After our week-long charter with Eitan’s parents, it was time to turn our attention back to S/V Sierra Wind and get her back in the water. Eitan scheduled the splash for the next day and luckily the charter company let us stay on the catamaran with air conditioning for another night. Although the boat was scheduled to go into the water at 10am, in true Latin American fashion, this really meant 1pm. The truck and trailer maneuvered S/V Sierra Wind into position for the crane, which drove the boat forward into the haul out slip, And just like that, we were back in the water!
Since we had a long list of things to do, we decided to stay in the marina for one night and depart the next day. S/V Sierra Wind was absolutely filthy and covered in bird poop from her 4 months on the hard. Our first order of business was to wash her down, which we repeated again the next morning. After we got the paddled boards, life raft, and other deck equipment back into place up top, I began on the internal organization while Eitan installed some new equipment onboard. He also replaced our transducer which had been giving us some faulty depth and water temperature readings. The new transducer gave us a water temperature reading of 92 degrees, eliminating our hope that the boat might feel a little cooler once in the water.
Our first night back onboard was horribly hot, to say the least. We laid awake for hours. Eitan stayed up top in the cockpit while I spread out in the bed with ice packs on my chest. Finally, around 4 am, it was cool enough to sleep for a couple hours before the sun began to blasted through the windows at 7 am. Our only relief from the heat came once we finally got underway and could enjoy the induced breeze from moving, since there was little true wind to speak of. We stopped a couple times just to dive into the slightly less hot water in an attempt to cool off.
Our first stop was at Isla Coronados, just a few hours north of Loreto. We anchored in a beautiful little bay with clear water and some shade structures lining the beach. Just a 30-minute ride from Loreto in a panga, it was an easy day trip for tourists, which came and went throughout the day. The bay was filled with wildlife and we saw a handful of dolphins, turtles, and rays, although none were interested in swimming with me once I dove in. Once the last panga boat left for the day, Eitan and I used the tables under the beach shade shelters for a new, very expedited boat project: making sun shades for the cockpit. While in Florida, the motor yacht replaced all their window shades which were practically new. We packed as much of the discarded shade material into our luggage as we could and hauled it back to Mexico with us. We used the cockpit enclosure panels as our templates and cut them to size, cutting holes to secure then to the bimini with ties. We hand stitched any unhemmed edges, hoping to run into a boat with a sewing machine in the near future to finish them off. The cockpit suddenly became a lot more bearable with a little more shade.
While underway, we worked to make screens for the windows and hatches in an effort to manage the bugs, since closing the windows was no longer an option with the relentless heat. As I had written before, the bees and flies plagued us during the day and the moths at night. We had both the common variety of moths as well as giant moths with wing spans of 3 to 4 inches. They became quite annoying and constantly tried to land on us, or would make their way into the boat through the companionway and get stuck inside. Although designed to keep the bugs out, the screens were also good at keeping them in once inside. Given their size, they were hard to wrangle and seemed to be content trying to camouflage with the wood and brown canvas. Our general solution was just to close our cabin door and hope they would find their way out by the morning.
Although it was nice to be back cruising the Sea of Cortez, our first week back onboard was really challenging for us. Aside from the bugs, the heat became exhausting and it was impossible to rest during the day or at night. With the warm water temperatures, swimming didn’t offer much relief and we could only enjoy the beach after sunset. At night, we would watch movies while sitting on the bow, trying to enjoy what little breeze was present. Some new cruising friends we had just met jokingly called this time of year the “Sea of Celibacy”. We had heard that it was cooler at our destination up north, but began talking about backup plans to put the boat up in a marina and get an Airbnb for a few weeks or go back home to Cali until things cooled off. Luckily, things did start to cool off, but not without some wacky weather.
