Time Dilation

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Dec 10, 2022

Our first real sail after getting the boat launched again, we crossed from San Carlos, Sonora back over to Punta Chivato, in Baja California Sur, on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. Our weather window was perfect: a steady sixteen knots of wind all day, blowing from the north. This put the wind directly on our beam — coming across the side of the boat — which makes for a smooth, fast sail across the waves.

We left early in the morning for the seventy nautical mile crossing, and had a beautiful ride across the Sea. We were ready to go as well, being down to ten gallons of fresh water in our tanks. We tend to make water while we’re underway, both because the motion of the boat masks the sound of the water maker, and because the water out away from land tends to be very clear, and puts less stress on our filters.

While sailing, time passes both quickly and slowly. Each moment seems to spread out like the sea to the horizon, without any sense of progress, since the horizon recedes as quickly as we sail. Around the boat though, the water rushes past as the individual waves lift the boat, passing under her keel. When we’re moving quickly, there’s a real sense of power driving our little twelve ton home across the water, as the spray leaps out from under her bow. So time moves slowly through the day, but then we suddenly arrive in an instant.

About two thirds of the way across, Donna popped down below to get something out of the galley, and noticed some water coming up above the cabin sole. After a quick inspection, we realized that the water was coming from the water maker — all the water we had made during our crossing was ending up in the bilge. I had serviced a few valves in the system, and put them together the wrong way around, leading to the leak.

No problem! We turned off the water maker, finished up our excellent sail, and dropped anchor in Punta Chivato, which provided excellent shelter from the north- north westerly wind and waves. As the sun sank over the horizon, I started looking into the situation with the water maker, while Donna started to bail out the many gallons of water sloshing around in our bilge.

As my investigation of the water maker issue progressed, Donna pointed out that the temperatures on the refrigerator and freezer were also a bit high, due to the raw water strainer being choked with weed and needing to be cleaned out. This was only a few weeks after having been cleaned when we put the boat in the water.

In the process of cleaning the strainer, while removing the inlet hose, I managed to break the hose barb that connects the inlet hose to the strainer. So now, we were sitting in a boat in the middle of the desert, with ten gallons of fresh water in the tank, no refrigeration, no flush toilets, and no water maker — they all use sea water, either for cooling, flushing, or filtering.

Luckily, we had an appropriate epoxy to glue the broken hose barb back together, and after judicious application of one of Donna’s hair ties to hold the part in place we had ten hours to get some rest while the glue cured.

In the morning, we replaced the parts we needed to replace. Two pumps had died in the bailing, but since they likely served since the boat was new, we couldn’t begrudge them their well-deserved rest, although their choice of moment to die could have been better. Luckily, I had anticipated their failure, and had spares onboard. The sea water strainer was cleaned, and the hoses replaced. Finally the refrigeration was back online after only an overnight hiatus, and everything was back to operation.

Welcome back to the cruising life! From the beautiful sail through to a day that felt like it wouldn’t end, to an evening of troubleshooting and repair that also felt like it wouldn’t end, although in a very different way, we went from high to low, and back again as we basked in the satisfaction of getting through our difficulty unassisted.

Almost immediately, the rod bent over nearly double and the drag started screaming.

From Chivato, we started south, first heading back to Bahia de la Conception, only a short hop after our all-day sail. The wind was light, but with the short distance, we rolled out the jib, and ghosted along the calm water at a sedate three knots.

Having bought fishing gear and licenses in Guaymas, we were hoping to catch some fish for dinner. Dorado season was nearing its end, but there were still lots of fish around, so I pulled out our new rod, a light spin-casting setup, and tied on a lure, mainly to get things ready once we dropped anchor, and threw it over the side just to see, and let out about fifty feet of line.

Almost immediately, the rod bent over nearly double and the drag started screaming.

While I struggled to crank the severely undersized reel, Donna shouted, “Be careful! Don’t break the rod! It’s brand new!” I called back, “If the rod breaks on the first strike of the first cast, that story is worth a broken rod.” For the next fifteen minutes, I pulled while the fish tore line off the reel, then cranked as fast I could to keep tension on the line. A few times, we could see our fish dancing on its tail above the water in the sunlight, a beautiful dorado, all golden-green, close to four feet long and fat.

Eventually, as the fish tired, I managed to get it reeled up to the boat. I had dropped the line over the side of the boat though, making it almost impossible to pull the fish up over the boat’s open transom. Donna grabbed the gaff, and as I could pull it close, she tentatively reached out towards the fish. “It’s looking at me with its big eye and trying to get away!” True enough, every time Donna reached out with the gaff, the fish would wriggle a bit to slide just out of her reach.

Finally, I managed the get the fish within a couple feet of the transom, and Donna reached out to grab the line, to pull the fish up onto the boat. The light line had taken enough abuse though, and parted at the knot, releasing the fish with our lure. Wow, so close, but yet so far.

The rest of the sail was uneventful. We dropped anchor at Santo Domingo, jumped in the water for a swim, and had hot dogs for dinner. Not exactly the Mahi we almost caught but that’s ok. Can’t win them all.

We spent a few days at anchor, moving further into Bahia Conception, visiting the local taco shacks on the beach, and grabbing a taxi into nearby Mulegé on our last day, where we had our laundry done while we ate a large pepperoni pizza before heading back to the boat. The next morning, we picked up the anchor and continued south to San Juanico, but that’s a story for another day.