Baja: Isla Coronados to La Paz

Once again our plans changed. We had the best crossing of the Sea of Cortez that we've ever had. Perfect sailing conditions.  Except for motoring out of the marina and starting the engine to anchor we sailed the entire 22 hour passage. All was great on Loomba-Loomba.

Sunrise during the crossing of the Sea of Cortez from
San Carlos on the mainland to Isla Coronados on Baja

However, when we woke up the next morning anchored at Isla Coronados the house batteries were dead and weren't taking a charge when we ran the engine. With the help of a couple of other cruisers it was determined that the electronic read out for the charging system was not reading correctly and the batteries were toast.  Thank goodness we have a brand new starter battery!

We decided to head into Puerto Escondito, rent a car,  and drive to Loreto to get new batteries.

Heading into Puerto Escondido we couldn't believe how
 green everything was. They had a lot more rain this summer
than they have had for several years. The first year we were
 there it had not rained for three years.

There were only 2 batteries in the whole town that were the correct battery and we needed 4. We bought the two and got by with those, thinking we would get the other two in Mazatlan when we arrived there. 

So we headed to Agua Verde. 

Everything seemed good and we had a great sail.

It was a gorgeous day, some dolphins swam with us, and

we caught two fish (skip jacks which we threw back but it's always 

exciting to have a fish on - edible or not).

South Side of Bahia Agua Verde

Lots of green and lots of wildflowers

Looking out to the entrance into Agua Verde
from a ledge along the south shore

 We had a great stay in Agua Verde - swimming, snorkeling, beachcombing and doing a few boat projects. We watched our electrical usage and ran the engine a couple of times and everything seemed good. When we headed south again and after about an hour of motoring the read out was telling us that the batteries were not fully charged, but the engine and solar panels had quit charging them.

We decided to head all the way to San Evaristo and hang out there 

(a very well protected anchorage) until we could sort out the problem.

San Evaristo

While we were there Jim checked the alternator and found one connection that was a bit loose. He cleaned it all up, put it all back together and everything seemed fine. So we stayed there a couple of days waiting for a weather window to head across the Sea to Mazatlan. When the time was right we left  Evaristo heading southeast to go between Isla San Jose and Isla San Francisco, but after about an hour the read out was doing the same thing again: saying the batteries were not full, but they were no longer taking a charge. We were very leary of a 50 hour crossing with no running lights, radar, AIS, or GPS so we decided to stop at Isla San Francisco and use our sailmail to try to secure a slip in La Paz.

The south end of Isla San Jose

We are now in La Paz and we think the charging problem was simply that the new batteries have a lower capacity than our old batteries so the setting on the read out was wrong and it was telling us the batteries were not full when they really were and therefore the solar controller and the regulator were diverting the charge (just like they should). We won't know for sure until we get the two additional batteries (hopefully tomorrow) and test the whole system, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

So today we purchased our tickets to FLY across the Sea of Cortez on November 30th (La Paz to Guaymas) to pick up our car and drive home. Simon is due on December 13th and we want to be there in plenty of time so we don't miss his arrival!