Back at the boat, I dove into the engine room determined to do something about my exhaust problem. The determination didn't last long though, once I discovered that I'd have to remove the whole exhaust riser (a three foot high, two foot wide section of fiberglass wrapped, six inch exhaust pipe) before I'd be able to see what the problem might be. I'd thought that I might be able to remove a section of six inch rubber exhaust hose but that proved impossible without damaging it. I ended up deciding to take the boat over to the Navarro Boat Yard, as Dave had suggested, and seeing if they could build us a new riser before attempting to remove the leaking one. With some consultation with Warren I've pretty much convinced myself that the problem is not something that requires immediate action. We could wait until we get back to the States to replace the riser but, if we can get it made here, it would probably be a lot less expensive. Custom work in the States has become outrageous.
I ran Lois back to the dock at 2:45 and by 3:30 she called from the marina, all done and happy with her new haircut. We went over to WINDY for cocktails and had a good time talking to Warren and Dee about Africa. Warren had gone to Ethiopia in 1952 as a physics teacher right out of college and they have done a lot of traveling in Africa since retirement. They own a Volkswagon van which they use as a camper when going to the back country to see the lions and other game. Dee says that if they didn't have family commitments she'd like to live there. We've never talked to anyone who had spent any real time in Africa. Warren and Dee sure make it sound like a wonderful place.
GMC and that sounded like a good idea to me, so I hadn't changed the finals since 1987. Well, the last time I changed the Frams, which had about 400 hours on them and were nearly a year old, I found that the secondary had deteriorated rather badly. It was rusty and the cork gaskets on top and bottom were disintegrating. I cut the change interval to 200 hours on those and then started worrying about the final filters. I'm not sure why I decided to change them today -- the right time to do that is when you're on a dock where if something goes wrong it's not a big deal -- but I did. And after looking at Gimmy's final filter element I found that my fears were justified. It was in very bad condition, coming apart in the holder. I cleaned the holder up very carefully, installed a new element, and, after a bit of urging to get the air out of the lines, Gimmy took off running as well as ever. Genny was another story. When I removed her final I found that the element was in perfect shape and there was no rust or crud in the holder. It's built differently than the Frams. It has stainless washers on top and bottom and what looks like a cheap white sock for the filter. Since I had it apart I changed the element anyway and again reinstalled it, trying to be very careful to get no dirt in the line, then I started Gennie. After the initial coughing due to air in the lines, she ran normally for about thirty seconds, then started missing badly. Clouds of white smoke were pouring from her exhaust and the poor old girl sounded as if she were shaking herself apart. I was horrified! Here we are hanging on the hook, not able to get into a slip because we draw to much water, and with Sis and Paul coming soon for a visit. We are very much dependent on Gennie for the conveniences of daily living and I feared I had done her in.
Well, I shut her down and got out the manuals. They provided no encouragement. Along with the warning that any dirt could "ruin the injector system in a few seconds" was the helpful information that neither the injector pump nor the injectors themselves were repairable without special equipment. I was sick! I drank a cerveza and decided to try starting her once again. Surprizingly, she again took off running pretty well for about twenty seconds before starting to miss again. I decided to let her run, figuring that if the injector system was going to get ruined by a piece of dirt it had already happened. Well, after about a half hour she was running normally again and, in the evening when we started her again, she started and ran normally. I think we're over the hump, but what a scare. I think I'll double the change interval for her filter and cut it in half for Gimmy's. One thing I know is that I'll sure never change either of them again when we're cruising.
I can't even remember what we did the rest of the day. Oh yes, I saved a couple of dinghies. One I saw drifting along the shore on the far side of the bay. I jumped in the Metz, went to pick it up and found that it belonged to the JESSIE MARIE. When I towed it back I found Dick reading a book, totally unaware that he'd lost it. The other one had a guy in it. His motor had quit and he couldn't get it started so he was drifting along downwind, steering with a little plastic paddle. He had no oars on board so I towed him to the dock. That's about it. The weather pattern was back to normal today -- blue sky, calm in the morning, north wind in the afternoon, a very pretty day.
10:15 We'd crossed Bahia San Francisco and just rounded Cabo Arco when we spotted whales spouting in the distance, two silver plumes in the silver path of the early morning sun. A few minutes later as I was sitting half turned to the counter behind my seat studying the chart and trying to identify the coves on the shoreline, Lois screamed in my ear, "Look out!" As I wheeled around and looked forward a huge body went by us in the opposite direction, port to port, sinking under the surface not twenty feet from our port bow. It was as broad as the SEA RAVEN and we saw at least thirty feet of its mostly submerged back. We were almost expecting to feel the bump as we came together, but it was gone. Probably a Fin Whale, next to largest of the whales and common here in the Sea, the females can reach almost 100 feet in length. I wonder if it didn't see us or just didn't care if we came close.
12:00 Anchored off the public pier in Guymas after a tour of the harbor. This part of the Guymas harbor is quite shallow, not more than ten feet in many places, but totally landlocked with a soft, gooey bottom which holds well. The city surrounds the north and west shores of the bay with the industrial area and large ship handling wharves off to the east. We got settled, had a bit of lunch, then went ashore to explore. There's no beach here so we anchored the Metz off the pier next to the large bronze statue of a fisherman and walked up Serdan, the main drag and the business center. Many of the shops and the central market were closed today but we could get a pretty good idea of Guymas as a very Mexican, very dusty, and very busy city. On the way home, unable to resist the odor, we bought a barbecued chicken in the square where they had a huge rack of them roasting over mesquite coals. At the pier again, we walked out to the end and sitting there looking a little forlorn was the skipper of a good sized power boat, the OSPREY III, which had tied to the end. When I found that he spoke English I asked him to point out Navarro's, the boatyard which we planned to visit tomorrow. He did and we got to talking. His name is Manuel, his boat is based at the Marina Real north of San Carlos, and he's here to get hauled out at another yard tomorrow. He said he had sent his wife off for lunch about noon and it was now three o'clock and she hadn't come back so we gave him a piece of our chicken.
As the sun went down the wind, which as usual had picked up in the afternoon, died down, but then just after dark started in again. It blew, and blew, and blew, thirty knots at times out of the north. Looks like we have another "norther" on our hands.
With the rest of the day to kill, we went for a tour in the Metz; first around the point to Las Playitas, a small bay inb which there is a much recommended restaurant, then across the big harbor to the pier where we left the Metz again while we walked up town. We dropped off four rolls of film at a quick processing joint, then did a little shopping while the pictures were being printed. There are two or three "Supermarkets" here in downtown Guaymas, plus the central market housed in a block long, high, narrow building which only has room for two aisles. We bought some fruit juices, Gin, Vodka, lettuce, bananas, tomatoes, and sweet rolls then some very delicious looking strawberries from a street vendor. At the photo shop, after some confusion, we got our pictures and headed home, touring the north side of the bay on the way. By now it was four o'clock and high tide so we went through the anchor hauling and washdown drill again and, following the channel which Manuel had pointed out to me, moved to the buoy in front of Navarro's. I missed the first attempt at grabbing the buoy, but the wind wasn't blowing very hard and our backup plan worked. I jumped into the Metz, took a line out to the buoy, and we spent the rest of the evening watching the crew pull a big sport trawler,the PEACHES, out of the water on the railroad. Tomorrow it'll be our turn.
Waiting another two days before we even got out of the water wasn't a pleasent prospect, and our bottom isn't in really bad shape; but we decided that we'd better find out for sure just how big our exhaust problem was. So I screwed up my courage, got out my little Swiss Army knife, and started cutting on the insulating blanket around the exhaust riser. It didn't take long to determine that the problem was a real one, not an immediate pending catastrophy but one which could definately cause trouble if not repaired. The riser is a custom unit in three sections made mostly of mild steel. It is in good condition up to the point in the down elbow where water is injected. From that point on the outside of the pipe is a mass of rust, evidently from pin holes or just porosity of the oxidized metal -- not something I wanted to live with while making a twentyfive hundred mile run up the coast. I ran back over to the yard, found Manuel again, and asked him if they could haul us without having engine power. "No problema.", so I told him we'd wait and that I'd bring in the exhaust this afternoon.
The exhaust riser came out easier than I might have suspected. The nuts holding the flange to the manifold came off easily -- a section of flexible stainless gave enough movement to get it off the studs. The hangar gave me a little trouble until I found that the wooden beam to which it was attached had been charred through. Although Phil did a good job of insulating the pipe itself, the hangar brackets were welded to the hot pipe and bolted directly to the wood. It's lucky that they didn't start a fire. When I got it all loose, Lois came down and helped me maneuver the riser out of the engine room. It isn't awfully heavy, maybe eighty pounds or so, but it was bulky and dirty. A tarp over the rug helped to avoid too big a mess. We got it out the door onto the deck then cut off all of the insulation over the bad part. It didn't show signs yet of mechanical failure -- it's very heavy pipe -- but it sure isn't water tight. We dropped it into the Metz and I got a couple of guys from the yard to carry it up to the shop for me.
It was three-thirty before I got back to the boat, tired and dirty. I took a shower, poured us a drink, and settled down with a book, thinking that we had a day to kill. No way. Lois had just gotten dinner in the oven -- one of her famous pepper casseroles -- when out from the yard came the skiff, sculled by a young man standing in the stern and full of men ready to put us on the ways. Manuel had decided to haul us today. This crew really knew what they were doing. They had a bunch of lines in the skiff and soon had us moved from one buoy to another, turned around, and then pulled onto the cable car which had been positioned earlier. Another Manuel, this one a diver, started pounding props under the hull to hold us upright. It was a jolly crew, especially so after Lois fixed a huge bowl of popcorn for them. It was six o'clock and almost dark before we started moving up the ways. As usual when coming out of the water, I was nervous as a cat on the proverbial tin roof, but we moved slowly up the tracks to the yard where they propped a ladder on our rail and waved goodnight. We watched a movie and went to bed early.
The bottom cleaning crew went about it in a not very efficient way. They first scraped most of the barnacles off -- there weren't very many except on the metal parts -- then several of them scrubbed with long handled brushes while one guy hosed the surface down with salt water pumped from the bay. It took all morning. When they got through the bottom was fairly clean but didn't look to me like it was good enough for painting, so I asked Manuel to have them sand it even though he said it would cost more. That took all afternoon and they're only about half done. Oh well, they should still be able to get the paint on and get us back in the water tomorrow.
We walked over to Las Playitas, about a quarter of a mile away, for dinner, stumbling in on what turned out to be a special evening for the RV residents. Forty or so of them, mostly people in their sixties or seventies, were at a long table in the center of the big room, looking for all the world like one of the Conkling Park dinners out. They had two-for-one bar drinks and the dinner special was chips and salsa, salad bar, cream of mushroom soup, "prime roast beaf" (over done), and flan for dessert, all for $7.50. It wasn't half bad and, although the beef would never have met U.S. standards for prime, it tasted good and the price was sure right. We had to sort of feel our way walking home. There are no street lights and it was an exceptionally dark night.
While we were working in the engine room the boys were painting up a storm. They're a happy and goodhearted crew, but not very efficient in the use of expensive bottom paint. When Lois and I painted the bottom three gallons were enough for one coat plus two along the waterline. In Puntarenas with the Costa Rican crew who worked slower, it took three and a quarter gallons for one coat. This time it took over four gallons to do the one coat. The difference is that here they put the paint in five gallon buckets and dip their long handled roller in it without using a roller pan. A lot of that $80 per gallon paint ends up on the ground. We now have a two colored bottom because I only had the three gallons of blue Interlux Copperlux which I'd bought at the swap meet in Nuevo Vallarta. Everything visible on the surface is blue but one side of the lower hull and most of the keel is a very dark red. They told me the paint they put on is Coleman. It will be interesting to see how the two different paints perform. We were ready to go back in the water by about four o'clock but the tide was out. I think there's enough water to go in in the morning, we'll see.
09:00 I start the engine and go below to check for leaks as the yard crew piles into the skiffs. When I'm sure things below are OK the last of the lines are cast off and we're on our own again. We have a small leak where the big 6" exhaust hose joins the new pipe but nothing serious for the moment. We hold our breath as during our turn to leave Charley hollars, "Four! Four!", the depth at which we are aground. The bottom must be soft though, because there's no resistance as we swing to course and out around the point to deeper water.
10:00 Out at Cabo Haro now, in deep clear water, so I turn on the HRO. We're well short of fresh water and figure we might as well make some during the next hour and a half run. There's a low swell from the west but almost no wind, a beautiful morning.
11:30 Almost to the San Carlos entrance when Gimmy starts to lug down and I jump below to change tanks. I've been drawing from the aft tanks in preparation for refueling and let it go on a little too long. The aft starboard has either gone dry or reached the level where the line gets plugged. As soon as I open the other valve Gimmy comes to life again.
12:00 At anchor in picturesque Bahia San Carlos. We'd hardly gotten the hook down when the wind, which had been light and variable, suddenly swung to the north and started gusting to over twenty knots. OK, we just settled down and enjoyed an afternoon of being back on the water.
We'd heard that a guy we'd met at Najarro's, Dick Picket who lives on the hill above the marina, was going to the States tomorrow so decided to walk up to his place with a letter I wanted to mail. We found his house to be one of those we'd seen last week which overlook Bahia San Francisco and the town of San Carlos. We caught he, his wife, and friend at their car just leaving for the evening so we didn't get to see the house, but they invited us back when they return from the States in a couple of weeks. I'd like to see it; looks like a great place to live. On the way back down the hill we stopped for dinner at El Yate -- not bad, good food and generous drinks.
We'd gone into the marina to make a couple of phone calls and on the way back were kind of cruising among the boats on mooring buoys when we discovered ROB ROSE, the little catamaran which Tuck, Lois, & I helped push off the beach when it went aground near Isla Grande two years ago. The couple who had sailed it back from England were in their seventies and were headed for here at the time after five years on the way. No sign of life on the boat, they're from Tucson, I wonder how they are doing.
Had Warren and Dee from WINDY over for dinner and had an interesting evening talking about everything from propellers to Africa. They are from Brookings, Oregon and urged us to stop there on the way north. We bypassed Brookings on the way down. I can't remember why. It's not too far from Crescent City and I guess we were just in a hurry.
The next job was to replenish our beer supply. As I think I've mentioned, we been buying our cerveza in returnable bottles here in Mexico because it's about half the cost of the stuff in cans. It's a bit of a pain but it went pretty easily today. I put the dock cart together, loaded two cases of our empties into it, and we pulled it up to the Deposito about a quarter of a mile away. Coming back was a little trickier because of the cobblestone streets, but with Lois help in easing the weight on the roughest spots we got it all back to the boat without breaking anything.
It was still only 11:00 o'clock and was a beautiful day so we decided to take a bus ride to town and try Rose's Cantina, a hangout of the locals, for lunch. Why it is Rose's rather than Rosa's I don't know because it is very Mexican but it was as good as advertised. We had tacos and burritos, both excellent with lots of meat, fresh veggies, and good tasting salsa. On the way back we walked up to the little Rock Shop where we'd found such neat things a couple of weeks ago and found it closed, not only closed but shut down and almost empty. As we were about to leave the little guy with the big glasses and wry sense of humor came around the corner of the building. When we asked him what happened he said he was going back to doing only wholesale business, that he liked to travel around the country instead of sitting in a store. We chatted for a while and somehow got on the subject of Copper Canyon. He recommended Margarita's in Creel which he said was clean and much less expensive than the big tourist hotels. He also said we wouldn't need reservations. Good poop? If Sis and Paul agree we may find out.
We walked up to the trailer park for lunch at the Shangrila restaurant -- not very good tacos and they charged 5,000 pesos for a beer so it'll be the last time -- then bought a few groceries at the little store. The wind had come up so we splashed our way home, both getting soaked on the way. Warren and Dee had bought some fresh lisa, or mullet, from one of the fishermen who were netting around their boat and invited us for dinner. The lisa were good. Dee just fried the cleaned fish in a bit of butter and garlic and they had an excellent flavor. I'm not sure we've ever had them before; they're a bottom feeder and don't bite on a hook so must be netted. There seem to be lots of them here in the bay.
We got several pieces of information today, some good, some not so. I called Sis from the marina and found that she and Paul are all set to be here on Monday. I also talked to Nancy and found that she'll be here on the 3rd and Bob and Kris will be coming down again on about the 15th. The disturbing news was that, talking to a young couple, Tim and Kay on the boat called HARBINGER, who had just gotten back from Copper Canyon, we find that next week is the time of the major festival of the year there and we may have trouble finding a place to stay. Until now everyone we'd talked to said that reservations weren't necessary, but this may change things. I'll have to get hot and see if we can find a travel agent who can give us the straight scoop.
Had Warren and Dee over for popcorn and the movie Out of Africa. They had been to many of the places shown in the movie -- made it interesting.
We had walked up to the little grocery store this afternoon to buy a few things and were on our way back when we ran into a familiar looking face. It was the Rob of ROB ROSE, the little trimeran which we'd helped push off the beach near Isla Grande two years ago. He and his wife Rose had just returned from a two month land tour around Mexico in their VW van and were looking for a way to get out to their boat. We of course gave them a ride in the Metz. Both Bob and Rose look a little frailer than I'd remembered but then it has been two years and they must be pushing eighty by now.
There was a message from Liz at the office saying that our reservations are confirmed. We'll call her tomorrow and make sure what we've got but that relieves our minds a bit about the Copper Canyon trip.
Paul and Eleanor's flight was due to land at 4:00 so I figured that they couldn't get to the dock before about 4:30 but when I arrived at that time they were already there. The new Mexican tourist push is really smoothing out the airport hassle. Sis and Paul had a whole suitcase of mail and goodies for us. Lois had made her chili casserole and we had a fun evening talking about New Zealand and our upcoming Copper Canyon trip.
They had finally fixed the water line at the fuel dock so in order to have full tanks when we start cruising next week about 3:00 o'clock we took SEA RAVEN in to take on water. Got that done, then went back, re-anchored, and went walking again, this time over to north shore where we climbed hill to a dynamite storehouse made from one of the caves in the mountainside, then walked through another neat residential area on that side of the bay. Finished off the day watching our videos since Guatemala. More?