The verdict is still out

Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico

We are carefully making our way south...

We spent 3 nights at anchor in Bahia Tenacatita, probably one of the most picture perfect anchorages in all of Mexico, with palm-fringed white sand beaches, clear turquoise waters and just perfect light swell and sea breezes.  During the day it was warm, cooling off nicely at night to make sleeping comfortable.  Unfortunately, we did not really give it much of a chance - I spent most of my time fighting with the autopilot and was not in a real good mood.

The autopilot is hydraulic and as far as I can tell, the motor and pump assembly just fell apart.  The two pieces are held together with two allen screws and have a rubber O-ring seal between them.  When I investigated the unit, the screws were both backed out a good 1/4", causing the loss of all of the hydraulic fluid and filling the hoses with air.  Putting the two pieces back together again was not that hard (just have to be careful not to squish the O-ring) but getting the air out of the system proved to be very problematic.  No matter how much I played with the bleed screws and manipulated the wheel back and forth, I know I still don't have it all out.  Because of the manner in which the hydraulic ram is mounted, one end is always pointed down and air always likes to go up.  My hope is that if everything else is OK, the rest of the air will just magically work its way out over time.



Fixing things in exotic locations does require some down time.

As a test, we made the short trip (about 15 miles) to the lagoon anchorage at Barra de Navidad.  The autopilot steered the entire way and seemed to behave itself although it is making much too little noise now.  This is not a real good test as the conditions were very light and we motored the entire distance.  The actual distance would have been even less except that you have to go around some rather intimidating looking rocks just south of Tenacatita.

Barra de Navidad is a unique location , with a breakwater entrance leading to a narrow, mostly unmarked, channel to a very shallow anchorage.  We have very good waypoints for this channel in our cruising guide and were able to negotiate it without mishap.  A bit spooky to see birds standing in the water only a few feet from the boat as we passed them by.  We found a spot in the very tight anchorage in about 7 or 8 feet of water - only took us 2 tries until we were happy with our position.

The weather during this travel day was very overcast and we got a tiny splattering of rain.  All in all, a good day to be on the move.

{GMST}19|11.452|N|104|40.355|W|Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico|Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico{GEND}