Yesterday was the day we were scheduled to leave Cabo. On the bright side, the weather looks pretty bad, blowing almost 20 knots outside of Cabo Falso after sunset, picking up to 25 around midnight. so we wouldn’t have been leaving then anyway, it would have waited until tomorrow morning, and even then would have been a challenge, with 20+ knots again near Bahia Santa Maria on Monday. That follows with a fantastic land breeze most of Tuesday night, so we’d probably be motoring then anchoring near Punta Abreojos until Thursday evening when the run up to Turtle Bay looks decent.

Who knows beyond that. It’s too hard to forecast that far out.

The New Plan

I’m already thinking about what will happen next, even though we don’t know for sure what’s going on with the virus.

The schedule

The goal is to head down there sometime in May. It’s looking more like late May at this point, and complete at least the must-do list and perhaps get started on the nice to haves. I’m looking at a July 1st flight down to PV and sailing straight through, but that could change -- I might want to head back to LaPaz or perhaps over to Cabo in May, so stay tuned.

The Must-Do-List

In May, or at least before we leave, these things need to be completed:

  • New inverter. The old one was destroyed by water, and the new one is there but needs installation. It would be great if the inverter were inside, but I think it’s going to need to be in the engine room for now. It will need a spray cover as well, just in case.
  • AIS NMEA 2000. I’d like to hook up the AIS to the NEMA 2000 network. Right now, it’s on a mostly-unreliable NMEA 0183 network to the chartplotter. Dave helped me run the backbone cable into the aft starboard cabin, so it’s just a short run remaining to get to the transceiver. I have an extension cable.
  • Leaky vented loop. The vented loop leaks a little, and I really don’t want any water in the engine room. The exit point for the hose is damaged, so we might need a new through-hull fitting, but Dave came up with a way to make it work without that. This should be an easy fix but I don’t want to miss it.
  • Fuel leak. The original engine damage when the engines were shipped resulted in a small leak in the fuel intake for the engine. I have all new parts and they should be installed before we go anywhere.
  • Kitchen appliances. I need to make sure the new stove works, and the new AC based induction burner also works. I think some of the cookware I have isn’t induction safe, so that needs attention as well.

The Nice-To-Have List

  • Fresh water flush. A T fitting after the water strainer to a valve for fresh water would make engine flushing really easy. Keeping salt water out of the exhaust manifold and keeping the engine corrosion-free.
  • Electrical panel. I have new USB chargers and cigarette lighter plugs that need to be wired, and the key should be redone as well so when you turn on the key, you get power to the panel. This will take a while, but perhaps I can just get the USB chargers finished.
  • RPM and temp. I have this really cool NMEA 2000 from analog converter that will read a bunch of sensors and put them on the bus. Along with that, I can set alarms so that when temperatures get above a certain point, or the RPM changes, the alarm goes off. This will add significant safety for running the engines, particularly at night. I want to measure the exhaust gas temperature, because if the water flow is restricted at all, that temperature is the first to go up, followed very soon by the engine overheating. Since I don’t have anything other than a dummy light, I’m going to need some way to ensure the water is flowing through the engine and cooling the exhaust properly.
  • High water alarms. I really don’t want a repeat of the last bash, where there was a lot of water sloshing around in the engine rooms. I want to sense that water using a secondary float switch with an audible alarm.
  • Divert some cooling water. It would be great to tee off the exhaust water. This would be really easy on the starboard engine, as there is already a spare exhaust port. For the port engine, this can probably wait.
  • Alternator fix. The alternators produce a lot of power, but float the batteries too high. I think the batteries I have now are about at their end of life anyway, and I want to upgrade to lithium, but I really don’t want to bake them for the whole trip back. This is something that also might just wait.

There is more, I’m sure, so I’ll update here when I can.