We started this trip a little hungover from the previous night’s St. Patrick’s Day party in San Patricio, but the weather was perfect and the boat was tidy, so we figured why not make another 18 easy miles. Seemingly we jinxed ourselves…

Trip Summary – 03/18/2023

Pulled up anchor at San Patricio/Melaque at 09:45, anchored at Carrizales at 17:48. We started and ended with 79% of our 48-volt bank (some motoring, some charging).

We motored off the anchor, and had finnicky wind inside the bay. We played with the foresail, but could not get it to fill with less than 5 knots of wind, so we put up the drifter and started moving. The right speed for fishing, so we put a hook in the water and hooked a huge tuna! We started reeling it in and the spinner detached, so we lost a fish and a lure. Total disappointment, and we’re starting to use the weirder and older lures.

We decided to take it easy for the rest of the sail, but almost immediately we found a leak in the head and a resulting electrical problem for our Electroscan (waste treatment device). Oof. I stayed on deck with the manual and watching our trim/course, and Charles got to work in the sweltering heat below diagnosing, cleaning, and trying to get our toilet working again.

It was hot, sweaty, heartbreaking work that was not a good combination with how little sleep we got. It seems that our bottle of Simple Green cleaner got a puncture, leaked, and when we went to clean it up, a drip got into the electrical connection for the Electroscan. We tried everything from drying the connections, reversing the polarity to see if we could make the motor run (yes, but not consistently), changing out the ethernet cables, and so on. Charles got pretty seasick, but persisted for three full hours of work below deck. We were able to get it to run provisionally, meaning we didn’t need to switch to our holding tank or engage some emergency measures, but there was going to be significant work to do once anchored to see if we could get it running properly. If not, there’s an expensive replacement part order in our future.

Beyond that, the sail was beautiful. There was an interesting shipwreck just south of the bay, I saw plenty of turtles, and we got in to the beautiful anchorage with plenty of time before sunset to enjoy our surroundings.