Change of plans....

On the 10th of January, Don, our boat broker from San Carlos Yachts, came to our dock to take pictures of Notre Isle. He took a total of 95 pictures! He raved about her and said that she’s the best Rafiki ’37 he’s seen! He was also very surprised in what good shape the teak decks were in (probably because Rick and I totally redid the decks ourselves when she was back in Point Richmond…what a headache that was)!

After Don left, we finished getting the boat ready for dry storage, took down the sails and lines and put them down below, along with the dodger, dinghy and everything else that would get damaged in the summer sun, wind and rain! Rick put all the aluminum foil back on the inside of the portholes to keep the sun from damaging the inside of the boat.

Notre Isle ready to go.

Thursday the 11th, Rick checked the weather, as he has been doing religiously daily, and we discussed our sailing plans with our friends, Margie and Chuck on S/V Dreamcatcher. Together we concluded that Saturday the 13th, leaving at the crack of dawn, would be the best time to take off. Margie and Chuck were also in a hurry to get to where the water is warmer for swimming and snorkeling, so they wanted to take a straight shot to Mazatlan, stopping in Topolobompo like we did. It all sounded great to me! Our friend Peter on S/V Jugete also planned to leave San Carlos but he was heading to La Paz, stopping in Loreto on his way. Even though he was headed across the Sea of Cortez and we were just going straight down, we would at least all be able to follow each other for a bit and and also be in radio range for a while.

Notre Isle was hauled and moved straight to the dry storage the next day on Friday at 7:00 a.m. After she was dropped off we gave her one more last look, plugged up the thru-hulls and left the boat yard.  Next we got busy getting ready for our 3 day journey to Mazatlan on Solastra. I went to the Ley market, Walmart and to Sam’s in Guaymas for provisions. I made up 3 days worth of snacks (carrot sticks, celery sticks, apple slices, grapes, hard boiled eggs, cheese sticks, salami, chicken legs, breasts & wings, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, almonds, saltine crackers and pretzels, 7up, Gatorade and bottled waters and put them in an ice chest to keep in the cockpit so neither of us would have to go down below when we were underway (less chance of getting seasick). Rick got the boat all ready to go, tied on jacklines, filled our water tanks and checked on the engine and made sure everything was in working order. We dropped our car off at Ed & Dorothy’s Storage place and got a ride back to the Marina from Radolpho (the manager) in his red VW Bug. We checked out of the Marina and got our paperwork squared away. Everything was coming together and we were ready and raring to go! We said our goodbyes to all our friends on the dock and got to bed early that night. 

Notre Isle, 7a.m. waiting to be hauled

Rick helping to guide the boat onto the tractor

Notre Isle on her way to Dry Storage. :(

Saturday the 12th, the alarm went off at 5:00a.m. It was still dark and a bit chilly out and we were both feeling a little sleepy, but we forced ourselves out of bed, got dressed, ate breakfast, walked Harley and prepared the boat for sailing. We radio’d Peter around 6:30 just after we turned our motor on to let him know we were ready. He motored over right near our slip and off we went out of the Marina. Just as we exited the Marina entrance passing through the anchorage, the sun was just starting to come up. It was a beautiful sight! All of that anticipation of starting our adventure had finally arrived! S/V Dreamcatcher, who had been anchored in the anchorage, was not far behind us. The three of us were all leaving together, checking in on the radio periodically. Not too soon after leaving, Rick decided to turn on the Autopilot. Uh oh…It wasn’t working. It was turning the boat the total opposite direction that we wanted to go. He tried all kinds of things to get it to work. Nothing was working. So we threw our hands up and accepted the fact that we would be hand steering for the next three days straight. No fun, but things could be worse. There wasn’t much wind out so sailing was out of the question, we just motored at about 6-7 knots. The water was so sparkly and clear with a slight swell pushing us along, the sun was out, sky was blue and we were feeling relaxed and happy. Rick was hoping for more wind so we could sail so we didn’t have to listen to the sound of the motor running but other than that everything was great!

Peter on Jugete

Heading off before sunrise

Sunrise!

Captain Rick

We still were checking in with Dreamcatcher and Jugete, everyone was doing great. About 40 miles into the trip,  I went down below to take a little nap (if we had to hand steer during the night as well, I felt I needed to rest up so I could be as alert as possible on my watch). Shortly after I fell asleep, Rick runs down the companionway stairs and takes out the floorboards frantically where the engine room was. Things got really loud! I jumped up and asked if everything was OK. For some reason, I thought he said that everything WAS OK. I guess I was still half asleep because as soon as I laid back down, Rick shouted at me to go up top and steer! I quickly sat up, and asked what was going on and he exclaimed, “THE MOTOR IS OVERHEATING”!  It had gone from 130 degrees to 220 degrees. Yikes! I ran up the stairs and got behind the wheel to steer while Rick was in the engine room trying to figure out what was going on. He ended up turning off the engine and we just bobbed around. He came up from down below and said, "we can’t use the engine anymore". I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I asked him softly…with a lump in my throat, on the verge of tears, “we have no motor?” He said, “yes”. For a split second, I felt like crying but I didn’t because I knew Rick would have a plan to get us out of this jam. But I was a little worried about when it got dark and not being able to get out of the way of some of the big ships. And feeling a little worried if the wind and waves would push us onto shore! Anyway,  we bobbed around for a while in 3-5’ swells coming every 5 seconds. No wind in sight. Still couldn’t sail. I got on the radio to Margie and told her our predicament. She and Chuck tried to troubleshoot and offer advice. Rick had tried and checked all of the things they had suggested already. We also talked to Peter on Jugete to let him know what was going on. He offered a little bit of advice too….again, checking things that Rick had already thought of. But what was really nice is that Peter offered to turn around and come to our rescue if needed. We turned him down and told him to have a safe trip to La Paz and we’d keep him posted. So as we sat there for about an hour, me trying to point the boat away from land and Rick still down in the engine room, the wind came up. It started slowly ramping up to about 11 knots. We put up our sails (a double reefed main and a full jib) and decided to head back to the barn (San Carlos). We first considered sailing downwind towards Mazatlan, but then what? That’s a long time to be without a motor and to try to get into the Marina without one. San Carlos seemed like the best idea and we could be there by midnight at the rate we were going. So we sailed towards San Carlos, tacking several times zigging and zagging our way back. Also during this time, we noticed our fridge and freezer were not working. All of our food would be ruined!

In the afternoon the winds picked up to about 18/19 knots, we were making good time…going about 6 knots. After the sun went down the winds really picked up along with the swells, that seemed to grow bigger.  Windspeed was 24 knots and our bow was crashing straight into the waves coming our direction, throwing the splash of the waves right back into the cockpit. Brrrr….it was getting colder as well. I had on long pants, a fleece, a down jacket and another jacket on top of that. Rick was donning two jackets as well…which is rare for him to bundle up! He’s usually in shorts, a t-shirt  and flip flops rain or shine.

Sunset on our way back to San Carlos

About 16 hours from when we first took off, we made it back through the channel entrance to the marina and fortunately our slip was still open, which is a straight shot from the anchorage. AND…our neighbor, Al, who just so happened to be walking on the dock saw us and ran over to help grab our dock lines and guide  us in! Rick was able to use the motor to get us into our slip at the last minute (it had cooled enough that it would be safe to turn it on). First words out of Al's mouth was, “How was Mazatlan”? HAHA…. He was being funny! We laughed, not so much because of what he said, but more just as a release from such a tense and stressful day. And…we were safe! 

This is our track from our InReach (far right track was from this last trip). Thanks to our friend Brenda who took a screenshot to show our crazy course and emailed it to me the next day.

Needless to say we were pretty tired, climbed in bed and went right to sleep. The next day, all of our dock buddies would stop by throughout the morning to find out what had happened and to offer their advice. We appreciated it for the most part, but it began to wear on Rick after a while. He just wanted to start working on all that was wrong. 

Rick and I later had to sit down and figure out a new game plan. What did we want to do? Did we just want to put a band aid on all the things not working and continue on our sailing adventure or really go to town and fix all that was not working as it should. We decided to postpone our sailing adventure for a month to two months and have the engine completely gone through, put in a new fridge and freezer unit, fix the autopilot (just needs some fine tuning and expert advice from Jesus who originally helped us put in the new unit before we left), AND…since we will have to haul the boat out we plan to take off the teak decks and replacing with Nonskid. (We love our teak decks..the look...the feel of them, but there are a few leaks in the boat and some soft spots at the bow and the teak is   a pain to maintain)! We also plan to sand the toe-rails and paint them with topside paint. We saw a boat, S/V Meridian on our dock that has painted it's toe-rails instead of varnished or cetoled, and it looks gorgeous! So we have our work cut out for us! 

Rick the contortionist, working on the engine.

Harley not quite sure what is going on

We hope to have Solastra hauled next week over at Marina Real and moved to the work yard. We are having Arturo who works out of Marina Real, to help us with the project! Arturo comes highly recommended by several other people who have had their teak decks removed. He also gave us a bid for half of what they were going to charge us in Mazatlan (where we got a bid last season). Arturo cannot start working until two weeks from now and then the process can take anywhere from 3-4 weeks. So we will be in San Carlos for a while. That is ok with us. We figured we'd do it all now, so next season, we will not have to waste our time fixing stuff. There will always be things to repair, always…it’s a boat! But nothing that should stop us dead in our tracks. We may be able to squeeze in a month and a half of sailing before our Visa’s expire and we have to head back to South Dakota. 

Marina entrance at Marina Real

Since it is not the best of living conditions to be living on the boat while under construction and once in the boat yard (which is against the rules at Marina Real anyway) we have found a place to live in the meantime, Condominios Dorado, which is right on the water and a couple of blocks from Marina San Carlos. We considered staying at Posada del Desierto again where we stayed when we first arrived in San Carlos when we were getting the boat ready, but we stumbled across an even nicer place which is right on the water and actually will cost us less due to the monthly rate discount. Furthermore, I figured since we have to postpone our sailing trip and spend most of our time at the boat yard working, I figured we could reward ourselves with a nicer place to stay…one that feels a little more like we are on vacation other than just working. The place is very spacious overlooking a swimming pool and beyond that, the Sea of Cortez. It is fully furnished with a kingsize bedroom, living room, full kitchen and bathroom. It is decorated in an old world Mexican theme. Very charming! Having a kitchen is a real plus! It will save us money on eating out all the time. 

"Lucky" the cat. A tenant at the Dorado Condominium

View from our room. Harley dying to jump in the water!

Directly below our room looking to the right

View looking to the left

Looking up into our room from the pool down below.

Morning at the Dorado Condominiums

Harley asking permission to go swimming.

El Pollo Lopez (one whole chicken and lots of veggies will be 3 nights meals)

Chile Relleno from Las Capitanas! Best I've ever had!

At the moment, Rick is working feverishly on removing the fridge and freezer, cleaning and painting and starting the installation of a new system. It’s going to be great! Harley and I are back at the condominium. She is resting by the window overlooking the pool, and I am working on the blog. 

Stay tuned for adventures in the boatyard.