We departed Puerto Vallarta on the Gunboat ’62 “ Chim Chim “ for the delivery to San Diego. Our intention was to do it non-stop, but the Sea of Cortez had something else in mind. While doubled reefed and under storm jib (mainly to keep the speed down), we experienced 4-6’ short period northerly seas, mixed with south and west swell coming from the Pacific. It made for a bumpy ride, and the port side dagger board “bearing “started to work its way loose from the hull. Concerned it would get worse (we still had about 900 miles of uphill sailing to go), we decided to pull into Cabo to affect the repair. We accomplished that, gave the boat a proper wash, and had a nice dinner. I spoke with Tanja and mentioned we’d time our crossing of the Sea for more pleasant sailing conditions, which we later did!
I joked with Gio that we were tempting Neptune by giving Chim Chim a spit polish only a few hours before departing on the “Bash “ – normally 700 miles of rough, upwind sailing. Fortunately, he must not have been paying us any attention, as other than the usual headwinds for the entire trip and some roughish sailing in the early going, the conditions were relatively benign. Neptune did, however, make sure that we didn’t get a single fish…
Chim Chim did herself proud again, and it was nice to be back onboard her. Beyond the dagger board repair, there were no other issues. We did wrap the port side prop in fishing gear of some kind (typically, it was late at night). The Captain, Owen, aka “Sheriff Longmire “ made a quick job of it with a mask and knife – simply by leaning out of the port side escape hatch he was able to reach it! Perhaps it is hindsight as these things happen (we caught one on Alsager’s rudder in broad daylight), but going forward I’m going to make it a point to avoid passing over sea mounts at night as they are common places to find gear in the water…
Thanks to John and Owen for having me aboard, where once again I ate very well, including on my 45th Birthday, when Brianna prepared an awesome steak dinner for us all to enjoy!
To Sail or Not To Be 