The engine is fixed and I’m underway. The front seals went, thus it was leaking oil all over the place. $1000 later, the seals were replaced and the raw water pump rebuilt. I headed out of Maz on 2/13, buddy boating with a friend named Temo. He has sailed around the world and is currently single-handling a 27 footer. We headed out around 11am with beautiful weather. I checked the engine about 2 hours into the trip and found it puking oil all over! I turned around and limped back into the marina, mostly with sail power. After looking at it, it appears the mechanic forgot to tighten a screw on the valve cover. It was fixed in an hour and I decided to go catch Temo.
Our plan was to depart Mazatlan and head for San Blas (Longfellow wrote a poem about the bells there or something….). It would be about a 26hr passage, first true single handling I’ve done. About 2am, my auto-pilot alarm went off stating I was off course. After checking everything, I found that I had no propulsion! Temo was about 4hrs ahead of me. I gave him a shout on the radio and told him to hold tight. I went below and checked the transmission and engine, everything appeared perfect. I then looked down into the water and saw white water as I throttled up but I didn’t go anywhere. My biggest fear….I lost the prop! I grabbed the big flood light and immediately identified the problem....I ran through a fishing net that had no buoys, lights or boats around. Just a couple floats on the line. I eventually found the two fishermen in their Panga about 300yrds away. I hit them w/ the search light and woke them up. After 10 minutes, they arrived and we cut the net. Luckily, it was just snagged on my skeg and not wrapped around the prop/shaft.
About 2 hours later, same thing! I didn’t panic; I simply looked for the Panga. Unfortunately for them, they were gone. I guess they dropped their nets in the middle of the ocean and went back to the shore! Highly illegal btw. Well, they’ll have a surprise in the morning. I grabbed my boat hook and cut the line myself. No fish for them……
That was about 4am. We sailed into San Blas around 3:30 pm on 2/14…about a 28hr trip. We spent 3 days there, and then headed out. PV is pretty expensive and hard to find an anchorage so we made the decision to bypass PV and head south. This trip will be about the same length but it’ll put us on the north end of what’s called the Mexican Riviera. From Chamela south, there are beautiful anchorages all the way down to Zijuantenejo, with each anchorage being appx. 4-12hrs apart….nice!!
Well, that’s all for now. The engine is purring (although a little bit of white smoke in the exhaust. It’s not overheating and oil pressure is good so I’m going with it). I’ll be hopping down the coast for the next 3 weeks, ending up in Zijuantenejo ready to party with The Millers (Steve/Christine/Kate) for 10 days). More later!
Dan
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I knew that flood light would come in use! - D
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