Bahia Los Frailes to Muertos Cove

 When the storm passed we headed out of Fraelis with Stormvogel (from Ventura California) on a course to Muertos Cove. He lead the way as his engine is smaller than ours.  Winds were 10-12 knots.

  After some time we realized that he was sitting dead in the water.  After hailing him on the VHF radio, he said he had an engine problem.  We waited and he started again only to stop over and over again. Finally he could not get the motor to run again.  Mark offer to come to his boat.  They discussed the issues and what he had done.  I think he did not know us that well and he was totally exhausted.  He told us to go on to Muertos Cove and he would sail there. It was late in the afternoon.

We anchored in sand in a large safe harbor.  About 7am the next morning Stormvogel hailed us requesting a tow into the harbor.  He was 1.6 nm south of us.  The waters were very calm.  Serena was at the helm and Mark handled  the tow line.  Wayne was our the top.  He said he could not sleep or eat until the engine was fixed while he was out.  Mark went over to his boat and found the problem. One of the fuel lines at the filter had collapsed.  Wayne had check so many things with the engine and bypassed everything that he could.  He just got tired and could not think any more.  At this point Wayne felt he could take a nap.  We went to shore for dinner later and discussed when to leave for La Paz.

Stormvogel waiting to be towed.

Wayne at the bow of Stormvogel as we give him a tow.

Cabo San Carlos to Bahia Los Frailes

 We stayed only one night in Cabo San Lucas Harbor.  It was not crowned in the anchorage and the waves were all from the wave runners.  When the sun dropped the water activity stopped and the beach parties started.  We slept good with ear plugs. The music did not stop until after midnight.

 The next day we sailed over to the sister city of Cabo San Carlos.  We docked there for 2 nights.  It is a very small village with a nice affordable dock. We had some good food met more people, fueled up and filled up with water and food.

  We traveled with Stormvogel when we set a course for Bahia Los Frailes.   Wayne a solo sailor had her built in Taiwan in the late 70s.  She is beautiful and still looks new.  Wayne did not have the charts of these waters as he usually goes to Alaska in the summer with Stormvogel.  This was his first trip to Mexico and he was not that comfortable in these waters yet. We let him set the pace.  The winds did get up to about 20 knots on the nose and the waves were 5-10 ft at the beginning of the day. We only turned back to try and retrieve a kayak that had gone over in one of the waves.  We had tried to deploy the mainsail in the high wind and it did not go well.  Mark noticed the kayak leaving but we had to pull in the mainsail most of the way before we turned back.  We found it water logged and had a hard time getting to it in the high waves. I considered it a practice rescue. We tried and gave up after Mark hurt his back , I had bent a nice pole hook , a knife from the back of the boat fell in the water and finally a canvas was torn as we tried to use the wench to pull the kayak.  Now I had a canvas to repair. The kayak came with the boat and was nothing special.  We gave the other one away in La Paz and plan to get some stand up paddle boards or set upon kayaks (these were the sit in lake style).

We caught up to Stormvogel in no time.  We pulled into Frailes 6 hours after leaving Cabo San Carlos.  We had traveled 34 nautical miles.  Anchored in 40 ft of water on a shelf.

 We hunkered down in this bay for 3 days waiting for the wind to die down some.  We had plenty of company.  We did not even get the dingy down because we did not want to go out in such high wind in such a small boat.  We talked to the other boats over the VHF radio.

  Our friends from Singularity sent us an email about the couple we met in Ausincion on Yachtcruz.  They were missing at sea.  They fueled up at Turtle Bay and headed north to San Diego but never made it.  They sent a distress message to the Mexican Navy around Jan. 7th.  At the time we received the email it was Jan. 12th already.  We would not find out their fate for another 2 weeks.