S/V Mandolin Mazatlan 4/12/99

San Diego, CA to La Paz, Mexico (Triumph)

Sunrise on the outside of Baja California

December 30,1999

Ellen: We finally leave San Diego today. Our first stop is Ensenada, Baja California. Our exit from San Diego at midnight is uneventful as is our 9 hour passage to Ensenada. We arrive in Ensenada with glassy seas.

11am and we are anchored. It's now time to check into Mexico. We go to Marina Baja Naval after getting a recommendation from another cruiser. We are able to tie our dinghy to their dock and use their showers for $5US a day. They also help us get our check in/check out paperwork organized. It's New Year's Eve tomorrow and then the weekend during which time the Port Captain's office and Immigration will be closed. We want to be checked in and out today so we can leave Saturday, New Year's Day.

Thanks to Baja Naval, we have all the right documents and the appropriate copies of each. We visit Imigracion, El Banco, and El Capitania del Puerto and just sqeak under the 2pm closing time deadline.

In the course of all this, we run into our friends, Tom and Mary Ellen, on Aphrodite. As much as we want to spend all afternoon chatting, it's definitely time for a nap after some mediocre, overpriced, tourist fish tacos.

New Year's Eve was a mello evening aboard Triumph. None of us felt like going into town and acting crazy. I was wondering if I would make it to midnight. There was a big party in town and we could hear the announcer calling "Treinta Minutos Mas!" (thirty minutes more). At midnight, fireworks were set off from all over town. Some were organized shows and many were simply set off from many private homes. They lit up the sky while we kissed and shouted in the new year. It was a very nice Millenium Dress Rehersal. If events happen according to plan, we should be in New Zealand for the turn of the Millenium.

January 5, 2000

Todd: After stops at Isla San Martin, San Quintin and Isla San Jeranimo we arrive in Turtle Bay. It is a warm nice day so we take a walk into town. At the hotel we find cold beers and juice. Later in the day Hollis and I take the dingy over to another beach and walk Maggie around some. She is very excited about beaches.

We are able to get 50 gallons of fuel from Ernesto for 75 dollars delivered to the boat.

0230 1/8/2000

Paula is taking her first night watch by herself. All is going well until smoke is smelled coming out of the engine room. Hollis is up in a flash and has us take the boat out of gear. It turns out the transmission has overheated. Hollis gets a bad burn when he checks the fluid and it boils out on to his hand. So it looks like we will be sailing for a while. Ellen and I get the sails up and the boat moving again. This time much slower than we were going. Under power we are able to average at least 8 knots, sometimes up to 9. Under sail we are doing 2 knots with up to 4 when the wind is really blowing. Of course when we are putting up the main I loose my footing and crash into the mast with my back so I will be sore for a while. Away we sail quietly into the night.

0800 1/8/2000

Hollis changes the transmission fluid and we restart the motor. The transmission is making a grinding sound so we shut everything down. We suspect that a bearing is going bad so we are saving it for when we really need to motor when anchoring or going into a slip.

1230 1/8/2000

During the amatuer radio net known as the Manana net I am able to get in touch with a station in Eureka, CA who is able to send Tim a message that we will be delayed getting into Cabo San Lucas. Tim is a close friend there who has been tracking our progress down the coast. We are hopeful that he can arrange someone to tow us the last bit into Cabo as the winds are typically light around the cape.

1730 1/8/2000

I am woken out of bed by an excited Ellen. We have a fish on the line. Hollis is reeling it in and when the Dorado is almost to the boat a shark jumps out of the water after our fish and bites the tail off. We start reeling in again and the shark takes another bite and dives. Finally we are able to get the front half of a beautiful Dorado aboard. While I have heard stories about sharks taking bites out of fish this is the first time I have seen it happen. Quite exciting. After filleting as best we could Ellen and I enjoyed some sushimi while we put the rest on the BBQ.

0050 1/9/2000

As expected the wind slowed way down at 2200 this evening so we are now ghosting along at 1.5 knots. Fortunately we are pretty well aligned with the swells so the motion isn't too bad. We are keeping our fingers crossed as the autopilot makes a strange grinding noise every so often. Hopefully it isn't serious.

1100 1/9/2000

Ellen: Well you haven't lived until you are soapy in the shower about to do your final rinse and the water runs out. No, not the HOT water runs out, ALL the water ceases to flow from the shower head. After whimpering to Todd and then sitting soapy, wet and cool waiting for water to appear for about 20 minutes, I decide we have bigger problems than the fact that I'm soapy. I towel off, get dressed and go back to bed for a nap and a sulk before my 1300 watch.

1300 1/9/2000

When I emerge, Hollis is still working on the pressure water system, we have NO wind, and the boat is turned 180 degrees from out course. However, a slight puff of wind has appeared so Paula and I pull out and backwind the jibsail to turn the boat around. We get the boat on course and eventually the wind fills and we are moving at 3 knots. Hurray!

1430 1/9/2000

We've been creeping along under sail for about 36 hours and Hollis is ready to pull his hair out. Only, his hair is really short, so he decided to try starting the engine again. No immediate grinding sounds... He decides to run it in idle, which pushes the boat at 4 knots, and see how long it will last. We check the transmission every 15 minutes and then every half hour, but it never overheats.

1100 1/11/2000

Well, the transmission never did overheat again. We motorsailed between 4-5 knots for the last two night and we have arrived in Cabo. Halleluia! The marina had a slip available for us and Hollis, Paula and I (Ellen) immediately got drunk on margaritas. In Mexico, the margarita mixer is more expensive than the tequila, so margaritas are REALLY strong.

January 22, 2000

We meant to get this email off long ago.... During our trials and tribulations of engine, water and sails, Todd and I learned from one of the amateur radio nets that there would be an amateur radio test in La Paz on January 14. We both had our General licenses and we had the book to study for the Advanced Class license. We buckled down, studied hard... and passed the test!!

Our friend Tim let us borrow his truck to come up from Cabo to La Paz. We came up the night before and were finally reunited with Mandolin after 8 months apart. I started jumping up and down when we first saw her. After 8 months in a dirt boat yard, Mandolin was filthy - both inside and out. As well, we had cleaned out the bilges before we left, so many things that are normally stowed away were out and about in a very unorganized way. Add to that anything and everything that is normally stowed outside (i.e. the outboard motor, 3 sails, a solar panel, the boom, the sailing rig for the dingy, the high frequency antenna, etc.) was also down below. And on top of all this clutter was 8 months worth of dust. Yikes. And we were still happy to be back. I guess we really do love Mandolin if we can be happy in these circumstances.

Work has begun on Mandolins bottom. We've started that story in another trip log, which is a bit like jail time - Day 1, Day 2, and so on... Wish us luck!

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