Course of Uncertainty
Nov 15
Splash day!
5am
Up and out of bed. Coffee and eggs. We work meticulously and are driven by exiting this dust bowl! Ha
Bill takes on interior clean up and whip down while I finish up a couple small projects inside. I make a cutlery holder and set up our GPS navigation to the laptop brought down here in April for the delivery. Interior is wrapped up and cleaned by 8am. We switch to exterior deck and rail cleaning. Top up our non potable tanks (60 litres). We also walk across the street and top up our potable water jugs. Right now we have the capacity of 100 Litres of potable water on The Struggler. This may have to be increased depending on the passages but should be just fine for island hopping now in the Sea of Cortez.
Purchase a Mexican fishing license for $100/year. Purchase another month of data for the phone ($30 for the next month).
We haul up the little dingy Snuggler and lash it down to the foredeck and mast. The kicker and everything else from below the boat are stored and ready to get wet. Last hour is spent washing the hull and exterior. We are booked in for a lift at 10am but they show up at 9:30! Not very Mexican timing of them. jaj With the little to no English, they ensure us to slow down and take our time. They say “You let us know when you want to start” There is no rush here.
They fit the crane over the boat and we move slowing across the dustbowl to the launch. We touch into the water at 10:30. Engine on, thruhulls checked, and forestay is re attached (it had to be disassembled to fit in the 30 ton crane) We notice a small amount of water coming in from the head (toilet) thruhull. Its coming from the actual ball valve right above the thruhull. We hope it will expand and seal up once we get down the line. Theres no way we are turning around now. With a holiday coming up Monday and Tuesday, we wouldn’t be able to get back to the water until Wednesday at best. We give the signal to the buoys and they let go of all 4 docklines! Our friends and neighbours all watch and wave as we glide out of the ramps. In reverse we make it to the outer markers. Only 7 feet deep here! We need 6’ to clear the bottom.
We are waved off and the stress starts to finally lift. The 38 horsepower diesel engine chugs along like an old tractor engine. 1200 rpm seems to vibrate the least.
The excitement hits and we start to finally breath the fresh air. No more dust, only wind and water. We spend the next 1.5 hours navigating through the channel out to the sea. When we are almost out of the channel, a thick fog rolls over the area. We are in some of the worst fog I have seen on a boat… We spent 25 days in the boatyard with no clouds and the first day out we are in little visibility. We keep a close eye as we inch forward at 3 knots. We are going the right direction in the lane when suddenly almost out of nowhere a HUGE tanker appears in front of us like a black shadow against the white wall of smoke. We hold our course to the right and glide by the tanker. The next hour is spent nervously inching along the coastline. Billy sits on the bow on lookout as I also patrol the waters ahead. The next ship we see is a large fishing troller coming from the Sardine factory in Guaymas. The amount of time from seeing him until he glides in front of our bow was around 15-20 seconds making this fog pretty dangerous. We keep a close eye until we are around the southern tip of the peninsula.
The fog suddenly lifts, unveiling a beautiful rugid coast with sun shining down on the rocks and green cactus. I breath in and am very thankful that only lasted 1 hour. We can see the mouth of the bay we plan on staying at tonight but since the weather is now absolutely perfect, we decide to stay out and have a little fun. We calibrate the auto helm and with a few small dial adjustments, the unit is running great. We now have an autopilot that is quite and strong. It holds a perfect course as we unfurl the Genoa and raise the main for the first time on this Struggler sail ‘The Course of Uncertainty’
With both sails up and 8-10 knots of wind on our beam we climb from 4 knots up to a quick flash of 6 knots in smooth, gentle waters. Hundreds fo dolphins race by the boat and pelicans make the dive from far above into the seas. We spend the next hour sailing in great conditions. I knew this boat was slick but I never knew it was going to be so responsive and feels like it balances itself. I think I was getting pretty used to my Tanzer 22’ which doesnt balance. When we have the autohelm off and the sails balanced it almost sails herself. When the autohelm is on, it makes 1-2 small adjustments per minute to hold a course! It’s going to take some time for this to really sink in.
We make our first tack and head back for shore.
The bay we chose for the first night is Catalina Bay and was the same bay we stopped in at on our last night before hauling on in April. Beautiful. When we drop anchor we have traveled 15.5 nautical miles since departing this morning.
We plan on sailing right into the anchorage and dropping the spike but the winds are coming directly from the bow. With larges rocks on both sides, I make the adult decision to drop the sails and use the engine for the last 10 minutes to arrive. har har
We slowly slide into place to a completely empty anchorage. Drop in 12’ of water and let out 70’ of chain just to be sure on or first night. Sails are put away and we crack into our first cervesas at sea. Months in the making.
I finish the first logbook entry and Billy is straight to fishing. He lands 6-7 small rockfish. All released because they were too small to keep and eat.
I make spaghetti.
Dishes in the sea, another brew, and Bulls out cold on the couch at 8pm. What an amatuer.
The winds calm to glassy conditions. I stroll up the mast for a full moon shot. Hey moon what’s your middle name? Is it April or June?
“If she floated in April, she should float today”
-Hal from Australia (encouraging us at launch)
Nov 16
5am
Coffee and sunrise up on deck.
Billy keeps bringing in these spotted sand bass from the bottom. Keeps a few to use as bait today for the sail up to San Carlos. Our first real sail will be 12nm straight into the wind. This mornings weather forecasts shows increasing Northerlies throughout the day straight on our nose. 15 knots max. Could be a day of tacking but that doesn’t bother me much.
I lift the anchor, lay it out on the deck to dry, and raise the sails. We flip around 180 degrees and slowly build top speed sailing out of the bay with no engine. One of my most favourite things.
We slowly creep out of the bay and around the west coast of the lower part of Guaymas. Almost no wind until it slowly builds up and we are moving along at 5 knots. The day is spent tacking back and forth, up and down. The prediction was bang on and go figure, the winds are on our nose. We reef the Genoa slightly when we start healing over a fair bit and water is splashing on the deck. I the end, our 12nm run turns into 21.5nm. Seen the speedo flash 7 knots today. It wont win any races but we didnt enter any. We fire up the engine and drop the sails at 16:10. Traffic flows in and out of the San Carlos bay entrance like a buzzing honeypot. Make it all the way though the anchorage and find a place at the very bottom of the bay. We drop the spike in 12 feet of water and hold strong on sand bottom. 60 feet of chain out. Bill caught a nice Spanish Mackerel on the sail up so he marinates it and sends to the charcoal BBQ. We now lay below the mountain called Cerro Tetakawi (Boobie mountain) and the beautiful skies and scenery undress. We plan on resting here and finishing some of the random jobs on the boat we didn’t get done in the dustbowl. Also plan on hiking the mountain early this week. The locals say you can get right to the very tip top.
Decompress as the winds ease and the boat settles into a slow roll that knocks you out.
“We didn’t even hit one single land mass on the way here”
-Billy H
I’ll call her the STRUGGLER
This moment, years in the making.
I once sailed to Tasmania, Australia and hiked into a derelict lighthouse on an uninhabited island off the East coast north of Hobart. Once inside, I made my way up a rickety staircase to the top where the light was still lit. A bit of a small museum feeling to the small, low lit room. Baby blue paint on the walls that faded to almost white, peeling from the wood paneling. I noticed a black poster on the wall in the dark corner titled “100 Shipwrecks of Tasmania”
I zoomed in and the first shipwreck I seen was ‘The Struggler’
A 40’ cutter rigged sloop sank in 1855 in this very bay where the lighthouse sits.
Nov 17-20
I must say. Once the hook was set in San Carlos we switched to another leg of this trip. One of my original goals was to launch the Struggler from Guaymas and sail to San Carlos to decompress for a few nights. Our leg 2 of this trip is now behind us and the next next one is for sailing.
We wake up, have coffee. And start working on the boat on the water. No pressure No timeline.
We have fixed the saltwater foot pump under the sink, climbed Mount Cerro Tetakawi, hand sewn multiple projects, re installed the dodger that traveled back to Canada for a new vinyl window, worked on electrical, set up a satellite tracker for live Struggler tracking, and got our composure back after a month in the bowl.
Now it’s starting to all make sense.
“There’s freedom on the waterline”
