Snorkeling at Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, March 2018

            We had a couple of opportunities to snorkel while at Bahia Agua Verde. The water wasn't as clear as we had hoped, having been churned up by waves and swells, but we wanted to try out our Olympus TG-4 "Tough" camera. Sue would have preferred testing the camera's waterproofness and functions in a sink before going full-salt with it, but Curtis is more adventurous and convinced her to just plunge into the sea. Taking decent underwater photos turned out to be far more challenging than we expected. Sunlight and the correct angle were essential for any of the color and detail to stand out. To actually focus on a subject while you and the subject are both moving is not easy. And the fish, of course, are usually swimming away. Jacques Cousteau or National Geographic we are not! But here are some of our efforts:

Curtis

Sue

Sea fans

Graybar grunts

Yellow-spotted star, Pharia pyramidata (nice to have a stationary subject).

Bradley's sea star, Mithrodia bradleyi.

Pacific boxfish (we think), Ostracion meleagris, about 4 inches long.

            The underwater time was magical, but of course it's easy to get chilled in 67-degree water, even in a wetsuit. And once back on land, there’s nothing like pulling off a wet one-piece wetsuit to remind you of your anatomy. The sun has gone around the corner, your fingers are stiff and clumsy, and the rock you’re balancing on is volcaniclastic, sharp and barnacly. Your hips seem to have gained extra padding while you were snorkeling. Your knees are two doorknobs obstructing passage. Your ankles are significantly thicker than they were this morning. Halfway through, you’re an untidy heap of neoprene “blubber.” Yanking is unproductive. Slow persuasion, careful positioning, and some trickery are needed. But you have to pee!

Sue suiting up again after an unscheduled interruption.

Toe bone connected to the foot bone

Foot bone connected to the heel bone

Heel bone connected to the ankle bone

Ankle bone connected to the shin bone

Shin bone connected to the knee bone

Knee bone connected to the thigh bone

Thigh bone connected to the hip bone

Hip bone connected to the back bone

Back bone connected to the shoulder bone

Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone

Neck bone connected to the head bone

—from “Dem Bones” (aka “Dry Bones” and “Dem Dry Bones”), a spiritual composed by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)

"In the Rain" Is Better Than "On a Reef": Positive Attitude Post

            Boating in the rain is not most people’s idea of fun, although folks who live in temperate climates are typically well prepared and accustomed to inclement weather. In this coastal Sonoran Desert region, rain is uncommon, especially in winter. Most of Baja California Sur’s annual rainfall comes in the form of summer and fall convective thunderstorms and the occasional hurricane. Winter rainfall is infrequent, generally arriving as a Pacific frontal system that extends its reach down the Baja peninsula.

            On 27 February, we motored south from Isla Carmen to Isla Danzante under rare overcast skies. A red sunrise betokened stormy weather (see inset below). There were few or no birds on the water. Low clouds draped the steep Sierra La Giganta on the Baja California Sur mainland, and a light rain began to fall. We felt as if we had been suddenly transported back to New England, where Cilantro came from, and we put on our little-used foul weather gear. The radar overlay showed a few rain areas (in red) in the area, including a strangely persistent blob right on top of Cilantro (like the dust cloud that follows Pigpen around in the Peanuts comic strip). 

Curtis on a New England–like morning in BCS. He's actually happier than
he looks.

Low clouds draped over the Sierra La Giganta on the BCS mainland.

Rain! A rare occurrence in BCS.

Radar overlay showing nearby rain in red. OK, it's not much!

Why is that "rain blob" following us around?

           We anchored in Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante, where we've been before and where it continued to drizzle all day and into the night. We went ashore for a hike, and Sue watched the desert plants soaking up droplets to store through the next dry spell. She also spotted a wet tarantula on walkabout. Curtis welcomed the freshwater rinse on our dodger and decks. (He loves free stuff.) 

View of Isla Carmen from a ridgetop on Isla Danzante.

Tarantula on walkabout in the rain on Isla Danzante.

            In fact, we very much enjoyed the unusual weather. Things could be much worse! As we were preparing to depart from Caleta San Juanico on 26 February, a nearby sailboat had also weighed anchor to leave. Unfortunately for them, they motored directly onto a reef. In the photo below, the reef appears as slightly darker water to the right of the perched keel and also a bit to the left. The tide was falling, so it likely took half a day or more before they could float off or at least "kedge off" by setting an anchor in a strategic direction and essentially winching the boat into deeper water. Worst case scenario (Sue’s specialty!), a full moon was only 2 days away, bringing with it an extra high tide.

Sailboat aground on a falling tide in Caleta San Juanico; the darker blue
water to the right of the keel indicates the rocky reef.

RED SKY AT NIGHT

            The oft-repeated phrase, “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” appears in the Bible and Shakespeare, but it has its roots in science. In the mid- to upper latitudes, the prevailing winds blow from west to east. If the western sky is colorful at sunset, this suggests the sun (even farther west) is setting under clear skies, and the prevailing west winds will soon take away the remaining clouds. By contrast, if the eastern sky is colorful at sunrise, the prevailing west winds will probably fill the sky with more clouds and block out the sun.

Like a red morn that ever yet betokened,

Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,

Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds,

Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

—William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

Red sky at morning in Puerto Ballandra, Isla Carmen, BCS.

Worst-Case-Scenario Meets the Enthusiast: Making Water Aboard Cilantro in BCS

            Sue is the acknowledged master of Worst Case Scenario thinking on Cilantro. Curtis is the ranking Optimist and Enthusiast. Sue likes to establish routines and follow them; Curtis likes to add features and experiment. Usually our tendencies balance each other out or even complement each other (and occasionally we swap roles), but at other times we collide. On 24 February while making water in Caleta San Juanico (Gulf coast of Baja California Sur), we had a small collision.

            Making fresh water from seawater is a complicated and expensive undertaking; the benefit is that we can stay in remote anchorages as long as our other supplies (including gas for the generator) hold out. Our watermaker is a SeaMaker 20 modular system purchased in 2012 from Rich Boren of Cruise RO Water in Escondido, CA. The SeaMaker 20 includes a DC boost pump, several debris strainers and micron-level filters, lots of tubing and valves, a control panel with flow meter, an AC high-pressure pump, and a reverse-osmosis membrane. We use a portable Honda 2000 generator to run the high-pressure pump. We also have a handheld salinity tester to make sure the water we produce is actually fresh and not salty. Curtis installed our system in 2012 and 2013, painstakingly and cleverly shoehorning the many components into Cilantro's interstices and underused spaces. 

Cruise RO watermaker control panel in main salon.

Cruise RO pre-filters under head sink.

Cruise RO Control panel and filter in main salon.

Curtis during the 2012-2013 install of the Cruise RO watermaker.

High pressure pump and RO membrane vessel
(white horizontal tube in cabinet) in the head.

"Water puppy" boost pump in the bilge.

           The basic sequence is this: start up the generator and pumps, pressurize the reverse-osmosis system, test the salinity or Total Dissolved Solids of the output water (in ppm or parts per million), and—once the ppm falls below 100—run that output water into our onboard tanks until they are full. Curtis—Mr. Curious—recently started to wonder what the salinity reading was at the end of watermaking, after the system has been running for an hour or two. The last couple of times we have checked, the ending salinity was around 60 ppm, slightly lower than the reading of 75 ppm at the start. No big deal. Today, however, Curtis’s ending salinity reading was 220 ppm! Yikes, said Sue.

            (On 20 February, while monitoring our watermaking, Sue had been shocked to see the pressure gauge suddenly reach the maximum safe pressure of 950 PSI instead of 800 PSI. According to the operation manual, a surge of high pressure can cause “catastrophic failure and tearing of the [RO] membranes.” We finished our watermaking that day without incident, and Sue tried not to think worst-case-scenario thoughts.)

            Now here we are, 4 days later, with a reading of 220 ppm in the sample water, after filling our tanks. 220 ppm is nowhere near the super-salinity of seawater, but...maybe we DID ruin the membrane, thought Sue, and we just filled our tanks with brackish water. Yikes indeed! Now we’ll have to super-conserve, wash dishes in salt, forgo showers, go directly to Loreto to flush out our tanks and buy water.…

            Curtis didn't look too worried. He showed her the tester. Yes, it clearly read “220.” He handed her the plastic sample cup to try it herself. (Curtis has known Sue a long time.) Sue dipped the tester into the inch of water and peered at the readout. But her gaze was distracted: what are all those little swirling bits in the water? A few brown ones and a lot of shiny clear crystals at the bottom. Aha, wrong sample cup! This was a unwashed snack cup from the galley. Its most recent use? Roasted salted peanuts!

OOPS—not an approved water sampling cup!

          The final reading with a proper sampling cup? 60 ppm, well within limits. 😃

Sue testing the salinity of our output water.