We are in a small bay next to a small village in southern Baja. Jon is setting out in the paddle board to look for hydraulic fluid, Spanish phrases on a piece of paper in preparation. We had a slightly rolling night, but nothing like the night that led us here.
Imagine a dark moonless night with great wind, 15 knots and higher. This is the winds we have been looking for, but now we have no autopilot or wind vane so we are hand steering. No huge issue, but it makes for shorter watches since I can’t steer for long. And the steering seems very touchy, I figure it’s the conditions. I finally end my watch and go to bed in the cockpit fully clothed. Zoe settles in behind my knees. Co nn no lc
Jon starts muttering immediately about the unpredictable steering but I go off to sleep-wake-sleep-wake. A few short hours later I take the wheel, Jon warning me it’s screwed up. Wow. Nearly completely unmanageable. Now I’m scared. Surrounded by dark and waves, shore close but harbor far… like a cork with about as much steerage. Luckily we had already taken the sails down and the engine is puttering along. I had an anchorage picked out, the only one we could get to in daylight, it was where we were to fix the wind vane steering. But if the hydraulic steering isn’t working… the wind vane is just decoration.
While I attempt to steer Jon tears apart the aft bunk, our bed, and looks at the steering system. The emergency tiller fits into the top, meaning that you have to steer from the berth, blind, while someone else is in the cockpit serving as eyes. Who thought of that?
He lubes and inspects. The steering does improve a couple of hours later, but is still unreliable, many turns sometimes having no affect and no turns sometimes resulting in a sharp 90 turn. Scary. Glad they are no boats nearby. It was a long cold night but by 10 am we were anchored up here. Jon spent the day diagnosing and reading while I fed the crew and cleaned up a bit. We were in bed by 6 pm and slept 13 hours.
Jon is headed to shore on the paddle board to see if he can buy aceite hydraulico. Fingers crossed.
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