It is often said in the sailing community that a sailors plans are written in sand at low tide. This could not be more true as we make plans to leave the marina and set sail. We anticipated many challenges when we decided to embark on our full-time cruising adventure in a foreign country. However, adapting to our new environment has been even more daunting than we expected. The language barrier has been our most significant hurdle. Although Tyler and I made earnest efforts to learn some Spanish before leaving Washington, nothing could fully prepare us for the reality of living in a country where we struggle to read, write, or understand the language. Every day we learn more about ourselves, our boat, and our new environment. Perhaps the most significant lesson is that of flexibility in an ever-changing adventure.
A Sailor’s Plans…
With Liahona ready for our first major voyage, it was time to provision, find a weather window, and set sail. Our plan is to depart from Guaymas, cross the Sea of Cortez, and head south along the Baja Peninsula. From there, we’ll cross back over to Mazatlán and continue down the Pacific Coast of Mexico. This cruising itinerary is highly recommended by cruising guides and experienced cruisers for this region of Mexico to capitalize on the annual weather patterns and sea conditions. If everything goes as planned, we will return to Guaymas in late spring to haul Liahona out of the water and secure her for the summer before hurricane season begins in June.
The Sea of Cortez is known for its northerly winds that sweep down from the southwestern United States during winter. These cold, strong winds can exceed 30 knots, creating rough sea conditions. It has been strongly suggested that if we want to fully enjoy the wonders of the Sea of Cortez, we should leave before December when the northerlies begin to increase in intensity and frequency. With December fast approaching and all our essential tasks completed, we focused on a very favorable window to cross over to the Baja. We are anxious to head south especially with northerlies increasing and the temperature cooling significantly. Our final major task was provisioning.
Provisioning was quite the experience. Our first trip to the supermercado, or shopping market, had me in tears—literally. Guaymas is not an expat town, and my English shopping list was practically useless in a store that was entirely in Spanish and drastically different from our familiar supermarkets back home. This stressful experience taught me the valuable lesson of writing my shopping list in the local language before embarking on such a task. Preparing for several months’ worth of provisions made the task all the more overwhelming. Tyler, however, was incredible, using a translator app on his phone to help identify and locate items on my extensive five-page list. Thankfully, we had our vehicle, making the journey back to the marina with our provisions more manageable.
We carted bag after bag of provisions down the dock and loaded them onto the boat. With Liahona’s ample stowage, we had no problem finding a location for everything with room to spare. Her waterline may have dropped by an inch, but she is built for it and we will not starve.
…are Written…
With the weather window holding for a comfortable anticipated 17-hour crossing. We departed Guaymas and headed to Catalina Cove to stage for a 2 am departure. Excitement was high as we said goodbye to our dock neighbors. We grabbed a few last hugs and waved goodbye. Escorting us were our good friends, Ed and Finese, on their 38-foot Leopard catamaran, Good Day. They were also anxious to leave but had a few more obligations before they could set out.
The trip to Catalina had virtually no wind so we motored with smooth seas and set anchor. After setting at anchor for a couple of hours we decided to move anchorage to give a little more room to the sea cliff that may turn into a lee shore with the predicted wind shifts. With more room between us and the rocky shore and cliff, we relaxed on Liahona, double-checked the weather, finalized our course on the chart plotter, set up our safety lines, and turned the salon settee into a comfortable bed for the off-watch crew.
Unable to sleep I decided to sit in the cockpit and watch for fishing pangas. These modest-sized open fishing boats are plentiful off the shores of Mexico and often local fishermen use them to lay nets at night that they collect in the morning with their catch. The nets can create quite an obstacle course for sailboats trying to avoid catching one of their nets and potentially damaging the propeller.
Excited, I woke Tyler at 1:30 am to ready for departure. We reviewed the plan one last time with Tyler who reassured me that I would be okay at the helm and encouraged me to trust the radar detector. Honestly, I was freaking out at the whole idea of navigating in the moonless pitch-black night. My biggest fear was running into a fishing panga or net since they do not show up on AIS (automatic identification system) and I lacked confidence in my ability to navigate by Radar. Once sufficiently reassured, I turned on the engine did our regular checks and Tyler made his way to the bow with his headlamp emitting a familiar red luminance.
…in sand…
After several minutes it became evident that something wasn’t going as planned. Tyler was hunched over the anchor locker messing with something I couldn’t make out. One thing was for certain, he was not giving me our typical hand signals to indicate the direction to turn or power the helm to ease the bow into the correct position to reduce strain on the anchor chain. Am I missing his signals I began to wonder? The illumination of the red headlamp wasn’t particularly bright. Perhaps, I need to pop my head out the to covered cockpit. Nope, he just looked back and shook his head.
As he made his way back to the helm he looked obviously distressed as he announced the windlass was not working. What does this mean I wonder? I understand that the windlass is the electrical winch that lets out and brings in the chain that is connected to the anchor, but is there an alternative? It isn’t good, but how will this affect our plans? With our previous 25-foot sailboat I manually put out the anchor, but the anchor was much smaller and it was attached to the boat with a rope, not a chain. I can’t image doing it on Liahona.
I quickly pulled out the windlass owner’s manual and Nigel Calder’s Boatowners mechanical and electrical manual and we began troubleshooting without success. In desperation, Tyler reached out to Bret, the previous owner, on the off chance we were missing something. After a couple of hours, we abandoned our hope of departure and decided to get a few hours of sleep and wait for daylight.
After much-needed sleep and the light of day to illuminate the anchor windlass. Tyler removed the outer panel covering the windlass box containing the windlass motor and electrical connections and discovered one wire was burned and the motor was significantly corroded. Ed on Good Day dinghied over with extra wire to replace the burned red wire and Tyler replaced the badly charred wire in an attempt to repair the windlass. This proved useless, the windlass refused to start.
Once we deemed the hour reasonable we reached out to Jesús, our marine electrician, and spent 2 hours on the phone troubleshooting the issue. Walking us through some diagnostics he determined that there was a considerable voltage drop from 12.5 to 7 amps at the wire to the windlass requiring further assessment in person. Disappointed we had to abandon the hope of crossing to the Baja and return to the marina for repair. Without a slip at the marina, we chose to stay at anchor until the marina manager could secure us a slip to reduce the number of times we would have to manually deploy and retrieve our heavy ground tackle (anchor and chain).
…at low tide.
After only one more night in Catalina we confirmed a temporary slip, Tyler manually pulled up 100 feet of chain and our 55lb rocna anchor and we returned to marina hopeful Jesús would be able to repair our windlass. Unfortunately, Jesús’ news was not so encouraging. It appears the wire that runs from the starter battery at the back of the boat to the windlass at the bow was a copper-wielding wire that had a serious break in the outer casing due to aging. Bare exposed copper wire with signs of corrosion most likely caused the windlass motor to burn out.
The wire was enclosed in a teak-covered conduit to prevent inadvertent damage, but it also concealed the degrading wire casing, preventing identification of the issue on routine inspection. The windlass motor was not operational and most likely needed replacing. This will not be an easy fix. I wrote down a list of items that Jesús said would be needed to make the windlass operational again. The first thing we would need to do is remove the windlass motor to see if it could be rebuilt or if it would need to be replaced with a new one.
Time for a New Plan
Learning to change plans and embrace our lifestyle of uncertainty is by no means easy. Our disappointment in learning we have a mechanical problem that will keep us marina-bound longer is difficult to put into words. Suffice it to say we are discouraged. This is where cruising in a foreign country once again presents challenges. Mexico has incredibly skilled craftsmen and labor, but supplies and parts required for marine repair are often difficult if not impossible to find, and not simple to import. Desperate many cruisers find creative methods for getting what they need and frequently travel to the U.S. to retrieve much-needed parts and bring them back to their boats in Mexico. At any rate, this project was going to take time and will be no doubt expensive. In addition to the logistical challenges of acquiring the parts we need, labor will be difficult to get in December. December is a month filled with holiday family celebrations and festivities starting with Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe on the 12th followed by Las Posadas starting on the 16th to the traditional 24th, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and finally Dia de los Santos Inocentes on the 28th. Of course, Mexico also celebrates the tradition of New Years. If the windlass project is not finished before these celebrations, it is unlikely to get it done before January.
