Northbound: Turtle Bay to Ensenada

Passage from Turtle Bay to Ensenada

After spending more than a week in Turtle Bay, we finally got our weather window to make our way north to Ensenada.  What should have been a pretty simple two night passage turned into a 4night, 5 day adventure.  Departing Turtle Bay we were accompanied by thousands of flies (wonderful, huh!).  They stayed with us for most of our first day until we sailed further away from land.  The swells were pretty big from all of the previous week's weather, but Pearl handled them without a problem.  Once we were close to Cedros Island, we put out our fishing lines.  It wasn't long before we had a fish on.  Woohoo!  Just as Bob was beginning the filleting process, we got a radio call from our friends on S/V Kwanesum.  They reported 21-28 kt winds up ahead.  So...the fish fillet fest was delayed and the reefing of the sails took precedence.    We had a good sail for a couple of hours and then the wind switched to blowing right on our nose.  On went the engine.  Everything was going fine (but painstakingly slow), and the winds began to subside, until we snagged a fishing net in the late hours of the second night.  It must of been the mother of all nets because it slowed us down to barely a crawl and left quite a mark on our rudder post.  Fortunately, the way our keel is designed and the placement of our prop enabled us to shed the net quite easily.  Thinking we were in the clear, we motored northward.  A few hours after the "net" incident, Bob began hearing a strange noise coming from the engine.  Upon investigation, he realized our engine coolant pump was about to fail.  We quickly turned the engine off and tried our best to continue sailing.  Unfortunately, there was absolutely no wind and we were carried backwards by the current (in a beautiful looping pattern that resembled something from an ice skater!).  Thankfully, within a few hours our wind returned and we were able to make some progress to our destination.  The entire time, the wind was on our nose which forced us to sail an extreme zig-zag pattern (at an average speed of 3knots thanks to bashing waves and current).  Our winds remained about 8-16kts until the next day when they piped up to 20-25kts.  We were healing like crazy and still only averaging 4 kts of speed (every time we hit a wave the speed would drop to nil).  It wasn't until the last couple of hours that we were zooming along at 7-9kts.  To get to Ensenada from the point our engine failed, it took us 57 hours to sail approx. 90 miles.
We were all exhausted by the time we arrived in Ensenada!

Ensenada 


We decided to have the boat hauled out here and bottom work done because the prices are so much more affordable than back home.  The boat yard is great compared to other yards.  There's Internet, nice showers and bathrooms, and affordable eating around town.  By the end of our stay here we will all have gained at least 5 lbs. from all the fish tacos!

Pearl is so ready for a little tlc!

We couldn't hear their conversation, but we think it went something like this:
Salty: "Hey, nice spots man."
Shorty:  "I'm your faaaaather"
Salty:  "Uhhhhhhm."
Shorty:  "Why do you look so disappointed?  You come from a great line of warrior chihuahuas."
Salty:  "But who is my mother?"
Shorty "It's hard to keep track for a stud like me!"

"Gringo Gulch" in Ensenada

Pearl gets a new transom paint job (notice the cheap beer theme).

Pearl on her way back to the water (4/19/2012).  Notice our new Mexican courtesy flag...  Viva La Mexico!

  

As can be seen, we are now back in the water (yippeee).  Baja Naval boatyard did a fantastic job on Pearl.  They worked with all our "over the shoulder harassment" and it came out cheaper than expected!  We are now awaiting our *#*+^*ing engine part to arrive so we can get to San Diego.  We are hoping to leave Wednesday, April 25.