It's high time I told the details of our trip around the upper Sea of Cortez in June & July, 2009. We'd wanted to explore the northern part of the Sea of Cortez because (1)
we hadn't done that yet and (2) we were keen on sailing south from
Mazatlan in November 2009 to Central America and points south. The
summer of 2009 might be our only chance to see the sights north of
Santa Rosalia. Long story short, traveling around the northern Sea was fun; and weather-wise, very educational. If we were to do it again, would we do it the same way? Probably yes, with a couple of minor tweaks.
When last I wrote of the Fox, we had completed a quick haulout in San Carlos, Sonora. Our idea was to travel northwest from San Carlos along Mexico's mainland coast, begin the northern crossing of the Sea by taking short hops across the Midriff Islands (Isla Tiburon and the others), then continue north up the Sea along the Baja coastline. At Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda, we'd loop back down south through the Midriffs, cross back to the Baja coast, gradually heading south with a view to making the southern crossing of the Sea back to Mazatlan some time around the beginning of August. Think of the shape of those Susan Komen breast-cancer-fighting pink-ribbon symbols, and you'll see the shape our planned cruise.
On June 8, 2009, we got about 15 miles out of San Carlos and
anchored in a nice cove called Bahia San Pedro (28deg.03'N/111deg.15'W). We'd wanted to get a little further that day but the northerly component to the 19-knot wind made it seem wise to tuck in to an anchorage with a little better shelter than where we'd intended to stop. Snorkeling was fine, and the beachcombing ashore was excellent, thanks to the heaps of deeper-water seashells
around the panguero camp.(Seems the pangueros set traps for
murex and other gastropods in about 50 feet of water, & harvest the meat for sale.) I scored some beautiful black-and-white (radish?) murex (Hexaplex nigritus), pink-mouth murex (Hexaplex erythrostomus), a Panaman harp (Harpa crenata), a Cortez conch (Strombus galeatus) and a Gulf tulip (Pleuroplaca princeps), which equals awesome. These are the kinds of large, heavy shells that don't wash up on beaches very often. At least, not intact. So yay me.
Well, as lovely as all that was – alas, our dinghy's outboard motor packed it in. After having just been overhauled in San Carlos. We could start it up, but it would instantly die. There were no visible problems whatsoever, and all Gary's troubleshooting was for naught. Not wanting to spend a couple of the year's hottest months without Mr. Outboard, it was back to San Carlos to confer again with the mechanic who'd done the overhaul. We were off to a flying stop.
Long story somewhat shorter: northerly chop & swell was easy for The Fox to surf on our way back south to San Carlos, but portended the conditions to come. And Mr. Outboard's problem eventually turned out to be…
OLD OIL.
See – the outboard fuel we use for our Tohatsu is a mix of gasoline and oil. Oftentimes when an outboard fails to run, the solution is to get a nice fresh batch of gasoline to feed it. We'd done that. But overlooked the age of the oil we were mixing the gas with. It was nice to have such a cheap and simple solution to the outboard problem, but we'd lost almost a full week of travel while we figured it out. So, the moral to the outboard story is: if the outboard doesn't work, it just might be old gas and/or old oil. Which is quick, cheap & easy to fix.
The second moral of this tale is: when you've been in port for a while especially if you've been doing repairs and upgrades, it's wise to travel no further on your first day out than, say, 20 miles. In case something goes kerflooey that you can't fix at anchor.
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