The Adventure Continues

Subtitled: "Higher math skills and boat deliveries"

As we last left you, we were working our way north past Sacramento reef after a very wet and windy night. The importance of a dodger is hugely underestimated until you don't have one. Nothing quite like continual salt spray in the teeth to build character.

Seas and wind had finally moderated. Craig told me the fuel gauge was pretty low. I told him not to worry - the captain had assured me when we filled in Turtle Bay that we had plenty to get to San Diego, maybe even all the way to Ventura. The gauge must be wrong. Four hours later in the afternoon near San Quintin, Craig was again on watch and relayed the fact that the gauge now was on empty, not bouncing around at all. Hmmm...

We shutdown, opened the inspection port on the tank and thrust a stick (the flag pole) down the hole to see what was actually in the tank. Uh-oh! The gauge was right and the tank was really empty. This followed with lots of finger-pointing, "How could this possibly have happened?", "was that a cheap Chinese calculator?", etc. Never the less we were almost out of fuel and more than a hundred miles from the nearest place to get more. We had eleven more gallons in jerry cans that were quickly transferred to the main tank. Then followed lots of "what now's" which basically came to the conclusion that we had to sail within 60 miles of Ensenada before restarting the engine. Oh, and there was virtually no wind and what there was was on the nose. Two hours later a loud bang announced the failure of the autopilot. Jim and Craig struggled on the steering geer for an hour putting it back together. An hour later it broke again and this time for good. We would have to hand steer all the way home. In the midst of the pitch black night the GPS chose to quit working about every half hour. At least we were not sinking (yet) said Spille.

We struggled north under sail for another 12 hours, sails slatting, tacks through 140 degrees, sloppy seas slowing us to 2 knots or less and pea-soup fog. Ensenada was looking a long ways away. Finally, we reached the point about 2am where we could power the rest of the way in to get fuel. At 8am we arrived at the fuel dock at the Coral in Ensenada, relieved that we didn't have to row the last few miles. Nobody hassled us about not checking in or out of the country, so we just fueled and skedaddled north for San Diego. The Mexican navy fired shots over out stern, but we were too fast for them, :)

San Diego showed up right where and when it should have. We pulled up to the Customs and police dock about 6pm. The Homeland Security folks showed up promptly, did not board us (Could it have been the stench?) and only asked us our last port ("Ensenada, sir, and that was unplanned"). They must have taken pity on us and let us go. Craig didn't have to ditch his apples and we escaped with all the whale bone contraband. We left within the hour to continue north and beat an approaching gale.

As sailors tend to say: "There is a god". Last night was a pure blessing with no wind, warm temperatures, a moon, and mirror like seas. We're 30 miles north of Catalina at 9am and enjoying the easiest delivery from San Diego to Ventura that I've ever experienced. Nothing additional broke and we didn't bump into anything in the dark.

It's been said that the difference between an adventure and an ordeal is "attitude". Attitudes have been improving this morning so the ordeal is quickly fading to an adventure. A hot breakfast (first in three days) of scrambled eggs, potatoes and corned beef hash helped, too. That said, I'm really looking forward to a hot shower and a bed that doesn't pitch me out tonight.

Hope to have Sauvage tied up by 3pm in Ventura.

-Yosemite Sam