I thought this might catch your eye. This is one of the crocodiles we encountered on our jungle cruise in San Blas. The rest of the pictures that follow were taken on that cruiseAs of my last blog, we were anchored in Matanchén Bay, which is about 3 miles by bus from San Blas. We prefer to be anchored in the estuary next to the town, but it was low tide when we arrived in the area, and we didn’t want to try entering what can be a tricky and shallow entrance to the estuary. The next morning we moved into the estuary at high tide and never saw a depth of less than 11’, giving 5’ of clearance under our keel. A new marina has been set up in the estuary, and we were strongly encouraged to stay there by the management, but we elected to stay anchored and save our marina fees for the months of April and May in Mazatlan. It also meant our boat changed direction in the estuary four times a day, letting us know when the tide was going out or coming in.
Black VultureWe made our usual trip into town for internet and lunch, but stayed inside the boat with screens covering all hatches and ports when it began to get dark. This whole area is noted for high insect activity, particularly no-see-ums, which are so small they can get through most metallic screens. We have “no-see-um-fabric” that Sheilagh created into screens for the overhead hatches, and we spray our metallic port screens with bug spray to deter these small bugs from slipping through the mesh. At least we hoped they’d take a whiff and decide to stay away, and it seemed to work.
Snowy EgretThe only bug problem we had was a squadron of them that appeared early the next morning and attacked Sheilagh as she was out swabbing the deck. I was wise enough to remain inside the boat listening to weather predictions on the single-sideband radio for our next leg north. Sheilagh was so intent in her work that it was awhile before she realized she was being bitten and ended up with dozens of bug bites on her back and an itch all over her back that wouldn’t quit. She took some Benadryl internally and some cortisone externally, but it was my careful scratching of her back that seemed to feel best to her. It’s amazing the things I do to endear myself to her and earn her eternal thanks.
IguanaIt was a year ago that I first tried surfing with my kayak at San Blas, but now I had a year of experience to help me challenge the waves that conquered me last year. I hopped in the kayak the next day and paddled it out through the entrance to the estuary and around the point to the beach east of the entrance. I waited for just the right wave, paddled furiously to be up-to-speed when it hit, used my new moves to stay ahead of the wave, and promptly got rolled so violently that I lost the kayak and watched it get pushed to shore. I had to swim a ways with my paddle in my hand to catch up to it. The kayak was so completely filled with water that I had difficulty turning it over to empty it. I tried a number of other assaults on the waves with the same results; so I retired the kayak for the day and turned to body surfing. Those memorable words returned to me “If at first you don’t succeed, try harder; if you still can’t succeed, give up – there’s no sense being a damned fool!”
Red-faced CormorantThat night we watched an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Jamaica Inn,” in which Maureen O’Hara was introduced to the movie-going public for the first time. It was one of the movies we have on an Alfred Hitchcock DVD collection, and Maureen O’Hara was not only gorgeous, but a good actor as well. The next day we were listening to some classical music on Sirius Radio and heard the theme song that Hitchcock used on his TV series. The name of the song is “Funeral March for a Marionette,” which was a subtlety of his sound track that I had never been aware of. You may remember that he constantly complained in that series that he was at the mercy of the advertisers every time he had to take a commercial break. Viewed in the light of the music, he might have been implying that, although he was the director, he was just a puppet, marching sadly along in step with what others were dictating. It is interesting that it was also a “funeral march.”
Green HeronMonday we took the jungle cruise with Andre and Martine of “Coup de Soleil,” our neighbors anchored in the estuary with us. This was a repeat of the Jungle cruise that we had taken the year before, but this time we specified that we wanted to include a visit to the crocodile farm. We saw a number of smaller crocodiles along the way, but the farm itself was the highlight of the trip. There we found various large outdoor cages, each with a pond and two very large crocodiles taking life easy together. Apparently they were doing their jobs because there was one cage with dozens of small crocodiles crawling on top of one another as they “played in the back yard.” We didn’t see any actual copulation taking place, which would have been something to see based on the size of those crocodiles.
IbisOn Wednesday we motor-sailed the 130 miles from San Blas to Mazatlan, arriving at 9AM, exactly 24 hours after leaving San Blas. As we started out from San Blas the wind was light, but within a couple of hours it had gradually increased to 15 knots with white caps on the surface. The boat began hobby-horsing over the higher and higher swells, and we jumped down below to close up all the ports and hatches to keep the boat dry inside.
Then I realized we had left some loose items on the bow that needed to be tied down or brought aft. I worked my way forward against the spray and had to hold on tight as the bow pitched up about 5’ high on the crest of the swells and then dropped about 10’ into the trough immediately behind it. It’s almost a sleight-of-hand trick to keep one hand securely grasping some part of the boat while tying things down with the other.
TortoisesWhile I was up above, Sheilagh tucked hand towels in the cabinet with the plastic glasses that invariably want to jump out at us when we open the cabinet later. She also insulated the liquor cabinet with a blanket to keep the clanking down and laid the salt and pepper shakers in a bowl in the cabinet to keep them from spilling everywhere. Everything loose in the galley went into the sink to keep them from being launched across the boat.
Another crocodile - the jaws are left open to allow small animals or fish (when underwater) to enter. An automatic sensory alarm causes the jaw to close instantly when the prey enters the mouth.As the day progressed we zigzagged up the course a bit to get the sails drawing just off the wind to increase our speed. It was a tossup as to whether we were actually increasing our overall speed to Mazatlan with this process, since the increase in speed is offset by an increase in distance as one deviates from the course directly to the destination. However, the ride was easier on the boat and on us, when we were actually doing some sailing. Another boat, “Coup de Soleil,” with Andre and Martine aboard (Canadian cruisers whom we had just met on the jungle trip), was also making the trip north at the same time. Their boat is a bit shorter, which limits their speed to something less than ours, just as we naturally go slower than nearly any boat longer than ours (a physics limitation). We kept in touch during the trip north and ended up about three hours ahead of them by the end of the trip.
A closeup of the jaws indicates no apparent throat - just a small cave that small game and fish can use as shelter.As twilight descended on us that day the sky was clear with clouds only on the distant horizon. As it got darker, a sliver of moon created an amazing amount of light all around, particularly because we were miles from any shore lights. Near midnight we finally ran under the threatening cloud bank to the north and found that the clouds were harmless leftovers from the Pineapple Express during the day. However, the moon was completely blocked out and the only visible light sources were glows from small towns along the coast or the red or green running lights of about four boats that seemed to be heading in our same direction. Eventually the passenger liner, the Sapphire Princess, emerged from the dark with every light blazing, also headed to Mazatlan. Its speed slowed down to our speed as it dawdled its way into Mazatlan, waiting for daybreak to enter the harbor and tie up.
One of the crocodile progenitors resting up in the crocodile farm - tough life but someone's got to do itWe got in just as the fuel dock and marina opened at 9AM, which had been our plan; so we quickly got the tanks filled with diesel, had a slip assigned to us, and squeezed between another sailboat and the dock to tie down. The first order of business for me was to catch up on the sleep I had missed most of the night. Sheilagh gathered up a change of clothing and went to the marina shower to indulge in unlimited hot water running over her body. The rest of that day we “hunkered down,” as Sheilagh likes to say, and got access to six English-speaking TV channels from the local cable for the marina. Nothing like turning into a vegetable in front of the TV after seeing no TV for over three months!
The next day was spent cleaning every inch of the boat with fresh water from the dock and hosing down equipment that had been exposed to salt water for the last several months. Sheilagh did a lot of this work because my contribution to cleaning is not as thorough as she would like. I caught up on the internet and then took apart the navigation station to get to the back side of the radar to see if a critical wire might be loose – nothing found. Then it was up the mast to check on the radar connection on the scanner – still no loose wires that I could see. Since the radar manual strongly suggests that only trained service technicians go any further into troubleshooting than checking for loose wires (due to the possibility for receiving life-ending shocks from energy stored in capacitors), I was at the end of what I could do there. I sent off an email describing the problem to the Valiant discussion group, where nearly every problem ever encountered on a Valiant (or her equipment) has been experienced and solved by another Valiant owner. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get a response.
We also conducted a shopping trip to the local Mega store for essential supplies, keeping in mind that we will want to use up everything in the refrigerator and freezer before we leave for California on the 13th of April. I also scheduled to have the boat pulled out of the water to have the bottom painted with growth-defying bottom paint in mid May, before the trip to San Diego on the first of June. I will be living on the boat while it is “on the hard” in the boatyard for about five days as the painting is being done. Nothing better for the physique than having to climb a 12’ ladder to get into and out of the boat for anything I will want to do. That and smelling bottom paint for five days!
After that we found it necessary to grab a good book, put on swimming suits, and loll by one of the two swimming pools for the rest of the afternoon. A waiter immediately came over to take our Margarita order, and we let the cares of the world drain from our bodies for the time being. When we turned down a second order of Margaritas, the waiter had the practiced answer of “you aren’t driving are you?”
That night we saw the latest James Bond movie displayed on a large white square of fabric tied to two of the straighter palm trees. The hotel staff had set out the swimming pool lounge chairs all around the grounds in front of the screen, and there was quite a crowd. The couple to my right was attempting to make out during the show, but their size precluded the use of a single lounge chair. It was an interesting sidelight to note how many different ways two people can overcome the difficulty of connecting across two lounge chairs. No, I wasn’t exactly staying focused on the movie.
More later . . .
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