Tom and Theresa's Travels

We left Mazatlán for the Baja Peninsula at Dawn and by sunset we'd made it 1/3 of the way across. Wind blew 15kts across the bow, close hauled, and this continued with building seas until 8pm. Winds diminished after that, and at midnight we fired up the diesel.    Here's a sunset video...   You may notice the jib is partially furled.  The main was reefed too.  We're still using the training wheels;  6 knots felt fast enough.

During our adventures south to Puerto Vallarta and back to Mazatlán, we noticed oil spilling out of the saildrive, along with excessive vibration.  The following picture shows an engine and a saildrive.  The saildrive is the transmission, hull penetration and shaft seal in a compact unit. I changed the gear-oil a couple times, and both times the oil was contaminated with water (not good!), so I called a mechanic in Mazatlán who helped with repairs when we purchased the boat. Patrick Fallon is a British (Irish?) guy living in Mazatlán.  He knows his stuff, and he enjoys explaining the details.  We decided to haul-out to repair the saildrive, and add a couple fresh coats of anti-fouling paint to the bottom while we're at it.  We were planning to have the bottom painted in a couple months anyway. Now the boat is sitting on stands in with Active Marine at the Fonatur yard in Mazatlán.   It doesn't take long for growth to thoroughly foul the bottom.  The bottom paint does a pretty g