Puerto Escondido - HURRICANE WARNING

Mountain range to the west of Puerto Escondido

As luck would have it we were on a mooring buoy in one of two hurricane holes in the sea of Cortez when the first hurricane warning of the season came through on the weather forecast. Hurricane Blanca was forming off the coast of Mexico about 400 miles away and some predictions called for it to come up the sea towards us. We have spent the last few days here listening to the forecast and working out if it is going to hit us or not. Winds at the center are forecast to be in excess of 120mph

Whilst waiting to see what Hurricane Blanca was going to do we took a taxi into Loreto, which is a beautiful old Mexican town on the coast. We made the most of the WiFi and walked around the town checking out the local stores and Katya and I both had much needed haircuts.

Back in the anchorage we met up the family on Adagio and met a Brazilian family on their Hallberg Rassy 53 Pesto.

We now listen to the forecast and try and download the latest information on the path of the hurricane but it has stalled and is indecisive in which direction it will go. Meanwhile we have to hang around and swim off the back off the boat to cool down. We have put up our full boat covers to try and provide some relief against the hot and long sunny days but thank goodness the humidity is still sitting at a low 50% which makes it not too muggy and pleasant to sleep at night.

Fixing the generator

As other cruisers know only too well it’s never long before something on the boat needs fixing and for me it was the generator which was playing up again by overheating. Although we have installed the solar panels which are more than capable of keeping up with our electricity demands even with more refrigeration requirements the generator needs to be run every two or three days to power our 40gal an hour watermaker. The generator has been temperamental ever since we bought the boat and a cause of frustration as sometimes it overheats within about an hour and others its fine. The generator automatically shuts down before any damage is done to the engine.

I traced the problem to the heat exchanger and have run a lime scale remover called Rhydlyme through it and it seemed to work but only to find out that the fix was temporary. I pulled the raw water system apart and put a new thermostat in and tested the freshwater system but still a problem persisted. After much thought, swearing and sweating in an engine room that was over 110 degrees I thought I would try back-flushing the heat exchanger by running the raw water through the outlet of the heat exchanger rather than the inlet. At first only a dribble came out, proving that there was still a blockage and then there came a gush and with it a flow of all sorts of what can only be described as crud which included bits of old rubber impeller and a home-made silicon gasket! Halleluiah!! (No I am not religious). The previous owner must have had a shattered impeller and replaced it without pulling the bits out and then making a gasket which became sucked into the heat exchanger. Finally the generator runs at the correct. A beer was downed quickly and a refreshing swim had.

The two "windows" in Puerto Escondido