November 14 - November 16

Turtle Bay - New Friends and Mechanical Difficulties

We were awoken this morning at 6:30 AM by a local guy in a kayak knocking on the side of our hull.  When I finally managed to get the boards our of the companionway and scramble out, he explained that his name was Miquel and he comes around to collect trash from the boaters for a small fee.  He also explained that he can get laundry done for us, because there isn't a laundr-o-mat where we can do it ourselves.  We accepted his help for both services.  Before he left, he joked with me (in Spanish, of course), that we had anchored really far out and that we should move the boat closer to town.  He especially wanted us to move the boat closer before he had to paddle our clean laundry out to us the next day!

The rest of the morning was spent moving the boat and taking the dogs for a walk.  Later we decided to try out the little restaurant overlooking the water for lunch.  It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and we ended up sitting outside on the patio across from another couple who seemed to be about our age.  We all got to talking, and it turned out that they were from Long Beach (near San Pedro, where we had a slip for Salty Dog), and they also owned a ketch (ketch owners seem to have a mutual admiration for one another).  We visited for awhile and decided we should get together later for happy hour.  We rendezvoused around sunset on Rob and Katrina's boat, the "Blackwood," a Mariner 40 ketch, had snacks and drinks and visited awhile.  We were pleased to discover that they are a very nice couple, and they have an open itinerary for heading south just as we do.  We ended up spending a good deal of time with them on Tuesday, as well, indulging in  a few cold $1.00 cervezas together on the beach.

Wednesday turned out to be sort of a bummer day.  When we had reanchored the boat on Monday, Bryan felt there wasn't as much water spitting out of the transom as there should be.  Because we were planning to leave in a couple of days to buddy boat south with Katrina and Rob, he decided to check both the heat exchanger and the impeller.  The heat exchanger was fine, but the raw water pump for the impeller was not - the keyway had broken.  Not being very mechanical, Bryan described to me that this is a BIG deal.  We would need a whole new pump (which, of course, we didn't have a spare of), and it was most likely NOT something we could find in Turtle Bay.  Basically, we were screwed.  Being the impatient worrier that I am, I instantly began thinking we'd never make it south of Turtle Bay.  Fortunately, however, Bryan and Rob are much more optimistic, and put their creative minds to work on a solution.  Rob and Katrina decided to contact their friend Tory on the VHF, who ironically had just left Turtle Bay on a delivery to San Diego, and would be driving back through Baja to his home in La Paz in a week or so.  Tory,  who we've decided must be an angel, said it would be "no problem" to look for a replacement part for us in San Diego and then deliver it to us in Turtle Bay (which we figured would be about 200 miles out of his way).  We exchanged emails and promised to send him all the serial numbers, etc that he would need to track down our part.  In the meantime, our awesome new friends Katrina and Rob decided, without any hesitation, that they would wait with us in Turtle Bay until the boat got fixed so we could all head south together, and so they would be able to assist us with the repairs.  Remember, we had only known these two for 48 hours at this point... are they amazing or what?!

                             The broken pump                                    Boats in Turtle Bay                                   Turtle Bay pier