Weebles in Mexico - the adventure resumes (aka Tales from the Cruising Crypt)

[Diep]

Nice job. I am glad all the planning and preparation paid off and the trip was smooth.

I really appreciate your candid posting, both in this thread and throughout the site. I find it refreshing compared to so much internet content these days. Your experiences and musings show a truer view of the cruising life and experience. To me it is educational, inspiring, heartening. You are showing us that it is ok to be fully qualified, capable and prepared, and still a little afraid. Being real about the ups and downs. Thanks.

Enjoy El Salvador!!

 

[mvweebles]

Nice job. I am glad all the planning and preparation paid off and the trip was smooth.

I really appreciate your candid posting, both in this thread and throughout the site. I find it refreshing compared to so much internet content these days. Your experiences and musings show a truer view of the cruising life and experience. To me it is educational, inspiring, heartening. You are showing us that it is ok to be fully qualified, capable and prepared, and still a little afraid. Being real about the ups and downs. Thanks.

Enjoy El Salvador!!

Thanks for the kind words. I wince a bit at the "preparedness" comment. I'm more prone to triage than preparation. Water maker isn't working - what's Plan B? Fix the water maker but I don't feel like fixing it. So Plan B is use dock water (non-potable) for washing and buy 5-gal jugs of purified water for drinking, same thing Mexicans do.

If mentioned several times my dripless Tides shaft seal is dripping. Now what? Mostly. I hope it doesn't get worse which it hasn't. Not sure what I would do if it did - no nearby travelifts.

My AIS gives wonky information

I haven't bothered to replace the heating element in my water heater

My forward AC leaks condensate from who knows where.

I have a pretty long list of stuff that drives me nuts but I just live with. Doesn't make me a good cruiser. Just makes me better at compromising. Do I really want to fix it now when I can't get parts, or can I just live with it until I get home to Florida?

There's a lot of chatter on lists like TF and others. A lot of folks give the impression their boats are in perfect condition and ready to go. I respect that but it's not me. It's way beyond my skill level so I realize I may need to compromise. Not 5-mins ago, Cheryll asked why we don't run the forward AC. I confessed because there is a condensate leak and it's easier to run the saloon AC and put a fan to push cool air down below. That's a workaround, not a fix. It's triage.
Peter

 

[Docktopus]

Congrats! Thank you for posting this thread. It has been fun to follow along. I have to say, from a purely selfish perspective, I was disappointed to read that you are shipping Weebles. I am going to miss all the thought you put into your cruise plans and share with the forum.

That yellow flag you are flying in the picture just before crossing the bar - is it a nautical sign that I don’t know (which would not be surprising)?

 

[Frosty]

That yellow flag you are flying in the picture just before crossing the bar - is it a nautical sign that I don’t know (which would not be surprising)?

That's the "Q" flag, which in this case means "quarantine." You fly it as you enter a new country, basically signifying that you just arrived and will be checking in. Once you are all official in the new place, you take it down and just fly the courtesy flag of that country (plus your own ensign).

 

[Diep]

Thanks for the kind words. I wince a bit at the "preparedness" comment. I'm more prone to triage than preparation. Water maker isn't working - what's Plan B? Fix the water maker but I don't feel like fixing it. So Plan B is use dock water (non-potable) for washing and buy 5-gal jugs of purified water for drinking, same thing Mexicans do.

If mentioned several times my dripless Tides shaft seal is dripping. Now what? Mostly. I hope it doesn't get worse which it hasn't. Not sure what I would do if it did - no nearby travelifts.

My AIS gives wonky information

I haven't bothered to replace the heating element in my water heater

My forward AC leaks condensate from who knows where.

I have a pretty long list of stuff that drives me nuts but I just live with. Doesn't make me a good cruiser. Just makes me better at compromising. Do I really want to fix it now when I can't get parts, or can I just live with it until I get home to Florida?

There's a lot of chatter on lists like TF and others. A lot of folks give the impression their boats are in perfect condition and ready to go. I respect that but it's not me. It's way beyond my skill level so I realize I may need to compromise. Not 5-mins ago, Cheryll asked why we don't run the forward AC. I confessed because there is a condensate leak and it's easier to run the saloon AC and put a fan to push cool air down below. That's a workaround, not a fix. It's triage.
Peter

I see your point but that is part of what I'm talking about. I think a lot of people that claim their boat is always 100% are usually either bluffing or don't know what they are missing. You've got an old boat like most of us. It is never going to be 100% but you are realistic about it and making the call on what is good enough and then getting out there. That's real boating/cruising.

 

[slowgoesit]

Peter, glad you made it into BDS with no issues. It really is a nice place to spend some time. Like Barra Navidad, I wish we had been able to spend more time there.

 

[PierreR]

Nobody has a perfect boat where it does not need work. I fix stuff constantly. The same guys that pretend to have everything working are the same trawler guys that do sail boater math on their performance.

 

[mvweebles]

.......I was disappointed to read that you are shipping Weebles. I am going to miss all the thought you put into your cruise plans and share with the forum.

Opportunity Costs....and cruising

About 10-years ago, I finally realized there was more highway in life's rearview mirror than its windshield. For me the currency of life changed. Time became legal tender and guided decisions.

I've always been an inquisitive person. Some people accomplish goals through grit, fortitude, and determination. Edmund Hillary climbed Everest "because it was there." i admire that type of drive - Steve Jobs created Apple with it. But that's not how I roll, especially these days. I'm all about opportunity-cost accounting.

In all likelihood, running Weebles up the Caribbean would take a full cruising season - a year. We'd like to use the boat more. We can do that if it's in Florida minutes from our home. As we've traveled south in Central America, the cruising grounds have become fewer and the logistics have become more daunting.

Our goal has always been interesting travel. Weebles has been our magic carpet. But there is a point where the boat - any boat - is an interference, at least if your goal is travel and discovery. We've already traveled in Costa Rica and Panama so the remaining cruising grounds are fewer and further between with added complexity of waiting for weather. We watched friends on a Nordhavn 55 sit in Shelter Bay Marina, Panama for almost 2-months waiting for a window to head to Key West. Shelter Bay is a nice marina......for a week or so. After that, it's a penitentiary and you're waiting for your parole date. Serving time, not cruising. And Weebles ain't no Nordhavn.....our 'sentence' would be longer.

A mentor once helped me understand life-accounting and opportunity costs: in 5-10 years, what do you want the byline for today to be? Example: a few weeks ago we traveled inland to a mountain town in Chiapas. We escaped some rain by ducking into a nice store that happened to sell very nice locally woven fabrics. I'm a sucker for folk art and fabrics so I was interested.....but they were expensive. So I ask myself: in five years, will I remember the price I paid? Or will I admire the fabric knowing the weaver spent weeks of her life creating it? My credit card has only recently cooled off......

In short: putting Weebles on a ship will allow us to cruise more. A better use of time for us. We're really excited. We can't wait to return to St Augustine and Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas). Our cruising grounds may be less exotic but no less interesting.

Opportunity costs......

Peter

 

[ranger58sb]

Thanks for the kind words. I wince a bit at the "preparedness" comment. I'm more prone to triage than preparation. Water maker isn't working - what's Plan B? Fix the water maker but I don't feel like fixing it. So Plan B is use dock water (non-potable) for washing and buy 5-gal jugs of purified water for drinking, same thing Mexicans do.

If mentioned several times my dripless Tides shaft seal is dripping. Now what? Mostly. I hope it doesn't get worse which it hasn't. Not sure what I would do if it did - no nearby travelifts.

My AIS gives wonky information

I haven't bothered to replace the heating element in my water heater

My forward AC leaks condensate from who knows where.

I have a pretty long list of stuff that drives me nuts but I just live with. Doesn't make me a good cruiser. Just makes me better at compromising. Do I really want to fix it now when I can't get parts, or can I just live with it until I get home to Florida?

There's a lot of chatter on lists like TF and others. A lot of folks give the impression their boats are in perfect condition and ready to go. I respect that but it's not me. It's way beyond my skill level so I realize I may need to compromise. Not 5-mins ago, Cheryll asked why we don't run the forward AC. I confessed because there is a condensate leak and it's easier to run the saloon AC and put a fan to push cool air down below. That's a workaround, not a fix. It's triage.
Peter

Good post... and ditto, ditto, ditto. Is our boat 100%? I don't think so, Tim.

At least using our boat gives me faster insight into what's already broken, but then severity of issue guides my response time.

For example, we currently have three known leaks in our freshwater system. I know where two of those are. One is the "faucet" for our anchor washdown; needs rebuilt, I'll get a round tuit. Maybe even soon.

Another, discovered on this trip while en route, is a leak in our master shower. Took us a couple weeks to ID the real cause (the pressure balance valve)... finally figured it out on Friday afternoon after systematically eliminating the drain, penetrations in the shower enclosure, and the primary hot/cold supply hoses. (Lots of upside down inspection under the cabin sole, spotlights, borescope, Wi-Fi camera, water testing, boatloads of head-scratching (with multiple heads involved), etc.) I'll fix this one ASAP, but have had to ask Grohe for tech help (replace or repair? correct parts?) and I'm currently in "wait" mode.

The third? Dunno. I was homing in on it, think my last guess was a hot or cold supply hose to the guest head and/or shower... but then I got distracted by #2... so I'll have to re-up my diagnostics process...

But throughout all this, the boat's still floating and the weather where we are now is slightly warmer than home... and we wouldn't be here if I tried to get everything 100% before leaving our home slip.

Yep, triage describes it pretty well.

Congrats on your passage, BTW! Well done!

-Chris

 

[mvweebles]

El Salvador on $24/day

We arrived one week ago today and settled our bill for the week.

• Slip at marina
• Electricity (which has been excellent)
• Resort fee for use of pool and such
• 14 beers
• 2 sodas
• 1 garafone de agua (5-gal jug of water)
• 1-bag of ice.

Total cost: $161 (plus $1/day cruising permit). $24/day.

No complaints here

Peter

 

[Blissboat]

Good report, Peter, and thanks for sharing these upodates. Glad that BDS has seemingly redeemed itself after that drumbeat of sketchy experiences, capped by the sudden loss of Rum Truffle while attempting to cross the bar.

Now that Weebles is safely berthed and its crew's thirst quenched, it must be tempting to think about staying a month, or hell, just wintering over. You make it look and sound idyllic. Curious about one thing - what makes the BDS electricity "excellent?"

 

[mvweebles]

..... Curious about one thing - what makes the BDS electricity "excellent?"

Electricity in Central America is a bit spotty. As Scot/@slowgoesit can report, sometimes it's high voltage, sometimes it's low voltage. Sometimes it just goes dark for a while. As a matter of fact, variability is the rule, not the exception.

But here, it's a solid 120v/60hz. Very civilized.....

Peter

 

[Mac2]

Just read the Rum Truffle thread. Very sad. Maybe you posted above, but
has anything changed as far as pilot boat or marked channel?

 

[mvweebles]

Just read the Rum Truffle thread. Very sad. Maybe you posted above, but
has anything changed as far as pilot boat or marked channel?

I was one of the most vocal cautionary voices about Rum Truffles loss. Here's my current thinking - I am comfortable with our decision to come to BdS and would return. I believe all possible precautions have been taken for a safe entrance but in the end, a bar crossing is a bar crossing. It's the captains decision and responsibility lies with him/her.

1. The panga now has a depth sounder. Not a big deal - should have had it all along. But what they do with that data is important. "Bill" has a friend who's both a boater and a silicon valley developer. He developed an App for Bill to map the channel. So it's as accurate as possible.

2. Reputational risk. It's actually the Hotel who operates the panga and guide services. Bill is just the ramrod who has more or less put BdS on the map. They both fully understand what's at stake. They now have very narrow conditions in which they will permit a crossing (or at least assist one). I forget the actual numbers, but high tide only and must be +3.5'. Swell has to be below 4-5 feet (these two are numbers I'm not sure of). If conditions exceed those parameters, they won't permit/assist entrance.

3. Keel bolts on Rum Truffle. Apparently, Moodys are known for needing keel bolts replaced a bit more regularly. Clearly she lost her keel when she touched bottom because she foundered so quickly. Unfair of me to guess, but my hunch is her keep bolts were compromised and on their way to breaking soon anyway. But again. That's only a guess. Sailboats need sound standing rigging and keel. Take either of those away and trouble ensues.

4. The channel shifts A LOT. We paralleled the beach on the way in (see attached). Having the bar mapped so well is as good as you'll get. Most shallow we saw was 13-feet of water. Over 8-feet beneath our keel.

5. Finally, crossing a bar carries risk. Period. You can reduce risk but it never goes to zero. Once you're committed, some odd set of waves or conditions can push you unexpectedly. If you're not comfortable with that, don't cross bars..

I hope this helps. I would return again.

Peter

 

[Wtrguy]

Bottom line: I cannot imagine a universe where it makes sense to enter Bahia del Sol. A shame since it appears to be a really cool place. DON'T DO IT.

Hey Peter,
Great to be following your adventures again and thank you for posting your progress. Have they done work at BdS that has changed your mind or are the pilots better informed/equipped now? I would be very hesitant in a sailboat; not so much in a shallower draft vessel with proper nav. equipment. It seems that up to date data is available for the shifting sands if a person looks for it. Or is this data spotty?

 

[mvweebles]

Hey Peter,
Great to be following your adventures again and thank you for posting your progress. Have they done work at BdS that has changed your mind or are the pilots better informed/equipped now? I would be very hesitant in a sailboat; not so much in a shallower draft vessel with proper nav. equipment. It seems that up to date data is available for the shifting sands if a person looks for it. Or is this data spotty?

My words bare repeating: "I cannot imagine a universe where it makes sense to enter Bahia del Sol. A shame since it appears to be a really cool place. DON'T DO IT." A mammoth flip-flop, right???

So what changed for me and why did we come to BdS (my wife had less trepidation about crossing the bar than I did)? I talked to a LOT of fellow cruisers with first-hand information on entering BdS. The more we talked to people, the more BdS seemed like a really worthwhile place to stop ------ and it is.

As mentioned in #254 (two posts above), crossing a bar carries elevated risk. In the case of BdS, there are two factors for me: Is the BdS bar as safe as possible? And am I comfortable with my abilities given the information? When Rum Truffle was lost, I did not believe BdS did everything possible to make the crossing as safe as possible. But since then, I believe they have remedied that situation and done as much as reasonably possible. For you pilots out there, I believe there's a saying that the FAA doesn't make changes until there's blood on the tarmac. Rum Truffle sparked a lot of change at BdS.

So then I had to ask myself am I comfortable with what's in front of me? Comfortable is an over-statement, but I could get my head around it. I've crossed bars quite a bit over the years. While we love our boat, it's not our home and life would go on if we lost her. And we just don't want to stop doing stuff because of perceived risk. The past is the past.

Personally, I'd bypass BdS if I had a draft of more than 6.5-feet, maybe I'd go to 7-feet but would take a high tide and low swell. Shallowest we saw was 13-feet, but we did see 6-foot swells on approach (measured by hi/lo depths on sounder).

All I can tell you is I changed my mind because I received updated information. And I'm glad I did.

Peter

 

[Mac2]

Did communication with the pilot improve? Trying to imagine doing this. Does the pilot give you ongoing depths as you enter? Have you heard if the pilot boat is still moving behind the boat leaving?

 

[Larry M]

Peter: We did BDS in 2011 and the pilot rode a jet ski. No drama on the entrance/exit and ended up spending a month there. The marina staff and Bill/Jene were priceless. We have great memories of that part of Central America. Thanks for let us tag a long.

 

[mvweebles]

Did communication with the pilot improve? Trying to imagine doing this. Does the pilot give you ongoing depths as you enter? Have you heard if the pilot boat is still moving behind the boat leaving?

Either Bill or Doug is in the panga and provides comms (though not depths - not really needed as there was plenty of water for us and then the Island Packet 38 who came in behind us). They led, we followed in their wake. They stayed about 75-100 yards ahead of us. At one point, they asked us to speed up to which I said 7-1/2 kts is all we have. They responded "no problem." It's super easy to identify the panga wake as it's in the awkward phase of not quite planing so shows a strong wake.

I talked to Bill earlier today. He said that while it's too soon to tell, the bar appears to be shifting back to a straight-on approach vs parallel the beach as we did.

The Island Packet 38 was a bit less enthusiastic about the entrance than we were. They probably draw 6.5 ft so 2 ft more than Weebles. Mostly they didn't like the swells on the beam. I steered into them a wee bit which seemed to help lessen the roll (there was surprisingly little roll on Weebles - FYI, stabilizers off when entering an inlet).

We've had several highlights on our trip south. Marina Mazatlan had a cruiser warmth that was amazing. BdS has actually surpassed that.

Peter

 

[mvweebles]

Peter: We did BDS in 2011 and the pilot rode a jet ski. No drama on the entrance/exit and ended up spending a month there. The marina staff and Bill/Jene were priceless. We have great memories of that part of Central America. Thanks for let us tag a long.

Bill and Jean hosted Thanksgiving dinner. A couple pictures may bring back some fond memories. We're headed there in a few minutes for Pupusas Saturday......

 

[Larry M]

Please give them our regards.

 

[slowgoesit]

Electricity in Central America is a bit spotty. As Scot/@slowgoesit can report, sometimes it's high voltage, sometimes it's low voltage. Sometimes it just goes dark for a while. As a matter of fact, variability is the rule, not the exception.

But here, it's a solid 120v/60hz. Very civilized.....

Peter

When we were there, the power went once for almost an entire day (damage somewhere up current from us), and once or twice for a short period, maybe an hour or so. Voltage was always good.

On another note . . . 14 beers? Not in the same evening hopefully?!? Please tell me Cheryl was drinking some of them!

And speaking of cool stops, I really enjoyed Barfa de Navidad too! Just wish they had had space in the marina for us. I didn't like the shallow anchorage where everyone said we'd be on the bottom 8 to 10 hours of each day, but it was soft mud, so okay . . . . Yeah, we TRY and keep the bottom of the boat off the dirt bottom as much as possible . . . No, I don't want to talk about leaving the marina at San Blas, nor that spot in San Blas Islands . .

San Blas, Mexico was another highlight for us as well, especially the Marina, the City Center, and the Mangrove Swamp tour boat!

 

[mvweebles]

Headed to Nicaragua on Thursday.

We rented a car and traveled inland in El Salvador for a week. This is a super interesting place. The interior is dominated by volcanoes and some of the towns date back to the early 1500s. Climate at 4000+ foot elevation is beautiful. We've enjoyed our deeper dive into Central America and now understand how it is differentiated from Mexico even through they share a common language. So glad we made the stop.

But our time is coming to move on. Tide and weather is good on Thursday to exit the estuary and cross the bar, then head to Puesta del Sol, a small marina resort in a larger (and more accessible) estuary 100 nms south of here in Nicaragua.

Logistics are a bit tricky to time tides and currents and daylight hours. There's an open road stead anchorage 60 nms south of where currently are so we'll get there at dusk and get some sleep, then head out at daybreak to get to Puesta del Sol for slack water around 2:30 pm. The marina here in El Salvador gets crazy currents - ebb this morning was probably close to 4-kts! Goal is to avoid docking during high current periods.

Tomorrow we'll take on about 150g diesel at $3.69/g which will get us well into Costa Rica - Golfito is about 500 nms from here and will be the shipping point. We probably have 100g aboard so another 150 is plenty

Making water today using the dock water into the water maker instead of using the brackish and foul water of the estuary. There is a water delivery service here but frankly, I don't trust it. We've used garafones (5-gal water bottles) for years but had a bad experience with one at the hotel where we're docked so will just make our own.

We're both eager to get going. Highlight of Nicaragua will be a tour of the Flor de Cana rum factory.......

Peter

 

[SteveK]

Cruising our 1970 Willard 36 trawler from California to Florida
Join our Instagram page @MVWeebles to follow along

Peter, I am following along with many others. Keep seeing your sig line. As I do not use Instagram, have to ask if you post more detail and pictures there?

 

[mvweebles]

Peter, I am following along with many others. Keep seeing your sig line. As I do not use Instagram, have to ask if you post more detail and pictures there?

I use Instagram for friends and family - it has some boat stuff, but also a fair amount of pure travel stuff on it. There are more pictures and less writing as Instagram doesn't support writing as well.

I usually try to post more pictures here. Motherboard on my PC went out 5-6 weeks ago so I borrow my wife's PC when she'll let me.

Peter

 

[mvweebles]

Watermaker thoughts.

I have a CruiseRO 30 gph water maker. I've written about my thoughts on CRO and won't repeat here. Purpose here is a quick on water when cruising outside of US.

If you're anchoring, no problem. But making water in a marina is a problem - sea water is foul to say the least.

So you have to have some sort of water management strategy. Here are some options.

1. Make water while running. Works fine unless you spend several weeks in a marina which we do so we can travel inland

2. Use non-potable dock water in the tanks, purchase 5-gal bottle of water (in Spanish, "Garafone"). We've done this mostly. Works pretty well.

3. In rare instances, potable water can be delivered to your boat. That's the case here at this marina in El Salvador but when we saw the water loaded into a friends boat, they were open drums filled from a nearby spring. Didn't look kosher to me.

4. Run dock water to your water maker and use it. This works pretty well - very high quality water results. But you must have a plan to do it. A neighbor boat (sail - 170gpd Spectrum water maker) uses a clean 5-gal bucket and has the intake pickup pull from this. They manually fill the bucket with dock water.

I'm now doing #4 but I've bypassed the boost pump and have the hose from the dock going into the water maker. Effectively, pressure from the dock replaced need for boost pump.

As is always the case, I was missing one adapter to complete the connection: I needed the hose to terminate with a female fitting instead of a male fitting. So I purchased a hose mender at a hardware store and cut my dock hose and installed the two pieces. See attached pictures.

Bottom line is, depending on your cruising grounds, you may need a water strategy.....something that wasn't intuitive to me since I didn't plan on spending so much time on marinas.

Peter

 

[slowgoesit]

Peter, what did you have do to your water maker to finally get it to work? Did you finally throw out the CruiseRO and install a Seawater Pro?

Edit, You posted the previous while I was still writing this post!

 

[heysteve]

If you use tap water instead of sea water, you raise the pressure in the RO system based on flow and NOT pressure. The tap water will easily pass through the membranes so if you try to get 800 psi using tap water, you might blow out your membranes. Just raise the pressure until you get 30 gph (or whatever your system is rated at) and ignore the pressure reading.

 

[mvweebles]

Peter, what did you have do to your water maker to finally get it to work? Did you finally throw out the CruiseRO and install a Seawater Pro?

Edit, You posted the previous while I was still writing this post!

You had to get me started????

The base unit works fine. What doesn't work well are the upgrade items. And customer service sucked.

Autoflush. CRO has an uber-complicated device that turns on the fresh water pump so you can leave it turned off. It has timers and relays and is the size of a small typewriter. Never did work well. I replaced it with a $40 hose watering timer from Home Depot (essentially what SWP uses).

Boost Pump. This has never worked reliably but probably because of an install error (me). CRO provides a box of parts and it's up to the buyer to do all the wiring. Would be great if they at least made-up harnesses with plug/play connectors.

TDS diverter valve. Yet another unnecessary gizmo that I bought and is now in the scrap bin. Idea is that if TDS exceeds a certain level, it diverts the product overboard and not into your tanks. Cool idea but like everything else CRO, it comes with quite a bit of monitoring and meeting stuff and requires custom wiring - another example of how a plug and play approach would make life so much easier.

Membranes. I'm making excellent water right now as I write from relatively clean dock water. <20 ppm TDS. But last time I made water in open ocean conditions, I was lucky to see anything below <300ppm even when they were brand new. Rich Boren at CRO was totally unapologetic.

Customer service. Rich is a total dick. CRO had the wrong parts on the unit I purchased (12v timer instead of 120v). No problem, pick it up on La Paz where Rich lives. Except he couldn't get there because his passport was expired. No problem, pick it up Mazatlan. Except that is a problem - when the time came, Rich punted and said it would take 3-4 months to get it to Mazatlan - if I were a real cruiser, I'd understand. He didn't care I was a pissed off customer - he gets so many great reviews that he can afford it.

But the base unit works fine. Just don't buy the $2k in doo-dads for auto flush etc.

My advice: go with SeaWaterPro.

Peter

EDIT Attached - garden timer reprised as auto-flush. Works like a champ.

 

[Fletcher500]

Peter, regarding making water while running, I previously did, but stopped. A few years ago I must have gone through an area with natural seepage, or a spill because it messed up my filters pretty good. I have a commercial grade (large) 5 mu, and separate oil/water filter ( both 15 x 5 in) and the OW filter was shot. I now only make water at anchor.