We wake just as the sun was begun to give the early morning sky a soft peach glow. We make a coffee and raise anchor. A little boat envy sneaks in when we pass by Kirby knowing he was still asleep and wont really get moving until nine or ten in the morning. That envy gets put to rest quickly as we watch the soft peach glow become vibrant morning rays streaking across the sky. Can’t see that if your sleeping in. Hiraya cuts through the blue water leaving a small trail of bubbles behind her. Sails up and we slowly leave the protection of Ramada Cove and head North toward Bahia Conception. Our spirits are high as we are able to sail both of us hoping the wind stays filled in all day.
We happily sail along watching for whales, dolphin, and the land passing by off our far port side. It wasn’t one hour and the wind died. Knowing the distance we needed to run before night fall we decided to motor. Soon instead of bobbing around at a meager .5 knots our trusty diesel quickly pushed us along at a lovely 5 knots. Shortly after that the trusty Westerbeke let out a clank and died. trusty no more and determined to be difficult it would not fix it’s self. Sam did the best he could at diagnosing and thinking we were having a fuel issue Sam checked the lines, change the filter, fussed and banged and let out a few mumbles below deck. I kept us away from the land and away also away from our destination as to keep the boat in a more steady movement so Sam wouldn’t end up yarfing his guts out later.
Sam declared there was nothing we could do with the engine right now. Everything he tried did nothing. We raised sail in an attempt to catch the smallest puffs and tried to point in the round about direction. Kirby should be on his way soon. We will fill him in when we see his sails head this way. As we bobbed around we replayed the moments before the motor died. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing seemed to give us any warning that we were going to be with out an engine. The anxiety set in deeper and deeper with the thoughts that we may not find anything to fix this engine up North. But we can’t go south that’s in danger of Hurricanes. We especially don’t want to head South with out a motor incase a hurricane forms and heads directly at us. We wouldn’t be able to run from it.
The radio rings. Kirby is direct calling us. We answer and he said ” I thought you guys would be a lot further away, are you coming back to Ramada? Everything ok?” . Sam keys up the mic with a hesitant chuckle. “Yeah…we are ok but, our motor just died. We are floating around here contemplating our life choices.” After a longer discussion we all decided not to go all the way into Bahia Conception and stop just around the top of the entrance in a big open bay named Santo Domingo. That will cut a few hours off our trip allowing us to sail most of the way. Kirby offered to tow us but the wind had begun to fill in a bit and we were now making decent time. Kirby staid close by most of the day just incase. As we got closer to Santo Domingo he went ahead to scout out a spot for us. We made it before sunset, barely. We quickly went over to Kirby’s to “tell him all about it’.
We made plans for the next day to have Kirby motor us across the bay over to the town of Mulege that is nestled in the cliffs above the bay. We will have to anchor at the mouth of it’s river and dingy -ing up to the center of town but there is a hardware store and an auto parts store there. Still thinking it’s a fuel issue we may find a filter or parts to make a filter. Sounds like an adventure! We still have a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomach that this summer may not be what we had imagined. So many questions float through our minds. The hardest ones “would we have to go on the hard? Go home? Money? We head back to Hiraya for a restless night sleep. We paddle over to Kirby’s the next morning anxious. He is the mello that we need. Full smile on his face, happy to help, but first….coffee!” Side note…Kirby had a coffee shop where he roasted his own coffee. Coffee on Lodos is an event but not to be started before nine am and is usually announced by radio “coffee is on.” One we find gets us through some of the most anxious days we have had.