The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Hopeful

The Good: In March we left the dock for a few days to give Cinnabar a shake-down and to anchor in beautiful Ensenada el Cardonal at Isla Partida. Our friends aboard Shindig suggested this place and it was perfect. We loved the solitude of being the only boats in the anchorage while sandwiched between the very crowded anchorages of Caleta Partida and Ensenada Grande. We did have one glitch when a plastic bag wrapped around our prop shaft and buggered up our line cutter blades causing a horrendous clunking noise from the prop. Tom had to dive the boat with his Allen wrenches to repair it. After that inconvenience we spent two happy days and nights socializing with our pals, snorkeling, dinghying over to visit other friends in their crowded anchorage, and just enjoying nature. 

The lovely Shindig at anchor in Ensenada el Cardonal

Nancy out for her morning SUP.

After Shindig left to continue their adventures we had one more glorious night of solitude. It was too perfect. (Cue ominous music.)


The Bad: Did I say too perfect?  Our last day at the island we smelled diesel. Not good. We checked the port tank and a lot of diesel had leaked out into the tank compartment. We originally thought we had repaired a leak at the top of the tank, a couple of months ago, but this was obviously much more serious than that. We siphoned about 4 gallons out of the compartment into bottles and started the engine to head back to the dock in La Paz about 3 hours away.

As we increased the engine's RPM to 1900 we got a nasty wobble in the prop; we had to re-anchor so Tom could adjust the cutter blades. He jumped in the water with his Allen wrenches and moved the cutter blades down just a touch which fixed the wobble. 

Tom with his wrenches getting ready to repair the prop.

Back to the tank - luckily we had an appointment with Cross Marine Works the next day (a Thursday), so Rob showed up bright and early, removed our tank, cleaned it off, pressure-tested it, and discovered the leak was a bad weld in the sump. 

Rob and Tom remove the tank, and we didn't even need to use a sawzall!

Rob and Carlos pressure test the tank.

They find the leak in a bad weld.

The welder arrived the next day to haul it off for repair. This was the Friday before Semana Santa (Easter week) where everybody takes the entire week off. We were worried, but the welder promised to have it back by Tuesday. Which he did. And Rob reinstalled it the same day! 

Ta daaaaaah!

It was unbelievable that this problem was fixed in such a short time (5 day turnaround) and during a holiday week. A huge shout-out to Cross Marine for doing this and for all the other work that they helped us with as well.


The Ugly: A "small" plumbing hose repair/replacement (to get rid of some nasty, stinky smells) turned into a complete replacement of all our plumbing hoses, due to the aft hoses being about 60% blocked with crud. (We have pictures and you should thank me for not sharing them.) It took days for Tom and Carlos to extract and replace all the hoses. Luckily Rob Cross had wisely brought the entire roll of plumbing hose from the marine supply store in town that would be closed the next week (due to the holiday) because we ended up needing at least twice what we thought we'd need. We used it all.

Good thing we had the entire roll of hose from Lopez Marine.

Poo hose pile-up.

What a shitty job, quite literally. In addition to replacing the hoses we also cleaned out the head pump and replaced various valves and things. Ugh. But now we've got all new hoses and it will be like a fiesta every time we pump the head.


The Hopeful: We decided that 2016 is the year Cinnabar leaves Mexico and heads for the South Pacific. Tom has been working on numerous projects and improvements to help get the boat ready for our next adventure. 

Tom worked with Hector the excellent canvas dude to pattern a jib deck bag for us.

I met weekly with other La Paz boats preparing to do "The Puddle Jump" to discuss various issues and concerns and to get to know them better. 

Sophie from Avatar is ready for her first trip across the Pacific.

Our crew Bruce showed up last Saturday and has been helping us do the final prep for our journey. 

I did a new chain splice on the anchor rode. Bruce displays the old, worn splice.

It's been several weeks of complete madness as we try to cram in our final preparations, do numerous trips to stores to provision food and stock up on supplies to last us for the next few months, make arrangements for our arrival in the Marquesas, and check out of Mexico. Neighbor Lola has been driving us around town daily to run errands. The day that we did Tom's errands she cried "Uncle" after 6 hours and after store #15. But he was determined to finish all his tasks so he had to walk to his last 2 stops and then walk back to the marina. 

Apparently it's a bit more complicated to check out of La Paz than most other Mexican ports as there is the added step of having to get a "Declaration of Health". Here is how it worked for us:

1) Go to Port Captain to get The Form. Make 2 copies, fill out all three forms and then...

2) Go to Immigration on the other side of town to register with them and hand over our passports, Mexican visas, copies of boat registration and TIP. If you are lucky enough to be the first in line like we were then you will only have to wait 40 minutes to complete this process and get your passports back. But you will have an official stamp on The Form, then...

3) Go to API which is on the municipal pier on another side of town to get our certificate to prove we don't owe money to La Paz and pay a fee for every time we entered La Paz, 100 pesos per entry, a few more official stamps. This only took 15 minutes, then...

4) Go to the Health Dept. which is 2 blocks from the Port Captain to get The Form stamped with a Declaration of Health for the three of us. We have now made a huge triangle around the city of La Paz. The Dr. was at a conference and wouldn't be back for another 1.5 hours so we went to lunch. After returning to the Health Dept. the Dr. still wasn't there and no amount of wheedling would convince the nice lady Lourdes to stamp The Form. Luckily, just then the doctors started pouring out of their post-conference taxis and we were able to get another official stamp on The Form. (Even though it was a Declaration of Health there was no exam or even questions about our health. So weird.) This was free and took 1.75 hours including lunch. Then...

5) Go back to the Port Captain to turn in The Form, pay the exit fee of 394 pesos by credit card (otherwise you have go to a special bank and then return for the Port Captain's signature) get numerous more official stamps and a spiffy official-looking certificate proving we've checked out of La Paz. After a short wait for the Port Captain to sign things we were finished. If you are the first in line like we were this will take about 30 minutes.

Total time: 4 hours including lunch. And a huge thanks to our neighbor Manny for chauffeuring us around town!

So now the boat is packed to the gills with provisions, our neighbors had a bon voyage gathering for us last night, and we have just a few more things to do before leaving the dock. We'll do a quick update before we leave today or tomorrow.

March album: HERE

We're really going to miss our neighbors. Manny (kneeling, center) and Lola (hugging me) have been our tireless chauffeurs.