The moon is full in a sky completely devoid of clouds, and I can just make out the mounded coast of Cabo Corrientes abeam to port. Jupiter and Mars hang low on the starboard quarter and Orion hovers overhead. Although we are going less than 6 mph, it feels like we are barreling across the Sea of Cortes, steadily closing on the mainland coast as the water rushes by. The genoa pulls us proudly forward, puffing out her chest as if to clear the way through the night air.
We are in the third night of a 4 day crossing from the Baja coast to mainland Mexico. We left La Paz in Kim’s Southern Cross 39 on Thursday, March 1 at 3 p.m. and did a short shakedown to Ballandra, just 12 miles south. This was the first time Kim had taken the boat off the dock in several months and – as usual on a shakedown, Murphy sent a few stowaways. For starters, the below-decks autopilot refused to engage before we were even out of the Bay of La Paz. But, at least we were off the dock and even managed to get an hour or two of sailing in before dropping the hook and settling in for the night.
The next day found us underway by 6:30 a.m., with the hope of beginning our crossing of the Sea of Cortes. It was sunny and calm and it took a couple of hours before we had enough wind to hoist any sail. In the meantime, as we motored through Lorenzo Channel we tried without success to get the autopilot working again. Fortunately, Kim had a backup system, which we hooked up and got it running within an hour. As the wind picked up from the port quarter, we rolled out the genoa and turned off the engine, soon skimming along at a comfortable 5 knots. Our next project was to get the wind-vane set up, and after another hour of trial and error, we turned off the autopilot and let the wind-vane steer the boat. Now we were really sailing.
What is an autopilot? What is a wind-vane? For the non-boater, these two devices are wonderful inventions that help the shorthanded sailor. An autopilot attaches to the wheel or tiller of the boat and steers the boat by the compass, so you can essentially point the boat in the right direction and let the autopilot keep the boat on course. The good part of the auto pilot is that it keeps the boar pointed in the right direction and relieves you of the need to steer by hand – the bad part is that it uses electricity, which, when the engine is not running, can deplete the battery. In addition, if the wind shifts, the autopilot does not alter course to keep the sails full.
A wind vane also attaches to the wheel or tiller, but it steers the boat according to the wind. It senses changes in the direction of the wind and adjusts the boat’s course to keep the boat at the same angle to the wind. Like the autopilot, it frees the boat owner up to make coffee, read charts, and fix recalcitrant equipment. Unlike the autopilot, it does not use electricity, and it follows the wind, not the course. So it may not steer the most direct course to the destination, but it will keep the sails full. Neither instrument frees the person on watch from the need to keep watch for other boats, landmasses and other hazards to navigation
So, there we were, feeling pretty smug about being underway, sailing under genoa alone with the wind on the port quarter, knowing that the backup autopilot and the wind vane were both functional: we set a course for Cabo Corrientes, about 400 miles away. Anticipating a multi day crossing, I made a pot of chili, and we began discussing watch schedules. Since I was going to have the first night watch, I went below at 5 to catch some sleep. I was aware, though of the boat’s increasingly irregular motion and after a very fitful nap went above to discover Kim hand steering.
The north wind had continued to build, and the following seas with it. With 600 miles of fetch down the relatively shallow Sea of Cortes, the northerly winds can build steep seas. Since we were nearing the end of Baja, where the incoming Pacific swell was meeting the waters of the Sea of Cortes, the waves can get very irregular. As dusk fell, Kim realized that the wind vane was having trouble keeping the boat on course. Although the wind was only blowing about 20 knots, the seas were building to 8 feet and coming from multiple directions, causing the boat to yaw. Since it was too dark to do much diagnosing, he switched to the autopilot, which worked for about 45 minutes before also being overwhelmed. By this time, I was being pitched out of my bunk and came up on deck to see what was going on – it was clear that we were going to have to hole up in Baja somewhere for the night so we could wait out the building wind and try to diagnose the main autopilot. We estimated that it would take us about 4 hours to get to the nearest anchorage.
Since it was 7 pm, Kim headed below to fix some dinner, as we knew it would be a long night. With the auto pilots and wind-vane all on hiatus, I was hand-steering by the red light of the compass, watching the whitecaps whiz by as we surfed down the face of 8 foot waves. An hour later, we swapped places and I went below, practically inhaling the pork chops, potatoes and gravy he had managed to prepare in a galley that was rocking from side to side. With blood sugar levels restored, we took another stab at the wind-vane, but the irregular seas were just too much for it, and we resigned ourselves to another couple of hours of hand steering.
I pulled out the cruising guide to chart a course for the last safe haven before the end of Baja. Mexico has no real maritime industry or tradition, and the charts are incredibly inaccurate. More often than not on this trip, our GPS told us that we were essentially anchored on LAND – that’s how bad the Mexican charts are. Cruisers rely completely on guides written by other cruisers with harbor charts and waypoints. I programmed the waypoints from the cruising guide into the GPS and by 10:30 we were feeling our way past the barren cliffs of Frailes into a sheltered anchorage.
We spent two more nights there waiting for the weather to abate, and took off on Monday for our crossing. The seas were calm and the winds were light (it seems to be feast or famine in the Sea of Cortes) and we established a watch schedule that we hoped would allow us each to get a good night’s sleep, motoring or sailing as the winds allowed. Kim had made an effort to trouble shoot the main autopilot while we were hiding from the weather, but, alas, it stubbornly refused to work. But, with the calmer seas, the backup was still an option and we continued east.
Now we were in the third night of the crossing, approaching Cabo Corrientes on the Pacific Coast of mainland Mexico. Where this knob of land juts out into the ocean, wind and waves come together with a good deal of enthusiasm. The seas were boisterous, the winds were strong, and the full moon gave me great views of the coast as the wind vane worked away. I decided to let the skipper sleep in another hour, and as we rounded the cape, the seas and wind began to abate dramatically. By 1 am it was time to turn on the engine as we were rolling uncomfortably in swell and seas.
Except now the engine refused to start.
I hated to wake Kim with such news, but those were the facts. Like me, he turned the key and experienced the same astonishment with his heretofore-reliable engine. Still, in the dark and the sloppy seas, it made more sense for me to try to get some sleep while he coaxed some mileage from the sails. By the time I got up from a very light 3-hour nap, the backup autopilot had burned out. Being the slightly more mechanically minded of the two of us, I pulled out the engine troubleshooting guides and began working my way down the list of possible options…the boat was pitching in the confused seas and anything that could knock against anything else in the rig or the lockers was joining in a seaway symphony.
Since we heard no solenoid or starter noises when we turned the key, we suspected the ignition switch, so I began by pulling the switch from the panel and tracing circuits. This boat being more complex than mine, this took some time. Eventually, I determined how I could hotwire the switch and jumped the terminals only to hear clicking at the solenoid. So, did we have a starter problem AND an ignition problem? (Feel free to offer suggestions, dear reader!!!) Failing to start the engine that way, I decided to try jumping the solenoid, but discovered that getting access to it was far easier said than done…not to mention the challenge of holding the bridge in place as the boat tossed around. Meanwhile we were moving slowly backwards with the northwest setting current, since the winds had basically disappeared with the rising sun.
No pressure.
I suggested Kim make one more attempt to start the engine before I tried to jump it. The engine firing surprised us both, but we decided against looking that gift horse in the mouth, closed up the engine access and set a course for Chemala, where we hoped we would be able to find access to phone service or qualified mechanics. We could not use the wind vane since we were not sailing, so we had several more hours of hand steering ahead of us.
Arriving in Chemala, we put the anchor out, took a shower each and rolled into bed for a solid 15 hours of sleep. The next day Kim made a call back to the US to troubleshoot the autopilot and the fix turned out to be a very simple one: he had installed several electronic storage devices for DVDs too close to the fluxgate compass – a little rearranging and voila! The autopilot was functional once again.
The next several days found us doing day hops down the coast from Chemala to Barra de Navidad, spending a couple of days in each anchorage, dinghying ashore to grocery shop, find internet and generally explore. Sitting on the beach at a tiny shore side restaurant with a cold drink was a great way to unwind and observe the local goings-on…. cruisers attempting to land or launch their dinghies in the surf without getting wet right alongside Mexican fishermen using plastic pop bottles to roll their 26 foot fiberglass dinghies into the water (now we know how the Mayans built the pyramids).
We were saddened to see how vacant the beaches were. The constant chatter about the Mexican drug wars on the US news has dramatically curtailed tourism and the Mexican economy is suffering for it. It is a real travesty because I have felt infinitely safer in Mexico than I would in most American cities. None of the Mexican citizens I spoke with – Spanish teachers, home stay hostesses and others – had any first hand experience of violence. While the numbers of Mexican dead seem high when reported on the nightly News, they pale in comparison with the regular killings due to drugs or gang wars on American streets on any given night. But FOX News and the ravenous maw of the media machine must be fed, and if it bleeds, it leads. Sad and frustrating.
On a lighter note, the wildlife was abundant, and we saw sea turtles lazily paddling across the waves, dolphin leaping and spinning like aquatic acrobats, and humpbacks breaching and sounding. We were startled off Tenacatita when a trio of humpbacks, swimming in tandem, sounded just 50 feet from the boat. And, for reasons not understood, the engine continued to start, never again balking. Gremlins.
All good things must come to an end, though, and before I knew it three weeks had passed and we were back at Puerto Vallarta, where I disembarked for a trip back to the US. My first night sleeping in a bed on land was strange – the bed was not moving and the surrounding noises were of the city instead of the water.
On this trip, I’ve been very pleased with my Spanish progress. It is hard to believe that just 4 months ago I was so tentative about saying anything…and when I did ask a question, it was frustrating not to understand the answer. But the classes and the tapes and the practice, practice, practice has really paid off. I no longer need to think and prepare my question, and I’m no longer baffled by the response. Que suerte para mi.
