Cruising in the Sea of Cortez: SailBlogs

La Paz to Escondido, Cold

Phyllis — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:39:50 -0600

This trip up from La Paz has been the longest in our history. Loads of northerly winds, so lots of days of sitting and waiting out the weather. We spent almost a week at Bahia San Fransico, which is a terrific anchorage when the weather is warm enough to swim, but this time Gary got in once to work on the bottom, and it took a number of hot toddies to warm him up. We did try and get up the San Jose channel one morning when the bay looked smooth as glass, but we didn't even make it to Everisto before we were burying the bow in the waves, so not having a heavy schedule we turned around and returned to the anchorage for a couple of more days.
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Batteries

Phyllis — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:11:50 -0600

We spent a glorious month up in the frozen north of Canada, and arrived back in Escondido, to a battery bank that said 10.5!! EEks, Now I know very little about batteries, but even to me that sounds pretty horrible. Considering that we have 4 large solar panels as well as a wind generator, I must admit that I was puzzled, but batteries aren't my strong suit so I didn't pay too much attention when we were leaving for the north. But according to Gary, we, and I repeat he did say WE, left the engine room light on, (obviously my favorite place to hang out!) which caused a drain, because he had turned off most of the solar stuff so that it didn't overcharge the batteries while we were gone. Well, that wasn't a big success, but Gary was hoping that he could do a revival, and get them back up.
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In hot water about no hot water

Gary Stratton — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:43:07 -0600

The Sea of Cortes in summer is hot, sometimes between 100 and 110 F during the day. The water temperature climbs up into the low 90's. Since the fresh water in the tanks of Apolima matches the temperature of the sea water, showering with water at ambient sea water temperature is pleasant from about June to early October. The rest of the year I get complaints about the ice water coming out of the shower head.
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