Author Archives: Melissa

The Rule of Four

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Yesterday we left San Diego to finally get into Mexico through the port at Ensenada. Today, we are in San Diego sitting at anchor at La Playa. Without an anchoring permit. Oh well.  Breathing a sigh of relief as the anchor hit bottom, I realized I had to write about the Rule of Four and how we came to have that thrust upon us lately.

Our battery project having gone almost aggressively well, we were feeling pretty chuffed about that success and although I was not really ready to leave San Diego, having had too much fun here, we had to go. Fueled up, we waited for the huge sailboat race to be done and then motored out, into the sunset, as it were. I took a few videos and realized no one would really want to see those. They meant more to me than anyone else. I just hated to leave, I guess.

Maybe we had to come back to see Santa and his helpers paddling through the anchorage.

The first issue with the Rule of Four was that the folks at Cruiseport Marina in Ensenada have never gotten back to us to confirm a slip. This gives me reasonable pause because word on the cruiser’s forums was that the guy there who was in charge got back to everyone in a timely manner; sometimes within the hour. Mike had sent our documents a week ago and we had heard nothing. They also did not pick up the phone when he called repeatedly.  Even though this is Mexico and sometimes you just accept this kind of thing, it didn’t sit well with either of us, especially when this was not the experience other cruisers’d had recently. Mike finally got the guy at the marina on the phone.  Turns out Mike’s emails had ‘not been received’. Now, generally when an email doesn’t go through, your email program lets you know. However, Mike sent them again, with our documents. Mike still has not heard back and again, phone calls go unanswered. Sometimes one just gets tired of trying. We figured we will just show up. It’s not that far down there if we have to turn around and come back. We left San Diego.

This beautiful K50, so identified by my friend Roberta Darrow whose family had one all the while she was growing up. I can’t even relate but that is so cool I can hardly stand it.

Just past the headland, before the channel markers even gave out, the second of the four issues began. Big swells on the beam made the ride so uncomfortable all I could think was ‘Great. I don’t even want to be out here in this crap’. Coming from the flat water in San Diego’s anchorages, it was a bit of a big comeuppance. With no wind at all, we were destined to spend a pretty uncomfortable night at sea. And why, you might reasonably ask, did we have to leave on that day? Because of a schedule. A schedule is the worst thing you can have on a sailboat and we almost never have one. But we are flying home and the airline doesn’t hold flights for sailboats. They just leave when they say they will, more or less. Honestly, we wanted to leave the boat in San Diego since we are flying out of this airport,  but the only slip I could find for our boat would have set us back 3K for a month. For. A. Month. We just could not do it, so onward to Ensenada. And now things begin to get interesting.

Nothing more fun than sitting in a cockpit watching small boats racing around the anchorage. Unless you are on one of the small boats. That would be more fun.

As we motored out the channel, Mike decided to take a look at the charts of the course we’d be motoring. The charts of Mexico were not there. They HAD been there earlier in the day. But now, nada. There was actually a line at the border between the countries and the screen was completely white underneath that line. Huh. This was not great. I mean, we don’t trust the Mexico charts that much, but it’s nice to have SOMETHING that represents things like land masses. And we recall that the chart to the entrance at Ensenada was pretty good. Where were our charts? Why were we not seeing them? It crossed my mind, honestly, that this was the final straw. Clearly we were not meant to go to Mexico on that day. But I rarely do myself justice when I have those intuitions. I mean, what am I supposed to say? “Honey, I just feel like we shouldn’t go today. I don’t know why.” I mean, to be clear Mike would almost certainly listen to me on that. We’ve been married too long for him to ignore these little things. But in the absence of evidence that is firmer than missing charts, we carried on. He had to go down and retrieve the little sim card holding the charts, reinsert into the chart plotter, and download them again. The little hairs on the back of my neck were becoming more alert.

I went below to cook dinner. I had just decided that the conditions below were absolutely not conducive to cooking dinner and it would be cold pizza for all when we heard a small thump from beneath the keel. It wasn’t a big thump and ordinarily it would barely even register on our internal radar. But still, we were in an area where there are way too many crab pots. Mike went below to check things out. He found nothing. He looked over the back of the boat and saw nothing. We shrugged and we motored on, wary of the big war ship steaming down the channel.

Our friends on S/V Copacetic. We just can’t seem to leave them behind. Hopefully we will see them in Ensenada in a day or two.

A few minutes later I felt like we were going more slowly than we should. We had the engine at about 1500 rpm and the current was with us, but we were making only 4 knots. That seemed wrong. About the time I realized that our speed seemed wrong, something gave a god awful screech/rattle kind of noise. I leaped across the cockpit from my position in front of the autopilot controls, hurriedly throttled down and threw the transmission into neutral as Mike popped up the companionway like his pants were on fire and yelled to throw the transmission into neutral. Great minds, and all that.

Pants may not have been on fire, but brains most definitely were as I spun the wheel and yelled, “The steering! I have no steering!” Crap, man. What a comedy of errors, almost. I was already saying, ‘Where is the Boat US number? We may need a tow!’ and practicing my radio skills in case I needed to call for help out there. I am not a fan of zero steering and big swells pushing my boat towards Warship #4 sitting right outside San Diego Harbor, and Warship #7 bearing down on us in the channel. No, thanks. Having leapt from my seat to get the boat out of gear and throttle back the engine, though, I had failed to take the steering out of automatic. Breathe. Just slow down. That’s usually the important thing in these situations. Slowing down.

We tested everything we could. Engine sounded fine. Steering was working. Transmission was working. I gave the transmission a little bump in reverse a couple of times in case that might help anything that was wrapped around the shaft spin off and float harmlessly away. Still, we were definitely, MOST DEFINITELY going back into San Diego and dropping anchor so we could check the prop and shaft in the light of day. Nothing makes me sigh more deeply in resignation than having to enter literally any port with a lot of lights at night. Fortunately, in this case, we could just follow our GPS track. Babying the boat and our jangled nerves, we went dead slow and stuck hard to the right of the channel. We dropped anchor, back at La Playa, with a sigh of relief, poured some wine, and hit the sack shortly afterwards.

This morning Mike geared up in his wetsuit and found weed and kelp wrapped around the small amount of shaft that is exposed to the elements. What a relief that it was just weed and not nylon rope that could have melted itself onto the metal. The working hypothesis is that enough weed got wrapped that it slowed us down and cut off the water supply to the shaft, causing that ungodly noise we heard.  Possibly we hit something under the water that was trailing weed to in a big bunch, allowing it time to get good and wrapped around our shaft.

A few pieces like this floated free under the tender influence of the diving knife. Such innocuous looking weed.

Now we are in a bit of a pinch. I’ll have to reschedule some of my work for tomorrow as we need to have some flexibility worked in. That irritates me but I still need to do it.  I made one more pass at trying to find a place to leave the boat stateside, but on a Sunday, and with such short notice, it’s not to be.

So let’s regroup: First, the marina fails at communicating. Then, sea conditions are disgusting and uncomfortable. Then, our Mexican charts disappear. Then we get weed around our shaft and decide to call it quits. What a day.

Now here’s the other thing. It really gives me pause, and I’m not yet ready to make it a Rule of 5 because it will probably be ok. But still it niggles my mind. There are at least 5 boats stuck in San Diego because Mexico turned them away due to a paperwork issue that Mexico, itself,  invented. It has to do with their Temporary Import Permits, which are basically their way of keeping track of foreign boats in their waters, which they have every right to do. The problem is that when you leave with your boat, you are really supposed to cancel this permit upon checking out of the country. And many people do not do that little thing for whatever reason. Then they sell the boat to an unsuspecting new person who then tries to enter Mexico with the boat. The TIP, which may be expired but has not been “CANCELLED” (And why these two things are different is beyond me) has old owner names which do not match new owner names. Maybe even the boat name is different, so the name and the hull number are not the same anymore.  In the past there has been a way to fix this issue. Apparently that is no longer the case. They have switched systems, and these systems do not talk to each other. Not only that, but apparently there is no go-between. If you have an uncanceled TIP, apparently there is no way to cancel it and so you don’t get to enter Mexico with your boat. One less cruiser with a (probably) older boat to deal with?

Is this absolutely ridiculous? Yes. It is.  I have not been one to criticize how Mexico does things because it’s not my country and they can do things however they want to. But, frankly, I believe in the power of the Mexican authorities to fix this problem if they had the will to do so. Why they haven’t wanted to is well beyond my powers to understand.  There is at least one boat that has been waiting for over a year to have this issue fixed. At that point, I may just sail to Hawaii.

We have met some of the folks waiting for movement on this issue here in San Diego. They have spent a lot of time and money preparing their boats for their adventure, only to find, upon arrival, that a previous owner didn’t do what they were supposed to and now they are stuck because Mexico doesn’t want this fixed for some reason. I feel so sorry for them. They have literally done nothing wrong but here they sit doing the ‘anchor dance’ in San Diego.

Why is this on my mind, aside from feeling bad for other sailors? Because our boat has been to Mexico before we owned it and I am fairly sure that the folks who owned it back then did not cancel their TIP.  That would have been, I think, in the 1990’s or early 2000’s. When we checked in before, we just didn’t mention it and we got a TIP with no problems. We also cancelled that TIP when we left Mexico, although we cannot seem to find that paperwork for some reason. It’s not where it belongs.

Although no old TIPs were found in their computer system when we checked into Mexico before, they have upgraded part of their system. Just part of it, apparently. So even though it’s unlikely they will find any uncanceled TIPs for Galapagos, who knows? It’s also possible that they will. And if they do, I just will not be surprised.

The tall ship California sailed by, wowing us on the way out today.

We are sailing along now in much more pleasant conditions than yesterday, just slowly making our way down the coast. We’ll cross our fingers Mexico doesn’t have a record of an uncancelled tip with our hull number on it. But if they do, well, I really like San Diego, even with the anchor dance issue.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 16. Avoiding all kelp.

 

 

 

It’s That Time of Year, Again

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Based on the fact that Thanksgiving is barely over, I imagine your thoughts have turned to the obvious question: What should I give the cruisers on my holiday gift giving list? Don’t worry, capitalist friends. Little Cunning Plan has you covered. This year, in an absolute spree of money-spending glee, we added a bunch of smallish items to beloved Galapagos that have turned out to be money well spent, indeed. Not to be proprietary about this kind of intel, we’re sharing the details with readers so they can get ahead of the gift-buying and enjoy the season stress free. No need to thank us. We live to serve.

Inside Hotel del Coronado they are already pushing the holiday theme. This gorgeous Christmas tree is simply breathtaking.

You’ll want to hop on these gifts asap since the economy is waiting for your cash, so I won’t spent much time waxing on about the weather here in San Diego. (Coolish with a chance of sunshine.) We won’t yet discuss our dying bank of batteries and the choice we’ve made to power our daily life on board. (Hint: it starts with an L.) I won’t bore you with all the details about all the social functions we have attended;  aboard Galapagos, at a local yacht club,  and also on the boats of new friends. If you’re the social media type you can follow Sea Dream of Clyde, and Sailing Sphynx and their hilarious cats as they adventure forth. We are pleased to count these worthy folks among our new friends. They’re both here in San Diego enroute to Ensenada. Meanwhile, here’s our list of goodies. Full disclosure: we are not Amazon affiliates, or any kind of affiliates at all.

  1. It’s hard to overstate the convenience of being able to serve a cold beverage without watering down your guest’s drinks. These reusable ice cubes have served their purpose very well. I even put them in wine because I like mine cold and crisp. They don’t take up as much room in the freezer as ice trays do, but also you can’t make a blended margarita with them. We all have our challenges.
  2. Entertaining with bubbly wine and you’ve already had as much as you should have? Save the rest with this fabulous bubble wine saver cork. Yes, it really works. Not only that, but it is a lot less money than the expensive Le Creuset one that only works on REAL Champagne bottles, which apparently are made a special way. I know this because I bought the expensive one and had to return it because it didn’t fit the cheap wine that I actually like just fine, thanks. I have kept bottles of Prosecco in the fridge for as many as 5 days (only because I forgot I had it) and the cork still popped aggressively when I took it off the bottle. Well recommended.
  3. Partied too hard and need a latte’ but you are at anchor and nowhere near a good coffee shop? I’ve got you covered, especially if your batteries are not dying. Even if they are. Just turn on the engine for about 60 seconds, pay no attention to the battery police,  and whip your milk into a heated froth. I actually bought this Secura milk frother in 2016 and it has continued to work seamlessly and yummily. Not only that, but the price is still about where it was back then. WHAT?? There is no 12 volt version, so you’re gonna have to have DC outlets on the boat. But if this is you, this is worth the money. You, too, can practice your foamed milk latte’ art while at anchor.

    Yes, that is the same Copco coffee mug I have been using since 2015 when I wrote this post. I notice back in 2015 when I wrote that one, I was using a rechargeable Bodum frother. I replaced that frother with this one and am much happier. I am also falling over myself laughing at the portable stepper I bought way back then thinking I would use it. Maybe I did. But not for long. Still have the Turkish towels, though. And the hammock, the food sealer, and the Dry Case backpacks, which Mike uses but I find to be too heavy and hot.

    What did I tell you? I’m not lying. I never lie about coffee. Yes, I still drink the instant coffee I learned to love in Scotland.

    4.  This fairly inexpensive solar cooker. Yes, there are more expensive solar cookers out there that look almost the same. However, I’m just not going to spend over 400$ on a solar cooker because, technically, I already have one and, well, just no. I have this one, the price of which has gone up CONSIDERABLY since I bought it in 2019. I rarely have used this because if you are not on board to keep it turned facing the sun, it doesn’t work that well. On the other hand, you can put a big pot inside this and if you tend to the unit, it works great. For the recent price, though, I would not buy it. Basically it’s plasticized cardboard and you have to put it together each time you use it. I’m kind of hoping that our new lithium batteries (shhhhh! Michael will talk about those in the future.) will make this unit obsolete and I can find someone else who will use it.
    I’ve used the new, sleek cooker once already and have been pleased with the result. I baked potatoes. While that is not exactly rocket science, the truth is that I put the potatoes in the oven and walked away and went snorkeling. I didn’t stay on board to baby the thing. When I came back the potatoes were done perfectly and I was dead pleased with myself and with this cooker. It is pretty well made. I mean, how hard can it be to make what is, in effect, a sort of vacuumish tube with reflectors? The case is heavy duty and the unit is really easy to set up and get going. I like it and will be using it to bake things when I don’t want to heat up my salon with the propane oven.

    This unit is Patrick-approved.

    5.  Z Block lip protective balm in a stick. Reef safe lip protection. We are always looking for safe ways to protect our skin from UV rays and Michael’s lips are particularly sensitive to certain chemicals that are found in many cosmetic products. I ordered this stuff with hope in my heart and I am pleased to say that not only does it work, but it doesn’t hurt him or the precious fish we love to watch in their watery homes. We’ve stocked up. They also make an overall sunscreen, although I have not looked at the ingredients on that yet. 6.  Up all night because the winds piped up and you couldn’t sleep due to fear? Diligence? You be the judge. This Bucky Ultralight sleep mask will block the dreadful sunlight and allow you to get some well deserved shut eye. I like this mask in particular because it doesn’t press down on my face and it has cupped eye covers. It’s inexpensive enough you can stock some for guests as well. This is my second one. I wore out the first one but it took well over a year of nightly wear due to streetlights being right outside my window back at the house. Yes, I do have light blocking shades, thanks. I just need it to be really dark to actually sleep well. This does the trick. 7.  Maybe you are someone whose body chemistry is attractive to mosquitos. Or maybe you like to go barefoot and, like me, you step on a dying honeybee camouflaged against the rug on your boat and the bee stings you with its last dying gasp. Either way this device has you covered. The Buerer Insect Bite Healer is an important piece of medical kit on our boat. It works with heat. You turn on the unit and gently press its wee circular ceramic plate over the bite or sting and it uses heat to neutralize the venom. It works. Goodbye sleepless nights scratching the itchy mosquito bites and the secondary infection you could get by clawing your skin to bleeding. Same with the bee sting. I rushed to use this on the sting on the bottom of my foot. For good measure, I did it twice. I’m not sure that was necessary, but what I AM sure about is that I suffered no more. No swelling, no tenderness. Two days later it began to itch a little bit. I used the Buerer and then the itching stopped. That’s all the treatment I needed. 8.  Lower your chances of being bitten by mosquitos aboard by using this rechargeable Thermacell unit. We have found this works very well when we are in areas rife with mosquitos. While the unit itself is not overly pricey, the refills are a bit steep. But we still recommend it because it works and it’s easy. We ordered some refills that will last us 120 hours. There is another kind of unit you can get that also works but uses these little pads filled with repellant. You can find instructions on the internet about how to recharge those yourself. We have a supply of the chemical on board and also one of those kinds of units. I find that the pads do not last very long, but they do work. Overall I prefer this rechargeable unit. The downside is that the refills are really expensive and not reusable (unless you are a lifestyle hacker like me and you won’t rest until you figure out a way to reuse that stupid plastic insert). 9.  Maybe, like we aboard Galapagos, you still have to wash clothes by hand. Perhaps, like us, you have not yet remodeled a space to fit one of those nifty Splendide washing machines like they use over on S/V Paragon. After watching this video over a hot tin of early Christmas Cookies last night, I’m not exactly bitter, but I did fall asleep wondering if the forward cabin is being put to enough use. Until I can convince Michael that our small amount of clothing warrants an actual washing machine and the overhaul that cabin would need in order to store one, I am relegated to doing the laundry by hand unless I pay someone else to do it for me (I’m looking at you, Mexico).
    And this is where the Free Pile at Swantown Marina came through for me. One day I happened upon a brand new Breathing Mobile Washer just sitting at the top of the ramp waiting to be adopted by a new home.  This thing takes the ‘plunger and a bucket’ concept to an entirely new level. When you push this device up and down in your bucket of laundry and soapy water, the suction it creates agitates the laundry most satisfyingly. It really pulls and pushes those clothes through the suds! To go with this treasure, I ordered a collapsible fish bucket. Why this fish bucket? Because it has a zippered top with a hole through which I could plunge my new washer, keeping most of the water IN the bucket. In addition, I figured I could load the thing with laundry and let it agitate gently as the boat sailed along, then use the hand washer to finish the load. While smaller than it looks on paper, it holds quite a lot of laundry. This system is working pretty well for me, but it’s not as nice as a Spendide washing machine would be. Still, it’s a lot cheaper. And, after all, we don’t have a lot of clothes and tend to wear the same thing for weeks at a time or until we begin to smell. 10.  Nothing says “I love you, baby” better than giving someone his own personal table for laptop, drink, or the occasional small collection of beach pebbles. As a 1970’s boat, everything on Galapagos seems overly beefy and heavy, which translates into hard-to-deploy. That’s why we took out the huge and heavy teak table in the salon and replaced it with a sleek and easy to maneuver around oval table. On the starboard side, if we wanted a table we’d be giving up a ready-to-nap settee by removing the center cushion and turning over what it rests upon, which is basically a nice coffee table. That’s too much work for us. We’re pretty lazy. Instead we bought this nice, lightweight aluminum table leg system from Lagun USA.  The beauty of this system is that it is completely removable. It also swings out of the way if someone wants to nap on that side of the salon. We like naps on Galapagos. We were in a hurry to leave the dock in Washington, so I found this second hand wooden tray at some thrift shop somewhere and it serves as a nice enough table top until we find something we like better. It’s a great addition. You’re welcome.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on Channel 16.

Catalina Island Rocks

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That’s right. We’re still here. After anchoring at Cat Harbor for, what, a week? Longer?, we moved on and found this sweet anchorage at Goat Harbor on the other side of the island. We have had it all to ourselves for four days, maybe five. Who’s counting?  We have good holding, reasonable protection from the winds we have had so far, peaceful nights of sleep and, most importantly, beaches with rocks. Three of them. I have spent many happy hours loitering around looking at the rocks on exhibit here and rooting around in the little arroyos. Our next stop will be somewhere more “civilized”, so why hurry away? This is why we are out here cruising.

Our next stop will be somewhere San Diego-ish and we will be looking for a place to leave the boat while we go home for the holidays. We had planned to leave the boat in Mexico, but, turns out, we need to replace our batteries and this time we will be going with Lithium and considerably increasing the number of amp hours we have available. That’s a project most easily accomplished in the states, so leaving the boat here is on the table right now if we can find a place that is even mildly reasonably priced.

Would Mexico be cheaper? A bit, especially if we forgo staying in the resort marina. But we would also either have to bring the boat back to San Diego to do the work or take a chance that we have everything we need to do the project in Mexico. Although we likely could find what we might need in Mexico, that can become an ‘adventure’ in product sourcing. In addition, we’d need to negotiate getting back to the US to fly home and while it’s pretty easy to do that, it’s just another logistical piece we wouldn’t have to deal with if we stay here a bit longer.  Once we make a decision about batteries and who we are buying from, we will know about the timeline for ordering, and then everything else should fall into place. Either move on down Mexico way or stay stateside. Crossing fingers on that.

 

Does it not seem like goats would enjoy all that sweet green grass on the hills? We saw a deer way up at the top, but no goats yet.

Although we have not seen any goats here, Goat Harbor is one of the sweetest anchorages we’ve ever enjoyed. Here are a number of photos, just taken with my phone, of the wonders of rocks that abound here.

That beautiful Catalina Blue Schist, and some sandstone. The blue of this schist is like the blue of the deep ocean. I’ve never seen rocks this beautiful shade of blue. Also, this sandstone! Wow!

Blue and green schist, formed at different temperatures, and therefore different colors, and again with this unspeakably lovely sandstone.

This sandstone! Am I right?

Yes, it’s really these colors of purple, yellow, cool white. I just get a little gaga over this stuff.

A close up of this area that I swear someone with consciousness had a hand in designing. Unreal.

But wait! There’s more. You are lucky I did not photograph literally every single rock on the beach or in the arroyo because I’m telling you there were no losers here. None. They were all beautiful.

How’d this little guy get in there? Ok, he can stay.

The metamorphic folding on this guy! This was the entire side of one area of the beach. I would take a class in Geology if they didn’t use so many big words that I literally would not remember. I wonder if I could find one where they just explain things to me like I am 5 years old listening to storytime. I would remember it that way.

I love that there are three different beaches all easy rowing distance from our boat. I would like to stay longer, but we are running out of fuel for the generator. Stupid dying batteries.

Ok I won’t make you look at more. S/V Galapagos standing by on channel 16. (Lying. We have it turned off for now. So peaceful.)