July 28th – San Carlos – Jim’s Blog #61

After arriving in Santa Rosalía, we got the boat tied up and had our celebratory beers, even though we had arrived at 9AM. It’s a tradition with us to have a beer to relax after the anxiety of anchoring the boat or carefully inserting it into a slip. We opened up the hatches and got the air flowing through and then took a long snooze to catch up on the sleep we both miss when we travel all night.

We had originally paid for a week at the marina in Santa Rosalía, although we had used only four nights on our previous stay. In this case we were given credit for three additional nights, and used them to work on some boat items that we wanted to finish before putting the boat up for two months.

One of the problems we had encountered earlier was a slipping belt on the engine that drives the alternator and water pump. In that case we tightened it up, but realized that we couldn’t change the belt unless we drained the cooling system and removed the two water hoses connecting the hot water heater to the engine through the plane of the belt. If we had broken a belt in rough weather we couldn’t replace it easily and we would be in real trouble without the use of the engine. I believe in prevention, but every time I try to improve something relating to the boat, I usually run into more problems than I had anticipated – and this was no exception.

We mentioned this to a fellow cruiser, Dave from ‘Juniata,’ who had been faced with this before, and he offered to help us. The idea was to replace the current belt and add a second one on the inside loop of the water hoses to be used as a quick replacement in the event of a problem with the primary belt. We pulled out all the manuals and learned how to drain the coolant from the engine using a combination of a piece of hose, a funnel, a small jar, and a larger bucket. Then we removed the hoses only to find that we needed to remove the belt from the refrigeration system. In doing this, we found that the mounting bracket for the refrigeration pump had cracked and the replacement belts we had were not quite large enough to fit over the pulleys.

Naturally we discovered these problems at 1PM on Friday in the middle of the siesta period (12-2). On Fridays some businesses don’t bother to return to work after the siesta; so we were concerned that we might have to wait until Monday to get things fixed. We got directions for a welding shop in town, and an auto parts supply store and hot-footed it into town. The guys at the welding shop were eating lunch and resting, but two of them got up to help us. In a matter of minutes we got the part welded back together for 50 pesos ($5), and found the belts we needed at the auto supply store and were back at the boat by 2PM.

Dave ended up doing a lot of the hands-on work for us because he was familiar with the activity, while Sheilagh and I handed him tools, asked questions, and learned a lot about our engine from him. That night we treated Dave and his wife, Marsha, to a chicken dinner at the cruiser-recommended chicken restaurant in Santa Rosalía. Dave and Marsha are from Colfax (near Lake of the Pines, north of Sacramento, where we were living most recently). They have been cruising for six years so far and have a lot of knowledge and experience to share.

On one of the evenings in Santa Rosalía all the cruisers (some 20 people) gathered together near the marina swimming pool and listened to a husband and wife (guitar and harp) perform while we had pizza delivered. Carrying a harp onboard has got to take up a lot of room, but they have a 50’ boat; so perhaps that’s where they get the extra room. We disbanded and all went to bed at about 10PM, just when the rock band began playing in the marina cantina. If the music doesn’t start before 10PM, we cruisers aren’t going to hear it – at least we older cruisers.

We didn’t need to provision during this visit, because we are trying to use up all the food we have before leaving the boat here in San Carlos. It will take us some time to take all the sails down, remove anything that could blow away in a hurricane from the top of the boat, empty the water tanks, and generally set up the boat to be left for two months. If Santa Rosalía were a recognized hurricane hole, we could leave the boat here and take a bus north to San Diego from here – a 14-hour trip. We noticed that a ferry comes over from San Carlos twice a week to Santa Rosalía; so suddenly we realized we could take the ferry back to Santa Rosalía and then take the bus north to San Diego. Our original plans had us taking the bus to Tucson and then a plane to San Diego, which would have cost more and taken longer.

We had planned to leave Santa Rosalía on Saturday evening for a night-time trip across the Sea of Cortez to arrive on Sunday morning. However, the weather report on Saturday morning recommended against making the crossing that day due to high winds. Rather than pay for another day at the marina, we motored over to a nearby island, San Marcos, where we anchored in the clearest water we have seen yet. We could see our anchor embedded in the sand 30’ below us. I went snorkeling along the shore and saw all sorts of fish including schools of Sergeant Majors with yellow and black stripes around their bodies, several King Angelfish with bright yellow fins and tail on dark bodies with orange tips flowing back from their dorsal fins, a school of dozens of needlefish with long snouts and a blue and silver body – just to name a few.

As I swam over a rock with lots of holes in it, a small moray eel poked its head out of one of the holes, which caused me to keep my distance from the rocks after that. The sandy part of the bottom was dotted everywhere with small stingrays settling down in the sand and periodically moving to new locations. I didn’t see any fish large enough to catch and eat, but I wasn’t hunting anyway, since we need to eat what we have in the next few days. When I got back I looked up the various fish I had seen in my Reef Fish Identification book. A Rainbow Wrasse really caught my eye because it had all the colors of the rainbow on its body. I also saw several tiny blue fish feeding on the bottom, thinking at first that they were small blue gems. The fish identification book didn’t indicate these at all.

We ran into Jim and Susan of ‘Windward Bound’ anchored near us at San Marcos and had them over for dinner before heading out to San Carlos that same night. We left the anchorage at 8PM and headed across the Sea of Cortez. As we started out the seas were a bit rough with a 15-knot wind just off the nose. We partially raised the mainsail (to the second reef points) to keep the boat stable in the waves and ended up motoring the entire distance of 70+ nautical miles. Throughout the night we had clear sky overhead and stars shining brightly. However, ahead of us were dark clouds that obscured the sky and lightning playing on the horizon all night. By 4AM we were within 25 miles of the mainland, and thankfully the clouds and lightning moved off to the east, and the waves and wind had settled down.

We arrived at 8AM Mountain Daylight Time, an hour before the marina opened; so we tied up to the fuel dock to await a slip assignment. At 9AM our time, the marina opened and we got a slip next to a motor vessel that dwarfed us in size. We slipped carefully into the slot between the overgrown power boat and the dock, and opened the morning beer just prior to sleeping for several hours. We found that San Carlos is actually on Pacific Daylight Time, even though it is further east than Santa Rosalía, so we are now on California time as we prepare the boat to leave it for two months.

The night of the 28th, the day we got in, turned out to be one of the hottest, most humid nights this marina had seen in awhile (we are told). Sheilagh and I stripped to almost nothing and slept with two fans blowing air on us all night in an attempt to keep the sweat from running off our bodies. Have you ever tried sleeping in a position that kept all members of your body from touching any other members? Believe me, it’s difficult, but necessary to insure that a layer of moisture doesn’t develop between touching body parts – and that applies to one’s own body. Heaven help me if I dared touch Sheilagh in any way; or her, me.

We had planned to take a week to get the boat ready, but after that night we are motivated to get the job done as soon as possible. We think four days should be enough, allowing us to take an air-conditioned bus north to San Diego by the 1st of August. We’ll see if we make it. We certainly don’t want any more nights like this one. More later . . .