Escape Adventure—Isla Espíritu Santo

Escape Adventure—Isla Espíritu Santo 27 October 2013 to 11 November 2013
This blog, while much delayed in getting published, starts the series of blogs of our adventures on our sailboat Escape to explore the islands and coastlines of the Sea of Cortez.  We arrived in La Paz last July after a long voyage from Valdivia, Chile to the Galapagos Islands and then on to La Paz.  You can read all about those adventures in the previous posts.  After spending over three months at home getting caught up on all the things that needed to be done, my son Jay and I set off for La Paz to do some upgrades to Escape and to do some routine maintenance and to explore the nearest island Espíritu Santo.  We had a lot of equipment we wanted to put on the boat and we wanted to bring our dog Séamus with us for this adventure so we decided to drive down to La Paz from our home in Thousand Oaks, California.  The trip is exactly 947 miles from our front door to Marina Cortez in La Paz.  During the days before our departure, I got insurance for our 1996 Dodge Ram diesel truck and maps from the local AAA club.  With Jay and I both driving, we figured we could get to La Paz in two days.

We left early in the morning of 27 October and got to San Diego around mid morning.  We stopped at Shelter Bay Harbor where Jay and I had gone to sailing school, to buy some supplies we needed for the boat, such things as the chemicals we need to store the water maker if we're not using it for extended periods.  By the time we left San Diego, it was early afternoon and it took a little over an hour to get through customs at the border because we had to get visas.  Once we got through customs and headed south we were making really good progress on the four-lane tollway and we started thinking maybe all the stories we had heard about the roads being terrible in Baja were wrong.  About twenty miles north of Ensenada we came across this giant statue of Jesus so we started thinking maybe that was a good sign and that our journey was going to be blessed.
That thought stayed with us until about midnight when we were a couple hundred miles farther south and started to hear slight grinding noises coming from the front left tire area.  I stopped at one of the pull outs, which are few and far between once you get to Ensenada where the four-lane tollway ends and the road becomes a pothole filled two lane road with no shoulders and often no centerline either.  I couldn't see anything wrong so I hopped back in the truck and headed off again.  About 2 AM, I heard it again just after going through a small town named Cataviña when we were going through a particularly rough ford in a creek there.  I found another pull out about five miles down the road and pulled over to check it again and this time the wheel bearing was really hot and sizzled when I poured a little water on it.  I told Jay we would have to stay there and try to get some help because I knew that wheel bearing wasn't going to make it much farther.  We tried flagging down some of the 18 wheelers going in both directions, but at that time of night, no one was stopping so we just slept in the truck that night.  At daylight, I went back out on the road and finally flagged down three Mexicans going to work.  They agreed to give me a ride back into Cataviña since they were going that way anyway.

There were only about twenty huts in Cataviña so I had them let me off at the hotel I saw there thinking I might get access to a phone or internet there to call for help.  It turns out, the guy behind the counter did speak English and said that his uncle Poncho was the town mechanic so he took me over to meet his uncle.  Poncho and I hopped in his pickup truck and drove back to where Jay and Séamus were guarding our stuff and Poncho quickly agreed that the wheel bearing had welded itself to the axel so the wheel could no longer turn.  Poncho said there was no source for repair parts within a hundred miles, but he knew of a junk yard that had a Dodge Ram of the same year that might have the parts we would need to get us to La Paz.  Here's a picture of Poncho and his helper trying to get the parts off so he could take them with him to the junk yard to make sure the parts would fit.  We couldn't get the nut to come off so we could remove the wheel bearing even with this eight-foot long breaker bar extension (see below) with two of us pushing down on it.  Eventually the nut turned, but just stripped the threads on the axel.  The last resort was to cut the

nut off with a cutting torch.  Of course Poncho didn't have that with him so he had to go back into Cataviña to borrow it from a neighbor.  That worked as you can see below, but now Poncho had to drive about 60 miles to the junk yard and it was already late afternoon before we got the parts off of our truck.  Jay decided to ride back into Cataviña with Poncho to see if he could get internet at the hotel and at least communicate with everyone to let them know where we were.  We had no phone coverage where we were and neither did Poncho.  This spot is about as desolate a place as you can find in Baja.  It's after you get
to El Rosario and are heading south through the center of Baja.  Well, I knew that Poncho wouldn't be back that day so Séamus and I hunkered down beside the truck to be in as much shade as we could and I took out my National Geographic magazine and took Séamus for frequent walks up on the hill or down in the ravine next to the road to practice my photography skills.  Here's Séamus and I guarding our truck and all the stuff we were hauling to the boat.  I'm including a couple pictures of two of the cacti that we found within a hundred meters of

the truck.  It had recently rained so there was quite a bit of green and color in the desert, but it was really hot and dusty sitting beside the road within feet of where the big trucks were barreling past.
 Jay got a ride back to camp later in the day and reported that the internet at the hotel wasn't working anyway so we pitched his tent beside the truck and settled in for the night.  In retrospect, maybe we should have pitched the tent up on the hill because we were at the bottom of a long steep incline so the trucks made a lot of noise with their "Jake Brakes" as they came down the hill and

 their  headlights shined right in our tent.  Each one gave Séamus the willies so he hopped up as each one approached thinking it was going to come right in the tent with us.  It was cold that night so Séamus developed the creep and roll technique of getting as close to my sleeping bag and air mattress as he could and then if I gave just an inch he moved in and wouldn't give up any lost territory without a lot of effort.  Besides he was pretty warm and it felt good to have him next to me in
the tent.  The next morning around 8 AM, Poncho showed up with the parts salvaged from the junk yard and after about an hour and a half, we had the used parts installed on my truck.  The parts weren't an exact match for mine so the anti-lock brakes mechanism didn't work, but the normal brakes did.  After we got it all put together, I followed Poncho back into Cataviña to Poncho's garage as you can see here so he could bleed the brakes and do a few other checks.  Notice the saddles and other paraphernalia in front of Poncho's garage.  It's not a real garage in any sense of the word, but hey, I have a lot of respect for Poncho because he got me back on the road and even after two pretty full days of work it only cost me around $400 including the parts and him traveling over 60 miles each way to get the parts.  Jay and I were happy to be back on the road again heading south towards La Paz.  We arrived in La Paz without any further issues at about 3 AM on the morning of 30 October 2013.
We got a good start on the maintenance later that morning and we met a woman named April Weldon who lived on a boat named Timeout just a few slips down from us.  She had a female labrador puppy named Ollie who became good friends with Séamus and they became constant playmates.   April had considerable animal care training from working at the San Diego Zoo and her experience came in really handy when Séamus got severe diarrhea after drinking too much saltwater while swimming.   Here's a picture of April giving Séamus medicine while Jay holds him.

I started working on replacing the flappers that Roni sent me to keep water from entering the engine room vent fan lines when we have big following waves and installed the rubber boot around the rudder shaft, also to avoid water splashing in from following waves.   These upgrades are being installed on boats 2, 3, and 4 at the factory, but since Escape is boat #1 in the Atlantic 47 line, we didn't know we needed these mods until we sailed north from Chile with 20 foot waves from behind.  Later that night some kids and people dressed in costumes for Halloween came on the dock.  Séamus was terrified of those with pointy hats or skeleton faces, but other than that he liked it.  Jay, April, Ollie, and Séamus all went to the celebration of the "Night of the Dead" down town, but I elected to stay on the boat and get some sleep.  Over the next couple of days we finished our maintenance including turning the refrigerator and freezer compressors 90˚ so they didn't blow hot air on the back of the freezer.  Here they are in their rotated position and they work great.  We haven't had any problems with them in the few weeks we've been sailing with them since rotating the compressors and it has been really hot some days.


It wasn't all work over the next couple of days while we were finishing up the maintenance tasks.  We found plenty of time to check out La Paz and to have some fun as well.  Here is a shot of me and Séamus relaxing on the trampoline, Ollie and me preparing the dinghy for action, Jay and April calming their respective pooches as we give the dinghy a test drive near the marina,  Jay hugging Séamus, me putting up a new Mexican flag (I want all my SAR teammates to see that I'm still getting good use out of my climbing harness), and finally a picture a everyone playing around on the trampoline.

While working on the boat, we also met a very nice man named Mark Megonigal.  Mark has a boat in Marina Cortez, is a current pilot for American Airlines, and is affiliated with Mark Thomas Productions which makes commercial films for companies.

Mark and his wife Lori have a house in La Paz out on the peninsula across the bay from Marina Cortez.  Mark said one of his fellow airline pilots was also a search and rescue guy, from Colorado, so he invited me and Jay out to his house for dinner so we could tell tales of rescues to each other.  To get out to his house, you have to take the free water taxi shown below from Marina Cortez to the dock on the peninsula (at right below going up the ramp to the thatched roof hut). At the top of the ramp we met Mark's son Ryan who is in the 4th grade in La Paz.  Ryan drove us to Mark's apartment in the golf cart.

He was a very good driver too.  Mark is in the picture below right hoisting a beer and showing us the view across the bay to Marina Cortez from his apartment.   A picture of his wife Lori, along with Jay and his other guests is shown below.

On the morning of 7 November, we sailed from Marina Cortez to Isla Espiritu Santo—Spirit Island (exploring at last).   Espíritu Santo is an Island about ten miles long if you count the northern small island, Isla Partida, as part of it and the southern tip of Espíritu Santo is about ten miles north of the exit from the channel to La Paz.  The motors ran fine, but acceleration was sluggish

 because we had so much growth on the propellers and hull.  We motored out of the channel and then sailed out into the Sea of Cortez.  The winds were blowing directly from the direction we wanted to go so we sailed about 4 miles out into the Sea of Cortez and planned to tack back toward the southern tip of Espíritu Santo.  About the time we got to our tack point the wind changed so it was coming directly from the direction we wanted to tack to.  We tacked several times and creeped a bit closer to Espíritu Santo, but in the end we rolled up the sails and motored the last two miles into the Bahia San Gabriel on the SW tip of Espíritu Santo so we could anchor before dark.  It's a fantastic bay with good protection from the north and south and a sandy beach over a mile long.  We anchored about sun down (See picture on left below) and Séamus was anxious to go ashore to explore his first island.  We were able to check out the beach a little while before heading back to 

the boat for a very beautiful sunset and peaceful night at anchor.  A big relief from the loud music back at Marina cortez.   I managed to climb to the top of one of the ridges before heading back to the boat and snapped the picture (below right) of the boat sitting at anchor. 

 The next morning (8 Nov) I hopped up early and took Séamus ashore in the dinghy.  I had to watch him like a hawk because, although he can swim pretty good, he has no fat and when he can't swim any more, he sinks.  The next time we bring him on the boat we will have a life preserver for him so he floats better.  We took some time to walk along the long white sandy beach (below left) and climbed up the ridge again to get a better perspective.  From the picture (below right) you can get an appreciation of the vegetation that is present on all of the islands.  Baja has cacti and other plants that can survive with almost no water, but that's it.  No trees, no grass except in some of the marshy areas where mangroves are growing.  I also saw this strange looking bug that looked like he was from
the time of the dinosaurs.  He had about ten million brothers and sisters in the area too.  The ground was just crawling with them.  After checking the area out, Séamus and I hopped back in the dinghy and headed back to the boat.
After getting back on board we hauled anchor and headed out into the Sea of Cortez leaving Bahia San Gabriel behind.  We headed North along the west coast of Isla Espíritu Santo.  We passed just to the west of two small islands, Isla Gallina (the hen) and Isla Gallo (the rooster) and three small inlets named Ensenada la Galina, Ensenada el Gallo, and Ensenada de la Raza from south to north.  Hopefully you can see those from the picture of the island above if you blow it up.  We were going about 8 to 10 knots most of the way with good winds from 13 to 18 knots on a starboard broad reach.  We soon came to a third island called Isla Ballena.  It's larger than the other two and sloped uphill from sea level on the West to around 230 feet on the East.  After passing Isla Ballena along the north shore we headed south again past the Ensenada de La Ballena and went back down to Ensenada de la Raza to anchor.  Ensenada de la Raza is a delightful long cove with high rocky ridges all around except to the West where we came in.  We anchored in about 10 to 15' of water over a sandy bottom that seemed to hold very well. You can see a movie of our anchorage at Ensenada de la Raza on YouTube at http://youtu.be/xdLly1smraM.  When we went ashore in the dinghy, we discovered that the whole eastern end of the lagoon was slimey mud on the bottom with slimey moss everywhere.  There were thousands of small crabs approximatley 1" across scurrying everywhere in the brakish backwater (see picture at right).  During our sail to Ensenada de la Raza, our autopilot stopped working
 again so we fixed it while we were anchored.  It was the same problem we had at sea where the wires in the starboard aft hull were corroded.  I  cleaned them and and this time I coated the connections with liquid tape.  That seems to have fixed the problem because the autopilot seems to work very reliably now.

Early on the morning of the 9th of November, while it was still cool we took Séamus in the dinghy out to Isla Gallo to potty, but there was no good place to go ashore—it was too rocky (see below)—so we went back into Ensenada de la Raza and found a good spot.  We then motored out of Ensenada de la Raza as there was no wind and we wanted to explore some of the bays to the north as suitable anchor spots.  Just to the north of Ensenada de la Raza is Isla Ballena and Ensenada de La Ballena.  This bay was great with a fantastic beach.  It looked like a much beter anchor spot than Ensenada de la Raza, but maybe not so much protection from the wind.  North of Ensenada de La Ballena is Ensenada del Candelero which is a nice big bay with a huge rock named Roca Monumento (Monument Rock) in the middle of it (see picture below).  This bay looked like a good bay to anchor in, but it had lots of tents and kayak vendors there.  We cruised in and out of Ensenada del Candelero and El Meztiño just to the north.    This fishing cottage was just on the north shore of Ensenada del Candelero.  Both were good anchor spots, but we went one more bay north to Coleta Partida.  It is a nice broad bay with a sandy beach at the far end and a sand bar that goes across the island to the other side.  This beach was a lot less poluted than Ensenada de la Raza and had a good beach to walk or swim on.   We

dropped the anchor about 10 AM so we had time to go ashore and check things out.  I took advantage of the crystal clear water to do a bit of snorkeling and to scrape the remaining barnacles off the bottom of the boat.  The next morning (10 Nov 2013) we took Séamus ashore again so he could practice his 

swimming.  It's nice in these bays because they are shallow out pretty far from the beach so Séamus can run or walk out gradually until he has to start to swim and if he gets tired he just turns toward shore until he can put his feet on the bottom.   In this movie on YouTube we're practicing getting Séamus on the dinghy from shore when it's too shallow to drive the dinghy all the way in so he has to come out to us. (http://youtu.be/6MsW81R8l7o).  

We sailed out of Coleta Partida around 9 AM  and continued almost due West for 4.4 nm on winds 18-22 knots at about 8.3 knots.  Then tacked back on an angle of about 79˚M directly to Ensenada el Cardonal and anchored in about 12 feet of water.  Seamus did not like it with the 3-5' waves from the side.  He seemed comforted when he could lean up against me or Jay (see picture left).  He was more content and calm when we approached land and the seas calmed.  This bay had a nice little trail along the mangroves to the eastern edge of the island.  The beaches were among the best and easiest to get to for landing with the dinghy. 

 It was well protected from the winds and waves from all directions except directly from the west.  As soon as the anchor was down we were all ready to get in the dinghy and head for shore.  The beach was fantastic and in this bay we could drive the dinghy  right up to the shore.  You can see a good picture of the beach in Ensenada el Cardonal and Séamus retrieving a piece of drift wood that Jay threw out in the water for him on YouTube at (http://youtu.be/z1xTkuZBkZk).

 The next morning 11 Nov 2013) we had to head back to Marina Cortez and get the boat ready for storage so we could get back home.  Fortunately for us we did not have any additional problems with the truck on the way back to California, but I did stop by Poncho's garage and thank him once again for helping us.  The next blog will cover the next island to the north, Isla José.

Escape Adventures:  Galapagos Islands to La Paz, Mexico Jul 2013
Many of you have written to me asking where the rest of the blogs were, because I didn't really "finish" the journey from Chile to La Paz since I left out the last leg.  I apologize to all of you who have been waiting patiently, so here it is.

On the night of 11 July 2013, we finally got diesel delivered to the boat and we were able to top off our tanks as well as fill the ten five-gallon cans we had for extra fuel.  By 8 AM on the morning of the 12th of July, we had all of our instruments checked out, our radar was working fine, we had a good weather check, and I had plotted a course from the Galapagos Islands to La Paz.  I'm reposting the picture of the Galapagos Islands here from my last post so you can follow our path out as I describe the progress we made and some of the sights.  I had originally plotted a course from the center of the southern tip of Santa Curz where we were anchored, around the southern tip of Isabella and up the west coast of Isabella and between Isabella and Fernandina.  That route is very scenic and there is a very nice anchorage near the northern tip of Isabella about where the chin is of the sea horse head of Isabella.  Unfortunately, Johny told us, we  could not go that route, but rather we had to take the most direct route out of the Galapagos since we didn't have the special permit.  So, I plotted a new route that went along the east coast of Isabella.  That was still very scenic, but not quite as nice as the west coast.  It was a bit foggy on the morning of the 12th, but other than that, the weather was clear with a slight breeze blowing.

It was a little tough getting started because, in order to avoid swinging around in the crowded bay of Puerto Ayora we had both a bow and stearn anchor out and another catamaran had come in during the night and laid his anchor line across our bow anchor line.  We first had to get the stern anchor up, so as I backed the boat up using the motors to maneuver, Jay let out more line to the bow anchor until we were about over the stern anchor.  Finally, Jay, Eric, and John were able to get the stern anchor up on the back deck while I held the boat in place and then we slowly motored forward until we could pull our bow anchor up.  Eric Buxton and John Rohrback are the two new crew members from Seattle.  Our friend Sven, who sailed with us from Valdivia, returned home to Chile on 11 July.  We started out sailing wing on wing with the wind right at our stern using the screecher and the mainsail.  

Santa Cruz Island is about 30 miles wide so we had to sail about 15 nm westward before we could turn northwest on a bearing that would take us between the east coast of Isabella and the west coast of Santiago.  Once we got out of Puerto Ayora, we had about 14 knots of wind so we started letting out the sails.  This was a training session for John and Eric, so Jay and I did most of the work and let John and Eric just watch while we trimmed the sails and set the mast foils.  Escape loved being out to sea again and responded by giving us a smooth steady 8.5 knots in the direction we wanted to go using just sail power. 

Here's a picture of Eric (left) and John (right) familiarizing themselves with some of the control lines, and Jay, Eric, and John a little while later after we turned northwest and raised the screecher.  Once we were on our heading of 322˚ M all the crew had to do was relax.

I even got the hang of that relaxing idea once we were under way and it looked like all systems were working.  In the picture at left you can see the small island of Pinzon in the background.  At first it was too foggy to see much of the shoreline of Isabella, but as the day went on the fog burned off and we could see a lot more of 

the details.  We started hugging the shore a little closer so we could see more, but in reality, we didn't get to see much.  We did see two boats anchored along the northern shore of Isabella when we got to that point.  

The equator crosses through the Galapagos at about the point where you see the hump on the back of the "sea horse's neck in the picture of the islands above so we brought out one of our best bottles of beer to celebrate.  Jay and I had participated in an elaborate celebration on the National Geographic Ship Endeavor when we were in the Galapagos Islands in 2010, but this was a first crossing for John and Eric, so this was their initiation to become true "Shellbacks"—the title you get when you sail across the equator.  As you can see we selected a big bottle of Austral beer that we brought with us from Valdivia and divided it among our four stainless steel insulated cups with a bit left over for Neptune so as to pay our respects and pray for his blessings.  We had the beer ready as our B&G Triton display showed 00˚ 00.001' S latitude and a second later when it changed to 00˚ 00.001' N (see small pictures below) we tipped our cups and poured the rest to Neptune.  We were still sailing with our large screecher sail up and making 

 pretty good time when we crossed the equator at 1756 hours and recorded it in the log.  Around 1900 we took the screecher down because the wind  shifted more toward the front.  We sailed with the foresail and mizzen jib on a port tack until the wind changed again around 2100 and we had to go on a starboard tack.    By 2100, we were well north of Isabella and heading more to westward at a heading of about 304˚.  In the distance we saw two boats anchored along the north shore of Isabella.  At 2350 hours, the wind died to 4.5 knots and we began motoring with the the sails up.  Around midnight a light drizzle began, and the True Wind Direction (TWD) became extremely variable, with 180 degree swings so we furled the sails and just motored.   Jay stood watch with John for the first hour and a half of his watch since this was his first night watch on Escape and he wasn't that familiar with all of the controls.

We motored all night at 2000 to 2200 rpm with one motor and then the other and maintained between 6 and 7.5 knots.  At 0430 on the 13th the wind picked up to a consistent 9 knots so we raised the sails and motor sailed at 1500 rpm until 0530 when the screecher sail was raised and then we cut the engine. We continued sailing with the screecher and mizzen sail on a port tack with low winds around 7-8 knots for the first couple of hours but then it picked up to 12-14 knots.  We took the screecher down around 10 AM to check for chaffing because we had loosened the halyard a few inches to allow more billow in the sail.  There was no evidence of chaffing so we raised the screecher back up and deployed the fishing pole from the port stern.  We sailed all morning  with the screecher and mizzen sail in a port tack configuration.  We had the screecher stretched tight rather than loose like in the morning and the halyard broke around 2 PM dropping the screecher into the ocean.  We were going around 8 to 9 knots when the screecher halyard broke so it put a tremendous force on the bowsprit as it went under the boat and pulled down.  We immediately furled the mizzen sail and stopped the boat and were able to pull the screecher back up on deck over the front cross beam.  Fortunately, the bowsprit had not been further damaged.  The True Wind Speed (TWS) at the time the halyard broke was around 12-13 knots and the seas were calm so we sailed the rest of the day with the foresail and mizzen sail in a port tack configuration.  Later, the winds picked up to around 18-19 knots and we sailed all afternoon at 9.5 to 10 knots so we were making up some of the time we lost due to having to retrieve the screecher out of the ocean.  At 1930 I put in one reef in the mizzen sail because there were gusts over 20 knots and the ride was getting rougher.  The boat settled well with that one reef.  We had been getting auto-pilot errors whenever we set the auto-pilot with the controller at the pedestal or whenever we changed the settings at the pedestal.  Consequently, we replaced that controller with the one Navico sent us and we didn't have any auto-pilot errors after that.  By 2100 the winds had died to around 17 knots so I let out the reef in the foresail.  During this watch, we also had a snatchblock break.  The bolt that holds the block to the latching mechanism broke so we put the Dynema chord around the snatchblock itself as a temporary fix.  Fortunately, it was tied to the forward cleat when it broke.  If it had been on the center cleat, the preventor line probably would have catapulted the snatchblock right through our big beautiful window along the front of the bridgedeck.  Here's a picture of the halyard that failed.  Obviously it was having serious chaffing problems.

On the 14th we continued sailing on a port tack with the foresail and mizzen sail and both mast foils engaged.  The winds decreased to 12-13 knots but we were on a broad reach so we were still maintaining 8-9 knots until around 1130 when we lowered all the sails, stopped the boat, and sent Eric up the front mast using the foresail halyard to attempt to restring the screecher halyard.  The seas had calmed and we were only making about 6 knots before we stopped the boat.  Eric was able to get the halyard restrung, but we broke the black tensioning line on the mainsail halyard when we were trying to raise the mainsail back up.  The black tensioning line broke up inside the mast, so I thought we were finished until we could get to port, but when I crawled down into the port anchor locker and looked up through the hole where the halyard was supposed to come out, I could see some strings from the tensioning line about a foot up from the hole.  I was able to fish the black line out the bottom of the mast using some hooks I had in the tool box and then I put a series of prussik wraps around the tensioning line using some prussik lines I had from my Mountain Search and Rescue harness.  We could only pull it about six inches to a foot at a time and then had to move the prussik, but eventually we were able to pull the foresail halyard back out the bottom of the mast and retension it.  We did not try to fly the screecher sail again on the 14th because the cause of the screecher halyard failure had not yet been determined.  Because the halyard was severely twisted when it fell to the bottom and inside the mast, I believe the problem was that when we tensioned the screecher and then tried to furl it, the fitting at the top could not spin and instead twisted the halyard.

Here are some pictures of Eric at the top of the mast, me in the anchor locker trying to retrieve the halyard tensioning line and the prussik arrangement I was able to get around the tensioning line after I fished a few inches of it out of the hole below the mast.  Once we got the foresail back up and 

tensioned, we were able to get under way with just sail power again and we had consistently good winds for the rest of the day, throughout the night and during the morning of 15 July.  The winds were consistently 17-20 knots  on a port tack and we were flying along at 9 to 11 knots course over ground (COG).  We were heading much more westerly than a straight line to La Paz because we wanted to avoid the hurricane area up along Costa Rica and along the western side of Mexico.  The conventional wisdom from the people we talked to and from studying the weather was that we needed to go west from the Galapagos until we got to a longitude of about 110˚ W and then head north toward La Paz.  So far that seems to be working for us once we got far enough north to be out of the doldrums.  The only problem we had during the night on the 14th was that we were taking on some water from relatively large following waves and around 0230 in the morning the port hull bilge pump alarm went off.  We checked it out and held the bilge pump switch up long enough to pump out most of the water and then went back to bed.  We knew where the water was coming from, but we needed to get to La Paz to make the proper fixes.  Until then, we were just going to have to bail out some water if we had big following waves.  Even though we didn't need the engines for making forward progress, we had to run the engines for a couple of hours to charge the batteries and to make fresh water.  At one point, our batteries were down to 36% charge so we ran one of the engines at 1600 rpm to charge them back up to around 60% and at the same time put another 30 gallons or so of fresh water into our tanks.  

We seem to be consistently using around 15 to 20 amps if the radar and all instruments are on and if the refrigerator and freezer both come on as they frequently do when we're in the vicinity of the equator. The fridge and freezer are clearly the biggest energy hogs on the boat and take about 7 amps each when their compressors are running.  Remember, we have a 5 cubic foot freezer and 5 cubic foot refrigerator, so they require substantial energy.  We were getting some power from our six solar panels, but not enough to keep the batteries charged and the wind 

turbine didn't seem to be putting out anything.  I checked the manual and created the chart shown to the right and much to my chagrin, you don't really get much out of the wind turbine until you have at least 15 knots and 20 is where it really starts to contribute.  Unfortunately, that's Apparent Wind Speed (AWS) not True Wind Speed (TWS) so if you're going the same direction as the wind or if the wind is blowing from the side, you're really not getting much power from the wind turbine.  I checked the output of our wind turbine by putting our multi-meter in line with it and it seems to be producing about what is indicated on the chart.

The winds stayed good to us all day on the 15th and through the night.  They stayed in the high teens and low to mid 20's all day and all night and were favorable for us to be in a broad reach that whole time.  We averaged over 9 knots much of the time with speeds up to 14 knots when surfing and 12 in gusts.  In the morning of the 16th, the winds started being steadily over 23 knots TWS so we put in a reef in the foresail and one in the mizzen sail to quiet the ride.  The waves were 8 to 12 feet high and choppy from the port aft quarter.  Sometime during the night, a red footed booby landed on the boat 

and stowed away with us until we were readjusting the sails around 0600.  There was not enough light to get a picture of him and there was too much spray coming over the bow for me to stay out there with my good camera for very long.  We also saw a red billed tropic bird this morning with his long flowing tail, that the book says is very appealing to the ladies.  I had just put out the imitation squid on about 200' of line and the tropic bird was hovering over it and trying to pick it up. Fortunately, he tired of trying to lift it out of the water with a line attached to it and flew off to look for other grub.  Here's a picture of the Red Billed Tropic Bird.  By 0630 the winds had subsided  a bit to around 19 - 20 knots so we let out the reef in the mainsail and the sea state seemed to be calming.  Around 1000 we entered a squall with accompanying 31 knot winds with gusts up to 35 knots.  We could see the squall approaching in the distance, but we didn't anticipate the speed with which the wind conditions would change.  We ran out into the rain and put in about 3.5 reefs in the foresail and 3 or 4 in the mizzen sail and let the mizzen MF free wheel.  The boat stabilized there with 3-6 knots of speed, but we had to bear off to the north about 90 degrees  to keep the sails full.  We held that course of around 350˚ for 15 to 30 minutes when the winds died to 12 to 13 knots and we let out the sails again.  I took a short movie of our sailing in the squall so if you're interested you can see it on YouTube at http://youtu.be/0XA1d1VI-50.  Shortly thereafter the winds died to 4.4 knots TWS so we hauled in the sails to be almost straight back to give us some stabilization in the waves, reefed in to about 4 reefs on both, centered the MFs, started the starboard motor and motor sailed back toward our course of 300˚ COG.  We saw a pod of about ten dolphins just after we started motoring.  They came in front of the bows and swam back and forth for a few minutes before moving on.  Around 1330 the winds had died to almost nothing so we were motor sailing and since the seas were calm, we decided to stop the motor and put up the screecher to let it dry and test the furling mechanism.  We put a 6" ribbon of duct tape on the clevis at the top (the part attached to the halyard which should not turn when furling) and a verticl strip of green tape on the part of the top furler that should turn when the sail is furled.  Then we hauled the screecher up and stopped it about 8" before the bowline knot was at the mast head.  We furled the sail and had John watch it through the binoculars. Both parts seemed to work exactly as they should (i.e., the sail furled without putting any twist in the halyard).  Then we unfurled the sail and again everything worked as it should.   We left the sail up long enough for it to dry and then furled it again and lowered it into the bag.  Since there was no wind, at 1400 we stopped the boat at 7˚ 15.197' N,  100˚ 58.821' W and let everyone jump into the Pacific Ocean to see what it was like to swim out in the middle of the ocean in about 10,000 feet of water and imagine what it would be like if the boat were sailing away.  I stayed on board and we put a long line with the Escape life preserver ring on it to make sure we didn't lose anyone. I made a short movie of the crew hopping in the Pacific Ocean and you can see it on YouTube at http://youtu.be/ctQWjH8zNwE.  Once everyone was back on board, we all took showers on the back deck, put up the foresail and mizzen sail and motor sailed off.  A few minutes later we saw a few pilot whales off to the side of the boat, but I didn't get a picture of them.  It was my turn to take a shower and when John said there were pilot whales, I ran inside to get my camera, but forgot my glasses and I couldn't tell if I had them in the viewfinder or not.  Unfortunately, I only got a movie of

 the water and not the whales.  With all that excitement we started thinking about lunch, but our bread supply was running low.  Jay, being the master chef for the Escape Crew,  hauled out the flour and other ingredients, incorporated the services of John Rohrback and made some Naan bread.  Here's a picture of Jay and John rolling out the dough in preparation for frying up the Naan bread.  

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful with light winds so we sailed and motor sailed close hauled throughout the afternoon and evening hours.  We were able to charge the batteries and get the fresh water tanks filled so that was good, but we were a little worried about the amount of fuel we had because it was a long ways to La Paz still and we had to motor quite a bit of the time.  We had about 50 gallons in the tanks on the 16th out of 94 gallons when they're full and we had 50 gallons in 5-gallon cans.  We feasted that night on curried chicken and the Naan bread Jay and John had made.

On the 17th we kind of muddled along.  Not much wind, and what there was came right on our nose so we continued to motor along at 4.5 to 5 knots on one motor.  We had updated our long range weather reports with new grib files that we got over the Single Side Band (SSB) radio each day, but the areas we could get updates on are small compared to the longer range predictions we had and it seemed that the winds were coming from 90˚ to 180˚ away from where the weather reports and grib files were saying they would come from.  So it was hard to really plan a better route based on the information we had.  Since there wasn't much wind and the direction of the wind was unfavorable, we headed more northerly than we had been planning hoping that we would get into better winds or at least close on La Paz a little faster than if we went farther west before heading north.  

The 18th was another bad day as far as sailing was concerned.  The winds lingered between 3.5 and 6 knots all day and night so we had to motor sail to make any headway.  We only went about 118.5 nm between 6 AM on the 18th and 6 AM on Friday the 19th.  By early morning on the 19th we were within a few miles of our checkpoint on longitude 105 deg west where we hoped to head more northerly and pick up some winds later that day or the next.  We planned  to head toward the Socorro Islands and then dog leg back into La Paz.  

Around 0935 we switched from the starboard engine to the port engine and when I checked the fan belt on the starboard engine it was severely frayed.  Seems strange that it would happen after so few hours.  I suspect that this engine had set in the warehouse for a long time and the belts just got old and brittle.  After changing the fan belt, I concluded that the guy who designed that motor should be shot only after an appropriate amount of torture.  Just to change the alternator belt you have to take off the water hoses

and it was really hot down there in the engine 

compartment. Of course when you take the water hoses off, water runs out into the engine compartment too.  Here's a picture of me changing the fan belt.

The sweet spot for these small Nanni Diesels seems to be around 2200 rpm.  We tried various speeds vs rpm and looked at the fuel consumption curves and determined that 2200 rpm is about the best in terms of good speed with pretty good economy of fuel. We burned about 0.81 gal/hour while motoring after we left the Galapagos so these little Nanni Diesels are pretty sippy.  We didn't have enough to motor all the way to La Paz, but hoped we would get some wind before we ran out of diesel.

Around 1730 we caught another yellow fin tuna and this time we managed to get him on board.  Here's John and Eric reeling him in and a picture of me getting ready to clean him.  After I gutted him and cut the head off, Jay took over (see picture below) to prepare him for supper that night.  

 Although it isn't very exciting to be motoring along or sailing in real light winds, it is peaceful so you have time to think about things and you're not constantly hanging on to avoid being thrown around the boat.  I took this movie so you could look at it on YouTube so you can see what it's like to sail in the doldrums.  http://youtu.be/k9OkAyeS4WY
We ended the 18th sitting on the deck watching this sunset fade as the sun sank below the horizon.
On the 19th I made the crew pancakes, with fried potatoes, ham, and fried eggs, so they were well fed and ready to raise the screecher as soon as we got a few puffs of wind in the
right direction.  We were fortunate to have good winds almost all day and sailed without engines from about 0900 to 1530.  The winds got lighter around 1500 so we put up the screecher, but had to bear off to about 312 degrees to keep it filled.  The screecher is good in light winds from about  90˚ off the bow to following winds, but it's not designed for sailing into the wind.  At 1530 the winds died to around 1.5 knots so we furled the sails completely and started the port motor again.  At 1657 the wind came up to around 10 
knots so we raised the sails and shut down the port engine.  Wind slowed a bit within the next hour, but our speed was still faster than motoring, the sailing was good, and the seas were calm.  Jay cooked an excellent meal on the grill; yesterday's tuna, potatoes, green beans, and onion with raisins, all perfectly spiced.  We enjoyed it with a box of the finest Gato cabernet sauvignon (in Chile you can buy wine in cartons instead of bottles).  We toasted to Jay's meal, the ladies, the US armed forces, Seamus (our dog), the wind, and having a motor.  Everyone aboard was very content as we watched this sunset followed by a full moon.  As you can tell we get lots of good sunsets out at sea.  

Around 0530 on the 20th, the wind died to nothing and we had to start motoring again.  We took advantage of the quiet seas, low winds, and overcast skies to dump the diesel from the ten 5-gallon cans into the diesel tanks.  There was a lot of crud in the bottom of each 5 gallon can, but no more than the diesel we got from Alwoplast in Valdivia.  Consequently, we had to leave some diesel in the bottom of each can and filtered the rest through a sock.

I did laundry this morning, but as soon as I got it hung out we hit a squall and I had to take it in. We had put up the sails as the winds started to build, but the winds in the squall jumped to 25 knots in only a few seconds so we put two reefs in both sails.  The winds died quickly though so we were able to take the reefs out in about 15 minutes and sail with just sail power alone and hoped it would hold so we wouldn't have to run the engines.  At the rate we were going, we're anticipated reaching La Paz on the 26th of July.  There was a pod of dolphins swimming along in front of the boat for about 15 minutes that morning but I didn't get a really good picture of them.   

The rest of the day on the 20th was a pretty miserable day for sailing until late afternoon. The winds were so low we had to motor until around 1630, when we started getting 9 - 10 knots from the East. We put up the screecher and sailed 6-7 knots, but the wind was pretty far forward and it flapped a lot even when we fell off considerably to an apparent wind angle of around 145 deg.  We sailed with the screecher and mizzen sail until dark and then lowered it down and put up the foresail.  We had reasonably good winds all night and were able to sail between 4 knots and 9 knots SOG all night.  

On the morning of the 21st the winds picked up even more and moved more northerly to NNE so we were sailing close hauled with winds that were getting up to 25 knots AWA.  We reefed the mizzen sail for about 15 minutes, but then the wind started dying so we let out the reef again. The winds continued to fade until we were sailing with winds between 7 and 9 knots.  About that time, a brown booby dove down and took our fishing lure, which is a small plastic squid.  We turned the mast foils to act as breaks while we reeled in the booby.  Spoiling the MFs dropped our speed from about 7 knots to 3.9 and then to 1.9.  Being able to hold that red footed boobie in my hands and see him up close was one of the real highlights of the trip for me.  He was a bigger bird than I thought he would be and he was very strong.  As you can see, I was wearing gloves and I could tell that if he bit me without the gloves, I would have lost some skin.  When I had extracted the hook from the 

webbing between his toes and tossed him into the air, he flew right into the fishing line and got it tangled around his wing.  Hence, we had to real him in again and throw him off the other side of the boat.  While we were all on the back deck dealing with the booby, the speed got so low the auto pilot couldn't maintain course and blew the 15 amp fuse.  We put one man on the wheel to steer and sent Eric down below his bed to retrieve the old damaged auto pilot and took the fuse from that.  It worked so we were back sailing with the auto pilot working, but slow.  

By  1000 on the 21st, the winds increased to 12-13 knots TWS and moved easterly.  Our speed picked up to around 8 knots and we pursued a COG of 342 which is a direct route to the eastern part of the Baja southern tip.  Here's what it looked like as we finally thought we were out of the Doldrums:  http://youtu.be/aPRYr7MmGFw.  John Yeaman, our buddy from Valdivia,  said there was a low pressure area developing about 100 nm SE of us moving our direction at 15 mph.  This may have been the leading edge of that low pressure area.  By 1200 we had been flying along at about 8.4 knots with 17 knots of wind,  then we hit a squall that went up to 31 knots in a few seconds.  We reefed to two reefs in the foresail and about four in the mizzen and freewheeled the mizzen MF.  We were still going about ten knots.  The winds quickly died to 19 knots so we let out a couple reefs on the mizzen.   Here's a link the the movie I took during that squall:  http://youtu.be/k1faBgk1r_4.  The winds continued at around 15 knots for the rest of the day.  The sea state was a bit rough and the crew enjoyed riding along up by the bow as the boat bucked over the waves.  Here's a movie of the crew "riding the bow" as it bucked in the waves:  http://youtu.be/y00Q8VakCgc.  Around 1745 a very sudden squall came up and we raced out to reef the sails.  We all got drenched so after the squall we all took showers, and noticed that during the squall the fishing line got tangled in the port rudder.  We furled the sails and freewheeled the MFs to stop the boat and Jay and Eric went in to untangle the fishing line.  John jumped in too to see how it looked with a mask on.  

The 22nd continued to be a good day for sailing.   We had 12 to 18 knots of wind all day on a broad reach so we were moving along at 8 to 10 knots SOG.  Jay made two awesome pizzas on the grill with Naan bread and we had the watermelon we bought in the Galapagos for dessert.  We ate the pizza and had a beer as we watched the sunset in the picture below. We started the starboard engine at 2000 to charge the batteries which were down to 30% SOC.  By the morning of the 23rd we were only 173 nm south of the Baja Peninsula and we were making good time.  We were no longer worried that we wouldn't have enough fuel to make it to La Paz.  At 0650 in the morning at 20˚ 06.505' N, 108˚ 43.865'W John Rohrback 

dropped a bottle over the side with our e-mail addresses and the message, "The best investment man can make is putting milk into babies" (see picture of John dropping the bottle below).  Later in the day we caught a second Brown Boobie, this time just by getting his wing tangled in the line. Eric grabbed him by the neck as we reeled him in and he got close to the boat, untangled him and threw him up in the air to let him go.  

At 1400 we stopped the starboard engine so we could switch engines and we all jumped in the ocean at 20˚ 47.409' N,  108˚ 53.671' W.  While we were stopped, John and Eric swam out to the end of our tether line and dropped a beer bottle full of water to see how long we could still see the bottle as it sank.  We could still see it for about a minute.  Here's a movie of them dropping the bottle:  http://youtu.be/8luUoXVgelc.  We swam for about 15 minutes and then started up the engine and get moving again on COG of 341.  Due to very low winds we had to keep motor sailing for the rest of the afternoon.  We brought in the sails completely at  2100 because the wind was only  3.3 knots and was right from the front.  Jay cooked an excellent meal of baby back ribs, grilled onions, potato slices, and corn.  We toasted to the ladies, U.S. Armed Forces, wild animals, and a safe landing at La Paz with a box of Gato Wine. 

Land Ho!

Land Ho! At 0921 on the 24th at 22 43.000N 109 07.800W we spotted the southern tip of Baja exactly on the azimuth we were expecting to see it.  What a fantastic feeling!  We started the starboard engine about 1030 because winds had dropped to around 3 knots.  Around 1600  we put up the screecher and configured the mizzen to a port deep reach.  The TWS was around 11-12 knots and we were maintaining 5.5 knots SOG  along the eastern edge of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula.  We put up the cockpit bimini to protect us from the relentless sun.  It's really hot and humid here.  At 1744 we started the port engine and furled the screecher.  The winds had dropped to <6 knots and we were just going 3.9 knots.  At 1824 we put the screecher back up because the wind had picked up to 12-13 knots.  We were only going 5 knots because we couldn't get a good reach angle on the wind until we could pass Puenta Arena and head more westerly.  This was a very enjoyable part of the voyage for me.  We were going along a lovely coast, with occasional lights from a village or a light house, with no engine noise—just the sound of the wind through the sails and the water flying past the hulls.  Sitting out on the trampoline and watching the land go by was very pleasant.  Here's a picture of me and Jay enjoying this "last night" at sea before we reached La Paz.  At 2030 we had to take the

screecher down again as the wind had dropped to 3.5 knots.  We started the Port Engine and we were just to the east of La Ribera and Buena Vista on the east coast of the Baja Peninsula (you can check those places out on Google Earth).  The wind came up to 15 kts as we passed Ensenada de Muer, sailing close hauled at 10kts, we adjusted our heading  to 308˚ past Punta Arena on a reach with 16kts of wind and making 11kts SOG.  We then beared west to 297˚ after Punta Arena at 8.5 kts SOG.   At approximately 0145 all of our instruments went blank.  Nothing to worry about, right?  We're just sailing along at 11 knots in the dark near the peninsula on one side and approaching an island with a rocky reef sticking out to the south in front of us.  A hard reboot of instruments seemed to bring everything back to normal.  We sailed under sail power until about 0730 when we passed our Mark 14 and headed south toward La Paz.  For a while we could sail close hauled as we rounded the entrance into the La Paz bay and in this movie you can see the La Paz finger to the port side of the boat and Isla Espíritu Santo on the starboard side:   http://youtu.be/KiV3FBXoqRM.  We had strong winds around 23 knots and were headed right into the wind as we headed more to the south so we furled the sails and started both engines.  We were making about 6 knots with both engines at 2300 rpm.  We arrived at Marina Cortez around 0945 and got tied up to the dock around 1000.  It was a fantastic journey, but I was glad to be tied up to the dock.  In the next blog, I'll tell you more about La Paz and then we'll go explore some of the local islands.