After reuniting with Pat in Mag Bay after the Storm of the Century we rested a bit and decided to hit the road once again. I mean venture forth upon the high seas.

Early in the morning we raised our anchors and in tandem with Paxil motored off towards Cabo. The weather was to be calm and flat with little wind. This 200 mile trip would be a cakwalk. And it was for Pat. I on the other hand had no sooner left the bay than a horrible clanking sound emitted from the transmission area. I leapt to the helm and turned the motor off. I was not exactly clear of the point exiting the bay so up went all the sails and I began to sail back towards Turtle Bay while I researched the CLUNK!

In order to reach the transmission I must navigate my way through the lazarette a french word that I think means "the place where you throw all the junk you do not know where to stow away properly"
It is about 4ft deep and I started pulliing out equipment, line, line, bbq, dinghy oars, spare dinghy oars, three buckets of stuff, a spare anchor, garden hose, electric cord and boat covers. Finally just before reaching China I was able to access the engine room compartment.

Over the years I have leasrned how to contort my fat little tummy and muscular thighs into a position that allowed me to enter the HOLE. I have spent many hours in the HOLE working on various systems. Today I completed the contortion and entered the HOLE to look at the transmission. All seemed to be well but I could not turn the shaft by hand which meant somthing probably wrapped it self around the shaft and that coused the transmission to pop out of gear. A few turns on the shaft and I appeared to have cleared whatever it was. Crisis averted and I continued on my way.

It seems like I am a Drama Queen. Always something going wrong at the wrong time.

Anyway the rest of the day and night were uneventful if you consider a beautiful hot, still day on calm seas with long ocean swells sliding beneath my keel. I had time to take a shower from a bucket of salt water (84 degrees, felt like 50 degrees) with a fresh water rinse. I felt like a million bucks. Even started my tan.

That evening I started to smell a faint acrid odor in the cabin and after checking the engine and electrical found no issues. In the morning the smell was too strong to ignore and I tore open the battery compartment. Smoke was pouring off number 2 battery and acid was sloshing around in the catch basins. The batteries were in essence about to catch fire and would have burned the boat to the waterline. I turned off the engine and sat in the cockpit in stunned silence. What now? The new alternator I had put in poured too much juice into the batteries and now I was not able to run the motor. I was drifting in a flat calm sea 50 miles away from Cabo. For about twenty minutes I maintained my stunned silence then decided to start working on a plan to get going. I figured once the batteries cooled down they would be okay and if I motored slowly not much current would flow to them. So I started motoring at about 2 knts. I would be in Cabo 24 hrs from now. I also decided to add water to the batteries since most had been boiled away. Slowly things got back to normal and I constantly monitored their tempature. I sped up a little to 4knots. Things looked good.

I got a little wind and sailed for about an hour then continued to motor toward the Cape. Capes are unpredictable and weird things happen around them. After all the flat calm I finally got wind near Cabo Falso right next to Cabo San Lucas. Oh Yea, only 8 miles to go and wind! Oh No, the wind was right on the nose and building. I was forced to sail away from Cabo San Lucas in 25 knts of wind and building seas. Normally I would sail a couple of hours and tack back to my destination, however, the wind gods played a trick on me and the wind started turning left preventing me from my normal tack. Seven Hours later I arrive in Cabo San Lucas.
What should have taken an hour and a half turned into seven. I was never so happy to get into an anchorage that night (except for every other place I have anchored).

The anchorage is right on the beach which is lined with restaurants and bars. I could hear 4 different types of music and saw at least one Foklorico show.

That was just the first night.