Our first trip from the dock

Well, things never turn out the way you planned. Last I wrote we were headed to a group of islands three to four hours away. Our first trip from the dock was much shorter. We made it to the fuel dock before our departure. Our boat has two engines, one in each pontoon. Patrick checked the sail drive oil on our engines while we were tied to the fuel dock and discovered that one of the seals for the sail drives had failed and there was sea water mixed in the oil in one engine's sail drive. It looked like eggnog. And these are brand new drives installed in CA in October. So we came back to our slip to think about it. We decided not to go that day which was Friday.

Later that day we met an amazing Australian family who are tandem bicycling from CA to the tip of Chile! They are a couple and their two sons, ages 10 and 12. They plan to take about 3 years in the endeavor and they are doing it on a shoestring budget. So we ended up inviting them to the pool for a swim and then later that night we had about 14 people (kids and adults) over to the boat for an impromptu party. Jack had a great time with a posse of kids tearing up the marina on his scooter and bike and playing hide and seek in the dark. When we were telling our tale to the people on our boat, one of the woman who sails in a mono-hull said, "Well, we only have one engine, and we sail around." Well that put the matter in perspective. We checked with a couple diesel mechanics in the marina and they said the same thing. They would use both engines for maneuvering in the marina, and just cruise on one engine at sea. Just monitor it closely and change the oil a lot if we don't get it fixed right away. With that, we decided to leave first thing in the morning on Saturday, but on a shorter trip. We were anxious to get out on our own.

We chose to anchor at Ballandra Bay which is about 2 hours away. It was beautiful. The Sea of Cortez is full of life and even motoring along (no wind to sail in) we saw many schools of fish breaking the water's surface. The bay was large and surrounded by rock cliffs and with lots of shallow sandy areas. We set up the anchor and started the fun. The snorkeling was fantastic. The water was warm, clear and full of beautiful tropical fish. Jack had his spear ready but never saw a fish worth eating. He is very excited to hunt for fish. We swam, kayaked, fished, snorkeled and beach combed all day long and the next day too. On this trip, Rudy stayed on the boat. He is very chicken of changes and was afraid to come down the steps and jump on the dinghy, but in time he will learn. On Sunday, we stayed until noon and then pulled anchor to return to Marina Palmira, where we dock our boat.

Laura