8:00 AM 8/31/2007
TS Henriette
15.3N 99.3W 300 @ 9k
16.9N 102W

8:05 AM 9/1/2007
TS Henriette 1500Z
17.8N 103W 295 @ 10K

8:15 AM 9/3/2007
TS Henriette
19.9N 108.5W 310 @ 10

2:06 PM 9/3/2007
TS Henriette
2100 20.1n 108.5w 315 5k
 on track per models
here ~1700 Thursday

8:20 AM 9/4/2007
Hurricane Henriette
22.2N 109.4N 335 9k
due here tomorrow.

2:49 PM 9/4/2007
Hurricane Henriette
23.1N 109.6W 345 @ 9K
36 Hours 28.4N 110.6W

12:05 PM 9/5/2007
11:00 Local time advisory
Hurricane Henriette
26.6N 110.1W
5:30 PM Ashore at Empalme
15 miles from Marina Real

MARINA REAL
San Carlos, Sonora,
June — November

• HURRICANE HENRIETTE
• DAILY LIFE
• NEIGHBORS & FRIENDS
• PROJECTS

Nothing much happens here in the summer unless there's a hurricane. We spend most of the time hiding from the 100° heat and the intense sun. It helps to have the air conditioning; without it we couldn't survive the hot weather. The weather starts to cool down in October and we begin making ready for sea again.

Hurricane Henriette came through in early September, finally going ashore & breaking up just south of here at Empalme. Of course, Judy had gone north to Colorado to see the kids and do some grandma duty, and missed the whole thing. I made storm preparations by taking down the jib and all canvas, parcelling the boom down to the coachroof, and put out the heavy (7/8" nylon) mooring lines. I tracked Henriette on the internet and radio net for 5 days.
On Wednesday, September 5 we had continuous north winds of 35 to 40 knots in the marina, gusting to 50+, a storm surge of 3 feet, and rain all day. I sat in the boat, going outside occasionally to check lines & neighbor's boats; I got soaked every time. By 7:00 PM that day it was all over, the winds died, the rain stopped and the skies cleared.

I heard of no damage to any boat in Marina Real and, apart from some minor flooding and a few downed palm trees, San Carlos weathered the storm intact.

READ JOHN'S STORM REPORT TO JUDY

DAILY LIFE

Chen kills a soccer ball. Good boy.
The old dog has been doing really well, he gets a bit sore after strenuous walking or swimming but then, so do I. He has fallen off the dock a couple of times, he fell under the boat in the next slip once and came up with a blue, bottom paint stripe along his back. He rests a lot, poops enthusiastically almost on command, and adores his mummy.
As we prepared to go south this fall we loaded & stowed 80 pounds of dog food for him.

We had several unusual, foggy days this fall; the warm, southern winds set up a marine layer as they come across the cooler waters off San Carlos. Visibility gets down to less than 400 yards. Another good reason to get radar.
That's a classic, Columbia yacht in the slip behind us.

Boats get hauled in & out of the water almost every day at the marina, here's Venture Forth in the parking lot for its 10-year, out-of-the-water survey. Captain Mac and Admiral Carole Baade own Venture Forth, a large Nordhaven trawler with an apparently unlimited beer supply.

We had the hull waxed, had our bottom cleaned, and cleared and cleaned the decks before stowing the rail fuel and the dinghy on deck in preparation for crossing back to the Baja.

Judy's looking good, as usual, and Chen, as always, is enthusiastic.

NEIGHBORS & FRIENDS

Dennis Stenslin's 1984 C36 Spirit of Silverton joins us in the next slip: twins!

Our dock has barely enough room for two Catalina 36s, close quarters for sailboats!

Spirit's skipper and crew: Dennis and Kelly.
I knew Dennis from my days on the fire department back in Durango, he comes down to San Carlos every year or so, he's had a different girl friend each time.

Here are our friends Sally and Dave from Hopalong.

An even more motley crew at the Soggy Peso: (from the left) Freda, Carla, haven't a clue, don't know, don't know, forgot, Denny, and what's his name.

PROJECTS

We did the usual, routine maintenance and inspections, and we also did some repairs this year.

• CLEANED AND RE-MARKED OUR GROUND TACKLE.
Our primary anchor is a 35 pound CQR on 75 feet of 5/16" high test chain, backed by 200 feet of 5/8" nylon rode. Our secondary anchor is a 15 pound, high-strength aluminum Fortress on 20 feet of 3/8" high test chain with 250 feet of ½" nylon rode. We mark the ground tackle every 50 feet so we can set proper scope.

• REPLACED OTTO, THE AUTOHELM WHEEL DRIVE.
 
Our autopilot wheel drive went wonky on the crossing from San Juanico last spring, we'd noticed him getting hot and noisy a few days before then, but on the crossing we had to shut him down 2 or 3 times and hand steer while he cooled off for an hour.
RayMarine bought Autohelm a year or so ago, abandoned the 4000 series - probably the most common sailing vessel autopilot there is - and so we had to purchase a new 6000 series.

New Otto is grey, sleek and handsome,
old Otto was black and functional. 
MOUSE ME TO SEE   ⇒

• REPLACED THE BATTERIES
Old battery 1, top, and old battery 2, bottom, connected in parallel, via the ⊂-shaped jumper, to provide 260 Amp-Hours of electrical capacity.

Battery 1 short-circuited itself inside, got hot and wouldn't go no more, battery 2, being the same age, had to be replaced at the same time.

Note the relatively straightforward wiring connections,
from the top:
battery 1 positive terminal,
battery 1 negative terminal,
battery 2 positive terminal,
and battery 2 negative terminal.

Research and advice convinced us that 6 volt golf cart batteries would be cheaper, more powerful, and last longer, so we purchased four, top-of-the-line Trojan T-105 'Golf Car' batteries. We had to remodel the battery boxes but here they are installed, providing 450 Amp-Hours of capacity; simple, eh?

We had to connect pairs of the 6 volt batteries in series to get twelve volts out of each pair, and then connect the pairs in parallel to provide two batteries worth of electrical service. We made two new, heavy gauge jumpers and, because of the lengths of the existing cables and the positions of the new batteries' terminals, connected things up creatively to get the equivalent service.

Not sure how that works? Mouseover here to see    ⇒

The what? The Marine Sanitation Device, the euphemism, you know, the excusado, the head. Things had been getting a bit stinky and the pumping was getting difficult; a new pump would have cost almost as much as a whole new head, so we replaced the entire thing - it was easier than replacing the pump. We even dug up the sewer and cleaned it out, flushed the holding tank and otherwise sparkled things up.

We also discovered the benefits of fresh water flushing - no smell and no salt buildup in the sewer. As long as we're at the dock its a good thing; at sea its a bit water-crazy but it is another reason to get a watermaker.

SAN CARLOS TO LA PAZ
December

• San Carlos to San Juanico
• San Juanico to Escondido
• Escondido to El Gato
• El Gato to Evaristo
• Evaristo to Caleta Partida
• Caleta Partida to La Paz 

WILDLIFE OBSERVATIONS

December 5, 2007
 A ray jumped behind us as we left Bahia Algodones.

December 7, 2007
 The ospreys are still nesting on Moon Rocks at San Juanico.

December 9, 2007
 A whale blowing as we came down toward Escondido.

December 10, 2007
 The flounder incident at Escondido.

January 3, 2008
 A whale breaching all around a sport fisher off the south
  end of Danzante.
 Passed through a nice pod of dolphin having lunch.

January 4, 2008
 Passed through a very large group of dolphin having
  lunch off La Habana, dozens and dozens spread out
  over a couple of miles at the north end
  of the San Jose channel.

January 5, 2008
 We thought we saw a shark leaving Evaristo but it was a grebe;
  there were hundreds of grebes between Evaristo
  and San Francisco.
 Saw an eel jump. Well, it was either an eel or a very long, 
  thin fish or a snake.

CLICK FOR WILDLIFE OBSERVATIONS

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We left from San Carlos at 5:00 PM December 5th, and set course due south to San Juanico. We kept radio company most of the night with Vagari, who was headed for Matzatlan, and with Amiga, who was going straight down to Evaristo.

After a dark but uneventful night crossing we arrived at San Juanico about 9:00 AM December 6th and anchored in between Moon Rocks and Prudential Rock in the same spot we occupied a year ago.

The anchorage was a bit rolly so we deployed the flopper stopper; even so, the first night was not entirely comfortable. Things settled down a bit after that and we relaxed for a couple of days.

Judy tried out her new wetsuit and snorkel, swimming about on Moon Rocks, that's her on the right, halfway back from Moon Rocks.

Chen doesn't need a wetsuit.

December 9th we cleared San Juanico and proceeded south to Puerto Escondido.

We could see the clouds of a 'pineapple express' blowing over the Sierra la Giganta behind Puerto Escondido; the weather was going to change.

The picture to the left looks almost due south toward Puerto Escondido, the enormous, 7,000 foot mountains in the background, the low hills and the 'windows' on the anchorage.

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  +  
N 25° 50'
W 111° 19'

 

PUERTO ESCONDIDO
HIDDEN, REMOTE, DESERTED

Early in the morning of our first day here we heard a scrabbling on deck; it was a seagull, it flew away but left a small flounder which Judy returned to the sea - it swam away. We spent a week and a half on mooring ball number 111; the weather was fairly windy, but then the northers really started to blow…

… after a couple of days in 20 knot winds we took advantage of a relatively calm morning and moved onto the Singlar docks. We'd been having a bit of trouble with the dinghy outboard; I'd let the carburettor clog up over the summer so it was running too lean, then I whanged the prop on a rock in Martini Cove, and so tying up to the dock let us get conveniently ashore for dog walks, showers, internet email & weather, visits to the Hidden Port Yacht Club library, games and lunches at Tripui, and rides into Loreto.

Diane and Ward, from the Sailing Vessel Footloose, with one of their two pugs at Cesar's Tacos, Loreto.

Some 13 miles up the coast, north from Puerto Escondido, Loreto is the oldest town on the Baja. The Jesuit Mission at Loreto dates from 1697.

   
For some reason a taxi ride into Loreto & back from Puerto Escondido costs an exorbitant USD$75; the shopping is good, but not that good. It is legal to share a cab but gringos who give each other rides in their own vehicles run the risk of fines from the taxi police; the gringos still do it though.

We sat on the dock for another 2 weeks, observing the wind, the winter solstice, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, our nineteenth wedding anniversary, and New Year's.

 The Hidden Port Yacht Club: picturesque, mysterious.

The weather forecast for December 22nd. called for NNW winds blowing 22 to 30 knots. It blew so hard that by 11:00 AM our dinghy was shipping water and we had to pull it out onto the dock. The canvas cover was starting to tear and one of the oars had fetched away. Our oar showed up behind the motor yacht Altamar across the dock from us, three hours later. Captain Bones fished it out and returned it, thanks, Captain.

The poor weather continued for days, we stayed in Escondido for almost a month. We'd walk out to Tripui and Judy would entertain herself by playing dominos and cards with the locals. We are learning to be patient…

The little hotel and restaurant at Tripui are lovely.

There used to be a small groceria - a tienda - at Tripui, originally operated by the now dead Willy, the store was run by a young couple until last May, when they were evicted. The closest store now is down Highway 1 about 10 kilometers at Luiui <lee-wee>. They just got electricity at Luiui, in December.

January 3, 2008
We get a decent weather window and set off to the south. We passed the next night at El Gato, where we rocked & rolled all night long; not comfortable. Pressing on the next day we made Evaristo; as we turned in to the little bay there the wind blew up from the north pretty ferociously, gusting over 25 Kt and sending the buffalo running outside. We spent a comfortable night at Evaristo and pressed on to Caleta Partida, arriving there on January 5th. where we spent another comfortable night in company with 11 other boats.

The morning of January 6th. was windy, from the west, which set a swell running into the anchorage, so we pulled up the hook and beat our way outside. We spent the next 3 hours in a washing machine but made good time to the south. Things calmed down once we crossed the San Lorenzo Channel just north of La Paz.

We arrived at Marina Palmira La Paz early in the afternoon and got into a slip on 3 dock - a promotion! We'll be here through March repairing & repainting the mast and rerigging the boat. … more later.

  +  
N 24° 6'
W 110° 12'

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