Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta
15 February 2015 | Puerto Vallarta
mac
2/9/2015--2/11/2015
PASSAGE FROM MAZALTLAN TO PUERTO VALLARTA
We left about :1000 on Monday 2/9 before the dredge closed the passage out between :1000 and :1400. Loaded 95 gallons of diesel, our first fill this season. The first night was great. Full Moon; no wind of course, but we were able to stay about ½ mile outside all the dozens of fishing boats working up and down the coast without any problem. We had collected horror stories about Unmarked, unlighted long buoyed lines hundreds of feet in length just waiting to foul your prop.
Through the day and into the night, we decided to sail. The wind was light between 5 and 11knts, so we were only making 3-4 knots, max. This changed our arrival time from "mid-day" or "uncertain". But who cares; that night the ¾ moon rose bright orange; the stars were so numerous and bright that with the moon you could almost read; the fishing boats were at a distance appearing to be lazy fire flies on the perfect summer night. It was in the mid-70s with a cooling breeze. The wind vane was steering us perfectly. And there was no "noise" from the engine. This was a truly gorgeous night. You and your boat; a small speck folded into the universe. God's great creation moving at Nature's pace pulling us along. No crowds, no phones, no crisis to be solved, no deadlines, no schedule...I think we have made it.
[ On a less spiritual level: At night, the electronics are real energy hogs without any incoming power from the engine or solar panels or a wind generator (we don't have one of these) charging the batteries. You can almost see the battery bank draining.
Everyone finds a different solution to this problem. Our solution is to use the "hydrovane" (a mechanical steering device with a little fixed sail on top and a small rudder in the water fitted on the stern and mechanical brains in between that, when properly set, steer the boat) which allows us to turn off the powered auto pilot and conserve our power through the night for Radar and AIS and the Chartplotter( more energy hogs). We also use a Watt&Sea hydrogenerator (a rudder-like device with a prop on the end that spins to generate power under sail).]
We traveled all the way to Isla Isabela in a spiritual bliss. Then we entered an open bay containing San Blas and countless other little villages. It is probably more of a continuing coast line between Mazatlan and PV (Banderas Bay). This is where the locals were hiding all their long lines. Oh joy! All through this day we kept a constant watch for the buoys marking the lines. Sometimes the buoy was a real one maybe 12" long or a gallon milk bottle or just a plastic 16 oz coke bottle. But at all times is was very difficult to see them; it would be impossible at night.
This area was about 40 miles across; skirting the coastline would make it twice as long. We had 200 feet of water beneath us and were about 20 miles off the coast. We tried moving inland a bit to find shallower water but no matter where we went the depth was 200 feet so that wasn't going to work.
Finally, we just sucked it up and threated our way through the lines. We found that if we could spot two buoys and cross the fish line in between them we then cleared the line. One panga was kind enough to come over to show us how they used a fixed lead weight on the line (1/4 inch polypropolene) between buoys to sink the line several feet so that boats could cross. Great in theory; nightmare in reality. Diving down to cut away line on a fouled prop can take several hours. Not a chance we wanted to take. So we made our way slowly through more than maybe 50 of these lines throughout the day. They would vary in distance from 200 feet to half a mile apart. The lines seemed to run perpendicular from the shore. That is, until they would start drifting. So we would cruise along at 4-5 knts; see a line but the engine in neutral; drift over the line; make sure we hadn't fouled it; then engage the engine again. We did this over and over again all day.
On a more interesting note, we lots of wild life: sea turtles floating on the surface sunning themselves; whales without concern for the lines; and once Wendy reported seeing "some animal stick its head out of the water and it had tusks".
We were going to run out of daylight before we got to turn the distant point into Banderas Bay. Wendy found a nearby, little cove in the village of Chacala about 42 nm from PV. When I say "nearby" I mean 18 miles and 3 hours motoring away. We arrived at :1630 and anchored with 5 other boats. No socializing tonight. Between my extended "blissful night" at the helm and running into the lines during the day. I was running on empty.
2/11/2015
Wednesday :0930 Left Chacala for PV 42 nm
Arrived in Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta on Banderas Bay about :1900 at dusk. Good Sail and Motor/sail at times. They left keys for us with security. Heavy rocking at the intransit dock but a good night's sleep just the same. Our small paper charts had insufficient detail for round the point into the 20 nm bay and our chartplotter charts dropped out just before this trip. My mistake, I thought it stopped AT PV not BEFORE. Like old times, we tracked the depth and shadowed a Formosa 50 around the point.
Met Susan and Keith on Ce La Vie. Susan volunteered to have Keith give us an overview of the next leg to the Marquesas Is.; they have done it more than once and ran the radio net the last time. We'll see how Keith feels about tutoring a newbie with lots of questions.
2/12/2015--2/15/2015 Thursday-Sunday
Moved to our permanent slip-E-8. Getting hot and humid. Shade cloth went up. Wendy's making arrangements to fly back to Bellingham to see family and complete the final process for sending for and receiving back our Visas for French Polynesia. Neighbors are Steve and Katherine on the Triton (US) and Angus on Seren Sea (BC). Steve had planned on doing the Puddle but has had enough fitting headaches to put it off for a year and reduce the stress. Angus sold his big boat and now has one here and in BC.
I saw Wendy off on the bus for the airport Friday afternoon after a marathon of laundry and instructions for tax work with our CPA when she arrives to our other home. Our housesitting daughter has decided that her/our home needs a hottub installed. It's good to see that she can now soak away those dancer's muscles and business owners headaches. I bet Casey will like it too.
I'm working on the electronics now. They are working fine, but the operator still needs quite a bit of training. Today I think I mastered sending and receiving email by Single Side Band Radio (hereinafter SSB). Mastering may be a strong word but as Dale would say "I got her done". As much art as science, finding a good propagation to some station in the world that was open to receiving my email and posting the radio signal to a digital signal on to the internet. I'm not sure altogether how it works, BUT it worked today. That leaves Grib files and Weatherfaxes to go. Our two bare bones satellite systems, InReach and IridiumGo, that are financially limited (by us) to short email messages have been working fine.
Next comes installing the last two fans and continuing to read "manuals" as I batch it until Ciro arrives to join me on 2/18.