We arrive in the Cabo Tres Puntas anchorage (Guatemala) at 6:30am. We could continue onto Livingston, another 2 hours, to check in then continue up the Rio Dulce. It's Thursday morning. We easily could be secured in our hurricane season marina by early afternoon, meeting the suggested arrival timing. However we had several serious engine, electronics and electrical issues on the passage and Jerry wants to do a through systems check before we motor up the narrow, winding canyon of the Rio Dulce. This will take several hours. Livingston is a terrible anchorage and we don't want to stop at all in Belize, so Cabo Tres Puntas is the best choice. Besides we could use a rest after 3 nights and 2 days of 3- & 4-hour watch shifts.

When Jerry, Mona & Paul went for a day-sail the newly installed wind instrument failed but came back on-line 10 minutes later. This intermittent failure happened in each watch period until Wednesday morning when it failed at a quarter to 8am and didn't come back online until the entire navigation instrument system was rebooted twice. Not having wind direction nor speed during the day is workable, at night, not so much especially when there are thunderstorms and squalls in the area. Even after the reboot, the helm navigation instruments failed to show the wind data for 10 minute intervals on subsequent watches. Wind instrument failure? Communication / connection issue? Display issue? Power issue? Something else? More questions than answers.

Speaking of communication, we discover the charging station for the remote VHF radio at the helm has no power when the remote unit beeps then turns off. Dead battery. The helm is on top of the aft cockpit, and the radios are in the main salon. It's not possible to hear the main radio at the helm. The charging station in the master suite works fine so between charging sessions, we use a (separate) portable VHF. Fine for short distances, not so great if we need to contact another vessel to discuss passing or anti-collision heading adjustments.

Another unhappy discovery: the electric winch switch set that runs the winch for the genny furling line, mainsheet traveler line and main sheet (it gets a lot of work) gets stuck in the on position when pushed (toe button). Not good! The rubber switch cover went to pieces, perhaps a small bit holds the switch on. We clear away the bits around the switch and for this passage will use a finger to press the switch until the rubber cover is replaced. We do have manual winch handles but that's too much work...electric winches rule!

To the passage:
Night 1: From Isla Mujeres to abeam Puerto Morelos we motor-sailed along in excellent conditions. Night fell, a dark moon-less night, when there, we hit the 3 kt adverse current. Instant washing machine seas: steep short-period waves, eddies turning the boat this way and that. The autopilot switched off but thankfully re-engaged once I manually steered the boat for a few minutes to get her pointed in the correct direction. (Note to self: transit this area southbound in daylight.) The confused seas diminished after an hour or so; however when you're only going 3 kts, not much distance is being covered. The seas became more manageable as we got closer to San Miguel, Cozumel, however the adverse 3 kt current didn't ease up until south of the isla.

Night 2: During Jerry's 8p-11p watch, the battery warning light on the starboard engine panel starts blinking. This usually means that engine is no longer charging the cranking batteries. Jerry says: as long as the light is blinking, not solid red, we'll continue as is. If it turns solid red, turn off the starboard engine. So this is the start of my 11p-2a watch and we're just abeam the north end of Banco Chinchorro. The passage track is plotted several km off the atoll outline on the chart plotter through waypoints we'd used when we stopped there while transiting northbound a couple of years previous. However the route we took on that trip gave the atoll wide berth between those waypoints, much farther off than we are traveling when I took the helm. Hmm, why was that... did we see something that caused us to be extra wary or were we sailing this track was to keep the wind? I cannot remember. What I do see is breaking waves over both bows plus breaking waves on our port beam. I cannot see anything else, another black moon-less night at that point. I decide to give us a safety buffer and adjust course, not to match the track of our pervious transit because we're on a run, but a km buffer. At that moment a wave breaks over the beam high enough to splash the bench seat next to me - mind you the helm is 10 ft above the water. I don't get splashed however something heavy and wet and slimy lands on my lap. Not on the deck, not on the helm steps, not on the seat that is newly wet. On My Lap. A large, fat, flying fish. It is not unusual of us to discover (dead) flying fish on the decks and trampoline after a passage, presumably carried there by waves breaking over the bows; this is the first to land at the helm station, and easily twice the size of the others we've "caught". Safety buffer decision confirmed! Note: we continue to have an adverse current in the 2 kt range, and did not get lee-side relief from the prevailing seas.

At the 8am watch change, after temporarily getting the wind instruments back, Jerry decides to do a visual wellness check on the engines even though we're still in open water. Going behind the lifelines in reef-protected water is preferred while underway however there are still several more hours before we'll gain protection from Turneffe atoll and then several more until we're behind the Belize reefs via the shipping channel. We back both engines to idle. Jerry goes in and confirms all sounds and smells are normal but one v-belt needs to be tightened, which he does. That non-conclusive, he wants to do an additional test and to do so he needs to shut one engine off, then the other. The helm engine control is non-responsive. He goes to the salon helm station where there's a secondary engine console, it is also non-responsive; neither engine will shut off. For many reasons this is disturbing, one of which is without engine electronics, there will be no trouble lights should a critical issue arise. Another engine rooms check. Nothing points to the core issue. I continue watch while Jerry does additional systems checks; he finds a problem, both engine batteries are dead. This is strange as both were charged when we departed. He cross-wires one of the engine batteries with the house battery bank and wha-la, engine controls. Why and how this happened needs to be further investigated but with this knowledge and the temporary fix of not turning off the engines until we're anchored keeps us moving.

Night 3: My 8p-11p watch is coming to an end when we're abeam Placencia. Having been in and out of that anchorage several times we have lots of tracks to follow. Jerry wants to follow the one that takes us directly to Tres Puntas; this means that from our current track, shortly after bypassing Placencia Town, a turn to starboard to cut between a large off-shore lighted shoal and Placencia's small reef and shoals. The chart plotter shows the cut clearly with plenty of water between. Upon arrival, there are lots of entrance markers - blinking greens and reds - marking an entrance that should be farther south. Plus there's a green buoy closest to us, presumably marking the edge of the offshore shoal, which is not on the map. Hmmm.. I know entrance markers; red right returning and all that so I turn toward the cut, placing the green buoy so that I'll pass it port-side. This is the moment the chart plotter turns black. It just turns off. Sh__! I immediately switch to manual steering, swing the boat around, sails be dammed, to move away from all shallows. The genny is flapping away, the main sail is gybing. Not good for the sails but I can't worry about that at the moment. My first concern is to return to a recent location where there's sufficient water under the keels and then figure out exactly where I am. The chart plotter thankfully reboots when I hit the power button. The map is just appearing when Jerry comes up for the 11p-2a watch. I quickly tell him what just happened & where; we move further back into the inner channel to get reoriented and the genny furled. It's Jerry's helm now; oriented and with his iPad navigation program running as a backup, he decides to back up a bit in order to follow one of our tracks toward an anchorage waypoint where he can then pick up the intended track. Entrance buoys are blinking away all around us but Jerry has confidence in our tracks, and we do safely transit the area. We used to have two chart plotters at the helm, Raymarine & Garmin, but when we switched most everything over to Garmin, we didn't think about the redundancy lost. In future passages, we'll have the iPad at the helm as backup.

But hey, other than this, the passage was quite pleasant.

Nap, coffee & breakfast done, Jerry starts his investigations. Both engines are in good shape; no issues there. The genset turns on, no problems; Jerry uses the battery charger to fully charge both cranking batteries. One was reluctant at first but finally accepted a charge. Both engines start and turn off from the helm. More wiring and electronics checks, all ok. No smoking gun.