Sequitur

For the past few days, the midway for the annual Guaymas Carnival has been setting-up on the malecon directly astern of our slip in the Singlar marina. There were already a few small rides there when we arrived last Tuesday, but the major ones came in and began setting-up on Saturday. Experience tells me that the hoots, hollers and screams from the rides will drown-out the music that has been blasting late into the night.

With the noisemakers setting-up so close to us, this is an appropriate time to continue our journey, so after several days of maintenance and repairs, relaxing and re-stocking, we are heading south to Mazatlan. This next leg of our journey will entail our first overnight passage since we arrived in Cabo San Lucas in early December; we've been a bit spoiled by all the wonderful anchorages on the Baja side.

There are several popular ways to do the passage from Guaymas/San Carlos to Mazatlan, one being to cross back over the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez and hop down that coast to Las Frailes then cross the Sea again to Mazatlan. This entails two or more overnight passages, several day hops, and a total of over 550 miles. A second option is to do an overnight hop 190 miles down the coast to Topolobambo and another similar length hop from there to Mazatlan. A third option is to head out on a non-stop 375 mile passage, directly to Mazatlan, which in good conditions and with an early morning start, could entail only two overnights.

If we hadn't so thoroughly covered the Baja coast on our way up, we might have decided on heading back over to fill in some of the gaps. So we crossed off the first option. We have heard that Hurricane Jimena last September rearranged the bars in the entrance to Topolobambo and throughout the harbour, and that channels are not yet properly marked. Navigation there seems to be rather hit-and-miss. So we crossed off the second option, and began preparing to do the three or four day direct passage.

On Monday afternoon we headed into town past the carnival site and over to Serdan, the main downtown street, and we walked along it to the Santa Fe supermarket. The fresh produce there was outstanding, and it was difficult to restrain ourselves; we have only so much space in the two fridges. The Roma tomatoes were in excellent condition and at 4.99 pesos (about 40 cents) a kilo, they were a real steal, as were the oranges for the same price. We bought them and broccoli, green beans, green peppers, chayote, avocadoes, and some wonderful baby zucchini, among other things. After we crammed our new purchases into the fridges and the pantry, we baked the four loaves of bread Edi had started on Sunday evening. The freezers are now stuffed to bursting with the addition of four new sliced loaves.



Monday evening I prepared the third and final batch of the 'scallops' that feel and taste more like abalone. Each of these I sliced into three steaks, lightly pounded them, then quickly sauteed in garlic and butter, and served them with a mushroom and shrimp gnocchi and grilled baby zucchini. We preferred these to the panko coated ones I had done on Sunday evening.

On Tuesday Edi continued to run loads through the washer/dryer, until there was nothing else we could find to wash. Much of Tuesday afternoon was spent cleaning Sequitur, with Edi working below and me up top. I spent a couple of hours with soap and brush and hose removing salt and dust and bird droppings.

I also scrubbed Sequitur's waterline free of marine growth and noted that next time we haul-out to do the bottom, we need to re-draw the waterline upwards. We are down by the stern, with our current boot-topping being at the waterline aft and only about four centimetres clear of it forward. Without anti fouling protection, we had accumulated a line of weeds along the after half of the hull.

It looks like I can add another two hundred metres of anchor chain forward. With our immersion rate at 332 kilos per centimetre, this additional 460 kilograms in the bow will have a net effect of sinking us another 1.4 centimetres. But with the centre of buoyancy about two-thirds of the way aft, the actual effect should be to raise our stern a just short of a centimetre while lowering the bow nearly three centimetres. Even with this we will still be down very slightly by the stern, and our boot-topping will still be too low. We need to move it up four or five centimetres.



In the early evening, shortly after the screams and music began emanating from carnival grounds, it started raining. It rained more and more heavily as the evening went on, putting a very effective damper on the noise, and we enjoyed a quiet dinner of tarragon chicken breasts with basmati rice and a saute of carrots, baby zucchini and chayote. I cooked two extra breasts and four extra portions of rice to set aside in the fridge for quick and easy meals at sea.

It rained heavily most of Tuesday night. The forecast had shown a major frontal system moving across the entire Baja, the Sea of Cortez and the Mexican Riviera on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving light southerly winds in its wake. The winds were predicted to veer during the night on Wednesday to light westerly, then northwesterly. We decided to wait another day before departing, hoping to find some northwest winds to move us south.

It was still lightly raining on Wednesday afternoon as headed out on a walk around town. Edi continued her search for size 0 knotting needles, again without luck; it seems people don't do fine knitting in this part of Mexico. We worked our way along to Soriana, where we bought more cheese, cream cheese and butter. We also got nearly two kilos of boneless and skinless chicken fillets at 52 pesos the kilo and a little over a kilo and a half of basa fillets at 68 pesos. Good thing they are bulk and fresh; I'll package then into two-serving bags and let them shape themselves into the available nooks and crannies in the freezers.



On the way back we paused on the main street to watch a couple of men doing a rather major cooling system repair on a truck at curbside. They had the radiator out, as well as the water pump, and there were a couple of fans and other sundry pieces lying about. It occurred to me that they would make good boaters, being able to tackle any repair job wherever and whenever needed.

We intend heading out mid-morning tomorrow, Thursday, after we have checked-out from the marina and received our 'travelling papers'. The forecast winds are mostly in the 10 knot range, so our passage will be a bit slow and we'll likely not arrive in Mazatlan before Monday the 8th.