So what worked and what did not as systems go?
Our wireless is now good enough in Cabo San Lucas. The marina wireless
is crap but using “The Wire AP“ we installed we grabbed some free Cabo WiFi and
are using it now. The WiFi is too slow to upload videos to YouTube but good
enough for other things like this post on the blog. For video uploads we need
to go to a coffee shop
.
.
The Spectra Watermaker 200T Deluxe water maker worked fine. We did have
a leaking filter but we found we were putting the filter in upside down. Hay there
was no instructions on which way it went. So that was an easy fix. There is
also a dripping elbow but we will fix that in Mazatlan. No big deal. One day we
mad 55 gal of water. Why not, we were motoring along and low on water. Debbie made water about every third day, about 40 gal at a time. There were four of us and we did not really ration water.
We did not need to
carry any jerry jugs at all and certainly none on deck. The deck storage not only
blocks views and air it is a lot of weight up high.
Fuel was not a problem. We filed up in San Diego, CA before we left. At
Turtle Bay we filled up again. Used no filter for the fuel as it is clean. The
fuel was about $3 something a gal in Turtle Bay verses the $5 something.
We may have made it all the way on our 80 gal fuel tank but
it would have been close and no sense taking chances. We certainly would have
liked to do more sailing but it was not to be.
The 38 hp Beta Marine diesel engine gave us no problems and ran
great the who way. We did 3 days straight at one point. A couple another. We put
on about 155 hours on the Beta.
The Frigoboat refer we did good.
We keep ice cream cold the whole way to Cobo. The refer did not run that much and
we heard stories in Santa Maria of refers running full time.
Our new AGM 4-6v Mastervolt batteries did great. We had more amps than
we needed.
In Santa Maria some boats needed jumps and one needed new
batteries!
Murphy did hitch a ride
with us as we purchased spare parts for our VacuFlush toilet. We also purchased a small Dometic
porta potty in case of a real bad problem. The water pump went out in our VacuFlush toilet the second day. We did have a spare but it was used and I do
not remember why we had it. I started to replace the pump but laying backwards on
the deck in rolling seas was not doing my stomach any good. The fix was to use
a small white bucket to flush the toilet. We just did the water flushing
ourselves. So you pour in water as you lush the toilet, no problem. It used
more water than if the toilet did it but we do have a water make so no big
deal. We will repair it in PV.
Once away from the
dock our ICOM802 SSB and Pactor modem worked great. The Acer laptop with Airmail
software and Windows 7 connects to the Pactor modem and remote controls the SSB
Icom 802 radio. First you tune the antenna (push a button to activate the
automatic Icom tuner) and then the email button. We did the complete install and tried to use
the radio to send email but it would not connect to a Sail male station. We
figured it was just too much interference from the docs of battery charges etc.
Sure enough we sent out emails and got weather grids when we tried it in Turtle
Bay! Now to test posting to the blog through Sail mail. Then we can post from
anywhere! Hmm not sure that is a good thing? J
Not sure how much yet we really want to be connected or how much we want to
broad cast our position, is it not about freedom from the grid also? We have no
cell phones or cars.
Our Garmin electronics
worked great. We did notice that the Garmin under deck autopilot did not match
the same heading as the Garmin 740 chart plotter. It worked fine it seemed but
was off. So was the icon of the boat on the chart plotter. In Cabo we email
Garmin and it seems we did not get the North heading set up properly on the sea
trials setup. We will do that again when leaving Cabo for Mazatlán. The Garmin
auto pilot ran the who 850 nm and never gave us a problem. We heard on at least
one tiller pilot breaking down in the ha ha fleet.
What was a surprise
was the StandardHorizon Gx 2150 sends AIS to the Garmin chart plotter. I
thought it would be of little use. A lot of the Baja ha ha boats broadcasted AIS!
That meant we could see them and which way the were headed on the plotter. It
made the plotter live with boats. That meant we were reassured of our position
and how correct it was.
It was kind of safe independence with the AIS seeing the boats
and the VHF in radio contact lots of the time with the fleet. The radar could
do the same thing I think but would not give the boat names etc.
We did not know how
to use the Icom 802 SSB in spite of going to a Gordon West class before
leaving. It is confusing. In Turtle Bay Dr Electron walked us through
connecting to the Haja ha ha SSB mooring net over VHF and then confirmed on the
SSB. We realized our mistake was not taking the SSB out of email mode (pressing
the button) and then getting the correct frequency. Debbie has become quite a
radio girl.
The only thing that
did not work was the air generator. We must have wired it wrong when installing
the new batteries. It did work before that. At night in Turtle Bay and Bahia
Santa Marie where we anchored the winds were good for generating all night. In
fact at Bahia Santa Marie we had over 20 knots of wind most of each night at
anchor. Not a big deal though as we had plenty of amps.
All the gear worked great.
Our Mermaid Marine Air HCAC final stepped
up and worked great in Cabo when it was needed. It was over 90 deg our first
day in and we needed some rest. The Mermaid AC cooled our state room down nicely
and so we closed all the state room port holes and hatch. Nice and quiet, no bugs
and cool, we slept great. It is still
the end of summer so there are still some hot nights. Our AC (the one we have
installed) is the envy of all who do not
have any. The AC\heat was a very worthwhile purchase and project to have done.
Our blow up fenders worked grat when we got to Cabo!
We even watched a
movie on our 27 inch LED TV using the laptop with Windows Media player and an
HDMI cable at anchor using the inverter. It was fun.
What can we say, all went well but for a few minor glitches.
So when you are
laying or kneeling and sweet is running off you face and the curse words are
flowing remember in the end it will be worth it if you do it and do it right!
Fixing anything while under way is way harder than doing it correctly the first
time at the dock.
We did have to duct
tape the cable to the flux gate compass for the autopilot, and the radar
uses it to! before we left as the fitting I lost and could not get one in time
so we are certainly not perfect.
The sail cover (stack
pack type) was a pain in the butt. It was a Hyde Sails install and does not
work well. It needs modifications we will do later. It does look nice though
and isn’t that what counts J.
Still no need to store a sail cover.
We had to jury rig a
preventer which worked well but we did not sail much so it was not much of an
issue, good to get it done before leaving.
Well I think we covered it all and any missed items we will
touch on as we write about leg 2 an 3.
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