Life Can Be Really Miserable Even Out Here

No, we didn't run into any more storms. It is worse - our anchor windlass is completely shot and now Mike has to drag the 55 lb anchor and pounds and pounds of heavy chain up by hand. And we are in the middle of nowhere. It totally sucks. In addition, our alternator is acting funny and the spare does not seem to fit the rest of the system. (Mike thinks he may have that fixed it is is acting okay now.) I have to sew up a tear in our biggest, most unwieldy sail, and the engine is still acting funny. This means we are going to have to change our plans and go somewhere that has repair facilities - none of which are less than 100 miles from here. The Copper Canyon trip does not seem possible, and there is a good chance we may lose our $700 deposit, but hopefully I am canceling in time. I am totally discouraged, beat down, and cranky. Mike is doing better but not by much. If one more thing breaks before we can get the already broken things fixed, I may have a nervous breakdown. Oh I forgot - not an option as there is no psychiatric hospital nearby! I guess I forgot that the definition of "cruising" is "fixing your boat in exotic places."

Yesterday's sail was the worst of our lives. I seriously would rather have had a storm. We are in the Midriff Islands, which means there are strong currents all around. And since we are heading north, and have horrible luck, we had an unseasonable north wind, which meant we had to tack back and forth, adding tons of miles to a simple 22 mile sail. AND those currents were against us most of the time, so even with 10-13 knot winds, we were only able to make about 2 knots per hour, and it took us from 9 am to midnight to reach this anchorage. We had to break our cardinal rule and enter a strange anchorage at night - and one with a very narrow entrance channel no less. Thank goodness for our electronic navigation suite - interfaced chartplotter and radar - as we would never have been able to find our way into this narrow channel without it. But we made it, and it is one of the best hurricane holes in the entire sea, so we don't have to leave anytime soon. But there is no internet, only shortwave radio, so communications are difficult. Hopefully we have the true information about the location north of here that supposedly has haulout and repair facilities - the one south of here is not in a good location for weather this time of year. The way to avoid the tropical storms is to be as far north as possible, and Puerto Penasco is about as far north as we can get. But without being able to check the net, it is hard to determine exactly what is there. I just can't seem to stop complaining.

But everything isn't all bad. we saw tons of dolphins, and were escorted along the way for a while by a pod of pilot whales, some of which got very close. So things aren't all bad. This is a nice anchorage with plenty of protection and no rocking and rolling at night from swells rolling in from the sea. We have a generator to charge the batteries if the alternator goes south (the alternator charges the batteries using the engine), our watermaker makes enough water for lots of comforting fresh water washdowns after ocean swimming, and we have plenty of food. The fishing around here is also rumored to be excellent, and we caught a dorado on our hand line that we trailed from the boat. I guess we will survive.

Anyway, I had better end this before I find more things to complain about. Nobody wants to read this crap, that's for sure. I hope you all have a better day than we did yesterday!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com