When David and Ernesto from Active Marine came by Juniper to see what was going on, they told us we were pretty lucky. With the bellows of our PSS shaft seal melted and seemingly hanging on by a thread, it appeared that melted rubber and a damaged cutlass bearing was keeping water from steadily streaming into the boat. Then David, who was in our engine room, yells out to us, “your motor mount’s broken, man! Your motor mount’s broken!”

With David in the engine room looking at the engine from the rear and me, Scott, and Ernesto in the cabin looking at the engine from the front, he points it out to us. We couldn’t see it at first, and we were both looking at David skeptically. Then we see it, a piece of metal just snapped in two, looking completely rusted out. For the past two days Scott and I have been staring at prop shaft seal, where all the smoke had been coming from. We didn’t bother to look anywhere else.

Our engine sits on four motor mounts: two in the front and two in the back. The two in the back have “feet” that attach to the motor mount and one of those feet is what actually snapped in two.  A little bit about motor mounts. In a car or in a boat, a motor, or engine mount, is the part that holds the engine to the body, in our case to the body of the boat. Our engine and transmission are bolted together and held in place by four mounts. When they’re good, they also help keep noise and vibrations to a minimum. The rumblings we’ve been hearing on our last passage, the vibrations and the increase in engine noise were all signs that we were having issues with our motor mounts but we didn’t know to check them.

There’s some hustling as David and Ernesto start moving around, pointing their phone flashlights at the engine. “And the bolt on this motor mount has sheared off. ” They are both clearly surprised. A rush of words in Spanish, followed by Ernesto on his hands and knees taking pictures. “Wait, the bolts have sheared off on all the other motor mounts too! Your engine isn’t attached to anything on the boat! Your engine could have just walked right on out and into your cabin!”

Overview of the damage

This mounting foot snapped completely.

The bolts have separated and the engine moved forward.

We look and see that except for the mount with the broken “foot”, the other bolts on the other three mounts are positioned next to each other. That’s now how it’s supposed to be. The bolts should be just one piece but they sheared off and our engine has moved forward towards the cabin. It’s also the reason why Juniper wasn’t flooded with water. As the engine moved forward it pulled the propeller forward into the boat thus blocking any significant water from getting in.  We all just silently take that in for a moment and Scott and I have our “holy shit” moment. “You guys are lucky, man,” David breaks the silence. We nervously laugh.

Why did one of them break? David thinks it was exposure to salt water, directly and indirectly. Indirectly? Yes, indirectly by having salt water in our bilge. The salt water heats up and releases salt into the bilge, finding its way to weak points such as our motor mounts, which are made out of iron and thus vulnerable to rust. When one broke, the engine began to move, putting stress on the other three motor mounts shearing off the bolts. As the engine started to move, the alignment of our shaft changed, which created friction on our shaft, shaft seal, and cutlass bearing. The reason that our engine room didn’t go up in flames is because salt water was putting out the fire.

How long did this whole thing take? How quickly did it go from the mount breaking , engine shifting, and damage-causing friction? We don’t know exactly when the motor mount broke and when the other mounts sheared off. We can guess that each time we heard deeper rumblings, a breakdown was happening.

The following day, David coordinates to have Juniper lifted out of the water. Over the next two weeks, we come to learn that our cutlass bearing was ground down to dust, the fiberglass tubing that the shaft goes through was burned and needs replacement, and our propeller shaft was ground down a bit, but not enough to warrant a complete replacement. Scott coordinates with the yard on which parts can be shipped and which ones to pick up in San Diego, and we take advantage of us being on the hard to get our varnish done and our bottom painted. We’ll likely be here for a few more weeks as our fiberglass tubing is a custom order, and there’s a lot of work to do.

Tow boat on our starboard side

Tow boat on our port side

Juniper out of the water

Where’s all the water?

In the meantime, we’ve got ourselves an AirBnB around the corner from the boatyard and we’re making the best out of this situation. At the very least, Sam is pleased that he’s no longer on the water!

Sam enjoying the AirBnB

One year ago: La Paz

Our last night in Matanchen Bay was really nice. We grilled pizza and enjoyed a mostly still night in the anchorage followed by an early morning rise to prep for the overnight sail to Mazatlan and the Stone Island anchorage.

We raised anchor and as we motored past the entrance to San Blas we heard and felt a slight shift in engine sound. I brought it up to Scott but we didn’t know what it was and it eventually went away.

Sam just loves going upwind.

We found some wind and sailed, mostly close-hauled, which kept us a little heeled over and making for a not so fun sail, but better to sail than to motor! But, like it does sometimes, the wind died in the evening and we motored through the night and early morning. Throughout both of our watches, we had moments were we heard rumbling and knocking, and we both questioned whether the engine seemed louder than normal, but we kept on going as the engine seemed to be alright.

Piedra Blanca del Mar

Sunset as we approached Isla Isabel. We’d tack towards Mazatlan a few minutes later.

At 6:00am I took over. We were only a several hours away from Mazatlan. While Scott slept down below, I kept a watch for boats and buoys. We passed several buoys out about 25 miles out from Mazatlan, sets of three buoys tied together, sometimes with palm fronds and coke bottles to help keep them afloat. The engine was running at 2800 RPM, as it had been for several hours now. I began to hear subtle shifts in sound from the engine, deep rumblings. We heard some rumblings earlier too, but the engine seemed fine. I checked the temperatures and they were normal so I didn’t wake Scott up to point out yet more rumbling.

Early Saturday morning, before things went awry.

A little before 9am, I made myself some tea. Twenty or so minutes later I smelled something burning and ran down the stairs, thinking I left a burner on. I did not. As I walked back to the companionway to go upstairs, the smell got stronger, which meant it was coming from the engine so I woke Scott up.

We couldn’t easily turn off the engine because our stop button, which is in the cockpit, was broken. Instead, we have to go into our quarter berth, open up a side door and, with a long flat-head screwdriver, stick our hand in the engine compartment and push down engine stop solenoid arm to turn it off (Note: we thought the stop button was a convenience not a safety issue. We were wrong!) This time though when Scott opened up that compartment, a bunch of smoke poured out. We stopped the engine and when enough smoke cleared and we saw that our PSS shaft seal had melted. The shaft seal is what keeps water from coming into the boat through the hole that the propeller goes through. Kind of important! Did one of those buoys get caught in our prop and cause this? Did all that rumbling lead to this? We’d have to wait until we were safely at a marina to investigate. In the meantime, the amount of water coming into the boat was easily managed by our bilge pump, so we were not in immediate danger of sinking.

Our PSS shaft seal

What a PSS shaft seal should look like

We were 23 miles out from Mazatlan. We had no way of using the engine and we had no wind to sail, and no way to maneuver into a marina slip. We had no cell phone service and we were too far out to use our vhf radio. We used our satellite phone to email our friends Kirk and Heidi on SV Due West for help and they stepped up big time. They called the marinas in Mazatlan for help, hounded the port captain to line up a tow, got us a slip at a marina, and coordinated these efforts and checked in with us repeatedly during the ten hours we were stuck out at sea in this condition. We cannot begin to express our gratitude and sincere thanks to Heidi and Kirk for all their help!

Getting towed to Mazatlan

It was unclear to us exactly how the tow boat was going to get us into the slip at Marina El Cid. For the past hour I had visions of Juniper getting slingshotted into the slip and guess what? That’s exactly what happened! The tow boat pulled up on the tow lines, passed the slip, and swung us towards the slip and we were going pretty fast. Thankfully the slip we were aimed at was 1) large and 2) at a diagonal so we were able to get alongside the dock where I jumped off and quickly tied us up with zero damage. It was a ballsy move, one bordering on insanity, and while I was laughing at the execution and their resourcefulness, Scott was annoyed by the risk.

It was 7pm. We now wait for Monday to start the process of getting Juniper out of the water and fixed up.

Juniper made it to Mazatlan. Crew is exhausted.

One year ago: Bahia de los Muertos.

We left La Cruz in the morning and motored all the way to Chacala. Scott was really nervous about this anchorage as this would be the first time we’d have to use our stern anchor to keep the boat pointing into the swell. After hemming and hawing and at one point diverting away from Chacala, I convinced him to just give a a try. There were three other sailboats when we arrived and, due to the tricky current, it took us four tries to just get our bow anchor down between two boats without being rudely right next to either of them. When we finally anchored we backed up (not directly backwards since Juniper isn’t really controllable in reverse) and successfully dropped our stern anchor overboard. Scott did it! High fives all around!

Those high fives were given out prematurely. As day turned to night we learned that we didn’t give our stern anchor enough scope and Juniper ended up broadside to the swell resulting in us having a lousy night of fitful sleep.

At anchor in Chacala. At this point our stern anchor was working nicely and we were pointed into the swell. Overnight we’d be pointed in the same direction as the boat in front of us, beam to the swell.

At dawn, we tried to quietly correct our problem but Scott didn’t feel confident about fixing it so we upped anchor and headed towards or next destination, Matanchen Bay. Well Chacala, you were pretty! Wish we could have explored a bit!

We motored our way to Matanchen when we saw a whale breach four times! Horray! A first for us! And later on, we were joined at the bow by our dolphin friends. What a great day!

There were five other boats in Matanchen Bay, but this place is so big that we’re all so far away from one another. I finally get back to my Net Control duties on Amigo Net the next morning and am super excited to once again facilitate check-ins and read the weather report.  That said, we’re not too excited about being here. We woke up early to find a bunch dead bugs and bug wings on deck. Come to learn from Dan on SV Karvi that they could be termites. Whaaat? We have a lot of wood on deck so this isn’t what we want to hear. The good news is that the deck was covered in dew so I wiped down all the wood looking for damage and found none. We looked the next morning and found no damage but it was time to get out of here and head to Mazatlan.

One year ago: Ensenada to Cabo

We spent quite a bit of time in Nuevo Vallarta, three months to be exact. There was a trip to the states for the holidays followed by another one for some medical issues. Here are the highlights of our time in Banderas Bay.

Festival of Guadalupe

Mmmm… Sopes

Coconuts in Yelapa. After drinking the water, they cut up the meat for you.

Yelapa

A cat in Yelapa

We both got our general HAM licenses!

This is some of the gunk from our fuel tanks.

Horacio Velarde Martinez polishing our fuel tanks.

Mid-polishing.

Spending time with friends. Clockwise SV Due West, Juniper, Ingenium, Jabaroo, and Slow Flight in Puerto Vallarta

Goofing with Kimi and Trevor

We had a great time in La Paz. First, we got our refrigeration issues sorted and we now have cold beverages and a working freezer! We hung out with our pals Kirk and Heidi on SV Due West,  took care of their gatos, Tikka and Tosh, and made plans to buddy boat across the sea to Banderas Bay.

Tosh and Tikka

We’re guessing he could smell that we were with other cats.

Before meeting up with Due West, we decided to get out of Marina Costa Baja and anchor out in Bahia Falsa where we could prep for the passage to Banderas Bay.  On our way there, our auto pilot completely gave out. We’ve been having intermittent problems, but this time it was done. As soon as we anchored Scott was trying to figure out what was happening. He changed a fuse and then our wind instruments died.

Without the auto pilot, our passage to Banderas Bay would involve hand-steering, and it was estimated to be a three-day passage. Not something we were looking to take on. Scott dove into the port lazarette and found frayed and corroded wires.

Climbing into the laz

After spending hours doing boat yoga in a lazarette Scott finally found the cause of the intermittent electronics issues we’ve been having for the past two years.

After changing the wires the auto pilot worked! No more “low battery” or “heading not found” messages like we were getting whenever the auto pilot decided to reset. We were ready to go tomorrow morning.

Not so fast.

This is what was in the glass bowl of our Racor filter.

In the morning Scott did his routine engine checks and found the fuel filter half full and mostly full of gunk. Algae in the fuel, we guess. It can happen with the heat and condensation that builds up in the fuel tank if sits around for a bit and not completely full. Scott wasn’t feeling too good about starting a passage like this so we radioed Due West who came by and circled our boat while Kirk assisted via radio.

Finally we were all set and ready to go! Due West gained a huge lead on us, primarily because we were cautious and going slow, and then their lead on us increased even more as we decided to sail with the little wind we were getting. We sailed most of the day into the night, with Due West just a small light on the horizon until we couldn’t see them anymore.

On our passage to Banderas Bay

I admit that these passages are my favorite part of cruising. I love the journey and watching the skies the the water.

A beautiful end to our passage.

We arrived early morning to La Cruz and spent a day exchanging passage stories with Due West (who saw the same bank of clouds and took almost an identical pictures) before heading off to Nuevo Vallarta and Paradise Village Marina, where we’d keep the boat for a couple months while we head back to the state for the holidays.

One year ago: Santa Barbara

After having an amazing time in San Marte, it was time to move on and sail towards San Evaristo. We had a fantastic sail, sailing wing-on-wing most of the way there.

Scott pointing at the telltales.

Approaching San Evaristo

Sunset in San Evaristo

San Evaristo at sunrise

We only spent a day in San Evaristo as the town seemed to be completely empty. Both the restaurant and the tienda were closed. We woke up early and headed to Ensenada El Cardonal in Isla Partida.

Ensenada El Cardonal is a gigantic anchorage, one that seems to go on forever. We arrived to find one other boat there but they left early the next morning. We found ourselves in the position of being the only boat around and we breathed a sigh and soaked it in. We took the dinghy and explored and tried to snorkel, but were unable to anchor anywhere around the reef as it was too deep. Then when we got back we swam around the boat and lazed around. We saw a dorado chase a fish, leaping out of the water several times. Then watched as a sea turtle swam by our boat. We enjoyed our last bottle of wine and relaxed in this beautiful place. In the evening, we were privileged to watch the moon rise between the two hills that separate the west side of Isla Partida from the east.

Ensenada El Cardonal

Moonrise in Ensenada El Cardonal

Next stop, La Paz where we’ll fix our refrigeration!

One year ago: Finally moving – Half Moon Bay

We motored from Honeymoon Cove to Bahia San Marte to charge our batteries and arrived in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful place, surrounded by reefs, which we’re able to spot because of the breaking waves. As the sun sets, we’re approached by a panga with three pangueros – fishermen – asking for batteries in exchange for fish. Ok! We’ve heard about this happening but this is a first for us and we’re dying for something fresh to eat. We get them four batteries but, in the eager exchange, I accidentally drop one into the sea (Note: always exchange things from boat-to-boat over the boat, not the water). Sadly, the fishermen did not return the next day as promised.

The snorkeling here made up for that. The first spot we tried was a dud with no visibility or fish, but the next spot was mind blowing. It’s like we stumbled upon a fish city where none of the fish were too concerned about these two giants swimming among them. Giant parrotfish, hogfish, triggerfish, dorado. Hundreds and hundreds of fish going on about their day. We spent hours in their world, just watching. It was incredible and like being in an aquarium.

Parrotfish and Sergeant Major

Cortez Angelfish and Sergeant Majors

We don’t know why kind of fish these were but there were thousands of them.

Reef

Look closely, there’s a scorpionfish hanging out at the bottom of the rock.

One year ago: Almost

After a terrible night staying up listening to the election results, the mood was somber and we had a quiet sail to Honeymoon Cove. This place instantly lifted our spirits. What a beautiful place! The waters were ridiculously clear that when we dropped the anchor, we could see it hit the ground 40 feet below. We watched a dorado slowly swim by and spotted over twenty sergeant majors immediately taking residence around the boat.  This has proven to be our favorite anchorage thus far and we’re flabbergasted that there’s only one other boat here, Steve on MV Pacific. He hasn’t been keeping this place a secret; in fact Steve has been on both the Amigo and Sonrisa nets for the past five days letting everyone know about the clear waters and amazing diving to be found and that he’s the only boat around. Sure, there are bees and that’s likely keeping people away. Bees came to our boat, looked around and, once it was determined that we had screens on all our windows and no fresh water on deck, left us alone.

Rain over the Sierra Gigantes from Isla Danzante

We spent some time with Steve, listening to his diving stories and learning the names of some of the fish we’re seeing here. He takes video of his dives and we watched and remarked on his techniques and excellent footage. He’s very nice, a good storyteller, and after learning of our refrigeration woes, shares with us some avocado, cilantro, tomatoes, bell peppers, and a bottle of merlot. We are grateful and touched by his generosity. We’re sad to learn that he’s making his way back to Puerto Escondito and heading back to the States, but happy to hear that he’ll be back in the spring. We hope to see him again.

Lovely vegetables provided by Steve from MV Pacific

The snorkeling has been amazing with reefs everywhere. While snorkeling, I saw a dorado swim past me and when I went after her she swam away.  I turned around and she’s right in front of me. I admired her colors – green, yellow, and blue – and realized that my rash guard had the same colors. I excitedly pointed my GoPro at her and hoped I had a good shot but the GoPro was out of batteries. Of course!

Slate Pencil Sea Urchin

After a day of snorkeling that concluded with Scott’s fins missing (did they fall out of the dinghy? Did someone swing by and take them? So weird!) we were excited to snorkel again the next day and look for Scott’s fins. Steve signaled to us and pointed to his dinghy. He found and dove for the fins in 25 feet of water, near where we were yesterday! Incredible!

We spent another three hours in the water, this time spotting a seahorse. We’re so excited that we repeatedly dive down, trying hard to get some footage of the shy little guy.

The next day, Steve heads back to Puerto Escondido and it’s just us here. We don’t revel too long in being the only ones in the anchorage as it’s time for us to move on as well. We loved this place and are looking forward to coming back.

An early morning rise promised an International Space Station sighting as we motored over to San Juanico, an anchorage that was very disappointing to us earlier. The ISS passed by as expected and aside from some minor slaloming between shrimp boats our exit out of Punta Chivato to San Juanico was pretty uneventful.

On the lookout for boats just before sunrise

Shrimp boat at the entrance of Bahia Concepcion

Motoring from Punta Chivato to Caleta San Juanico. Not a breath of wind.

Unlike our last experience, San Juanico was fantastic and we ended up staying four days there snorkeling and hiking with no swells to drive us away. There’s a cruisers shrine here where, once we found it (26º 22.31′ N, 111º 25.81 W), we left our little contribution. It was neat seeing things left by other boats we’ve met in the past year.

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Here we met SV Camelot who spontaneously invited to go clamming over at La Ramada. This was a new experience for us and Uly demonstrated how to dive down, look for, and retrieve chocolate clams. While we personally weren’t successful, it was a lot of fun to try! We also briefly met SV Liahona and enjoyed some amazing freshly baked goods they kindly brought by!  They had no idea that we were without refrigeration and longing for something sweet.

After a great stay in San Juanico we decided to head over to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen. As we were getting the boat ready to leave, a small number of needlefish and green jacks had a feeding frenzy all around Juniper, splashing and swimming after smaller fish hiding under our boat. They swarmed and fed long enough for us to grab the GoPro.

Once underway, we had a downwind sail to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen. It was fast and occasionally uncomfortable sail, especially once we had to turn towards the entrance and the wind and seas got on our beam. We still had our sails up as we entered the anchorage and were surprised to find SV Camelot, who left San Juanico in the early morning, anchored inside. We had a challenging time finding a good spot to anchor in the protected end and we both were a little worried about how close we were to shore should the winds change direction, but we ended up being fine as the winds eventually calmed.

Puerto Ballandra

Ruins of something at Puerto Ballandra

Rock formation at Puerto Ballandra

Puerto Ballandra

Juniper at Puerto Ballandra

We spent a few nights here and did a little bit of exploring on land and hoped to catch a sighting of the bighorn sheep that roam around the island (there’s a hunting lodge somewhere), but all we spotted were hoof prints in the salt flats. The sunsets here were spectacular and once again began enjoying sundowners on deck.

One year ago: No Previous First Aid Training Required