because someone was knocking on the hull. I staggered to the cockpit and saw nothing so went back to sleep. The same deep thumping on the hull occurred again a few minutes later. There was not a breath of wind blowing, the dinghy was already on deck, and I couldn't see any boat near Mirador. Then I heard porpoise sounding. Then I saw a bioluminenscent trail made by a porpoise swimming just below the surface. It lead right to Mirador's midship section and then disappeared, but was followed by the thumping that had awoken me.

I watched for a few more minutes and saw a dozen or so porpoises swimming very tight circles around Mirador, often bumping into her or coming up underneath her and rubbing on her hull. I went below and noted that it was 1:40 AM and knew there was no hope of getting back to sleep before the 2 AM whistle blew.

I rounded Punta San Gabriel well before 3 AM in dead calm waters, much to my relief. However, the south going tide did really give me a boost. By 4 AM Mirador was doing a steady 9.1 to 9.3 knots, over the bottom, directly toward the waypoint, with the engine running at 2200 RPM.

The only excitement of the trip was talking to a research ship that kept calling Securite on VHF 16. They were dragging an array of cables behind their boat which was doing a steady 4 knots. They wanted all vessels to know that they could not deviate from their course nor could they change their speed. And, they really wanted us to know that the cables were 3.5 miles, yes- miles, long and lit by strobes at either end.

They were 52 miles from my position so I didn't have to worry about them.

The wind never blew more than seven knots all day but I did try to sail for several hours in the afternoon. I was able to make about 3.2 knots toward Santa Rosalia but had to finally give up the sailing when the tide turned against me.

I did encounter a minor puzzlement about an hour out of Santa Rosalia. I had been running the Spectra watermaker for over four hours and should have put more than 60 gallons of water into the fresh water tank. But the tank guage had only come up about 25 gallons when I shut off the Spectra system. I then noticed that the big bilge pump outlet was discharging water which is very unusual.

I ran the big electric pump on manual for several minutes and pumped 40 or so gallons of water out of the bilge. I assumed that the product water line from the watermaker to the water tank had broken and all the Spectra product water had flowed into the bilge, just like it is supposed to if the product line breaks.

WRONG! After a day of searching I found that the discharge line from one of the two Spectra saltwater feed pumps had come loose. That meant that the 3.8 GPM Shurflo pump had been pumping a lot of saltwater into a small compartment under the floor of the lazerette. Fortunately that compartment drains directly into the bilge. Unfortunately, that compartment is where I store many of the spare parts for the diesel.

I had to throw out six RACOR fuel filter elements, four FRAM oil filter elements, three YANMAR fuel filter elements, and two boxes of "water in the diesel" detector sticks. The spare voltmeter and oil pressure gauges and senders were also soaked. They were in heavy ZIPLOCK freezer bags that seemed to be sealed yet full of salt water. I soaked all the gauges and senders in fresh water and then rinsed them many times. I will find out if they work when I need to use them, or I may buy some new ones.

The only good news was that all the spare injectors tips, injectors, and other delicate engine parts were double wrapped in vacuum sealed bags that had kept things dry. I keep three Racor filters, a Yanmar filter, and a Fram oil filter in a dry box stored near the engine so I still have several spare filters.

The discharge hose had come off the pump because a stainless hose clamp had rusted and broken. The break was in the middle of the clamp, not anywhere near the screw tightener. I tested the tightness of all the other clamps on the suction and discharge lines for the Spectra feed pumps and found another clamp broken in the same manner.

You are probably asking yourself - why didn't he double clamp all those hose connections? As well you should ask! Because - the Shurflo hose barbs are too short to get two clamps on them! I guess Shurflow never expected the pump to be connected to a thruhull fitting below the waterline. The problem with my installation of the pumps is that they are in a great location for quiet and efficient operation. But, they are under everything that resides in the lazerette and then under a hatch. The lazerette is four feet deep and the pumps are at the bottom of a compartment that is another two feet deep. It is not so easy to inspect them, nor work on them.

I replaced the clamps and ran the system for a while with no leaks. But, yesterday while I was making water the pump that lost it's discharge line stopped running after about 20-minutes of operation. I let it cool and restarted it and listened to it quit after five minutes. That happened twice more. I am hoping that the butt-splices for the new cooling fan which, I had to install to replace the old one that died due to salt water inhalation, failed and the pump is stopping due to a thermal shutdown.

I'll work on the water pump tomorrow. The other good news is that while pumping out the bilge I discovered the small Rule pump installed in the shower sump in the bottom of the bilge had failed yet again. It appears the 500 GPH Rule submersible pumps are only good for about two years of operation. This will be the fourth Rule I have installed, after I replaced two Jabsco diaphragm pumps in the first year of owning Mirador.

I have three pumps installed in the bilge (500 GPH Rule, 1200 GPH Rule, Whale Titan Manual). The small Rule only pulls out the water that gets into the shower sump. We never shower inside the boat so very little water gets in there. Our problem has always been that the bilge gets so little water that there is never enough to pump out and the gallon or so that is there gets old and smelly. We are used to washing out the bilge with gallons of hot soapy water every month or so.

I am headed off to the town of Mulege tomorrow and then on to Bahia Concepcion. The Mulege Port Captain doesnt' require cruisers to check in if they are just anchoring off the town to shop for the day. Even if you do check in there is no fee collected. Mulege is supposed to be very picturesque and somewhat unique since it is the only town (10,000 people) that is situated on a continuously running river in Baja California.

I have to be anchored off the Sannispac Beach by 4 PM Saturday October 19. We are meeting at 5 PM at Rays Restaurant to celebrate Gwen's (SV Tackless II) birthday. Actually her birthday is the 20th but Ray's is closed on Sunday so about 20 cruisers will celebrate on Saturday evening. We will then all sail our boats (about 12 of them) from Sanntispac to the Santa Barbara beach anchorage on Sunday for birthday cake and another celebration. Sannispac is 24 miles from here and 16 miles from Mulege so I guess I'll make it OK. Santa Barbara is about five miles from Sannispac. We cruisers here in the Sea lead a tough life!

On November 10 I will fly from San Diego to Seattle to visit Arlene for a couple of days. On the 13th I will fly to Ft. Meyers Florida to visit my parents and sister. I fly back to Seattle on the 24th and back to San Diego on December 3.

I bet you're wondering why didn't he fly from San Diego to Ft. Meyers to Seattle to San Diego. I too would like that answer.

On Friday evening October 4 I had just such an itinerary planned using the internet and Delta Airline's excellent WEB site. The total cost was $423. What a Deal! Turned out to be too good a deal to be true!

I had to wait until 7:30 AM Saturday morning to call Arlene after she got off graveyard shift to confirm with her that the dates and times fit with her work schedule. I returned to the internet site at 8:30 AM Saturday morning and attempted to purchase the ticket I had reserved the previous evening. During the intervening 12 hours the fare had increased from $423 to $650. I sure don't understand - the first flight was more than 30 days away so I didn't cross that magic barrier.

I have many hundreds of thousands of free miles to use on Northwest Airlines but their only West Coast airports are San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. So I bought a cheap Alaska airline round trip ticket to Seattle and signed up for a FREE round trip from Seattle to Florida.

I'll have to be in La Paz by November 3 or 4 to arrange for a haul out and storage in a yard. Then, I have to take a 25 hour BUS ride from La Paz to Tijuana followed by a one hour bus ride to San Diego. The cheapest airfare I could find from La Paz to San Diego was $375 roundtrip. The bus ride will be less than $200 and is supposed to be a lot of fun - oh sure I believe that.