Having been up to Bahia San Pedro once to put half the 20 necessary break-in hours on our engine the time had come for us to repeat the endeavor. The plan was to go up to Pedro and then maybe make our way up to Las Cocinas before returning to San Carlos to do the final valve adjustment and oil change required prior to being permitted to run the engine at full speed.


All the spare parts our used head came with are visible here with the exception of the 2 injectors which were away being serviced at the time. surprisingly the cat knocked none of them over. These parts might come in handy for the next owner, if we need them we're giving the boat away ;)

We departed San Carlos in the morning around 0800 and had another perfect departure. I pushed a button and up fired the motor, I pushed another buttom and up came the anchor, I flipped a lever and pushed a button and the autopilot was steering us. Our goals of effortless boring passagemaking were starting to seem achievable. We dug out an awning Kristina made while we were in La Paz that we never had the time to figure out how to rig and got it up over the cockpit keeping the sun off our heads.


Kristina Luxuriating with the cat while the autopilot steeres and the awning shades.

I decided it was time to push the envelope on good times aboard Estrella and asked Kristina to deploy our new cockpit table. Prior to acquiring this bad boy we had to set our food and beverages on the cockpit seats, not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. Now we have a large cockpit table that fits so perfectly it could have been original equipment. I went below and busted out the flour, eggs, butter and milk in an attempt to produce a nice pancake breakfast for us to feast upon under our new awning on our new cockpit table.


Cockpit table, awning, autopilot, working engine, flat seas, hooray.

The first two pancakes were small so I made "Mickey Mouse" pancakes while Kristina luxuriated in the shady cockpit and scanned the horizon for debris. Just as I was starting to prepare breakfast I got a call on the VHF from Gemini. They were right behind us and headed to Pedro as well. Les informed me that they were going to hug the coast and we watched as they motored at 8.4 knots along the coast as we were ambling along happily at 4.5 well offshore. Les warned me that he had heard reports of large chunks of debris being spotted by mariners in the area. Evidently the debris field from Hurricane Jimena was still having an impact on the waters, we were warned to keep a sharp eye out for refrigerators, furniture and even floating concrete dock segments.


Dont even need to use our spanking new cupholders, its calm enough to use the table like civilized people.


Time to dig in.

Fortunately for us we encountered none of those hazards and had our breakfast dished stowed before we hit the 15 knot headwind on the final approach to San Pedro bay. Kristina didnt want to hoist the mainsail because it was so nicely flaked and covered and she feared she would be saddled with restowing it when we arrived so we unrolled our new turbo charged genoa and tacked upwind into San Pedro. It was actual sailing and despite being upwind was a lot of fun. We tried to tack using the autopilot tacking feature and discovered that some of the spacers that keep the wheel drum aligned had fallen out and attempting a 100 degree course change causes the belt to come off the wheel. Not a big deal by any means but its on the list of things to fix more permanently when we return. When we got to Pedro we were immediately hailed by Gemini and invited over for pork taco lunch.


Motor-sail/tacking our way into San Pedro, K didnt want me to take the mainsail cover off so we just used the new turbo Genoa. Note the reefing dots Tony added to the jib for easy reference. Fun times.

We made the foolish decision to tow our dinghy the whole way and htat little headwind reminded us that we need to be more dilligent about stowing the dinghy on deck when we go out sailing. I was a bit worried to find that the outboard was barely attached to the transom when we arrived. Lesson learned.

Once we had the hook down we motored right over to Gemini and had a delightful lunch with them. We heard all about their boat and previous adventures and regaled them with some of our experiences. A great time was had by all and we departed making plans to meet up further north later in the season.

The following morning we awoke to a completely deserted anchorage. We were all alone for the first time since we got back. It was nice. Then a stormy cell came trucking up the sea and bring southwesterly swell into the bay and strong onshore winds.

We got to enjoy our electric windlass and working motor again as we pushed two out of three of our new favorite buttons. The engine didnt move us into the wind too well at just 1800 RPM but we didnt want to violate the break in period and just took our time getting the anchor up. We left the double reefed mizzen riding sail up as we motored across the wind. It was immediately evident that we wouldnt have enough power to turn up into the wind so I got a chance to test the strength of our new giant anchor roller.

I fed out chain until we had enough scope out and stopped the windlass and as usual the chain came to an almost immediate stop and all the weight of the boat was pinned to the side of the long roller arm. This would be where it should snap off or bend but it worked great. Remember thinking that it was almost as if there was a big metal eye anchored to the earth's core and we had clamped onto it. We immediately sprung around and were lying to the wind. I fed the snubber on and put our load on it instead of the chain. Sadly this spot was also quite rolly. Waves were breaking the length of the beach but we were in no danger. Life was a bit uncomfortable but Kristina had developed a persistant headache and was averse to the concept of going further away from San Carlos to seek shlter 14 miles to the north in the more protected Las Concinas anchorage.

We debated the merits all day and by the time she was feelin better it was already 5:30 and we were losing daylight. She wanted to pull up the hook and try to return to San Carlos. We figured it doesnt hurt to keep testing the systems and we pulled up the hook. As we motored into the swell at the entrance to the bay it was evident we wouldnt be making any real speed toward San Carlos. The wind was completely dead and we were pounding into steep swell that we would find out later on the sideband was being generated all the way offshore of cabo by Tropical Storm Marty. We were averaging around 1 knot and rather than motor for 12 hours to arrive in San Carlos at 0500 we could just endure the rolling in Pedro and go back.

Overnight the swells laid down and we enjoyed a more peaceful evening in the anchorage.

The following morning we had an easy motor back to San Carlos and immediately contacted Omar our mechanic to have him come help with the valve adjustment and alignment check. He was busy for the next few days so we worked on other projects in the meantime. Kristina finished batting her cushions and finalized that long term project. The cushions look great. I helped rebuild an outboard motor in exchange for the space for Kristina's batting project so we saved some money there.


Kristina happily batting while trying to dodge the mozzies.


I'm not doing my job holding that flashlight because I'm taking a picture. I assure you despite how this looks, its batting cushions, in a way.


Luxurious new cabin cushions. Kristina's first real sewing job.


These cushions actually look better in real life than they do in these terrible hasty pictures.


Another bad picture of a good cushion.

Once Omar came out and helped check the valve adjustment and the alignment we were ready to go test the motor at full power. We invited Tony, our favorite sailmaker to come out on a daysail with us and he agreed. We picked Tony up at the fuel dock and left our dinghy with them while we went out. We drove the motor to full throttle and found that we could only get 2500 rpms. The motor is supposed to product 2800 rpms under load and anything less than that would point to a prop pitch problem. We used to be able to hit 2800 under load so I was doubtful we needed to repitch our prop so we assumed there must be some growth on it or something. We had a delightful sail upwind with the reacher in 7 knots of wind. Tony insisted we fly all three sails as he doesnt neccesarily buy my theory that the mizzen is entirely superfluous. We didnt shake our my riding sail double reef and he was able to get some lee helm out of the reacher.

I remained skeptical since I find our helm issues happen in bigger wind and its easy to make Estrella behave in less than 10 knots. The following day we dove the hull and found some growth on the prop. We cleaned the bottom of the hull and Kristina scraped all the growth off of the propeller. Tony came back out the following afternoon and this time we actually sorted out the dinghy harness and hauled it on deck stowed the motor on the new motor mount on the new cockpit rail. The autopilot is a bit out of whack and wont tack the boat for us so another project was born. Make permanent spacers to keep the wheel pilot hub aligned with the wheel pilot motor. We drove the motor at maximum RPMs again and we still were restricted to 2500 rpms. We drove the motor hard for 45 minutes and discovered that she was overheating. It wasnt a quick process but heat was getting excessive. Once we backed off the throttle the temp started to normalize.

Otherwise we had another idyllic daysail. Initially we had close to 13 knots of apparent wind when we were sailing into it and Tony questioned my theory that we needed to unfurl the reacher to get maximum power. I think he wasnt accustomed to fat full keelers because he expressed surprise when Estrella heeled slightly and then dug in. He said he thought for sure the reacher would put us on her ear but shes a fat girl and she likes a press of canvas. On the downwind run the wind got light but with Tony's expert guidance we were able to get Estrella reaching off 7 knots of true wind at a maximum speed of 5.6 knots. We got to sort out the right place to run a barber hauler for the reacher to flatten out the leech and get her foot flatter to produce a better more spinnaker-like downwind sail shape. Tony lost his hat when we tried to gybe the reacher with his help and it was far too dark to find in the choppy seas. On the way back into the harbor Tony got excited and thought that maybe we could power up and break 6 knots but we ran out of wind before that dream could be achieved. No problemo, we just sailed in as far as we could and then with ease and one hand rolled in the mighty reacher and fired up the motor with the touch of a button. Dropping the main into the lazy jacks was another effortless task and mere minutes later we had the sail tied down, sail cover on and with some more button pushing the anchor down and set.

As the sun set on that daysail we were all smiling ear to ear and the biggest calamity we experienced was the unfortunate loss of Tony's hat. We rarely drink and I had purchased some beers to feed our buddy who was supposed to come fix our autopilot so after we splashed the dinghy we all settled into the cockpit to enjoy some well earned ice cold Pacificos in the twighlight.

At present our whole plan entails trying to resolve a couple minor autopilot adjustment issues and the engine overheating issue. Once we manage that we will head out on a shake down prior to finally heading south.