On the Sea Again
04 December 2008 | Isla Iabella/San Blas/Chacala
Gabriellas grandpa
I left Mazatlan after a nice, but too long of a stay. Thanksgiving dinner was quite nice and it felt good to do something with a meaning. I worked most of the time I was there by carving and serving the turkey. 180 people and 10 turkeys..whew, I'm tired. Pulled out of the marina at noon and headed for Isla Isabella to get some shots of the blue-footed boobies and some underwater pics of my art work on the boat. Arrived at daybreak and quickly set my hook(anchor) in a patch of sand. I wanted to double check the setting of the hook so I decided to go diving right away. I put on my new shorty and the dive rig my son got for me and went over the side. First off, I did'nt have enough weight to let me go down, so I had to push off the boat and work my fins like crazy to get down. I took a few pics of Gabrielllas name on the bottom of the boat and then decided to grab my anchor chain to check out the setting of the hook. Sure enough, it was wrapped around a rock and the anchor itself was just laying on its side and could not penetrate the hard shale or sand covered rock. There was'nt much wind, but the seas were lumpy and uncomfortable, so I decided to weigh anchor and set off for San Blas. I could always get the pics of the birds on the way back north. As I'm pulling up the anchor I try to pull the boat ahead to unwrap from the rock. With the action from the lumpy seas, my anchor chain dug into the bow roller and chewed it up. Then I finally got the anchor almost all the way up and the lumpy seas caused my anchor to hit my bow and punch a nice little chunk into it. So off to San Blas licking my wounds. I get into Matanchen Bay wich is the outer anchorage at San Blas and drop my hook and let the noise of the engine drain from my body. The next morning I go and start the engine so I can motor into the San Blas estuary and I decided to check my exhaust water flow(which I only do once in awhile) and there was NO water coming out. Here we go again with the raw water pump. I take the pump off and check it out to find nothing wrong with it. So I'm thinking my heat exchanger is shot and start trouble shooting the cause. Evidently I did'nt check the pump good enough because I later checked it out again and found the impeller was slipping off its metal housing. So I put on one of my backups and bingo, I'm back in business. Now I don't want to go in the estuary at San Blas, so I take off for Chacala. A nice 4 hour motor-boat ride and I pull into Chacala with only one other boat. Chacala is so laid back and peaceful for me. The whole tropical look is so inviting and the food is good at the palapas. I give my business to Las Brisas palapa because not only is the food good but I get free internet from their beach palapa. I don't have to lug my laptop ashore and set it up in a internet cafe. I go to visit my good Canadien friends Jan and Wolf in Lo De Marcos tomorrow. I will take the bus to get there and then they will drive me back. They are about 15 miles down the coast. Then Saturday I should move on to Banderas Bay and La Cruz De Huanacastle. The blog pic is for you Bryan. I will try to post a few more pics in the gallery.