The Sea of Cortez is a world class sailing destination, in the sea you will find whales, dolphins, mobula rays and sea lions playing in the water beside you. Along the shore you'll find some world class snorkeling and diving and on land you'll be able to visit some beautiful natural environments as well as lively modern towns.
The rear crankshaft on the Perkins 4.108 is notorious for leaking. This failure usually presents itself as a steady drip (or stream) coming from the bottom of the bell housing.
In this article i detail how I replaced the shaft seal, sump gaskets, and fixed a few other problems along the way.
There are a bunch of good reads for the sea of cortez, most people make do with just the 'Shawn and Heather' book, and whilst there is a lot of overlap between the various guides, each guide has their own unique take on the various anchorages, as well as a few hidden gems.
Our provisioning strategy is generally to do a big shop in the major provisioning ports, leaving with a few weeks of fresh food in the fridge. As our fresh stuff starts to dwindle, we pick up what we can from the various tiendas we pass on our way. In this article I explain in detail what you can find where, and our provisioning strategy for sailing in the Sea of Cortez.
Spares for the sea of cortez aren't really any different than cruising anywhere else, this is what we carry, for our aging Perkins 4108, and represents our real world experiences over the last few years cruising in the sea.
The old adage that the cruising life is mostly boat maintenance in exotic locations is no less true in the Sea of Cortez. In this article I'll detail what you can find in the country and where, and share our strategy for getting spares (and upgrades) into the country when you can't get what you need locally or when it's so expensive you're getting cramps in your arm from squeezing your wallet so hard.
In this article, I'll give some insight into when we haul out, where, and the various pros and cons we've encountered along the way.
Generally speaking, sailing in the sea of cortez, is like sailing anywhere, you'll break about the same amount of things each season as you would back home, there'll be times you wish you had something you don't, and there'll be times where you wish you didn't have something you did. In this article I explain some of the things we wish we'd known before we arrived in the Sea of Cortez.