Navigating Life...

This is a screen shot of a nautical chart of our current location and part of our route back home. The GPS we use with our computer is a GlobalSat BT-328, on the left, below. It uses Bluetooth wireless to connect to our MacBook Pro  laptop and establishes our position within about 20 feet. It costs less than $50 on the internet and has worked flawlessly for us for years.

When you use it with Google Earth, you get something like this, which puts us in our temporary slip at Marina de la Paz. 

Google Earth requires an internet connection, of course, and that's rare when underway, so navigation charts are used. Also, they tell you about things like water depth, so you don't run aground (like oil tankers) and they're much more compact so you you can keep all the world's waterways on a laptop, available wherever you are (mostly). If you don't have a chart, then you're really exploring.

So, where's the challenge, you say? Well, if somebody sinks their boat in a waterway, and the wreck isn't on your chart, then there's a good chance you'll run into it and share its fate. There's also logs, whales, and partially sunken (but floating just below the surface) shipping containers that have fallen off ships. It's estimated that there's tens of thousands of those out there. And there's weather.

Actually, the list of potential hazards runs so long, there's not room or time here to list them all, but that's also true of any human undertaking.

I had a good friend who was killed in his race car, on the race track. He died doing what he loved, so where's the sadness in that?

I suppose he could have sat in his rocking chair, safe and sound, until his doctor gave him the bad news. Many people do. It's not wrong, but to me, sad. 

For me, the real joy of this trip is sharing it with the 1st Mate (who has lots of ideas on how to have fun) and the two mongrels we brought along. Joy, unshared, loses its lustre.

Arriving in Baja

Painting with the camera.

For me, doing subtle compositions is easier with photography than a canvas. Faster, too.

It seems that I can express powerful images better with a paint brush, but fine grain monochromatic stuff is better left alone there. Maybe I don't have the patience for it, more likely though, is I want my paintings to say more not less, and to say it louder. It's very easy to overdo a painting. With the camera, you get what you get.

These photos were taken as we arrived on the Baja side after 48 hours at sea. We left Mazatlan on Wednesday morning and decided to sail north of La Paz to the islands there (Isla Partida and Isla Espiritu Santos) for their beautiful turquoise waters and quiet restful anchorages. Unfortunately, we were assailed by a local weather phenomenon called "corumels." Sudden high gusting winds, disturbing our sleep. I was worried that the anchor might might slip… but it held just fine. The morning dawned with a 22 to 25 knot southerly and one of our boat fenders had gone missing. Right now we're plowing through a steep choppy sea toward the La Paz boat channel, still another 17 miles away. Slow progress against this southerly.

The 1st Mate has lost her appetite and says she is comforting the dogs up in the V-berth. The dogs, however, say different.

Cruiser's plans are written in sand...

Mazatlan

And some will add, "at low tide" but that doesn't rhyme worth a damn, and if art isn't important, what is? We originally had planned to leave this morning, but when I checked the weather, something had popped up. Actually, two things (so far).

Hurricane Alex moved over northeastern Mexico and started pulling air from the Pacific Ocean. The spillover across the Baja peninsula was creating high winds and seas off the coast and up into the Sea of Cortez. Stuff that would overpower our autopilot and force me to hand steer for 36 hours through dangerous seas. Postpone the trip. Maybe to Tuesday.

Last night, the 1st Mate made chicken mole on rice and I washed the dishes... and I discovered that the light over the galley sink wasn't working. It was a leakage of electrons, I learned today, inside the wiring in the engine room, which adjoins the galley. Armed with a light, I entered the engine room and while there, found that the fuel line from the deck fill to the tank had a problem.

Evidently, the hose clamp had loosened, allowing diesel to seep around the fitting on the tank, attacking the exposed insides of the hose where it rested against the tank. The material of the hose had turned into a black, greasy, sticky substance that can only be removed by petroleum distillates or (lucky for me) automotive hand cleaner. Also lucky for me, the gunk hadn't entered the tank, which would have clogged up the diesel engine in a hurry. Loosening two other hose clamps enabled me to pull out the hose for the 1st Mate's camera.

We'll locate a replacement hose somewhere and look for the next show stopper. But since we can't do anything about the weather, we'll try to take it easy and enjoy the "time off."

So, what do you do in summer?

Used to be, in summer, I'd put away the raingear but I'd keep out the coats, sweaters and sweat pants. The reason was the Humboldt Current flowing along the Northern California coast, where we lived. The prevailing northwesterlies would blow over this cold upwelling of water just before they hit land and the resulting climate was cold and rainless. I won't say dry. The Pacific Ocean, driven by these winds, would pound against the rocky, redwood strewn shore and spindrift would be caught in the winds and thrown against anything standing in it's way. Icicles of salt would form on automobiles... an oceanic blessing for body shop owners. And it was cold, hardly ever reaching over 65 degrees in the hottest part of the year. It rained in the winter and the rain was warmer than the air, it seemed. Summer was a colder, drier version.

The 1st Mate and I were the night managers for a romantic getaway, called Seacliff on the Bluff in Gualala, California and we lived above the lobby. Their website is here, and if the weather gets to be too hot for you, make a reservation. There are sixteen rooms in four separate buildings overlooking the Pacific, and each room has a tv, a king bed, a redwood deck, shower, two person jacuzzi, a fridge with complimentary champagne (or fizzy apple cider, your choice), gas fireplace with ceramic logs and no telephones. The gray whales roam along this coast and stop and rub their large bodies against the sandy bottom just before the surfline at Gualala. They're just 15 to 20 yards offshore. Amazing to watch.

But we left Gualala in 2005 to live in Mexico, and summers have never been the same (thank God!).

In a few days, we'll be driving to Mazatlan from San Carlos to prepare our sailboat BLISS for a trip to the Baja and the Sea of Cortez before crossing back over to San Carlos. At five miles an hour, it will take us a couple of weeks. And the temperatures will be close to double those of distant summers in the north.
This year we're taking a window-sized air conditioner and using our quiet little Honda eu2000i generator to power the ac. Tearing down the carburetor I discovered this in the gas bowl. Pink colored salt crystals. The coloring is dye they use in the gas, the crystals found their way into the gasoline somehow. I suspect the daily heating and cooling of the gas can, which sucks salty air into the jerry jug at night.

Sailing with an air conditioner is grand, by the way. The sea water is still below 90 degrees and will help when the air temps get over 110.

Belay That...

belay |biˈlā|verb [ trans. ]1 fix (a running rope) around a cleat, pin, rock, or other object, to secure it.• secure (a mountaineer) in this way : he belayed his partner across the ice| [ intrans. ] it is possible to belay here.2 [usu. in imperative ] Nautical slang stop; enough! : “Belay that, mister. Man your post.”

I've had experience with addictions, and one feature of the addict's landscape is that after a length of time in recovery, the horror of addiction and toxic living doesn't seem so bad after all. For the unsuspecting, the unexperienced or the uneducated it leads back to another round of temporary joy, then indulgence, misery, wreckage, loss and finally if one is lucky, recovery. If unlucky, death, imprisonment, permanent disability, and/or complete poverty.

Nothing to mess with.


"My name is Jim. I'm a boataholic...."
Is my relationship with boats the same thing as an addiction to say, drugs or alcohol? I don't know. Though I find that after several months ashore, living in relative comfort, with an abundance of all the things not provided while aboard (unlimited food and fresh water, electric power, space, security, stability, companionship, communication, tools and equipment, easy and fast transportation, replacement parts, professional assistance, entertainment, medical help and supplies, etc), I want to go sailing.


Boating is expensive, and I attenuate the costs by doing most of my own work. It enables me to understand the systems that I might have to repair while underway. And repairing those things without anything on that long list in the preceding paragraph.

It has made me competent in a number of things, and has illuminated my shortcomings. (The repair of electronics and things that require welding and/or machining go to the shop.) I also do my own installations and I have completely rewired BLISS and will rewire her again now that I know a few more things... It's more work than I want to do though. It seems that the ratio between enjoyment of the vessel and the work to keep her fully functional has shifted out of balance. Way out of balance.

It's my fault. Rather than accept the limitations imposed by the nature of sailing a small yacht, I have added a lot things that I thought would make life aboard more pleasurable. I've increased the load on the electrical system with all my gadgets that I now need to have 500 pounds of batteries, a backup generator, fancy regulators and meters, inverters (convert battery voltage to household current), solar panels and wind generators (and their structures) and miles of additional wiring throughout the boat. All this stuff wears out or breaks down and costs money to fix or replace, and all of it requires my time and labor to install and uninstall, to run it out to a repair shop or sit down with my tools and soldering gun and an internet connection to find the repair info if I can't figure it out myself.

Gone is the serenity and happy-go-lucky joy of my first boat.


I'm reminded of a time I spent with my brother back in Pennsylvania in the early 70s. He was buying high quality surplus electrical cords with a good standard grounded plug on one end and some obsolete, funny connection on the other. He would take a hatchet and chop off the obsolete connector and then sell the perfectly functional cord to a company that needed them for a 300% markup. He called it de-manufacturing.


I need to apply that same logic here.


There may still be joy left in the old girl yet, after I wipe off all the make-up and lipstick, and remove the implants and tummy-tucks.

boats for sale by owner

I've been back in San Carlos almost a month now. Mostly doing Honey-Dew lists and recovering from the battering I got from the sea and self-important Port Captains. Later this month, when all the parts have come in to make SV Bliss seaworthy again and the winds are into their southerly weather pattern. the 1st Mate and I and our two dogonauts will drive back to Mazatlan.

The plan: Sail across the sea to LaPaz and spend some quality time in the 1st Mate's favorite city, then some time kayaking around Isla Partida and the turquoise water there. Make our way up along the Baja coast doing a string of day sails and then cross at Sta Rosalia to San Carlos. I'll take the bus back to get the car.

We'll haul the boat, paint it, fix what needs to be fixed, finish what needs to be finished and put the boat on the market. We bought BLISS on St. Pat's Day in 1994, and we've had a pretty good run. So this will be our last cruise on BLISS. The work/fun, money/adventure equation is no longer working, so it's time to let go.

Me? I'm tired of being bounced around in a seaway, losing sleep and spending money. If I want to go on a cruise, I'll call Royal Caribbean or Princess (but not Disney... I'm not good with other people's kids) and join the thousands of non-captains on the sea.

What does this mean for the Green Flash?
It means I'm looking for someone to take the baton.

Landed!!

After what seems like forever, I'm parked in an outdoor cafe (Calypso Coffee) overlooking Marina Mazatlan, listening to piped in reggae and sipping a limonada (made without a single, solitary limon) and watching Sergio wash down my boat.

This is the moment I've dreamed of for weeks (except for the limonada and reggae, that is) while I lurched and pounded my way upwind through some pretty disgusting seas, and some really rolly windy anchorages. My cruising days are almost over. I really should have waited until later in the season to bring it north, it would have been faster and easier.

A surprise at the anchorage at Jaltemba Bay
... free auto accessories.

It's even uglier from this side of the boat.

I was able to shake it loose in a few minutes, though.

On Sunday, the 1st Mate is driving the Nissan Quest down from San Carlos with Sophie and Chica. We'll spend four days or so having some fun in Mazatlan. If we're lucky, we'll take care of some car issues with the Nissan (install new front struts, check on the engine light, steering and alignment) at either the Ford or Nissan dealership. (The Nissan Quest is simultaneously known as the Mercury Villager, both having been built in a US Ford factory).

I was able to get a great wifi signal 3 miles

out from this little beach house along the coast.

Then we'll leave the boat in Mazatlan (I've purchased a new bilge switch here for a good price) and probably sail up to San Carlos in June, haul it out, paint it, correct a few minor problems and put it on the market with 10 gazillion other boats. Maybe we could just make the boat and the business a package deal... sell a lifestyle, not just a business. A fantastic deal for a forty-something with a house payment, a boring job, and some people and computer skills. Sell the house and do this. Work part-time for 5 months of the year from Mexico, spend the rest cruising the coast and Sea of Cortez. (End of commercial message....)

Imagine the life... (please direct your friends with

disposable income to this blog. Thank you.)