Return to Mazatlan

We are hopelessly unpredictable. Even to ourselves. Last Friday we listened to the morning weather report from Don on Summer Passage and decided we had a bit of a weather window to cross the Sea. So we did. Went up and around to Muertos where we anchored for a few hours and then got up at midnight to a big bright full moon. Fired up the engine and the doggone big bell under my chart table starts ringing--probably woke up all 12 of the other boats anchored there. That bell is attached to our Aqua Alarm which is a system to ALERT you (Big Bell) to a critical problem with one or more of the boat's systems. This is a little unnerving.

We checked for the problem which the alarm said was intake flow. That's the seawater intake that helps keep the engine cooled as it runs for hours. I checked and rechecked the amount of the flow while Marcy got out the instructions. Had to conclude that the flow was just fine and that the sensor was probably at fault. So I snipped the wires to the sensor and we were underway an hour late.

This is normally a 32 to 34 hour crossing for us and we knew that there was a slack high tide in Mazatlan at 8 a.m. But Charm flew along all night and all day at 7 knots and above so we arrived quite early. So we slowed way down for the last 20 miles. A HaHa boat called SeaDreams was ahead of us and they called and asked if we would mind if they followed us into the channel as they had not been to Mazatlan before. It's okay. The entrance is sometimes problematic when there is a big swell running as it can carry your boat sideways toward some very hard rocks right at the entrance. The swell wasn't too bad and I goosed the Yanmar and in we went smooth as can be.

So here we are at Marina Mazatlan catching up on old friendships and meeting new boaters from around the world. Lots of energy here compared to the Costa Baja Marina in LaPaz. The docks aren't as good and facilities are pretty basic and there's no infinity pool to lounge around, but Mazatlan feels like home to us.