It’s an adjustment adapting to hot and humid weather after coming from the cool PNW but this is a pretty nice marina and resort to be stuck at. Paradise Village is 9 miles North of Puerto Vallarta, MX in the area called Nuevo Vallarta.
We have a long list of things to do to put the boat back together. Since we have plans to head all the way to Panama this season our insurance company wants us to have a marine survey and a rig inspection done on the boat before we leave.
For those of you that don’t know, a marine survey is a detailed inspection including recommendations from a certified marine surveyor. While the surveyor was inspecting the engine she noted a small area of salty corrosion on the exhaust manifold. (This area gets inspected pretty regularly so we don’t think it was there a few months ago.) Regardless, it’s there now. Disassembly revealed some deeper problems and it turns out we need to replace the exhaust manifold. We have one on order but this has us sitting at the dock waiting. We were told two (Mexican) weeks for parts. Who knows how long it will really take. This place is pretty chill.. Nobody is in a hurry around here accept the anxious cruisers who are waiting for boat parts.
We talked to our cruising friends, Rob and Dawn, who have their boat (s/v Salt Whistle) in Mazatlan. At the moment they also happen to be waiting at the dock (in their case waiting for family to come and visit). We invited them to come along to Mexico City and they were in. In really fast time Bev (Airbnb EXPERT and super-host) found us a penthouse condo in Roma Norte (the central part of Mexico City) and we have flight reservations for tomorrow.
We’ll have another update in a few weeks after the engine is repaired and we release the dock lines and begin sailing South. As the saying goes “it’s all part of the adventure”.
Hurricane season is just about over so we arrived at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta (just North of Puerto Vallarta, MX) earlier this week to recommission Island Summers. The weather is extremely hot and humid (even the locals are complaining). It took 2 days to cool the inside of the boat running the a/c 24/7. For now we are going to leave it covered to help keep it cool.
This next week we will be having a boat survey and rigging inspection conducted as required by our insurance company to extend our cruising insurance to Panama. We are crossing our fingers the surveying team will not require the boat to be hauled out of the water. If so, it requires us to sail North to La Cruz where the marina has a crane to lift it out of the water and a work yard to store it during the survey. During this time, we will need to find another place to stay.
The survey team indicated today that if Kevin got some underwater pictures of the hull, rudders and propeller shaft those pictures may suffice. This means Kevin has to jump into the marina water with crocodiles nearby (we are moored in an estuary). Bev said she will be on croc watch! (Kevin thinks this means Bev will watch the crocodiles eat him!)
When Mark visited us in April we were in a hurry to get from Mazatlan to Banderas Bay (where Puerto Vallarta is located) because Bev and Mark had a flight back to Washington Mark had planned a quick 4-day trip to sail with us from Mazatlan to La Cruz.
Consequently, Kevin was on the boat in the La Cruz marina by himself. Normally Kevin likes La Cruz and enjoys the flavor of La Cruz but for whatever reason, alone was not so fun this time. Because Bev caught a bad cold in Washington, a 10-day absence stretched into 3 1/2 long lonely weeks, until the first of May. Kevin jokes that if Bev for some reason had said she wasn’t coming back the boat would have been provisioned and half-way to French Polynesia just for something to do! Kevin completed a long list of TO-DO projects on Island Summers but was eagerly awaiting some company.
Happily, near the end of April Bev returned and rescued Kevin. Soon after we were able to move the boat to its Summer marina in Paradise Village. Because our ‘normal’ slip in Paradise village was still occupied, we were put on a long dock next to a boat named MV Ugly Betty and were also sharing the dock with a couple other sailboats. We pretty quickly met the crew of Ugly Betty and the other boats around us and were immediately a boating group, sharing drinks on the rooftop bar, and on one memorable night a bottle of tequila on Ugly Betty with the owner and crew and our other dock neighbors.
MV Ugly Betty is now on its way to the South Pacific and Antarctica having just completed a trip through the Northwest Passage! For more on Ugly Betty check out their blog: https://www.mvuglybetty.com/
Working quickly after moving to Paradise village we got Island Summers ready to be put away for the Summer and she is now safely moored and we are back home in the Seattle area.
We’ll be back sailing Island Summers sometime in October and most likely start a journey South toward Panama! Stay tuned!
Our departure schedule from Mazatlan was dominated by a closing weather window and the arrival of our son, Mark. He was flying in to Mazatlan to sail with us to La Cruz, a 4 day trip. As soon as he arrived, we needed to leave as soon as we could get him to the boat because our weather was changing. We hailed the port captain for permission to enter the channel and we were denied because the La Paz ferry was preparing to depart. We waited about 45 minutes and then finally granted permission to leave at 4:30 PM. Coming in the middle of the channel was a fishing boat with its stabilizers extended. Needless to say, we stayed as far as possible to the edge of the fairly narrow harbor entrance and watched the end of the breakwater and the depth gauge!
Heading South we could see many fishing boats all around us. We frequently saw rays jumping out of the water. Somehow we’d accidentally picked the middle of prime fishing grounds to travel through. As night fell we watched on radar as we passed fishing boat after fishing boat. We made many small course adjustments to keep the boats at least a nautical mile to one side or the other as we made our way South.
Overnight we would approach Isla Isabella, known as the Galapagos of Mexico. This small island is part of the Isla Maria island group and is a national park. The larger islands in the group were formerly home to a Mexican prison and is off limits. An approach by a cruising boat would result in a visit from the Mexican Navy and a warning to stay away. In the last few years the prison had been closed and Mexican tour operators operate from San Blas on the mainland but it’s unclear how to visit on a cruising boat. Back to Isla Isabella. Isla Isabella is home to blue footed boobies, iguanas, nesting frigate birds and other wildlife. Mostly, the wildlife doesn’t have a lot of fear of humans when approached for a photo. Due to our tight schedule we couldn’t stop for a visit.
As dawn broke on our first night out from Mazatlan we were near Isla Isabela. In addition to the wildlife the island is home to an illegal but tolerated fishing camp. There are frequently long lines operated in the semi shallow water near the island. I looked behind me in the distance and saw what looked like a float being dragged along by Island Summers. Sometime in the night we’d picked up a long line and had been towing it behind us. I immediately stopped the engine and evaluated the situation. I could see the line snagged on one rudder but happily not on the keel or the prop which would have certainly had me in the water under the boat. I was able to lower the swim step and manuouver the line off the rudder with the boat hook. I cut the line and tied it back together hoping it wouldn’t just become ghost fishing gear after I tossed it back overboard.
Back underway we saw turtles swimming by and enjoyed a clear blue sky on the Pacific Ocean. The building northerly wind we’d been expecting hadn’t really developed but finally started to fill in as we rounded Punta de Mita at the North corner of Banderas Bay. We anchored in the dark near Punta de Mita having just avoided two nights out.
The next day we pulled into Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. La Cruz schedules loud parties in the town square for nearly the entire month of April so there’s always lots to see.
Bev and Mark got off the boat and took an Uber 40 minutes away to Puerto Vallarta to catch a flight home. Mark had to return to work and Bev was going to celebrate her mom’s 90th birthday with her. Kevin (and Riley) will stay on the boat in the La Cruz marina and begin preparing it for putting to bed for hurricane season that begins in June. Since this area is a hurricane zone our insurance company requires us to moor the boat in a hurricane hole (Paradise Village). Hurricane season in this area runs late May thru October.
We eased out of the harbor in La Paz for a planned uneventful crossing of the Sea of Cortez. At this part of the Sea we have to head roughly SE toward Mazatlan from La Paz. Our trip suddenly became a trip of almost 250 NM…nonstop. Here we have to stop to sing the praises of our diesel engine. We fired it up and proceeded to run it for just about 2 days.
In the distance we did see occasional whales and dolphins coming up for air and breaching, jumping devil rays, sleeping sea lions and sea birds hitching a ride on the rigging. During night watches we see the Baja Ferry go by. Two ferries, the “San Jorge” and the “Mexico Star” make daily overnight trips between Mazatlan and La Paz. Since we’re making a track almost exactly on their route they see us and we see them. They keep about a nautical mile of separation which is good since they’re going 3-times as fast as we are and outweigh us by 100’s of tons.
As we neared Mazatlan early in the morning sting rays were jumping and a momma whale and calf slowly swam by. At one point we went by a sleeping sea lion who was no more than about 20 feet from the side of Island Summers. I don’t think he ever woke up as we went by.
Mazatlan is a busy port and marine traffic is required to call port control to request entry. Kevin, using his best Spanish asked permission to enter the harbor in ‘cinquenta minutos’ (50 minutes!) OOPS he meant 15 minutes (quince minutos). The port control operator graciously replied in English and gave us permission to enter. Ten minutes later though when we were just off the breakwater he hailed us on the radio and asked us to hold our current position for vessel traffic. We immediately stopped and waited as a huge roll-on-roll-off auto carrier left the port 150 yards from us (glad we didn’t meet him head-on in the narrow channel).
We anchored in the only tourist anchorage in the main harbor. We don’t really know how to describe it. Everyone is very nice here and it seems safe but it’s a different vibe. There’s a dilapidated dinghy dock at Club Nautico, a ruin that seems like it’s been taken over by the Mazatlan Policia Turistica, and Mazatlan Life-Guards. Club Nautico itself is a ruin. There’s a security guard and locked gate and old broken fixtures and a boat ramp (used by the police). There are old boats and the tourist catamarans that constantly go in and out with music blaring are anchored here. Club Nautico was once a decent marina but over the years its been neglected and destroyed by strong winds and high seas.
We always tip Marteen, the security gatekeeper who we’re told uses the tips to take care of the stray dogs and cats that get dropped off in this part of town. We are very near a lighthouse set on a 500 ft hill at the entrance to the harbor. Apparently there is a problem with stray unwanted cats being dropped off here. We can certainly confirm that there are a lot of kitties running around. There’s a nice hike up to the lighthouse and a newly installed (since the last time we were here) zipline from the top of the hill across the bay to El Obeservatario (a park and zoological garden). The zipline is at least 1.2 km and 500 ft in the air and crosses the bay! The zipline has orange balls above it to make sure low flying planes and helicopters see it!
We’ve been to Mazatlan a few times so we’ve seen a lot of the touristy things here but we’ll see if some of them deserve a second look! Stone Island (a fun touristy beach across the bay from main town) is one of our favorite places to spend a day.
We’re currently waiting for our son, Mark, who is planning to make a last minute trip here to sail from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta with us. It’s always fun to have friends and family join us.
We left Isla Carmen and sailed to Puerto Escondido. We’re still 500 nm from Puerto Vallarta and we have about a month to get there. (We only have a month because Bev is flying out of Puerto Vallarta to go home to Washington to celebrate her mom’s 90th birthday).
After waiting on a few days of wind (it seems like we’ve waited a lot for wind to calm down this year) we headed to Aqua Verde with friends on SV Delaware Girl (Charlie & Wendy, and Charlie’s friend, Tony (a visitor from San Diego). Last time we were at Aqua Verde we heard about some ancient (thousands of years old) cave painting a few miles from the bay. This time we had a little better idea where they were and Charlie as a guide. We walked through confusing trails through an oasis of palms from near the mostly dry Aqua Verde river and along a beach to the cave a few hundred feet up a steep hill. We scrambled up the hill and found the ancient hand prints (along with the trail that would have been an easier way up). It was fascinating to think of natives living in or visiting this place and putting hand-prints on the wall during the stone age! After a few days in Aqua Verde it was time to say goodbye to our friends and head South. The hardest part of cruising is saying goodbye to the people we meet that quickly become friends. (The cruising community is We always look forward to finding them again on another beautiful beach.
We stayed overnight in a pretty little stopover called San Evaristo (photo above). San Evaristo is actually pretty close to La Paz but it feels like another world. Only about 20 people live there and it’s a nice spot with a palapa restaurant and shelter from the wind. On the way from San Evaristo to La Paz is one of the places that’s been on the list to visit, a place called Isla San Francisco. We skipped it on the way North because we were in a hurry and as we pulled up to it on our way South it was PACKED with boats. We pulled in, looked around and never even dropped anchor. Too busy. Instead we had a nice sail to Caleta Partida, where there were sting rays jumping out of the water among the 20 some boats anchored there.
The next day we headed further to a bay near La Paz called Pichilinque. When we dropped anchor there were 3 boats but by the time we went to bed there must have been 14. As we’ve moved closer to La Paz we’ve seen many more boats. We have mixed feelings about so many boats but it’s nice to be able to take the dingy into the beach for a cerveza and a nice plate of guacamole and totopos (chips).
With a couple days of relaxing in Pichilinque we headed to La Paz for a few days. Weather was moving through as we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary with a trip to El Mezquite in the town of La Paz, for some of the best (and most reasonably priced) filet mignon that we’ve tasted anywhere not to mention the yummy margarita’s made with fresh squeezed limes and oranges! Next up: a 220 nm crossing (equivalent to 2 nights, 3 days nonstop) We will be leaving Friday morning to cross the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan and mainland Mexico!
At 0330 the alarm went off. Time to leave Guaymas. Boat Dog Riley was not ready to get up and neither were we. However, with about 90 nm to go we needed to get moving to drop anchor in Bahia Concepcion across the Sea of Cortez on the Baja side before nightfall.
We had decent wind and with the motors help we made good time as we started our trip South. Guaymas and Santa Rosalia are as far North as we plan to go in the Sea of Cortez. Over 660 nm (760 miles) from where we started in Puerto Vallarta, we’ll now start working our way South, hopefully seeing some of the sights we hurried past in our short weather windows in December and January.
First stop and our destination 90 nm to the West is Bahia Concepcion, a large shallow bay on the East coast of Baja. There are a few smaller bays within Bahia that we want to stop and visit. We reached the entrance to the bay Punto Concepcion as the sun was setting. We dropped anchor and immediately put the dinghy in to take boat dog Riley to the beach.
The next morning we continued a few miles further South to a beach named Playa Santispac. Playa Santispac is in Bahia Coyote (a smaller bay in Bahia Concepcion). The beautiful sandy beach was lined with RV’s and there were a couple of palapa restaurants where we took the dinghy in. As we ate dinner and drank margaritas we inquired about the best way to get to the town of Mulege 13 miles up Mexico Highway 1. It turns out our only options were to hitchhike or beg for a ride. Kevin was perfectly willing to hitchhike but Bev managed to score us a ride while talking to some RV-ers who were going in the next day. The reason they had room in their Jeep for us was because one of their travelling friends wasn’t going because she’d been stung by a stingray that day on the same beach that we’d just dragged the dinghy up! Apparently there were hundreds of stingrays all over the shallow water near the beach because it was mating season for them. Yikes! The woman who was stung said stepping on a stingray and being stung was the most painful experience she’s ever encountered. She wasn’t aware that you have to do the “Stingray Shuffle” at these beaches. The “Stingray Shuffle” is sliding your feet through the sand and water and not lifting your feet whatsoever. Stingrays are experts at hiding as you can see in the picture above! Sometimes, all you can see are their tiny little eyes because the rest of their body is buried in the sand.
We learned that the stingrays were near the beach in the morning so we did a “Wild-Kingdom” dinghy ride to see them. There were hundreds of them at this beach. They have a superpower of burying themselves in the sand to become invisible. A short dingy ride from there was a beach that had ancient stone carvings. It was surprising it was a stone’s throw from Mexico Highway 1.
The next day we made our way to San Jaunico. We’ve been there before but only very briefly . We met friends on SV Delaware Girl (Charlie & Wendy) and did some hiking and searched for so-called Apache Tears. These are small pieces of volcanic obsidian that legend says fell from the eyes of Apache warriors being pursued by the Army in the 19th century.
Traveling 20 nm South we visited Ballandra Bay on Isla Carmen. Here we tried to take boat dog Riley for a hike and he encountered a small cactus seed ball that got tangled up in his foot fur. This required some careful work with a pocket knife and scissors to remove. The poor little guy was VERY unhappy and rested the remainder of the day on the boat. He’s back to normal now and ready for more adventures.
One of the issues we deal with traveling by boat is: What do you do with a boat when you aren’t on it? Leaving it at anchor seems risky. Best choice is a marina. The problem is finding space. Many are full with waiting lists. My recent experience has been that a marina may or may not respond to an email. What’s the point if you have a waiting list after all? The government-run marina in the city of Guaymas (pop. 140,000 +) is a small marina and we didn’t have any expectation of finding a spot when we sent a WhatsApp message to the marina office. (we got the number from a friend of a friend). We had two requests, marina space for a week or so, and a brief haul-out to fix a problem. I was pleasantly surprised when Eduardo, the manager, replied and indicated there was a marina slip available to leave the boat for a week or so while we go tour the Copper Canyon and a haul-out could be accommodated in their work yard.
We moved the boat into a marina slip and left for the Copper Canyon. We came back to a happy and safe boat and prepped for a haul-out! Why, you might ask, did we need a haul-out? Island Summers is an absolute marvel of compactness and self-sufficiency but because of that self-sufficiency everything that we take for granted at home (electricity, water, waste disposal) is our responsibility. Island Summers has a couple of waste holding tanks with big dump valves at the bottom. Far offshore – open the valve, empty the tanks. Both valves had failed OPEN. In a marina or harbor this is unacceptable so we thought we’d replace the valves below the waterline with a quick haul-out.
“On-The-Hard” is what boaters refer to when a boat is out of the water held up on stands. Suddenly the marvel of self-sufficiency becomes anything but that. All the sink drains just drain on the ground. Without water, the motor can’t be run to heat the hot water tank or charge the batteries. Worst, the toilets are what need fixing so they are un-usable, (unless you want that on the ground under the boat). Any trip on and off the boat requires climbing the ladder, including a late-night trip to the loo. For reference see in the photo above, the boat is up as high as the street lights so it was a steep climb on the wobbly 12- foot extension ladder on and off the boat. No fun since this was our living conditions for 4 days! Yes, we stayed on the boat during the repair.
Happily, with 4 days of hard work of grinding and cutting and a minimum of international shipping, Kevin was able to replace the bronze valves with marelon (a marine grade composite) and splash Island Summers back into the sea. His severely scratched up hands will heal in a week or so.
With a few days to kill waiting for weather we explored Guaymas. I would NOT describe Guaymas as a tourist destination, but since it’s only about 250-miles from Phoenix, it’s got a fairly large expat community. The central part of the city was a short walk from the marina. The main streets are full of taco, churro, hot dog, juice and donut carts and all kinds of little family run shops. On Wednesdays they have a public market with even more shops lining the streets. Everything is on display, clothing, fresh produce, fruit snacks, swap-meet style used tools. They even had live chickens with one leg tied to a table leg so they couldn’t run away 🙁 We picked up some fresh fruit, a big package of shrimp for later and a tool that Kevin had been looking for (hello 1/4 inch rachet!). No, we did not buy a live chicken!
While we were in Guaymas, new cruiser friends Brian and Sharon on S/V Music 4 showed us around town including a custom T-shirt (playerias) shop. We got some nice polo shirts with our boat logo on them. Pretty cool and not too expensive. On our walk back to the boat we saw a barber shop where Kevin got a perfectly fine hair cut for 80 pesos ($4 USD). Not everything feels like a great deal in Mexico but sometimes there are pleasant surprises!
We’re crossing the Sea of Cortez on the way to Bahia Concion. It’s a lightly overcast, warm day and we can see mountains 40 nm ahead. It’s glorious!
Once we arrived in San Carlos the question was what next? We were about as far North as we wanted to go in the Sea of Cortez and we were hanging with boat friends Dawn and Rob, on SV Salt Whistle. We decided to do a land trip to the Barrancas Del Cobre.
There are tours one can sign up for but we decided to plan our own adventure. This turned out to be a couple of days sitting in front of a computer juggling train schedules, bus schedules, and making hotel reservations. In the end it, was an awesome experience.
Step one was a bus trip from San Carlos to Los Mochis in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The bus was a nice double decker bus with feature films (in Espanol) playing. We stayed in Los Mochis overnight and got up in the morning for an early start to board El Chepe – the Chihuahua al Pacifico train which would take us from sea level to 7500 ft elevation travelling up into the Copper Canyon. The rail trip up the Copper Canyon is described as one of the 10 best rail trips in the world. The Copper Canyon is home to the Tarahumara or Raramuri people – the Running People, this was the area featured in the best selling book “Born to Run”. After a stunning train ride up the canyon we arrived at our hotel El Mirador https://hotelmirador.mx/ (The Overlook). Our balcony was perched on the rim of canyon and between the altitude and the sheer drop from the balcony it literally made you dizzy at first glance.
The next day we travelled to an adventure park nearby and rode a seven section (and two cable bridges) zip-line down to the bottom of the the tram in the canyon. I’d actually never ridden a zip-line before and this one was a pretty spectacular first ride. The Circuito de Siete Tirolesas is the longest zip-line in Latin America with ziplines from 141 to 1113m and up to 350m above the ground.
We hiked through a few of the small settlements that the Tarahumara have near the hotel and bought beautiful baskets hand-woven by the natives. Its amazing that there are still hunters/gatherers living in the canyons. The Tarahumara were a stone-age tribe only 400 years ago. They maintain strong traditions and only live near more modern towns by choice. We read in a museum that the Tarahumara still debate the choices provided by modernity over their traditional mysticism and culture.
At the bus stop at our next destination -the town of Creel in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, we met a Mexican man (Arturo) who offered to help us arrange an ATV’s tour. We took a 15 mile quad ride to some of the alpine scenery around Creel. We visited the Valley of Monks -stone formations resembling monks, and the another set of stone formations that looked like mushrooms and lizards. There was an ancient mission church and Tarahumara natives walking in their colorful dresses. The weather had turned cloudy and cool with rain showers for our quad tour and there were times we thought it might be time to turn back but we made it back before it got too cold.
Arturo also gave us a ride back to hotel Barrancas Divisador with a stop at “Fertility Rock’ (aka ‘penis rock’) for our last night in the Canyon. Hotel Barrancas Diviadero had a thriving population of stray dogs that sought to adopt us at every opportunity and were waiting at our door in the morning when we went to breakfast in a dining room perched on the edge of the cliff with 180 degree views of the canyon.
Too soon we were on the way back down the canyon on the El Chepe train and back to boat life. This time we had a haul-out scheduled to fix a valve problem on our toilet holding tank. I guess if boat life was too easy everyone would do it!
Time to pull up the anchor and head 17nm to Guaymas where they have a crane to lift Island Summers out of the water and store her in the yard while Kevin replaces both through-hulls. Hopefully, this will only take a few days.
Leaving Santa Rosalia started at 3:30AM with light wind from the South. We wanted to cover about 80nm to cross the Sea of Cortez to the mainland town of San Carlos. Our friends on SV Salt Whistle, Rob and Dawn are there and we would like to see this area. Reason enough to go! We also had some rough ideas about a land trip that we could stage from San Carlos. San Carlos is a suburb Guaymas in the Mexican state of Sonora. Our goal was to make our crossing in one day.
We left Santa Rosalia harbor in the dark and immediately had to stop to stow our dinghy on the forward deck for the crossing. Standing on the swim step hoisting the dinghy engine to stow and then using the halyard to lift the dinghy onto the foredeck in the dark with wave action felt risky. At one point, we were both standing on the swim step with the engine idling and realized what a catastrophe it would be should a wave knock us both off. Fortunately, that didn’t happen!
After a (happily) uneventful crossing we found our way into the San Carlos anchorage. We’d arranged for a short stay at the marina and had a slip next to SV Salt Whistle. As we proceeded slowly toward our slip – Bump and we came to a stop. Aground! We’d come in at low tide and didn’t quite have enough water. A bad sign for staying there with a rocky bottom that the boat would bounce on daily. We decided to anchor in the harbor. Unfortunately, we’d have no opportunity to wash the dust and crud from months of traveling off of Island Summers.
San Carlos is a beautiful harbor below red cliffs that catch the morning sun and glow. We explored the town and had a fun time hanging out but there was still nowhere to put Island Summers for a week or so to take a land trip. Finally, a chance enounter and a whatsApp number connected us with the touristica marina in Guaymas where we secured a slip.
With a place to put our boat we could plan our trip But, first we wanted to do a little sailing unfortunately the light wind we were expecting for a 4 hour trip built from 0 – 25kt and rough seas within minutes and we were back in the San Carlos harbor. The next day we tried again and chose a small anchorage with a small beach near Guaymas called Catalina Cove. The most recent reviews on the navigation app only mentioned theft of someone’s dingy. Great! We anchored anyway and were a little nervous but had no problems.
The next day we motored slowly to the main harbor at Guaymas. There was light wind and it caught our bow as we were backing into our slip. I mashed the bow thruster button and held it down. Bad move! As I was trying to bring the bow around I overheated my thruster motor. After we docked we smelled the very distinctive smell of burned electrical equipment and when I opened the anchor locker which is above the thruster, smoke rolled out. Bad news! The thruster electronic controls were all blinking and beeping with error codes and the burning smell was a clear indication of a problem. A day later as were preparing to leave for our land trip, I decided to disconnect the electronics to make the horrid beeping (when the ignition was on) go away. I disconnected then re-connected the system and like magic the status lights turned green and the error codes disappeared. OH MY GOSH! The thruster worked too. Neptune smiled on me that day.
