Bahia del Magdalena (aka Mag Bay)

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

024-34.996 N
112-4.201 W

Ahoy from Mag Bay (aka Bahia Magdalena),

I wasn't planning on writing a log for here, but today has had a lot of unusual action, so I thought I would add some entertainment to your day. When I last wrote we were relaxing in Bahia Santa Maria after an overnight passage. As afternoon fell, a panga set a fishing net just in front of where the anchor was set. I was a bit concerned about the net's placement, but if the winds kept blowing us off-shore, there shouldn't have been an issue. However, during the night the winds became very light.

The following morning Sue & I were listening to the Picante SSB radio network when Sue mentioned that there was a fishing panga right next to the boat. I looked out and saw them trying to pull up their net which appeared to running under the stern of the boat. We went above and sure enough the line was running under the boat. The fishermen suggested that I try backing up and I stupidly tried, only to quickly hear the line floats striking the bottom of the boat as they wrapped around the prop shaft.

It was obvious that the only way that we were going to get free was to have me dive on the boat and cut us free. I donned my scuba gear and hopped in. I'll tell ya, water in the 50s takes your breath away, especially before 8 AM! When I went down and saw that the line and the net had wrapped around the prop shaft and had even managed to pull up into the hull where the shaft exits the boat. I spent almost 2 hours cutting away the line and the net and eventually we could run the motor! I was cold, but glad that we had the equipment to free ourselves.

After a late breakfast we headed to Mag Bay. It was a beautiful day and I even changed into shorts and a tee-shirt. This was the first day that it's been warm enough to do this since leaving San Diego. We got great views of the coastline and were impressed with the dramatic cliffs plunging into the ocean. I'm just glad that we saw them from afar, as the currents and waves have swept many boats to their demise.

Along the way I called NextGen, who makes our generator to discuss the third failure of the voltage controller module. I wanted to switch from the electronic controller to an analog controller, which I perceived as being less fragile. Unfortunately they agreed that the controller had failed, but also told me that you had to swap out the entire generator assembly to use the analog controller. Clearly that won't work, so I'll replace the module again and be sure not to run the AC on the generator.

We pulled into Mag bay and were quickly met with the same strong winds that we experienced in Santa Maria bay. We dropped anchor at Punta Belcher, which is an old whaling stations, with the wind blowing 15-20 kts and then the winds proceeded to build. Of course I needed to repair the jib that had blown out a few days earlier. Unfortunately it was a choice of sewing it in place or pulling it off the camber spar. The later wasn't going to happen due to the winds which were now blowing 20-25 kts, so I set off to sew it in place. Sewing multiple layers of sailcloth isn't an easy job under controlled circumstances, and doing it while it blows from side to side adds an additional degree of difficulty. After about 2 hours I completed 2 passes using the existing needle holes and called it quits. Hopefully it'll hold, but I'm not betting on that. Once the sun set, the winds died and I was able to remount it on the camber spar.

Tomorrow we're headed to Cabo San Lucas, which is 160 miles from here. This is a 24+ hour passage, but the weather looks very benign. Hopefully we'll be arriving mid-morning on Thursday.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser:

We anchored S of Punta Belcher in about 22' over sand. Note that the wind blows like crazy as soon as you enter the bay and continues until just before sunset.

Log ID: 1434