ABOUT TIME!!!

Well, I am going to try and update the last three months!!! Due to hard work (!!??!!) leaving USA, nightmare trip to Cabo, poor internet connections, and one thing and another, I have been very remiss in updating our blog spot so am going to try and do a quick round up to bring us up-to-date – 26th January 2007 – and then make a better effort to stay on top of things but don’t hold your breath!

So, November saw us completely renew our standing rigging which meant Paul spent more time up the mast than he did on the dock, then the new sails arrived – much excitement and more on those later.


Then Thanksgiving came and we went to a number of Thanksgiving parties with our friends in Chula Vista.
Followed by Halloween and more parties!!! And finally December 4th arrived and it was time to leave Chula Vista, the USA, and head to Ensenada in Mexico – our first stop. Aphrodite was lifted out of the water, had her bottom painted, a new survey and back in within 5 days.

Christmas was spent in Turtle Bay, 300 miles from Ensenada, including an overnight stop at Islas Cedros. We left Ensenada on 20th December and arrived in Turtle Bay in 35 knot winds, on 23rd December. We were invited to spend Christmas Eve with Ernesto and his family – as in Spain/Germany /France etc, Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve in Mexico.

Ernesto it seems runs everything in Turtle Bay from the fuel dock to the water taxi, laundry, local bar etc., etc., We had a lovely evening – I even went to church – didn’t understand a word, but it was very beautiful.

The passage down saw a number of squid on deck in the mornings and just the one flying fish!

We left Turtle bay for Bahia Magdalena , but due to unforeseen problems with our new sails we unfortunately had to sail right on by and didn’t actually stop again until some 650 miles further south. The problems we had with our sail our outlined in the following e-mail I sent to our sailmaker.

FEEDBACK ON SAILS

Hi Chuck

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write this e-mail, in that we wouldn’t have had problems with our Ullman sails. Unfortunately for us, we had an extremely serious problem with our new genoa on the third time of use. On a 2 day passage to Magdelena Bay we had a forecast of 18 – 23 knots for a period of 5 days and so decided it would be excellent passage weather and headed out. In fact the forecast was not accurate (no surprise there) and as the winds picked up in the early evening we reefed the genoa to half. Later in the night when the winds were up to 28/30 knots we undertook to reef the genoa further and to our horror as we hauled the outhaul to furl the sail, the drum turned but the entire genoa unfurled. By early morning (0200 hours) we had 35 knot winds, 25 foot seas and a full headsail. I’m sure you can imagine how unsuitable this was. We were totally out of control and unable to do anything about it. We were very upset that our sail had failed us but at this point, due to the dark, high seas and winds, were unable to investigate. Morning came and the weather stayed. It was impossible to get on the foredeck, let alone the bowspit to try and deal with the problem. We spent the next day and night, with the same conditions, and weren’t able to do anything about retrieving/furling/taking down the sail until the third day, when the conditions improved slightly. At this point we had assumed that the wire luff had somehow ‘spun’ in the stitching, allowing the sail to furl out.

Paul devised a way to furl the sail when he was finally able to get to the pulpit in what were still difficult circumstances. Initially we wanted to try and furl it rather than take it down – the conditions had not abated sufficiently to take down an unfurled genoa, but we couldn’t continue without control. We had already had to sail past Magdalena Bay – our destination – the previous evening.

Paul clamped the foot of the sail at the luff to the luff wire and remained on the bowspit as I pulled the furling line – to our horror the wire luff pulled out of the swage eye and the sail flew out wildly. Two hours and the sail was finally tamed and retrieved.

We are obviously extremely disappointed that our new sail should have failed on only its third time of use, and it really doesn’t bear thinking about what would have happened had the swage and luff wire parted during the first night in 35 knots of wind and 25 foot seas. I believe that it’s only due to our considerable years of experience that we were able to retrieve the sail when we did. We had two guests on board at the time who were terrified.

We have finally arrived in Cabo San Lucas and the reason I am writing first, rather than telephoning, is to appraise you of our problem in order to give you time to consider the action required by Ullman to collect/repair/launder and return the sail to us at Cabo San Lucas.

I will phone on Tuesday, 2nd January. In the meantime, Happy New Year to you Chuck, and for us, I guess there are worse places we could have ended up for New Year!

Speak to you Tuesday.

Very restrained I felt!

So, by now we were in Cabo San Lucas, arriving 30th December and in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve at a restaurant on the beach, ate lobster and steak, drank champagne and sat around bonfires to watch the fireworks then dinghied back to Aphrodite, anchored in the bay.

And by now, even Paul had his shorts on! We unfortunately had to spend three very rolly polly weeks in the anchorage in Cabo, awaiting repair of our sail, and two days ago finally decided to move on around the corner – just 15 miles – to Cabo San Jose, where, we had been told there was a new marina under construction and the outside breakwaters had been completed and therefore made for a very quiet anchorage. We had a great trip from Cabo to San Jose – it was a beautiful day, we were surrounded by whales, blowing and breaching and we caught our first edible fish! Tomorrow we are off again, leaving for La Paz which will be approximately a 30 hour sail, and will take us into the Sea of Cortez ‘proper.’

Apologies for the lack of photo's