In port time, is repair and project time.

Two mornings ago I commenced pumping out the oil from the engine first, and then the marine gear. When finished, I tried withdrawing the hose from the marine gear, and noticed that a two inch rubber sleeve on the end of the hose was missing! It was inside the marine gear. Horrors! After the 'Whoa is me' mantra subsided, I confessed to David on the boat next to us in Paradise Village (a misnomer?) David was an X-Navy everything, and would give Robinson Crusoe a run for his coconuts.

The first tact was to feel down the dip stick tube where the hose had dropped off. No luck. Next we opened the bottom drain bung, and scrounged around with a handy clothes hanger scraper. No luck. Found out later that the angle of the drain plug would not have yielded results. Grumblings and discussions with David and Klaus (who had experienced the same thing in the Bass Strait between Melbourne and Tasmania) later revealed the need to pull the back housing off the marine gear....

A confidence-building phone call to Mark of Metro Marine in Portland (the Volvo repair man) revealed that a sturdy O-ring seals the back housing. Oh, and there is a shim that I will have to work around. Grumblings and discussions continued about the dripless stuffing box and the cutlass bearing and the unfounded concerns of taking on mucho buckets of water while disengaging the shaft and flange from the back housing. David (The Prophet) outlined how the dripless needs to have pressure from the stainless ring that resides on the shaft just forward of the bellows. So as I backed the shaft away from the back housing to give me elbow room (ha), I pushed the stainless ring against the bellows and was amazed to stop incoming water.

Oh, did I say, that this stainless ring was a bugger to figure out. I removed the two set screws, tried to move it unsuccessfully, asked David (again The Prophet), and he said 'Oh, they often use piggy-backed set screws.... I looked, and sure enough, after taking out the first two set screws, that there were two more below them that they had locked in place. Where do you find this stuff out??!!!

After another phone call to Mark in Portland, I figured how to break the seal on the back housing, and back the back housing out. Once out, with some hand sweeps, I found the 2" rubber hose in the remaining oil at the bottom. Yeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Two hours later, everything was back in place, and Racor filters, Primary fuel filter, and Oil Filter were replaced, and oil added to engine and marine gear. Only one issue remains, their is a steady drip off one of the water cooling fittings that attach to the marine gear. I'm leaving this for tomorrow, lest I don't have anything to do....

Whenever I change my marine gear oil in the future, DON'T DROP ANYTHING IN THERE, OK?

We spent two nights at Isla Isabela on the way to Mazatlan. Isla Isabella is a bird and marine sanctuary. Hey, that's a 'must see' island. We felt like we were on the Galapagos Islands with nests of magnificent frigates and blue-footed boobies everywhere. We saw blue-footed boobies in their mating rituals (I could hear them singing something about their blue suede shoes! They have a characteristic standing on one foot while lifting up the other foot as if to draw special attention to its color.) They were building nests. They were sitting on eggs. They were sitting on day-old chicks, week-old chicks, month-old chicks. There were immatures that couldn't fly. Others wondering who we were, did we have food for them, what a kick! The nests were everywhere, and the birds were unflappable. We were amazingly close to them as we walked along the trails on the island. This island experience was the closest to nature that we have experienced.

Sue's brother and sister-in-law, Bill and Brenda, flew in to Mazatlan in the pouring rain and cold. We were with them for the next week taking in the Carnival celebrations. One of the evenings we enjoyed an after-dark parade with floats galour and thousands of young participants.

Had a fun day with Bill and Brenda. We went for a hike up a 500' headland where the lighthouse is that protects Mazatlan harbor. Went to an Art Museum as well as an Archeological Museum. Then tonight we had a dinner with entertainment: a Mexican dinner buffet with Mayan dancers performing afterwards. Great costumes and feather head dresses. A very energetic performance.

One of the other days we shared a downwind sail on Dream Chaser off the islands of Mazatlan. It was a sunny day, and all were enjoying the time on the water.

As Bill and Brenda returned to Portland, our eyes were set on crossing from Mazatlan towards La Paz, to arrive in Loreto early enough for Sue to fly to Portland to be with her folks for a month while her Dad has hip replacement surgery.

The chocolate cake Dad bought for my birthday has been sooo good. I'm really glad I spent so much time cooking before we left Mazatlan. I cooked chicken teriyaki, beef stew, and meatloaf. Tonight we ate some of the stew. It was very rough at dinner time, so cooking had to be just a quick warm-up or not at all. I will cook the rest of our raw meat tomorrow morning when the boat isn't jouncing around as much. I'm really drowsy tonight on this watch. Thanks for staying up with me.

As we motored north today along the Islands, we noticed numerous kayakers on the water and tents on shore. As we passed tempting anchorage one after another, we saw sailboats and motor cruisers in many of them. One of them harbored a large motor yacht not much smaller than Paul Allen's Tatoosh. Manta rays were seen doing 360 barrel rolls and reentering the water with a splash. Dolphins swimming in front of our bow would roll on their side, look up at us, as we gazed back at them loving that intimate contact. Tonight we are settled in to Isla San Francisco with a couple other boats. Weather is overcast. But I am heartened by these island gunkholes, and look forward to spending more time in them.

Another day we had a great day yesterday cruising north along the east coast of the Baja Peninsula. The sky was clear when we got up, unexpectedly. The beautiful stratified cliffs along the Baja coastline was like being in a canyon, the reds, whites, and blacks in great horizontal stripes and jagged edges along the skyline. We only saw one little pueblo all day. Dolphins passed by in great numbers, joyously jumping up and down to see us as they passed by. Around noon we saw a log along the shoreline, about 3 miles away, then saw a regular spout of water from one end. It must have been a sleeping blue whale, resting on the surface. Not wanting to disturb the giant beast, we continued on, glad to have seen our first whale since departing Bandaras Bay.

After 7 hours of motoring, we finally reached our destination: Agua Verde, a large cove on the north side of a point on the Baja peninsula. There were already 3 other sailboats at anchor and another one that had sunk close to shore, its mast sticking out at an angle looking very sad indeed. This is one of the most popular anchorages in the area, we have heard. I didn't really like it. There were shacks and trucks on the little beach; a panga driver kept roaring in and out of the anchorage trying to tune his engine; one of the sailboats ran its generator for several hours; a large charter fishing boat came in at dusk and kept his engine going along with large lights, probably for workers cutting up fish they had caught that day. Certainly not the nice peaceful anchorage we imagined. A group of kayakers had set up tents along a beach on the opposite side of the cove. I think it would have been much nicer there.

We were up at dawn again this morning, heading for Puerto Escondido where we know we can anchor and talk to people about how to get into the Loreto airport and check in with the appropriate officials for George's stay while I'm in Portland. We saw another whale resting on the surface once again about an hour ago, probably a humpback. This time we took the time to go over and see it. The whale surfaced a number of times, breathing heavily through its massive lungs. We were hoping he would come over close enough for us to really see him, but he stayed about 75 feet away. He surfaced once more just as we were leaving, probably to say good-bye.

Winds are 5-8, seas are rippled, the sky is completely clear, and everything is working well on Dream Chaser. We still have plenty of food in the refrig, our water maker made lots of good water for us yesterday. We haven't spent any money for the past 5 days. (Checking in to Loreto will cost us, though.) Life is good.

Today I tuned the rig with a mechanical tension test device, and turned turnbuckles while holding the shroud wires from turning. I made sure that I reinstalled the cotter rings through the holes in the turnbuckle parts so that they wouldn't turn, and consequently go out of tune.

Our solar panels are performing well. Only when there were a couple days of cloud cover, did the batteries start to go down with refrigerator usage, lights, and SSB use. I had to run the engine today after six days at anchor. Not bad.

On the Amigo Net, they announced that a ketch sailboat (Maxine) that sank at Isla Isabella about 100 miles south of Mazatlan, is now a bigger problem. The boat sank in the south harbor while at anchor. The owners couldn't prevent it from happening.... So there it was in the harbor with it's masts sticking out of the water. Boats swinging on anchor would possibly hit it, so boaters were fore warned. Then about two weeks later, the boat has dislodged itself from the harbor, and is now out in deeper water about one-quarter mile south of the anchorage!! It's rode acting as a tether, it is still near the surface and a threat to navigation. Bazaar. I'm surprised that it has enough floatation to have moved that far into deeper water, and to still be a threat. Undoubtedly I don't have enough of a picture as to how this transpired.

With Sue in Portland helping her Dad recover from his successful hip replacement surgery, I am anchored on the south side of Isla Coronados. Yesterday I saw 8 manta rays (2' across) flying out of the water and doing belly flops. Then there was a flock of grebes on the water that were so close together, they looked like a whale, until they dove separately, but within a few seconds of each other, to surface again, catch a breath and dive again. This morning early it was the passing dolphin show.

Today was a good day. I got off the boat at 10:00 am, and worked my way up to the top of the volcano by 12:30 pm. There was no apparent trail, so I was bushwacking through the brush, and finally rock hopping my way up the ridge line that was all volcanic rock. Boy, you could really tell the rock had been burned by intense heat, lots of holes, and looked very dry. Off to the west of the island there were several pangas for most of the day. I couldn't see whether they were fishing, or diving, or teaching a class. But I didn't get close enough to tell. I had my binoculars at the ready, and had my first sighting of a Loggerhead Shrike, a pretty gray bird with black markings through its eye, on its lower wings, and its tail. It was quite flashy when flying from shrub to shrub, and quite noisy so hard to miss.

When I got to the top of the volcano, there was a flat area that had lots of cactus, shrubs and scrub. There was a flash of red that proved to be a cardinal. I spotted a bird we saw in Tucson a few years ago: a black-throated sparrow. It is stunning with its white streaks through its eye and whisker, and a black bib that sets it apart from all other sparrows. But the bird I watched for about 30 minutes was a Verdin. It's a little thing, a gray bird with a yellow head, and black bill. He and his mate were adding to a substantial nest, and telling everyone about it. These guys are close to the chickadees in the bird books, and have alot of the same characteristics in nervous flight.

When I got back to the dinghy, some yellow-legged seagull had played a prank on me by dropping/smashing an urchin in the dinghy, eating some, and spreading the rest out in the baking sun to give me a fun clean-up project. As I left the beach in the dinghy, the gull had the nerve to laugh-laugh-laugh as only they can.

Back to Dream Chaser at 4:00 pm, six hours off the boat. Oh, saw two snakes. Boy, that got my adrenaline going.

I am now on page 514 of Michener’s 'Mexico', in the home stretch.

As I listened to the Amigo Net and Don's weather forecast this morning, it sounded like there would be a few more days of 'light and variable' winds in the Sea, before the weather system changes to a NW 20-30 in the North Sea. How far down that would go was not clear as yet. But taking no chances, I decided to run for Caleta de San Juanico 18 miles north of Isla Coronados. Other boats had called it a 'must see' anchorage. So off I went: sunny day with winds 5-6 kts on the nose. While motoring, I noticed the speedo was 0.00. So I pulled it out, scraped off the culprit organisms, put the spinning wheel in a half cup of vinegar, and scraped some more. Now she's working fine. I ran the watermaker, producing 18 gallons in 2-1/2 hours. Water temperature is 73 F. I had added too much oil to the water maker pump, and will need to remove some. Sometimes it's difficult to read the oil gauge, and it always is less during operation. Too much is not good.

Well, the anchorage is arid as all of them on the Baja side are. But it is beautifully protected by a finger of rock that jets out from the bay. Dream Chaser's anchor is in 15 feet, sand bottom with 4:1 scope. There are a few modern, up-scale houses overlooking the cove. A sandy beach wraps around 25% of the cove. There are a few campers on the beach, tented for the night. Numerous people were snorkeling on the shallow reefs about 100 yards from the boat. I will dive the boat tomorrow, clean the prop, check the zincs, and get all the other green forest off the boat hull. Then maybe I'll get some snorkeling in as well.

I'm on page 585 of Michener's 'Mexico', and am hoping to finish it tomorrow. I think it's my thickest book! Ha!

Oh, there was an even larger flock (200 individuals) of grebes. As I was reading, I would hear the sound of water breaking. As I watched, they would stay under for about 30 seconds, come up for 5, look at each other, and dive again, and again, and again. The flock is so tight, it looks like they're holding primaries (hands).

Had tacos tonight! And I'm listening to Yanni. Life is good.

20 knot winds in San Juanico today for the afternoon kicked up a wave chop, and put a strain on the anchor chain, but we were fine.

Spent the day reading in two books: Baja California Plant Field Guide, and Sibley's Guide to Birds. In the Plant Guide I read on the geology of the Baja plus plants in the area that I have been hiking in. The geology involves two plates: the Pacific and the North American plates. As Ted told us, about 25 million years ago the San Andreas Fault kicked in and started tearing things apart. The fault movement created the Gulf by tearing a hole in the area. The Pacific filled in the hole. Volcanism and uplift at the same time created the mountain ranges on the peninsula. In addition not all of the peninsula was moving Northwest at the same time, and the peninsula stretched and thinned out. The Sea of Cortez stretched all the way up to Palm Springs, CA. Then the Colorado River began filling in the Sea with its sediment. During the Pleistocene Era (humans came on the scene) the Ice Ages started building and receding. Although they didn't make it down this far, the climatic impact was significant. Their were forests and lakes covering the US Southwest plus Mexico. Think of the Pacific Northwest being down this far. The book mentioned that the Ice Ages lowered the ocean level by 100 meters!!! Can you imagine? Then when the Ice Ages were finally all over, in the space of 2000 years, the seas raised 50 meters, and the rain stopped, the forests and lakes dried up, and we started seeing what we see today.

One plant fact is that all those cacti that look like suguaros, are not suguaro cacti. They are related, but are distinct and are called 'cardon' with an accent over the 'o'. So the suguaro is in Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora.

Now don't you feel warm all over knowing these facts?

Little Vee Cove is an ideal cove that ends in an inviting, sandy beach. Well-protected from southern winds, it handles one boat ideally. Day explorations ashore allowed for stretching the legs and identifying fauna and flora.

However on the third night I woke up at 0300 feeling like I was in a washing machine. The quiet cove that I had been in for three days had good protection from winds coming from the south. But when they clocked around to the NW, I had to move. So I pulled anchor, and motored by radar around the northern part of Isla Carmen to Ballandra Bay which I had previously been in. I knew the area, but slowed down so that I would arrive after day break. Winds have been steady today in the NW 20-25 with gusts to 30 range. They are supposed to blow through tonight and tomorrow settling down on Thursday. They are Santa Anna winds caused by a low pressure cell passing through the SW USA.

On St. Patty’s Day I walked inland stopping often to check out the bird songs, and to try to spot the source of the tunes. Had a 20+ bird day which I consider pretty good: American Oyster Catcher, Great Blue Heron, Snowy Egret, Yellow-legged gull, Double-crested Cormorant, Brown Pelican, Osprey, Turkey Vulture, numerous Cardinals, Hooded Oriole,Loggerhead Shrike, Ash-throated Fly Catcher, Verdin, Black-throated Sparrow, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, House Finch, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Northern Mockingbird, White-winged Dove, and a new Say's Phoebe! It was a sunny day, so I took lots of plant pictures for the flora file. I spent 2-1/2 hours East, and 1-1/4 hours back to the boat.

A typical day:

This morning I went ashore on a two hour hike on some of the crumbly hills in the bay. Pretty views, sunny skies, calm winds, looking for birds. The American Oyster Catchers are on the outside of the bay. Verdins, black-throated sparrows and ash-throated flycatchers were the main birds I could see.

Read 'Red Rabbit' today, up to page 275.

Had Jerry and Sue from 'Chemikin', the 26' footer I met in San Juanico, for a speghetti dinner. Sue brought mushrooms, green peppers, soya, and other bits for the sauce. We also had a green salad. They talked about the several exchange students that they sponsored. I talked about Masaya and Ted's direct exchange experiences. We talked about weather forecasting, their outboard engine repair locally, the VHF, our 'Spanish for Cruisers' book, even our Oregon coffee table book. They are a fun, talkative couple. Easy to be around.

Listening to more March Madness tonight on AM radio.

Another typical day:

Jerry came over at 0800, dropping off The Oregon coffee book, and the Fish book by National Audubon, and then asked if I wanted to go for a hike. After getting breakfast and my pack together, I took off at 0900 and returned at 1300. We hiked up a volcanic hill, along a ridge line, looked at the north coast of Isla Carmen, tried to surmise the geological history of the island, checked out plants in the plant book, noticed scat and tried to figure out what the predators for the rabbits were. There must be alot of nocturnal life going on. Found a scull that definitely looked like cat.

The wind was supposed to pick up today to NW 20-25. It never happened, maybe NW 10-15. But Monday it's supposed to blow NW 25-30. We will be hunkered down.

This episode can be titled, "Where is the water coming from now?" The wind was picking up as expected, and we were motoring to Ballandra Bay on Isla Carmen. Sue was back aboard after a trip to Portland to be with her father during his recovery from hip replacement surgery. Even the 70 degree temperatures felt good after the cooler March weather in Portland.

The northerly winds were on cue, currently at 15 knots, and rising to NW 25-30 by the afternoon. We were taking some waves over the bow on occasion as the sea state was becoming more agitated. By the time we turned to come into Ballandra, the boat was getting tossed around. So coming into the Bay where the waters were flat was a relief. Upon anchoring, and turning off the engine and the water maker which we had just run for three hours, Sue noticed that the pump for the fresh drinking water was turning on and off which meant that there was a leak in the system that it continued to pressurize for.

A leak? Check the bilge. Gee, there's standing water in the bilge, and it's hot water! But it tastes salty. With the pounding in the waves, maybe a hose fitting has come loose and is leaking. The hot water heater is up in the bow state room which is affectionately called 'the garage'. So out came the sails, the key board, the folding chairs, the ditch kit, the sail repair kit, the fishing tackle gear, the sun awnings... everything you could imagine, including the V-berth cushions. Finally to look at the water heater under the V-berth and to happily see no water, no drips, having also checked the escape valve for the heater over-heating. No problemo. Now that all the garage gear was in the main cabin on the starboard side, the boat had a slight list. But attention went to the port side where I removed cushions, and unscrewed the plywood cover to the compartment for our water tank. The water heater hoses passed over the water tank on their way back to the galley and head. No leaks, no problemo. So where was the warm water coming from? Then it hit me.

The boat's bilge pump is in the center of the boat where there is a collection area. The bilge float had stuck! The pool of water had been warmed by the hot water hoses which pass through that general area. The leak was actually water which drips in from our 'dripless' stuffing box on the shaft in the engine compartment. Normally the bilge pump removes the accumulation once every couple days, but the bilge float had stuck! We think the fresh water pump was burping, that is, removing air bubbles in its system caused by the sea state agitation.

We weren't sinking after all. Back to enjoying our protected anchorage in the increasing winds that were forecasted. Ahhhh!

The next day:

Yesterday afternoon, Dad poked his head out the hatch to take a look at our position and noticed quick, lightning fast flashes through the water, through the white-caps in our little bay. We both got out in time to see that something was chasing the fish to beach them along the shore. The birds were going crazy, keeping up with the chase in hopes of cashing in, and many did come up with small fish in their beaks, gulls as well as a pelican. We would see sweeps of splashing, several large fish chasing others along the surface. One came very near the boat and we could see it was a small shark. Then George noticed a large brown patch moving rapidly towards us from the end of the cove. It was a very large school of 4-6" brown fish, staying very close together for protection, and trying to get away. There must have been 200+ fish in that school, but many more scattered about as we continued to see the ruffled water here and there, but moving throughout the cove in sequence. It all lasted maybe 5 minutes. The couple in the other boat observed it as well, probably hearing our exclamations. What a surprise! We had seen a number of dolphins herding fish in a cove down by La Paz, and this was equally as exciting.

It was a beautiful morning. I awoke at 6:30 this morning and went outside to shower. No one was around and we were the only ones on the south side of Coronados Island. But the moment I sat down in the nude and started rinsing my hair, I heard a boat coming, very close. I quickly ducked down so they wouldn't see me as they roared by, very close to the boat. I heard a little voice saying, "Hello Sailboat", probably a very young child. As they disappeared into the sunrise, I finished my shower, chuckling over my timing.

We motored into Loreto to check out with the Port Captain. While we were doing a few other errands, we encountered Jerry from a 26’ Columbia little sailboat we have seen a lot of at Ballandra Bay. Their engine had quit on their way over to Loreto on Saturday and they hadn't been able to get it fixed. They didn't know what they were going to do because they needed to get over to San Carlos by the end of the month when their visas ran out. When we heard of their plight, we decided to loan them our outboard engine which we haven't used for a while. It needs to be run, and we thought they could use up our gasoline too since we don't want to have any on the boat over the summer. They were simply delighted, of course. So we spent quite a bit of time getting our 8-horsepower Mercury engine onto their sailboat.

Then we motored Dream Chaser 20 miles north to San Juanico, a cove on the Baja Peninsula where George had spent 5 days all by himself last month. There are 8 other boats in here tonight! On our way, around 4:00 p.m., we saw splashing in the distance. We quickly changed course so we could go see what was going on. It was about 100 dolphins chasing after fish and feeding. They were leaping out of the water, splashing, porpoising, and generally having a wonderful time with a school of fish. The gulls were having a hayday as well. We could tell the feeding must have been good because they were spread out around the commotion, floating peacefully, looking pleased and well fed, not competing with each other for left-overs. The feeding frenzy went on for at least 15 minutes, and continued after we left. We'll have to look at our pictures.

Chicken barbequed with leftovers rounded out our day. We'll be here for another few days as northerlies are again expected. Those 20-30 mile winds are nothing you want to be out in unless you are going with them. We want to go further north yet before heading over to San Carlos around the middle of the month.

We had a wonderful time in San Juanico cove yesterday. The fierce winds finally died down and we had calm weather for doing projects and playing on the beach. The bugs were out in force, so we put on lots of bug repellant. I took one of our main winches apart, cleaned and regreased it, and put it all back together. It's a project that takes about 4 hours from start to finish including cleanup. Meanwhile, George worked on the VHF radio connections. I had purchased new ones while I was in Portland. He looked at all the wire he could access and found some cuts at the bottom of the mast. After cutting that segment out and pulling more wire down the mast (there was enough extra already there) to reattach the wire to the deck fitting, he went up the mast. He spent quite a bit of time up there checking for corrosion and replacing the fitting for the antenna there. The wind instrument was coated with salt so he sent that down for me to clean in fresh water. (Salt at the top of the mast!) He lubed everything, as usual when he's up there, and slowly made his way down again, spraying McLube in the mainsail track, lubing the accommodation flag pulley, checking the radar for cracks, and feeling the shrouds for any "meathooks" (signs of wear in these cables). By the time we both had finished these projects we were cranky and tired. We had lunch and both fell asleep reading. But by 4:00 we were ready to head to the beach.

I have been reading Steinbeck's "Log of the Sea of Cortez". It is a true account of a 6-week marine biology research trip taken with his friend Ed Ricketts on a fishing trawler along with his wife and other crew. Parts were quite philosophical, other parts revealing in the amount of sea life they found, horrifying to hear of the Japanese netting all the sea life right down to the bottom for the shrimp which destroyed entire eco-systems, and hilarious in his accounts of the common fishermen brought along as crew. This should be required reading for anyone traveling these waters. We have read in modern accounts that nothing has really changed here in the last 50 years. We can verify that to some degree. The wilderness is just as hostile as I read in Steinbeck's account, and the Indian/Mexican people just as nice and friendly.

With Steinbeck's book in mind, we rolled rocks in the low tidal flats to find the little crabs, hermit crabs, snails, worms, limpits, tunicits, sponges, and coral. They were all there! but not in the numbers I imagine were there 65 years ago. We sloughed along the sandy shallows. Fish darted around us and we found little feathers sticking up in the sand. Crabs skittered quickly away, especially along the shoreline. There were lots of holes in the sand. Little creatures digginn deeper caused little volcanoes of fine sand to erupt from their holes. An orange slick which we thought might be eggs was washing up on shore. The larger crabs would dart back into the water as we walked by, indicating to us that they were quite interested in this bright orange stuff washing up on shore. When we asked 2 kayakers about it, they said they didn't know what it was, but that whenever it was present, the phosphorescence at night would be magnificent.

All but one boat left this morning, but by the time we went ashore, there were 8 sailboats in the anchorage once again. Jerry and Sue on Chinkoman had just arrived with our outboard moving them along quite nicely. After dinner I took the dinghy for a row. The water was like glass. There was no moon, only a million stars in the sky, and there weren't many lights other than those from boats and houses on shore--perfect conditions for seeing the phosphorescence. Water falling from my oars splashed in waves of black lights, glowing madly and quickly fading. Little diamonds sparkled in the water around me. As the boat glided across the water, a little bow wake sparkled. If I dipped the oars deeply and pulled hard, the boat would sink down in the water, producing a pressure on the water that also excited the little organisms. If the pressure was enough, the twinkling lights would surge into quarter-sized dots all around me that disappeared as quickly as they appeared. I looked for fish darting in the dark under the boat in the shallows around the rock pinnacles close by. But the phosphorescence was on the surface. I couldn't see any movement at all in the water. Perhaps the fish knew they could easily be spotted even in the dark in these conditions, so remained still. Tonight I must take George along if he can get away from his book, "The Bear and the Dragon" by Tom Clancy which has captivated his attention for the past week.

We are presently motoring towards Conception Bay, Coyote Cove. This may be our last anchorage before heading across to San Carlos. I've been getting responses from the dive shops via e-mail. Depending on whether or not they can set something up for me, we may head over there before the 1st of May. We now have an appointment with Marina San Carlos to have Dream Chaser lifted out of the water for dry storage on May 6th at 10:00 a.m. We were able to use the satellite phone to make this arrangement!

We had a WONDERFUL trip north in no wind from Chivato (not on any map) to Santa Rosalia, a little mining town on the east side of Baja. We stopped along the way at Isla San Marcos where there is a large gypsum mining operation. With all the trucks and pile drivers working away, it was noisy and dusty. Rather than spending the day on the south end of the island, we headed further along to the north side of the island. Since there was NO wind, we anchored close to a rocky reef and went snorkeling. The rocks provided lots of alley-ways and walls for the fish to hide in. It was really wonderful snorkeling with lots and lots of Sargeant Majors in large schools and other fish too. Somehow, with all the nooks and crannies, the fishermen probably haven't been able to trap so many in their nets. They like to catch the surgeon fish, and we noted a very few of those, so the Mexicans probably have been there. Our cruising guides mention that game fish are often caught in that area. Anyway, we really enjoyed ourselves for a few hours, and then went on to Santa Rosalia where we could tie up to a dock and give Dream Chaser a badly needed fresh-water washdown. We needed to do laundry and get fresh provisions as well.

As the sun was going down and I was preparing dinner, who should show up but our friends to whom we had loaned our outboard motor. They had been stuck in the same little cove for the last 5 days and finally had calm enough weather to head north. We hadn't been able to contact them by VHF radio, so we figured they were heading over to San Carlos, on the mainland side of the Baja. But they decided to head into San Carlos first. We were so glad they did. We had them over for dinner right away. The little cove where they stayed had a Mexican fisherman living there who had a little gasoline which they purchased, just enough to get them to San Carlos traveling at 5.25 knots. Even at that, it took them 12 hours to get here, the only place where they could get enough fuel to cross the Sea.

We are right next to another boat from Newport, Oregon here at the dock. We just caught them as they were leaving to board a bus for the Oakland, California Boat Show! Sorry we couldn't spend more time talking with them, but they had to be on their way. They had built their steel boat in Salem and finished it in Newport. It sure looked good to us, but they had some more "gear" to research and purchase at the boat show before going on their way, wherever that might be. Somehow we just couldn't believe someone would be heading up to Oakland on the bus and/or train from here.

We're going to do some sightseeing today in Santa Rosalia. It's a neat little Mexican town. It feels very friendly. The officials have tried very hard to speak English which makes us feel wanted. This town was built by the French for copper mining. All the houses and old buildings look a little French, certainly more European than anywhere else down here. There is even a French bakery, but we didn't see anything especially French when we went yesterday. Apparently, you have to go early in the morning to get anything special. All the names for their pastries are in Spanish, so we don't know how to ask for anything without pointing. That works pretty well though. I was hoping for chocolate eclairs or something along those lines. After buying a cookie that was pretty dry, a cute little dog went racing down the street after a motorbike and returned with its tongue hanging out. I think it was a puppy. It had such cute little brown eyes and soft fur that I had to give him some of my cookie. This little mutt had a collar, so someone loved it. We found a plastic tray behind the bench we were sitting on, so I gave it some water too. Fortunately, it didn't continue to follow us, but he melted my heart. We'll have to write again after we've seen the museum and church in town built by Eifel. Our cruising guide mentions a number of sights to see as well as sidetrips, so stay tuned.

The weather is supposed to stay calm for a few more days, so we intend to head north again tomorrow morning for Bahia San Francisquito. From there we will visit islands all the way across the sea and then down to San Carlos. Most of the boats heading for San Carlos will cross south of here, the shortest distance being from Chivato where we picked up so many wonderful seashells.

One more saga: while crossing in the Midriff Islands, our Volvo engine faltered and died. About four hours later of exhaustive 'try this, try that' that included checking Racor filters, thumb pumping the feed pump, secondary filter bleeding, thumb pumping, fuel supply from the main tank, thumb pumping, fuel supply from the auxiliary tank, thumb pumping, loosening the injector nuts to bleed air, thumb pumping, and finally 'the straw that broke the camel's back' I thought there might be a clogged filter in the feed pump that has the thumb pump mechanism. I opened the top half of the feed pump, and 'brringgg' went the spring and two other parts to a check valve. I was done for, over my head, know clue as to what to do. So we were without an engine, and had to fall back on our sails for the remaining 70 miles to San Carlos Marina. We're a sailboat, right? So no problemo. But you need wind! Sometimes the wind was 5 knots with seas of 6-8' from the previous wind. Of course the sails would slat back and forth with a vengeance. Then the winds would pick up to 20-25 knots, and we would be screaming. More than not, we were in light winds and not going anywhere! But we finally made it in, being assisted by a dinghy of a couple of 'Great Friends' who tugged us into a slip at the marina....right next to a boater who was a diesel mechanic :)

When he heard about our woes, he said there should be nothing that goes 'brringgg' when opening the feed pump. Those parts are swaged into place at the factory. He was sure that was our problem. So he helped me get the parts back into place, but the spring was sprung, and not up to any further work. So we needed to find a Volvo parts dealer, maybe. But as we were walking towards his car, he asked the boater next to him, 'Flint, you have a Volvo engine don't you?" And yes, in short, he had a spare feed pump. After taking it apart, and treating it with acetone to remove the lacquer, then installing it, the thumb pump started moving fuel, bleeding air, and Voila! the Vovlo went varoom!!! Happiness is having a purring engine.

So we are in San Carlos Marina where we are preparing to take the boat out of the water for the summer.