We put out a Pon Pon about 0900 yesterday. We felt unacceptable level of vibration from the power plant for a couple revolutions before Vivien instinctively pulled the kill switch on the Perkins (Which we decided to name Pepe. As in "Pepe da Perkins"). I didn't even have time to yell at her. Everything looked OK inside the boat except for the motion I saw at the back end of the propeller shaft. It was time to dive on the propeller. There was no anchorage near by, seas and wind light. We pulled out the dive gear, dropped sail and at the last minute let everyone in radio range know what was going on.

We were not looking at imminent loss of life or vessel so a May Day was not appropriate. But Joel, the great communicator, did not want someone smashing into Lady Ann while he was under the boat. He also wanted someone near by to help Vivien if needed. Two vessels immediately responded and stood by while I was in the water ~ 5-10 miles North of Punta Arena De La Ventana in Rosario Channel between Isla Cerralvo and La Ventana on the Baja Peninsula. Those boats names are Lucky Day and Sara Jean II.

I hardly needed the dive gear. Once my head was under water I could clearly see that our 3 bladed prop was missing a blade. Yes everyone, I can count to 3. Well unless I get stuck at 2 then I can't count to 3, which is disorienting when you expect to get to 3. You know what I mean. I reported my findings to the Admiral. She was wondering who we were going to get to help us. I knew we were on our own and tried to get my head around where we were going to anchor that night. We heard a strong wind was going to come down the Sea of Cortez so we had planned on getting to La Paz that day. We expected a 10 hour day as it was. Got back on the radio and released the Pon Pon. Lucky Day immediately responded and offered to tow us to La Paz. I swallowed hard and accepted. Both boats rigged bridles and a line was tied between the bridles.

Seven hours later we were in a slip in La Paz. Nine hours later we were eating a fabulous dinner and doing shots of tequila at Bismarck's. Well Vivien wasn't doing shots exactly. But we repeatedly toasted to the health of Lucky Day II, her owners, operators, and anyone even remotely associated with her. We hope you do too. She is a Nordic Tug 52, registered in Carson City, Nevada. Nordic Tug is about the nicest production trawler built. It has a single diesel motor, bow and stern thrusters. All the bells and whistles. Burt knows how to work all the bells and whistles. Big issues were handled without drama. For example, he wanted us along side for better maneuverability to put us in a slip. He put 2 fenders out. They needed no adjusting... none. I'd be moving them up and down, for and aft, and tweaking the spacing between them.... The fairway to the slip was big enough for both boats. We saw Burt or Pete come out every once and a while. We thought they were coming out to see if we were OK. Turns out they were checking to see if we were still there. They report that our 19 gross ton vessel had pretty much no effect on the handling of Lucky Day.

Please remember Burt, Pete, and Lucky Day II in your prayers tonight. They did a huge good deed yesterday. Oh and when you ask a restaurant if they take credit cards in Mexico and they say "Yes", that doesn't necessarily mean they do. We were treating Burt and Pete to dinner and now we have to reimburse them.