Daybreak over Mexico.
Log Book
- Port of departure: Newport Beach, CA
- Departure time: 12:00 pm on Wednesday, December 5
- Port of arrival: Ensenada, MX
- Arrival time: 3:30 pm on Thursday, December 6
- Total travel time: ~27.5 hours
- Nautical miles traveled: ~130 miles
- Engine hours start – end – logged: 856 – 883 – 27
- Gallons of diesel start – end – used: 30 – 19.2 – 10.8
- Weather: The forecast predicted variable winds less than 10 knots, switching to 10 knots from the East at midnight. Wind waves less than two feet and W swell 2-3 feet at 9 seconds. Patchy fog.
I would first like to point out that we MADE IT TO MEXICO! It’s been over three months since we left our home in Portland, OR and we thought we’d be in La Paz by now, but we’ll take what we can get.
Let’s back up to our departure, we’ll get to the arrival part eventually. First things first (after coffee and catching up on the news, of course) we needed to get off of those dang mooring balls in Newport Beach. The rope that connects the two mooring balls (which proved quite helpful when we were tying up) turned out to be a liability as we were leaving. The rope was wrapped around our keel on the starboard side, but wrapped around our rudder on the port side…which basically means that we were pretty well stuck. Either way we turned, the rope was hugging us and we were concerned that the rope might get itself caught on our prop shaft if we were to cross it. In addition, there was a boat to starboard and other boats directly in front of and behind us. Our wonderful friends (and short-time neighbors in Newport Beach) Jerid and Scott came to the rescue in their dinghy. They motored our nose into the channel while Jeff pushed the line with the boat hook deep into the water so that it cleared our rudder.
Once we were clear we headed to the fuel dock to fill up on diesel, then to the pumpout station to get rid of our waste and fill our water tanks. By the time we were all pumped out and filled up it was noon…which was much later than expected (are you sensing a theme?) given that in the best of conditions (making 5 knots) it would take us about 25 hours. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that Tack’s international health certificate was set to expire on the 6th and we had decided to stay in Newport Beach an extra day to tie up some loose ends. Short story, we were cutting it awful close by leaving at noon on the 5th.
The day was uneventful. No wind. We motored. I took a cat nap in the cockpit while Jeff stood watch and the doctor did all the work (HE’S BACK!). With the autopilot fully functional we reacquainted ourselves with boredom. We read. We drank tea. We ate snacks. The usual. We’re still not good at over-nighters (don’t quite have the rhythm down yet), but they don’t make us as nervous as they used to.
Big beautiful sky.
In the middle of the night, during my second (?) watch, the engine reduced its RPMs without provocation (this happened before as we were rounding Conception). I sat there puzzled for a minute (maybe two) when all of the sudden Jeff popped up into the cockpit to inquire about the change in sound. He’s quite attune to the sounds of our engine. We turned the engine off, he fiddled around with it, topped up the antifreeze, and we gave it some time to cool off.
We turned the engine back on and all seemed well until I looked at our GPS and noticed that we were only making 2.5 knots, when we had previously been making 5. I called to Jeff and he came back up. That’s when we started to hear a strange knocking sound. Bummer. We also noticed that quite a lot of water was collecting in the bilge. I peered off of the transom and noticed some seaweed streaming backwards off of the keel? prop shaft? rudder? I couldn’t quite tell. We decided that our problem was likely either caused by seaweed or the packing gland in the prop shaft (the packing gland allows the prop to spin freely while also keeping most of the water out of the boat). Jeff cleared out the quarter berth to check on the packing gland for the prop shaft and ended up replacing it.
While I was busy inspecting the water behind our boat for seaweed, we ended up drifting right on top of a very dense patch of it. If the earlier seaweed I had spotted wasn’t a problem…this seaweed certainly was. I went at it with a boat hook and Jeff went at it with his hands (belly on deck – that’s my man). We fired her back up and she didn’t give us any more hassle for the rest of the trip.
I went to sleep after my second shift (at about 2:00am) when we were just passing San Diego and when I awoke at 5:00am, we were in Mexico. Solidly in Mexico. It was strange to wake up in another country, even though our immediate circumstances hadn’t changed. The wind had picked up during Jeff’s shift, but it was right on our nose, so we just kept on motoring.
Sad flags.
At the beginning of my shift I raised the Mexican flag as well as our quarantine flag (a yellow flag that you fly until you have been cleared by customs). I thought I did a decent job in the dark, until I was able to see my handiwork in the daytime.
Ensenada!
The approach to Ensenada was easy and the channel well marked. As we were entering the port there was a large cargo ship on our tail and two Navy ships waiting eagerly at the entrance. Fortunately they weren’t waiting for us. We had made reservations at Baja Naval since anchoring is no longer allowed in the harbor (as far as I know). I hailed Baja Naval on the radio as Jeff readied the boat for docking. I really pray that there weren’t too many people listening in on VHF Channel 77 because my Spanish is abysmal. Really, truly, abysmal. It went something like this.
You can’t tell from this picture. But that ship was BIG and it was right behind us.
“Baja Naval, Baja Naval, Baja Naval, es barco de vella Serenity. Do you read?” If you speak a lick of Spanish you know there’s a lot wrong with this. First of all, vela (pronounced vey-la) is sailboat not vella (pronounced vey-ya), which I think is equivalent to female facial hair. Second of all, saying Serenity with a spanish accent just makes it sound super dumb (and hoity toity). Thirdly, I ended the transmission in English since I’m not sure how to say “do you read” in Spanish. Add in my sorry attempt at an accent and you get pure, unadulterated embarrassment. But I survived and the gentleman on the other end of the line (Arturo) speaks much better English than I speak Spanish, so it all worked out. They came out and met us at the dock and helped us squeeze into a tiny slip.
So here we are. Finally in Mexico and in dire need of some Spanish lessons. Time to break out our old text books (Jeff actually brought them along), listen to the radio and watch some movies in Spanish.
In case you were wondering, we didn’t make it in time to go through customs. The office of the Port Captain (Capitano de Puerto) closed at 2:30. Stay tuned for the gripping tale of whether our cat’s international health certificate would still be accepted one day late! I know, the suspense was killing us too.