It's hot here, and there are clouds of mosquitos, and fire ants that attack, and cows roaming loose outside the boat yard. And, today we found a small, but important, crack in our rudder.Most likely it will be a relative simple fix, however, as all boats owners will understand, getting to a point where we can have enough access to fix the rudder is a huge job in itself.

The crack is in the leading edge of the rudder, through to the shaft, in between the hull and the rudder (with a clearance of ~1/4"). To take it off, we need to remove the tiller head fitting (done), remove the below deck autopilot arm (done), remove the prop, pull the prop shaft, and (drum roll) cut the fiberglass heel fitting off (http://svpisces.blogspot.com/2008/10/boatyard-forensics.html), and then lift or tilt the boat forward to get enough clearance below to pull the rudder off.

Then we need to get the rudder back to the Bay Area so that we can work on it this summer.

Still all in all, we are extremely lucky to have found this crack here and now.

Yesterday we made the transition from Marina San Carlos to Marina Seca work yard in preparation for heading into dry storage on Monday. It's been an adventure already, there are bloodthirsty mozzies here who seem to love my back, and around 1am last night we had a wild thunder storm. Talk about feeling vulnerable, sitting in the work yard up on stands with 500 masts around...

As work yards go it's good and the crew there was really professional and organized in transporting Pisces. Shawn and Chris came along for the short ride to Marina Seca for moral support, they rode the tractor with Jacob, I rode on Pisces. Gotta love Mexico.

Here's our current list of To-Do's to prep Pisces for dry storage. It's in a rough order, but we've been skipping around a bit.

Shop
Check Insurance
Laundry
Talk to yards/marina
Spray Key switch with WD40
Change engine oil
Find Impeller Vane (one missing piece still in cooling system)
Change out coolant (50/50)
Remove Tri-color
Remove Blocks
Add extra biocide?
Clean off anchor chain/locker
Get rid of some books
Slack rigging
Wash down running rigging
Pull Halyards
Remove Mainsheet
Remove Running Backs
Remove Sails
Clean Sails
Remove Windvane
Cover Boomgallows
Wash down boat
Remove solar panel
Cover winches
Clean Pesky
Top-up battery fluids
Clean/oil fishing rod/reel
Lash down anchors
Empty water tanks
Sort out air circulation
Go through for disposables
Grease Turnbuckles
Clean all clothes, large bags
Spices low in boat
Lube Galley Pumps
Dispose of Perishables
Oil Tools
Pack spares for preservation
Inventory Spares
Disconnect antenna leads
CD/DVD's low in boat
Check temp sensitive medicines
Remove spray paint/propane accelerants
Wipe lockers with vinegar/bleach
Clean entire interior (all lockers)
Alum foil in hatches/portholes (using car windshield reflector material)
Inventory Medical Supplies
Remove dry cell batteries
Go through purchase list and take measurements
Haul Out (Wed. 20th AM)
Plug all gaps (companionway)
Lock cockpit lockers
Foil on engine instruments
Foil the compass/instruments
Take off tiller-head fitting
Freshwater flush of engine
Antifreeze flush engine
Air-out fridge
Liferaft stored below(?)
Mineral oil in manual gusher
Prep Bottom (letting it dry this summer)
Close all thru-hulls (except cockpit drains)
Steelwool/Nylon Pads Thru hulls/vents
Inspect Rudder
Tape cover all thru hulls
Open all lockers
Rinse/empty holding tank
Vaseline/S.G. portholes/hatches
Oil in head
Stack cushions
Cockroach Poison on interior surfaces
Remove electronics, put in oven
Check/Grease all Deck Fill O-Rings
Flares?
Towel around mast step

We are currently in San Carlos, Sonora, having made the crossing of the Sea of Cortez in approximately 30 hours from Bahia Concepcion. The crossing itself was a mixed bag, we had great fast fun sailing, and then we got to sit in the leftover sloppy cross-seas when the fun sailing wind went away after dark. We reverted to our cup-a-noodles dinners (Julia observed that c.o.n. are a great sailing food not only because they are easy to make but also because 'it's not too bad to throw them up'...yeah it was that sort of night). We put too much faith in the weather forecasters (again) and tried to shape our course based on expected windshifts, which never materialized, meaning we ended up beating upwind for almost the entire time. We saw dorados plowing through the water in hot pursuit of flying fish. And, when we finally fired up Alpha Beta to do some motoring we noticed there was no cooling water in the exhaust, necessitating an impeller replacement in the aforementioned sloppy seas...

But, the thing which was the most strange about this particular passage, was that it was our last for the season. We are here in San Carlos (in a marina, with electricity, and water, and internet, and showers!) about to put Pisces away for a summer of dry storage. We have very mixed emotions about it, the experience up to this point has been the hardest, scariest, most intensely rewarding thing we've ever done, collectively and individually. We've both learned a huge amount about who we are, how we fit together, how people fit with nature, how other people are living, and how we might want to live in the future. We have also been pushed pushed pushed just up to our limit (and some times a bit beyond it), and we are both incredibly excited about thing slow afternoons at coffee shops with internet and newspapers, not getting up once during the night, cold everything, running water, friends & family, chinese food, indian food, pizza, hamburgers, milkshakes, frozen yogurt, etc.

We will post a few more blogs in the coming weeks, we'll post our list of to-do's so you can get a sense of how hard we will be working to prepare Pisces for the heat and winds of hurricane season, and we'll probably write a bit more of a wrap-up for the season. But now, we'd be interested if you as a reader have any questions!! An old salt wanting to know whether we use monel or stainless steel seizing wire? A landlubber wanting to know why some sails are white and some are not? Can't wrap your head around how we managed to spend the last 5 months on a boat doing ___ ? Ask away via comment or email and we'll let you know while it's all fresh.

And, to end this blog off, here's a blog post from Julia written yesterday while sailing that failed to upload due to technical problems:

We left Bahia Concepion this morning, following the fog out of the bay.

We are currently about 20 miles out of the bay barreling towards San Carlos at 5.7 kts. The wind is from the East and we are having a great sail with jib, staysail and single reefed main. The fishing line was out for a while earlier, but attracted too much attention from some nosy boobies and sea gulls, so we hauled it in not wanting to catch a bird on the line.

We can already hear the port traffic to the marinas and port captains of Guaymas and San Carlos as vessels clear in and out.

Hot, freshwater shower here we come!

Lat 27 11' N, Long 111 41' W

A couple of days ago we had one of those days that makes everything else worthwhile, the kind of day that you dream of when you decide to go cruising.

The day started with a dinghy exploration of the North side of Coyote Bay in Bahia Concepcion. With the crew of Tao we dinghied out to a small reef to do some snorkeling. As soon as we dove into the 10-20 foot deep water we realized the bottom was scattered with clams, both the small butter clams and the larger chocolata clams this region is famous for. With an hour of easy diving we had enough for dinner.

After snorkeling we headed to Santispac beach to try and arrange a ride to Mulege for the following day. After walking around the beach and talking to a couple of the locals we looked out and noticed some huge fins only a few hundred yards offshore. Turns out that there are a couple of very large whale sharks currently calling Bahia Concepcion home! We jumped in the dinghy, and slowly paddled out to within a few yards of one, who was at least 25 feet in length. After a mild bit of coaxing, persuasion, and exhortation we all donned our snorkeling gear and jumped in the water to snorkel with this gentle giant. He seemed unconcerned by us, and would let us get quite close, within a few feet. It was an amazing experience, especially given the general turbidity of the water, to see coming out of the darkness the gaping mouth which was probably 4 feet across!

That evening we had a dinner of linguine with sun-dried tomato alfredo sauce, fresh clams steamed in a garlic, butter, and white wine sauce, fresh bread, and a couple bottles of great wine. The moon was almost full, and the anchorage was completely calm and the water was like glass reflecting the stars.

Lat 26 42' N, Long 111 53' W

You might think that after getting your boat prepped with every safety gadget known to mankind, reading every account of sailing through a hurricane ever written, and learning how to speak like a pirate you would be living a life of luxury on your cruise...turns out you also get to worry about other fun stuff that is completely out of your control, like 'drug cartels', and 'anarchy', and now 'swine flu'.

Despite our currently being in Mexico (insert shocked gasp here), you probably know much more about swine flu than we do, simply because you have access to the internet. The information we do have comes from concerned emails from our parents, rumors being spread on the SSB nets, and the occasionally overheard VHF conversation. You end up with 'information' such as 'everything in Mexico is closed.' It's not terribly reassuring to actually be here but be without any real source of information, add to that the fact that you need to take the US news sources with a grain of salt, and it's impossible for us to tell what is really going on.

Actually we are probably among the safest group of people right now, just due to our isolation. We left La Paz on April 2nd, and have not been in a single village since then. More than that, we've only had close contact with 6 other people, 4 of whom also left La Paz at the same time as us. One nice thing about our isolation is that we didn't spend a single dollar during the month of April (no opportunity). One not so nice thing is that we ran out of fresh veggies long ago (except things like cabbage, onions, and potatoes), so we are probably at much higher risk of getting scurvy than swine flu.

On a more serious note, we want to reassure you all that we are being careful, we've made some changes to our plans to avoid some of the population centers that we had wanted to visit, and we'll be keeping an eye on the situation prior to heading in to San Carlos to haul Pisces out for the summer. And if the isolation isn't enough on it's own, we also have a decent stash of anti-viral medicine.

In the meantime we have been hanging out having a great time, sailing Pesky, whale watching from the deck of our boat while at anchor, reading a ton of books, doing the most amazing snorkeling we have ever done, drinking our stash of Waiheke Island wine (it would probably go bad if we left it in the heat of the summer right?), and sharing dinners with Shawn & Chris on Tao talking about what we are all going to do with the rest of our lives.

Lat 26 31' N, Long 111 27' W