Buenas Dias from Ensenada!!

We made it! We are currently listening to the cruisers network, getting some fabulous information, and possible assistance with our outboard engine. We missed our new friend Jeanne, she's left for England to receive another award. Truly amazing woman, we hope to see again soon. Our friends Dina and Malcolm have been so very helpful in connecting us with other cruisers who maybe able to utilize our skills. We look forward to catching up with them soon.

We arrived yesterday (the 30th) at Cruiseport Village Marina. The staff, particularly Jonathan and Enrique were amazingly helpful in making our entrance into Mexico a smooth and enjoyable experience.

Today we will be leaving the marina for Isla San Todos, looking forward to spending a night on the hook again. Marina life can be comfortable, but we do love the feeling of isolation...the peace and quiet.

We got our TelCel internet and hope to be able to keep up with the blog. We wish you all a very Happy New Year!!

And we're off!! The Journey continues

We're leaving Chula Vista in about a half hour. Finally! We should reach Ensenada sometime tomorrow morning and our next post will be from Mexico!! Wish us luck on this next little leg of our trip. We'll update as soon as we can. Hope to chat with you all again really soon!

Hydraulic pump re-installation

Hydraulic pump getting put back together and prepped for re-installation.

Empty hole where hydraulic pump should be, complete with bandages to prevent "bleeding"

Adding fluid

Slowly "bleeding"

We went thru the steps for set up, but won't really get to test it until we take her out for a sail. We're still dockside at Chula Vista. We should tomorrow!

Staying put for a bit

Our Auto Pilot installation has had some hiccups. The Auto pilot itself works like a charm, however the pump on our hydraulic steering gave out on us. I'll let James add more information about that later, as he's on his way back from getting it fixed. 

We're staying here in Chula Vista, only 8 miles from Tijuana and what seems like millions of miles from anything else, so yesterday we purchased a bike off Craigslist. Transportation crisis averted. We were initially very disappointed about not getting to go directly to Mexico as we planned, then on Saturday we realized maybe we aren't as prepared as we'd thought. We went into town to run some errands and thought we'd grab a bite to eat at a taco truck with a huge crowd (big crowds means delicious food) We couldn't read the menu. At all. No english subtitles. I've started studying the conversational spanish books Lorry gave me, and keep them in my purse now when we go out. Next time, I'm ordering a damn taco!!!

On Friday the 13th we paid what we thought would be a reasonable amount to stay at the Chula Vista Marina while we make repairs, a month tops. Ugh. Reasonable my....Of course there's ALSO a deposit. No problem, we think of it as a savings account….but then they wanted to smack on another $250 for a "live aboard fee" asking if we planned on living aboard our boat….Hello…we're CRUISERS. That's what we do…or we lie about it and darken all the windows and stay out of site a couple days a week. And now we're also on the hunt for jobs to fatten the kitty back up.

$15 for a hair cut? Hell no.

We're on a budget...so this is James free haircut by recent graduate of boat styles 101: Dominga!!

Autopilot!!!!

We having been installing the new auto pilot over the past week. I know the electronics parts, and did all that on my own. I don't have any experience with hydraulics and needed advice. I found the card of Anthony Zabaldo at West Marine. He has the best prices and didn't waste anytime getting me set up. He was a big help. If you are in the San Diego area and need any type of boat work, call him. 

I did some short tests on the auto pilot yesterday, and all is well. We will be going offshore in a couple days where we will have miles of open water and I will feel more comfortable giving the helm over to a computer. 

UPDATE: DEC. 19TH 2013

It seems that Anthony may not have been the best person to call for hydraulics, after all. 

The way he plumbed the hydraulics tubes was incorrect and caused the lockout valve, on the steering pump, to malfunction. 

We found this out the had way. Dominga and I were planning to sail to Mexico, the next day, and thought we should test out the newly installed auto-pilot. We sailed into the middle of S.D. Bay to do this. Well, that day the U.S. War department was doing war-games in the bay also, which made this all the more fun. 

As we tested the auto-pilot in light winds the navy go-fast boats were zipping around us. We tried to tack to starboard and the auto-pilot lost all control. Now the steering is supper spongy and we're having issue steering it at all. I though, for sure,  we were going to get shot or something as we looked like drunken sailers going in circles, at one point cutting off a Navy Zodiac. 

We finally limped back to the anchorage to lick our wounds and try to figure out what when wrong. It took me a day to just figure out the issue was the lockout valve and another 2 days to find one. This steering pump was dis-continued 20 years ago and no one makes parts. Southbay diesel and hydraulics was the only place that I could find that had one. The manager said it's been on his shelf for 13 years and he was extremely nice and showed me how this worked and gave this $130+ part, for free!

I installed this new part and it still didn't work. At this point I didn't know that Anthony's plumbing of the hydraulics was the issue. So, I called him to see if he had any ideas. He recommended I call Daily/Seatech. This was the best advice he gave me. It was a 15 mile bike ride there (and then back), but they showed me how to properly plump the hydraulics and attach the lockout valve. And they told me the way we had it put together is the reason it malfunctioned. 

Dominga and I put the system back together and took it out for a test run the next day. It works great! Steers better than it even has and the autopilot works great. 

Because this has costed us a lot of extra time and money, we considered staying in San Diego and making some money to build up the kitty. Apparently that's not easy in this area. As one local put it, this town is so used to cruisers coming through looking for work and then just leaving that no one really wants to even talk to you. So, maybe it's better to just go to Mexico with extremely little money than to stay in San Diego with extremely little money. 

Coronado California

There is quite a bit of interesting history here. We've had fun exploring it. The tent city was vast and thousands came every summer. It was considered the "vacationer on a budget" destination....which is ironic because no budget vacationer could afford this place now.

Thi

Sunset from Glorietta bay anchorage.

Pictures of San Diego bay so far

We stayed at the Southwestern yacht club for 3 days, then decided to pay for 2 more. We enjoyed great walks along La Playa cove, and it was very convenient for getting marine supplies, and groceries.

This is Frank and Nora.  A wonderful couple that befriended us in Shelter Island, which is inside San Diego Bay.  They took us for fish tacos in Ocean Beach. Amazing food, great company and a nice walk on the pier afterwards to watch surfers try to catch a few waves.

Below are pictures taken of sunsets in Coronado Cays. 

Sunrise at the beach in Coronado Cays.....yes Sunrise. 

And now at Glorietta Bay, where we are currently anchored for a few more days.

Before San Diego

We're sitting in a warm little bagel shop in Coronado, CA where we've been for about a week. We stayed a few nights at Coronado Cays Yacht club where we met George and Linda. A very friendly and helpful couple. Linda took us into town to run errands and pick up charts for our eventual trip to Mexico. Before we left they took us for a long dingy ride through the Cays which are full of huge mansions, many rumored to be owned by Cartel. Below are some pictures taken before we reached San Diego Bay.

Sailing "wing on wing" right outside San Diego Bay.

This is the Newport Beach Marina entrance. We stayed on a mooring ball near Balboa Island.

The "tree house" picture is from a long stroll we took on Venice beach with Mika in tow. It was the warmest day we've seen yet, a hi of 90 degrees. We had hot dogs (a veggie dog for Dominga) and Margarita's.

one of the many amazing sunset's we've seen along this beautiful coast.

Leaving Newport beach there was a fleet heading out to sea from the yacht club. They went out about 20 miles off shore, formed a circle and had a memorial service for one of there members. It was a very touching site.