Ready to depart for Mexico

Saturday, March 26, 2011

032-37.324 N
117-6.055 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

I'm happy to report that we're finally ready to get underway. We've been working our butts off since we got here on the 8th and at this time all of the systems are GO. We're currently at the California Yacht Marina, which is at the far end of the San Diego bay. Today we'll move 11 miles up the bay and will dock at the police docks at the end of Shelter Island. This will save 2 hours off of our trip to tomorrow to Ensenada, Mexico which is about 60 miles from there.

On Monday we'll clear in, get a Mexican cell phone and some other supplies and then on Tuesday we'll begin our trek down the Baja coast. The biggest issue that we have to deal with is ocean swell. In general, the swell comes out of the NW and the vast majority of the anchorages provide varying levels of protection from that direction. Unfortunately the swell is switching the W or SW and very few of the anchorages provide protection from that angle. As a result we may have to make some multi-day jumps between anchorages that provide protection.

The good news is that it's going to be warming up. The temperatures have been 5-10 degrees below average and there have been regular frontal systems that have been moving through bringing rain and snow to the mountains. The Mammoth ski area has received almost 50 FEET of snow this year and I just heard that the reservoirs are full, so that's good for this region. It certainly has delayed our departure.

I had many inquiries as to what effects the tsunami had on us. Basically there was very little effect in our area. Just N of here there was significant damage when a 4' wave moved up a river and destroyed a lot of docks and boats, but being very deep into the bay, we didn't feel anything.

When we first arrived I had hoped that we would have been able to get out of here in about a week, however a series of issues with the boat kept that from happening. First off, I had ordered a new jib from the sailmaker who last made one for us. He was in Texas and I questioned as to whether or not he had the patterns from the last one that he mad. He assured me that he did. Well, when it first arrived we found that the pocket that the jib boom (camber spar) goes into wasn't made correctly, so we shipped it back to him. He fixed that and shipped it back, but then we discovered that the sail was cut wrong and it was too short to fit on the camber spar. He offered to build a whole new jib, but that would take weeks so we had the local UK sail loft add 2-1/2" tangs onto the jib so that it would fit. That worked fine and I shipped my old jib to UK-Texas so that he has a pattern for the new one that he's making.

Another job that I thought was going to be a piece of cake was replacing the Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes on the watermaker. What I didn't realize was that Village Marine who makes our watermaker uses a proprietary sized membrane which is 38" long instead of the industry standard 40". So, when I went to install the new 40" membranes, I found that they didn't fit. I also found that Village Marine only charges $400 more per membrane than the industry standard ones. I wasn't willing to pay their prices, so I went out and got two new pressure vessels to replace theirs and then spent a lot of time trying to adapt their proprietary fittings and hoses to the industry standard fittings that the new vessels use. Believe me, it's a long story, but eventually I got it all worked out and now we're making 38 gallons per hour! That's amazing when you consider that the first 2 water makers that I had only made about 6 GPH.

We had lots of other projects that took much longer than expected, but in the end everything is up and running and we should be good to go. We did take a little time to do some touristy things. Earlier this week we visited the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA where they have acres and acres of Ranunculus and other flowers. It was a bit early to be there, but it was beautiful!

Anyhow, the next time that you hear from us we should be Ensenada, Mexico. We hope that you're doing well and having a good spring.

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 1412