//WL2K Back in Bahia de Caraquez

This is a simple test to find out if we can update the blog from the ham radio. Yes we are back in Bahia, getting ready to sail back up to Mexico to haul the boat and repaint. We will be leaving in a week and it should be a good passage, moderate winds, no storms, smooth seas.

Ecuador, We Are There

The trip to Ecuador took ten days largely because of stormy weather with contrary winds. The first day out, Saturday, we had Southerly winds at 20 30 knots, so we settled for just heading west, seeking deeper water and smoother seas. The seas were very rough, and I was tossed across the cockpit to land on the mainsheet traverler giving me a large and painful bruise across my back. An inauspicious beginning to a long trip. The next couple of days brought light variable winds with little southerly progress.Tuesday brought westerly winds allowing us to head south at last. With 6-8 knot winds we were making 5 or 6 in the desired direction. A lot of rain squalls everywhere, making us slow down and shorten sail just in case the winds got blustery. The winds died off at night forcing us to just drift and wait for the wind to fill in in the morning. This pattern held until we got to Isla de Coco, where the rain diminished somewhat and the wind got steadier. We were making 8 or 9 knots on a good course for the whole day. We discovered that the seal on the port ama was not doing its job and the ama was filling with water when we pressed the boat for speed. I emptied it with a bucket a couple of times and made a new gasket from a floor mat. Great improvement, but we still could not get the electric bilge pump to perform, and had to keep a close eye on it. The days of torrential rain has revealed some unforeseen leaks and lots of we stuff was showing up in the boat. Sailing fast also revealed some leaks with salt water, which is much more difficult to clean up. We were now making 150 plus miles per day and starting to plan our arrival in Bahia Caraquez.
Entering the bay involves negotiating a large beach are where the Rio Chone enters the pacific. A pilot or guide is required for entry by the port captain. They only enter at high tide which happened to be at about 4:30 pm, perhaps the windiest time of the day. The wind drives the seas making this the biggest waves available. We barely got there in time to come in, and another cruiser heard us calling on the radio and helped arrange the pilot. We thought he was going for a swim when he jumped from the panga onto hot sauce. He directed us through the surf toward the beach and immediately we were surfing at about 15 knots. Pedro the pilot had never surfed before. As we weaved our path towards the bay, another big breaking wave loomed up behind and he hopped up and moved as far forward as possible to avoid the impending flood. Cowabunga, off we go again. At least enough excitement as we needed at the time. We got anchored in the bay by the club and went in for dinner.
The next few days were occupied with going to the doctor for Monteszumas revenge and looking for a dentist to do a root canal. Got to the dentist today and got the root part done. The yacht club shuffled boats today and put us on a mooring. I go back to the dentist Fri. To finish up, then off to the interior.

Off We Go, Southbound at Last

Rough week, but a good end. Marvelous Marvin the mechanic was too sick to come work on the boat for several days, but showed up on Wednesday with the rebuilt  injection pump his toolbox. A couple of hours later we fire up the engine and it sounds completely different than I have ever heard it. Instead of the clattery thumpety sound of a small truck, it sounds like a sewing machine singing along. I have probably never heard it when it was running properly before. Perhaps this will all work out after all. I am sure I saved about a million dollars by having it done here instead stateside.
When we got back from Guatemala, I noticed a toothache and went to see a local dentist. He spoke english about like my spanish, so we gave each other lessons. As luck would have it, the toothache turned out to be an abscess which will require a root canal. He drills it out and  drains it, but the root canal is out of the question until I have a few weeks to do it right. I return to the boat to see about the next challenge. The pain does not go away as advertised, but by Sunday I have developed tourista and am too distracted to worry about the tooth. A couple more days of lying about holding my guts in all day and running to the head all night leave me completely exhausted, dehydrated, and sleep deprived. On Wednesday I felt like I could cope with a return to the dentist, so I called him and he said come right in. When I went to the office to tell Joan about the dentist, Marvin was back, so he and Joan set off to fix the boat and I headed for the dentist. I gave up on the collectivo and got a local taxi driver to agree to take me to town, wait for me and bring me back for about $16. He got pretty lost in town and had no map reading skills, so the map on my tablet could have been hieroglyphs to him. I finally coaxed him to the address and he sat on the sidewalk in front of the dentists office while I went in and had the abscess drained again. He must have missed a spot the first pass, because relief was instantaneous this time. He gave me antibiotics to take at sea just to be sure. The driver stopped at the pharmacy, and an ATM on the way back and it was pretty deluxe having all my errands dispatched without standing on a corner waiting for a bus.
Upon return to the boat, Marvin is about done and I am soon rewarded by the happy purr of the engine.
Things look a lot better this evening than they had looked in the morning. My stomach was settling down, the boat was running, my toothache was gone, and life looked a lot more positive now. Next morning I scheduled the formal checkout from Mexico for Saturday morning. We have done all but the final inspection by the military which is supposed to occur at 07:00 tomorrow. We're thrashing all about getting the tanks full, papers in order and generally getting ready to go. After the inspection, we set sail for Ecuador. It is 1100 miles as the crow flies, but we have no idea how long it takes as there is just too much unknown about the weather. If we have good wind from a favorable direction, we could show up in 4 days. Owing to the fact that we have never experienced that kind of wind and we will have to cross the inter tropical convergence zone, a more reasonable estimate is a week or two. The ITCZ is the area where the northern trades meet the southern trades and duke it out for some prize or something. The general effect is a band of high precipitation and variable winds which wanders around west of Costa Rica and Panama. With luck it will move north as we move south and we will just enter the southern trades for some excellent sailing in consistent 15 to 20 knots winds. Another scenario might  be drifting in light air dodging squalls for a few days before we pick up the trades. It looks like we should be good to go tomorrow and the rest will just have to play out as it will. Next post should come from another hemisphere.

Guats up

Took a couple of weeks off from dying in the heat to travel in the highlands of Guatemala. We started out with a collectivo(minivan) to the highway turnoff for Ciudad Hidalgo. We caught another collectivo and went 40 km. in about an hour and a half to the border. When we tried to get our passport stamped, we were told that we would need to pay the visa fee again as our reciept for the last one was more than 90 days old. By the time we muddled through the payment process, it was pouring down rain. One more visit to the passport office, got stamped and tried to find the way to the bridge over the river which separates Mexico from Guatemala. We found a lovely ramp with turnstiles to the bridge, but they were zip tied shut and we were redirected back through the border area to the old entrance. No hints for newbies, no signs or directions. We walk accross the bridge and see only a tiny office with immigration marked above the door. The Guatemalan immigrations consisted of 1 guy behind a window who collected about $3 each in illegal fees and stamped us on our merry way. We took a bicab ( a three wheeled taxi bicycle) with us sitting in front and a guy peddalling us over to the bus station. The bus station was chaos with no timetables or schedules or fees posted anywhere. You just get approached  by guys trying to get a bus load for where ever they go. We got on the first class bus to Xela which is the local name for Quetzaltenango. About two hours later they tell us to get on a chicken bus for Xela, as they lied about actually taking us there. A local who witnesses this gives them hell for treating us poorly, but we still end up changing to a chicken bus in a driving rain to head up to the promised destination. We arrive in Xela at the public market next to the chicken bus station and grabbed  a cab to the centro or main plaza to seek out a hotel. A long rainy day, but it is much cooler and we have some new scenery to enjoy.
 We stayed in Xela a couple of days, and then headed for Panajachel on the banks of Lago Atitlan, a nice big crater lake. We got a hotel on the main drag which had window bench seats allowing you to sit in your second floor room and watch the world scurry by. Next day we got on the ferry to San Pedro la Laguna to check out of the lakeside life and get a little tour of the other side of the lake.

 

 A tuk tuk( 3 wheeled enclosed motorscooter with seat for two in the back) guy at the ferry dock offered us a tour for 200 Quetzales, we laugh and walk away and we settle on 50. He's a pretty nice guy with no english, who wants us to be happy with our tour, but also offers us several options for expanding the tour as we go. We settle for a ride to El Mirador, the lookout, and a tour of the local church.

The church is pretty much of a hoot, as it has a lifesize Mary on a donkey dressed as a Guatemala indian. and also glass casket with Jesus in it which has a slot in the top for donations. So Jesus is laying there with the usual pained suffering expression, and a bunch of bills and coins on his feet.

 

We decided to take a tourist shuttle to Coban, as it had been recommended as a good jump off for some local attractions. The shuttle left at 9:30, with a couple of hours off in Antigua, arriving at Coban at about 8. There was an earlier version which leaves at 6, but hey, we are on vacation. As it worked out, the connecting bus was about an hour late, and our first stop was to pick up all the people who took the early bus, but missed the connection to Coban, giving them a 6 hour lay over in Antigua. We had a nice long drive up the country, with a rest stop at a greasy spoon truck stop and another stop in Coban for 6 gallons of fuel. We went right on past Coban, without a stop at our hotel, but the next stop was Lanquin, so we assumed it was just outside town and we would circle back. We finally asked if anyone thought they were going to Coban, and found out they were all part of a hostel group going to Lanquin, about 2 hours past Coban. We are kind of concerned about what will hapen there, as the hostel group said their destination was all full. We pulled into Lanquin after a 30 minute ride down a dirt road about 12 km. long. There was chaos as the bags were unloaded off the top of the shuttle, but a local gave us a ride to a hotel in the back of his pickup truck. The hotel had a loud bar and simple accomadations, but it was hot and sweaty with construction and rooster noise before first light in the morning. We moved to the hotel accross the street which had fans in the rooms, thinking we might not be so hot there, and set off on a tour of the caves andh lagoons of Semuc Champey.

 It was fun swimming in dark caves trying to keep the candles lit, the guide was pretty entertaining, and there was a giant trapeze like swing on the river bank when we got done. The swing drops you about 10 to 12 yards up into the river. One memeber of our party was nearly killed when she froze and didn't let go over the water. Not killed, but some black and blue and a little bloody from landing on the ramp. She tried again and almost repeated the feat dropping aobut 6 feet from the rocky shore, giving us all heart attacks, thinking about helicopter evacuations, or bouncing for hours in a pickup truck to a hospital. The pools were as lovely as advertised, and all in all it was a good trip. the hangup being there was no way to get money in the tiny town of Lanquin, so we would have to walk back to Coban or go hungry. We found a pharmacy which would change dollars for Quetzales at a bad rate, so all was not lost. Of course that night there was a power outage for most of the night and the fan served only as a decoration. viewed by the candle provided by the hotel.
We headed back to Coban the next morning, Lanquin was down in a valley, but Coban is up the high country and much more comfortable. We went to a parrillada for dinner which was the best restaurant experience of the trip. Quiet, lovely place, excellent service, and yummy food with no surprises. The only funny part was the taxi driver who took us there didn't really know where it was and had to ask several people on the street even though we gave him the street number. Turns out it was only 2 blocks from the hotel, so we just walked back.
We decided to head to Chichicastenango the next day and had an easy trip, and settled into a nice  hotel. They have a nice big market, good mountain views, and the hotel owner whipped up a monster breakfast in the morning. The second morning he made hash browns which were delicious. He also roasted and ground his own coffee and had fresh eggs and fruit from the garden. It was fathers day with a church event, so a little more culture to soak up along the way.

Next we headed to Nebaj, a mayan town up in the cloudy mountains, the highest spot we have visited so far. They get few tourists up there and several people just stopped to stare at us as we walked by. Some just laughed out loud and pointed. The main attraction for us here is the scenery and the dramatic drive up into the mountains. Not much to do there, so we headed Huehuetenango to start back to Mexico. A bigger town, but the same reaction to me walking down the street. Pretty strange feeling, going to see the sights and being the main attraction. Just wanted to spend another night in the cool mountains, and then off to the frontier. We crossed aere there t the mexican city of Cuautemoc, where the entry was very casual. We didn't see a Guatemalan exit point for immigration, and when I asked the mexican official, he said we should go to town a few miles down the road and check in. When we got there, they couldn't find the exit stamp from Guatemala(surprise), so we have to wait for some other guy to look at our passports before we get the visa. We cross the street to  the bus station to find that a bus for Tapachula is scheduled to leave in 10 minutes. After some debate and half an hour waiting, we get on the collectivo to Comalapa, the next city on our route. Never saw the big bus, but that's not so strange. Spent the night there and decided that it was getting too hot to hang out, so off to Tapachula by collectivo. It is not as comfortable on the small busses, but you can leave in 10 minutes no matter what time it is. A litlle shopping in Tapachula, and off we go to the boat in Puerto Madera.
Bob is nowhere to be seen when we arrive, but we hear that he is a good swimmer after he boarded the neighbors boat and was startled into sliding off our boat into the water when accosted for his trespassing. They rescued him immediately, and he got a free swimming lesson. Joan saw him on another boat a little while later and we were reunited. He has been very affectionate lately, and just doesn't want to be left at home alone. All seems normal again.
The parts showed up the next day, but we had to wait a day for them to decide how much import taxes we must pay. Worked out to zero, just another day in the process. The mechanic picked up the parts and the pump and took them to the laboratorio for another go. The last we heard, he was to pick it up Saturday at 6 pm, and come install it on Sunday. Went for a little fishing trip with one of the marina jefes Saturday afternoon, caught 9 fish, good to get out on the water. Mid day Sunday, and we wait. We don't know what kind of provisioning, checking out or weather routing we are in for until the engine is running. Sunday rolls on by without anything new on that front. Went to town by collectivo to get some money and a little shopping and got caught in a torrential downpour. I made it out to the bus stop in front of the store without drowning and decided to wait for the rain to let up before crossing the 4 lane blvd. Saw a collectivo from the right neighborhood comind down the other side of the street, made a help me gesture by raising my hands above my head, and surprise, surprise, he stops in the middle of the road and waves me over. I splash accross the street and become the 23rd occupant of a 14 passenger van. When we get to the marina, he drives me down to the dock gate and asks which boat is mine. This saves me a quarter mile of walking and gets a big smile from everyone on the bus for showing them the boat at the dock.
Like I said things are back to normal.

Waiting in Marina Chiapas

Seems like we've been waiting forever. We got the document we needed from the coast guard thanks to my son Steven, but the engine is still without a few critical parts. We were waiting for the documentation, so we decided to check out the bad injector the prior mechanic in Barre de Navidad had warned us about. Upon delving into the running of the engine with each injector disconnected, it was obvious that cylinder #2 was not pulling its weight. After swapping the injector between #1 and#2, we knew that it was not the injectors fault. Looking at the pressure and rate of flow to each cylinder revealed that # 2 just was not getting its share.  Checking the entire fuel system revealed that the tank uptake was clogged. Clearing the line didn't change things, but the mechanic thought that the head gasket was leaking between cylinder 2 and 3. Jeff on Blue Jacket happened to have a spare gasket which he could replace over the summer and was willing to sell it to me.
We took the head off and the head gasket looked fine, but there was lots of carbon on the valves in 2nd and 3rd cylinders. He headed off to a mchine shop to re-seat the valves on Sat. afternoon hoping to get done same day. Sun. a little after noon, he returned with it all clean and renewed. We installed it and fired it up. Smoother, but still no improvement on # 2. He took photos of the pump and went to the diesel laboratorio to seek guidance.
Next day he returned and attempted to clean and free up the part of the pump serving cyl. #2. Still no change, so after some discussion, I let him take the injection pump to the laboratorio to see if they could fix it.
Three days later, he returned with alist of parts needed to complete the repair. We sat around for a few days while he searched for the parts in Mexico and Guatemala. The laboratorio suggested sending it to the mother lab in Guadalajara, where they could re build it in 12-14 days at about 4 times the cost of the local repair. When I pressed them about how reliable the time frame was and where the parts would come from, it became apparent that the parts would come from the USA distributor. At this point it seemed like ordering the parts from the USA and having them express shipped here would be faster and much less expensive, not to mention having a handle on the progress.
I called a couple of places to find that the only online store which had them could not ship them outside their territoy in Michigan and surrounding states. My pre paid phone ran out of minutes on the next call. Time for a break, I guess.

Next morning I fired off e-mail to a handfull of FL dealers and was told that the distributor was out of the parts. One offerred to have them express shipped from the factory and mail them to the FL address as soon as they come in.
Next day I hopped on a colectivo van to Tapachula to recharge the phone and get some plumbing parts to assemble a water filter to use to keep the sediment out of the tanks when filling them from the dock. I had to have a phone to place the order, so now I have done my part.
Now the plan is to get #1 son to forward them to us, and we will just take some time off from the heat and frustration by going to the highlands of Guatemala for about a week. One of the marina guys will feed Bob while we are gone.
We plan to head for Quetzaltenango tomorrow, then to Coban, and wherever sounds good from there.

Hot Times in Chiapas

Bird sitting on a turtle.

We have been in Marina Chiapas for about 10 days, it is a brand new marina being dedicated while we visit. So new that it is not on the charts yet, so we found it by tooling around the harbor until we came upon an un charted channel.  There was a greeting party when we arrived, so I guess they knew where we were, even if we didn't.

The boarding party.

 

We found out that the boat documentation we have been using to check into the marinas along the way is not the current one and we will not be able to get exit papers from Mexico until we produce the current one. We have turned the boat upside down a couple ot times to no avail, so I ordered a certified copy from the coast guard documentation center. We took a little trip to the colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas. to escape the heat. It is up in the mountains with a mild climate and lots of indians trying to sell us clothing and bangles of all sorts.

 We took a tour of Sumidero canyon and saw some monkeys and crocodiles. The canyon was formed by an opening  fault and had some 1000 meter faces along with water depths of 200 meters.

 The next day we visited the city market which was clearly the largest we have seen on this trip. Once we left the crafts section, we were in true Mexico with everything on earth for sale in stalls on the ground. It streched on for about 6 blocks square.

We took the midnight special bus back to Tapachula that night leaving at 10 p.m. and arriving in Tapachula at 6 a.m. They had to wake us up to clean the bus. We made it back to the marina by mid morning, where Bob eagerly awaited us.

I figured out that the documentation we ordered did not go through, so gave it another go. With extra time afforded us by this screwup and a big storm forecast to move up the west coast of Central America, we had a little time on our hands to look for trouble. The engine has not been running as smoothly or delivering the expected fuel economy, so we enlisted the aid of a local mechanic to check for a problem with the injectors. We went through the fuel system in detail, determining that the tank uptake was plugged and starving the injector pump. I cleared it up by blowing on rhe hose, but the engine ran only marginally better. By removing the fuel lines to each injector, we found that #2 & #3 cyliders were not contributing much, and probably had a blown head gasket causing them to leak compression between each other.
Where can we get another gasket? Not in Mexico, seems. After some digging around checking out going to Guatemala, or trying to order one from the US, we decided it was hopeless and we would just run it as is until we got to Ecuador. As luck would have it one of the other boaters getting ready to return to the states happened to have a spare for his Yanmar and was willing to let buy him a new one in the states in exchange for the spare.
The mechanic will alledgedly come put it on today.
We also initiated the costruction of a transom boarding ladder to make getting on the boat from the water easier. The welder seemed determined to no use my design exactly, but should bring me something before too long. I didn't front him any money,so it should be interesting.
Mechanic showed up mid day and proceded to remove the head from the engine. The head gasket looked intact, but the valves in cyl 2 and 3 were pretty coated in carbon, especially no. 2. It only cost about $40 for him to take it to a shop and have the valves ground and the head cleaned, so we went for it. He didn't return that day, so we figured it would be Mon. before we got back on task.

The welder showed up with his version of the ladder, which I confess will probably serve us better than the current method of crawling aboard on your belly like a crocodile.

 

 

I had intended the hinge at the center to bear the load for the lower section when it was in the lowered position, but the welder needed to weld a piece of steel onto it which will drag in the water. I will have to mount it so that it does not stick sown farther than the transom of the boat/

 

The mechanic returned Sun. afternoon to reassemble the engine. When we fired it up, it sounded better, but still not up to par. Disconnecting the injectors revealled the weak link to be #2, as expected due to not much fuel coming from the pump on that line. More discussion led to him removing the injector pump and taking it to the Laboratorio Injection on Monday to have them inspect, clean and possibly repair it. If it is simple, it will cost about $80, and if it is complicated, they won't be able to get the parts, and will just reassemble it and return it. The mechanic is charging $80 to remove it, take it to the laboritorio, retrieve it when done and reinstall it. Seems like a reasonable wager to maybe get the engine back up to snuff.  Either way we should have it back together by Wed., The weather may give us a break on Thurs. and Fri., so if the documentation gets to Ruskin and is overnighted to here by Thurs. we may be able to leave for Ecuador. More icky weather is forecast for the weekend, so we just have to play it by ear.

 

 

 

The Rest of Mexico

We stayed in Zijuatenejo for four nights, did a bit of shopping, fueled up, and generally lazing about. When the first of May showed up, the government and all the banks shut down for May day, and the lead into cinco de mayo began. We headed out for Acapulco on the first breezy afternoon and were rewarded with a nice sail for about 12 hours. We wandered into Acapulco in the middle of the next day. We went into Bahia Puerto Marques, next bay down and anchored close to the new marina project in one of the calmest anchorages to date. No surge reached us at all. The next day a few jet skis and some banana boats showed up, but still a pretty nice spot. We were able to take a taxi from the beach to buy fuel  and groceries. By Friday, it was obvious that the Cinco deMayo frenzy was building, so we opted for a two night passage to Bahias de Huatulco to pass the mayhem at sea. A pretty easy passage brought us into Bahia de Sacrificios right as planned.
We got anchored and Joan went for a swim. Unfortunately, a bunch of jelly fish were already enjoying the clear water, yielding some nasty stings for her. Sigh, one of the last fabled paradises and we can't go in the water.
Moved to the town of Huatulco the next day and filled the fuel tanks again. The only spot to anchor near the fuel dock was pretty packed with fishing boats, so we kept an ear open for bumps in the night as the wind shifted. I got up a couple of times to find us within a boat length of a 40' sport fisher. The next morning I checked the wind foecast and we were lookig at three days of settled weather to cross the dreaded bay of Tehuantepec, famous for howling gales as weather fronts from the north are funneled across the narrow isthmus. A nice breeze came up, beam on, so we sailed along at wind speed in 5 to 7 knots and smooth seas fot the next 20 hours. These were perfect conditions for easy passagemaking, and it was a treat.
We had to motor for the next 24 hrs. As the same light breezes came from dead astern, which is too light to keep the sails filled as we try to move ahead of it.
We got to Puerto Madiera mid morning, and went into the port to find the marina. This marina is too new to be on any charts and they weren't answering the radio. We found an uncharted channel snaking off to the southeast and sure enough, the marina appeared at the end. A guy motioned us to slip, helped us get tied up, and intrduced us to the representatves from the navy, port captain, and customs, along with a german shepherd to come sniff Bob. Quite a production, but very courteous and professional. This is the final frontier with Guatemala about 15 miles south. It's hot, remote, and relatively secure, not too hard to go to town, and a very cheap place to leave the boat. We want to visit the colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas in the mountains for a few days to escape the heat, and head back to the USA for a few months to sort it all out.