Blog 060 Cruising Again Day 1

Monday morning I waited and waited then finally around mid day I asked Liana to call our boat insurance underwriter. He said he needed the repairs document signed and sent again, so we did. Progress we hoped. Around 5:00 pm I asked Liana to call once more. Were they done reviewing the survey information yet? The response came at 6:00 pm. Yes, you are approved.

Wow, now we were like little kids trying to figure out our next move as we scurried about giddily. We now had approval to go sailing again! It seemed such a long journey we could hardly believe the day had finally come. But… it did not come without consequences. Our insurance now included an additional $2,000 per year for having lithium batteries. What?! To argue now was pointless, we just wanted to go sailing. We had spent a lot of time and money researching pros and cons of lithium. It never occurred to us that they would be an insurance issue. Time to look at other insurance companies.

So our survey was completely acceptable. We called our friends Terry and Dave on Canadian Sunset and told them we can leave tomorrow morning. They were exited too. We agreed to meet at La Calaca restaurant to work out a plan since they were joining us on Silhouette for a week. We decided to untie the lines at 10:00 am in the morning and head to Bahia San Pedro for a shake down cruise. If all was working well we would spend the night then do an overnight sail across the sea to the Baja side the next day.

We had so much to do and now we were scrambling to get extra fresh water onboard since our water-maker was not working quite right and we needed a few more fresh veggies. It may be several days before we get to a place with a little tienda. When we got back to the boat we stowed for sea. I spent an hour in the engine room tying down boxes and putting away tools. The water-maker will be an at-anchor project, which isn’t a bad plan since the harbor water here isn’t the cleanest. When we tested it almost immediately clogged the pre-filters with sticky brown goo.

Everything else was in good shape and we were leaving with 230 gallons of fresh water for four of us for a week. We checked and rechecked everything. We were so excited! It was time for bed – except my mind was spinning with all the things to remember to do. I started listing them out loud and Liana rolled over and said, “Shhh, I’m trying to sleep”. I had a restless night and the morning couldn’t come fast enough.

Morning did come and we woke up around 6:00 am. In time for a quick cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. While Liana was cooking we had one of those events that could have been a comedy skit. The wind came through the hatch and blew into the forward cabin where it was trapped. The smoke alarm screamed, which just means the food was almost done. So she asked me to pull the battery on it. I grabbed the one above the office door (the only one we used to have) and pulled the 9v battery and she’s like, “Will you take care of that!” the alarm was still going on! I was trying to explain that I had pulled the battery. So I pulled out the battery from the new one under the counter. And it was still alarming, and she’s like, “Steve, fix it.” I now have two alarms and two batteries on the counter, and she remembered we just put one in the office too. I went into the office and pulled that one and still the alarm was shrieking at us! Finally, we figured out it was the new unit in the forward cabin. All this took several alarming minutes to figure out and I am the one who got yelled at for it. In her defense it wasn’t even smoky in the kitchen just the forward cabin.

Several smoke alarms later, Liana went to the office to check us out of the marina and get us cleared through the Port Captain in Guaymas. Terry and Dave showed up with back packs and bags just as Liana was coming back with our clearance papers. We had a quick meeting about what needed doing to get out of there. I have to admit the butterflies were definitely fluttering as I was trying to recall each detail I had been thinking during my restless night.

We started the generator and attempted to start the main diesel. It cranked and cranked and then finally came to life and then in a moment or two it died…darn. I went to the engine room to see what was wrong and decided the priming pump needed a few compressions. After a couple more we had it running like normal. We gave it several extra minutes to warm up as we unhooked all the port lines and pulled Silhouette over to the starboard side of the dock. The wind came come up as everyone manned their lines.

We backed out of the slip and hauled in the lines. I watched the bow clear the corner of the dock then tapped the bow thruster to starboard. I can’t believe it! I had an emotional moment…all I could think was, is this really happening? I pushed forward on the gear shift and in a few seconds we pulled into the main channel. We are underway. Wow, the bay was so beautiful as we passed the houses on the cliffs and the boats resting in the anchorage. This time it’s finally Silhouette outbound in the channel under her own power.

Nearly three years ago we had engine troubles and were towed into this very channel by the sport fishing boat, Reel Devil. On deck, Liana and Dave and Terry are all just as happy as me. Everyone was just a little giddy as we rounded the rocks. The swell came up to greet us and we felt the first waves start rolling under our keel with a few sprays of water coming up along the anchors at the bow. I shut the generator down and decided to motor to Bahia San Pedro. The wind was ok for sailing but Omar wanted me to do several hours break-in period to work the diesel. Then he wanted me to do a flashlight inspection of everything because he had torn it down to nearly the block. With all new hoses and gaskets, this sea trial was really to see if Silhouette was back to 100%.

Our run along the coast was so nice. Liana made sandwiches and we enjoyed the dark blue of the sea and clear blue sky. Wind increased as we were nearing the San Pedro inlet. The entrance is marked by a point that protrudes out into the sea similar to Point Loma in San Diego. Now we had some more things to test out. Our brand new Mantus. So Dave & Liana went to the bow and were preparing to drop the new anchor. On our way in we could see a little sailboat tucked into the Northwest corner and four guys on the beach. Right away I could tell it was Evan’s boat. Nice, we had friends here. There was also about a forty foot yellow sailboat anchored behind Evan’s boat.

This bay is a very nice crescent moon shaped sand beach tucked behind a huge round rocky point. Anchoring only had one small hitch. When the anchor dropped and stretched out the chain I backed down hard to set the anchor. The windless started paying out more chain. Oops, Liana forgot to tighten the brake. We put a little more chain out than planned. Other than that, our new anchor set faster and harder than our old Bruce.

We had a few electronic glitches with our new Navionics program and Sena headsets. Just learning how to use all of the functions. Once anchored we all just sat back and baked in the sun. So very happy that things worked so well. The wind whipped up some white caps and we swung around our anchor for several hours until dark when it calmed completely. After dinner we played a few games of Sequence under our cockpit Luci lights. The rocking was so gentle, the dim lights were putting us to sleep. So around 9:30 pm we went off to bed.

I am always a bit nervous the first night at a new anchorage and one of the things we couldn’t get to work was the tracking app. So we weren’t able to see a track of our swing on the chart plotter. Several times during the night I climbed the ladder to take a look around. At 2:00 am the wind came up sharply and kicked on the wind generator. We woke up with a nice charge in our batteries. The sun just crept over the rocky mountain surrounding the bay, young coyote babies howled from shore and the surf rolled over the sandy beach. Silhouette was gently swaying on a flat calm bay.