Happy Easter!
We got up early on Thursday morning to take advantage of what was supposed to be a two-day moratorium on wind and waves in order to get around Cabo Corrientes in peaceful conditions. We broke up the 100-mile trip into two 50-mile segments, and had a leisurely day of motoring north to the small anchorage of Ipala for the first 50 miles. Morningstar was also heading north; so we motored behind them for the day, and passed several sailboats heading south with all their sails flying to take advantage of the gentle wind. Naturally we had the wind on our nose; so we had to waste fuel to make it to our destination. I was beginning to believe the cruiser who said he had decided to get rid of his fancy navigation equipment, because he found that all he had to do was point the nose of his boat into the wind and he would get where he was going. This contrariness of the wind has been with us for at least the last two months.
We got to Ipala and heard the same raucous music coming from the palapa where we had consumed so many oysters-on-the-half-shell back in January – those had me sidelined for a couple of days; so I was determined not to try them again. We decided not to go ashore, but to get a good rest and be ready to round Cabo Corrientes early in the morning in case wind came up that wasn’t predicted. I had a splitting headache by the end of the day and all sorts of concerns about what might be causing it. Sheilagh began to worry about how she would handle me and the boat if I suddenly developed a cerebral hemorrhage – naturally we always fear the worst. That night I finally got my head to stop throbbing with a large dose of aspirin and an ice pack all over my head. In the morning I was fine.
As we headed out of Ipala for La Cruz, we had the same calm sea as we had had the previous day. As I looked around the flat, shining surface of the ocean, I suddenly had a small dose of the pain I had experienced the previous day. Sheilagh noticed that I was constantly squinting against the sunlight, even with dark glasses on. I made an effort all day to stop squinting, and I avoided gazing into the glinting sunlight all around us except to check out the horizon every 15 minutes or so for possible traffic. As a result I did not have a recurrence of the headache, and we could put the cerebral hemorrhage fear to rest.
Cabo Corrientes, which I described in an earlier blog as a cape where two water masses and two air masses meet, was supposed to be flat calm on Friday morning. We got up at 7AM, away at 8AM, and had planned to round Cabo Corrientes at 10AM, before any winds might spring up caused by the heating of the land. Apparently Cabo Corrientes hadn’t heard the weather prediction, because we encountered increasing winds and swells just an hour away from Ipala and an hour away from the cape. The wind increased to 20-25 knots and the swells rose to 4-6’, giving our boat a constant shower of salty water as we closed on the cape. We were letting the autopilot guide the boat as we sat warm and dry under the dodger (a fiberglass covering over the hatch and extending back into the cockpit that keeps rain and wind out of the hatchway). Occasionally we stood up, peered over the top of the dodger, and kept a lookout for any traffic we might encounter.
We fought the currents and winds for the hour prior to the cape and an hour after passing it, and then the wind died to 5-10 knots as we came under the influence of the bay winds and waves. Within another hour the wind had increased to 15-20 knots from a direction that allowed us to raise our sails and turn off our engine, while making the same speed over the water. From there the wind died again just as we got to the anchorage; so it was easy to set the anchor and break out the beers to celebrate another completed passage.
Over the past two weeks we had depleted our stores of fresh meat and vegetables, while accumulating a large supply of dirty laundry; so we were motivated to get the dinghy in the water and get some chores completed on shore. The laundry charged 11 pesos per kilo, so it cost us 90 pesos (about $9) for 8 kilos of laundry that were washed, dried, folded, and sealed in clear plastic by noon on Saturday. We also took a local bus to the Mega store a few miles up the road and replenished our supplies. While in the store we caught up with another couple, Lyman and Terry of Sans Cle, whom we had met at La Paz. Like them, several of the cruisers we had met in La Paz at Thanksgiving spent a lot of time in the Sea of Cortez with the idea of heading for Panama about this time to miss the hurricane season north of there.
On Holy Saturday we checked out a restaurant we had heard about, La Reve, which was also an outlet for Huichol Indian beadwork, and later had dinner there along with two other couples, Ed and Cornelia of A Cappella and Jim and Susan of Windward Bound. They will both be in the Sea of Cortez with us this summer. The featured entertainment was live Flamenco music by three young guitarists, whose CD we picked up because their music was so enjoyable. Later we wandered down to the center of town where there was a small carnival in action with the whole town present. In fact the whole town had been celebrating spring break all week, with crowds of tourists and townsfolk crowding the beaches and enjoying the nightlife.
I have to admit that I’ve been surprised at the Mexican approach to Lent, at least the part of Mexico I have seen on this trip. I thought that a predominantly Catholic country would take Lent seriously, keeping things low key from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Instead I noticed that the Mardi Gras celebration in Zihuatanejo ran from the Monday before Ash Wednesday to the end of the week, effectively shortening the Lenten period by about 4 days on the front end. Then in La Cruz the celebrations have been happening from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, shortening Lent by another 6 days or so. As a result, the Lenten period has been closer to 30 days than the traditional 40. Of course this could just be the case that we have been visiting tourist-centered vacation locales, and the idea of fasting and prayer during the 40-day period leading up to Easter is just not good for business.
On Sunday I went to Mass at the local Mexican church in town, which was packed at 11AM by both local people and some cruisers. I could follow most of the Mass, knowing both the Latin and English responses from several years of experience. However, I was lost when the singing started, since there were no copies of the songs being sung that I could read, and I caught very little of the sermon with my limited Spanish vocabulary. I did catch words to the effect that the congregation should not just attend Mass at Easter and Christmas, but should be coming every week – a sermon that is fairly standard for holiday services in the States.
No Easter Eggs or candy this year, since we are away from the grandchildren this Easter. However, it is still our plan to be back in the U.S. from April 7th to the 28th. We will be visiting several locations including San Diego, Lake of the Pines (above Sacramento and Auburn), San Jose, and Los Angeles – connecting with three daughters and their husbands or significant others, four grandchildren, and assorted siblings. At the same time we have a long list of equipment and supplies we need for the boat that cannot be found in Mexico; so we will be spending some time scrounging hardware stores, marine supplies, drug stores and grocery stores. I only hope we can get it all back into Mexico with minimum fuss at the border. More Later . . .
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
March 19th – Chamela – Jim’s Blog #34
On Monday, St. Patrick’s Day, we left Tenacatita for the first of three legs to get to Puerto Vallarta. The first leg to Chamela would take about 5 hours and we knew that strong winds were expected in the afternoon. As a result we got up at 7AM to get the boat ready to go, and pulled up the anchor at 8AM, right on schedule. As soon as we put the engine in forward gear, we heard a lot of squealing from the engine compartment, which stopped as we pulled back the power. Sheilagh ran down to the engine compartment and reported a burned rubber smell. We immediately dropped the anchor, stopped the engine, and took a look at the belts on the engine. Both belts were a bit loose; so we pulled out the tools, took turns crawling back into the rear compartment of the engine, and discussed ways to tighten the belts.
Sheilagh fits more readily into the compartment than I do, but this fix required my strength to loosen the appropriate nuts, lever the two adjustable accessory motors to tighten the belts, and then retighten the nuts. The way into the back compartment is through a small door behind the toilet, where we have to sit on the toilet backwards to get through the opening. Facing aft there is a holding tank on the left side and the engine on the right side, with just enough space straight ahead to be on one’s hands and knees on a sloping deck to get at the engine. The engine is actually installed backwards in the boat to position the drive shaft correctly for the propeller shaft; so the belts that would normally be in the front of the engine are facing aft. We finally got the belts tightened, raised the anchor once again, and the engine worked fine. The only difficulty is that we got started an hour late, and we knew the winds would get stronger before we got to Chamela.
On the trip up the coast we had the wind directly ahead of us; so we ended up motoring all the way. The difference this time was an autopilot that worked like a charm, which allowed us to relax and enjoy the trip while the autopilot did all the work of keeping us straight – something we had been forced to do manually during this entire 4-month trip whenever we had to motor. It was a gorgeous day with 2-4’ seas, a clear sky, and even a school of porpoises that passed us going north on the starboard side. The wind was fairly strong at 15 knots, but we were able to make about 6 knots headway for the five hours it took us to get to Chamela. On the way we passed three sailboats heading south with all sails flying and apparently making very good time. I was tempted to turn around and follow them just to get a chance to sail.
I spent the entire morning just sitting on one of the raised seats on the stern and observing the autopilot to ensure that it worked correctly. I pulled out my IPod and listened to music for awhile and then switched to an audio book, World without End. This was one of those days that I etched into my brain so as to remember it when I am too old to do this anymore. Sheilagh got tired of the wind blowing in her ears and went below to read and snooze. After lunch the wind picked up (as predicted), the swells increased and the waves developed whitecaps, which caused the boat to porpoise a bit and send spray flying all over the decks and dodger windows that we had cleaned in fresh water just a few days before. We finally got under the shelter of some islands in Chamela Bay and worked ourselves up to the protected area of the anchorage in the northwest corner of the bay.
The wind was still blowing at 15-25 knots, but the waves in the anchorage were quite a bit smaller than what we had just been through. As we dropped our anchor in 40’ of water I put the engine into reverse to set the anchor and then attempted to move it back into idle. The shift lever moved, but it did not affect the transmission. A screw on the handle of the shift lever had suddenly severed and the handle was useless for getting out of reverse. I quickly shut down the engine and we let the wind help us set the anchor. As we cracked open our post-anchoring beers – something we do to relax while we watch how well the boat is holding – we had the added concern of what to do about the shift lever.
We ended up having to drill out the remnant of the screw imbedded in the shaft, but we had no replacement screw of the right size or thread number. So we drilled a hole through the gear shift lever itself and used a thinner screw, wrapped in tape to give it more bulk, and inserted it through the gear shift lever and the shaft with a bolt to keep it there. This could have been a serious problem if it had happened in a crowded anchorage, but it was minor under these circumstances. Naturally we checked out the similar throttle lever on the opposite side of the control pedestal and found the screw there was in good condition. My reason for mentioning this is that it is a common occurrence for something on the boat to break with no replacement part immediately available. Then it is a challenge to come up with a solution to the problem based on the materials available on the boat. Sheilagh thinks we would need to drag a whole extra boat behind us to have all the parts we would eventually need in the case of breakdowns, but she is not willing to tow that much freight behind us.
The next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, were predicted to have strong winds; so we decided to set out for Ipala on the second leg of our trip on Thursday, when the winds should have diminished significantly. We used that time to change our zincs on the engine and replace the raw water impeller, both as preventive maintenance activities based on the time on the engine. Our preventive maintenance schedule includes an engine oil change every 100 hours, which will come due about the time we reach Puerto Vallarta, where we can also buy the oil we need.
On Tuesday we spent the entire day on the boat, anchored in Chamela Bay with the wind and waves howling past at 25 knots most of the day. Mainly we stayed below decks and didn’t even take our dinghy off the boat, unwilling to fight the conditions in the bay to get into shore and back. We spent the day making sure that the restaurant onshore to our right stayed immediately under a specific cut in the hills behind it, indicating that we were not moving away from our anchored position. By the end of the day we were very tired of hearing the howling wind in our rigging, and were confirmed in our commitment not to sail offshore when there is any chance for a storm.
A second boat came in with us the previous day, Morningstar with Ron and Linda onboard. We got on the radio with them and invited them over for dinner that evening. We had mentioned at that time that we had planned to go shopping onshore to get some diet coke, so we could continue with our rum and cokes in the evenings. We didn’t make it in, but they did. That afternoon we were cozily ensconced in our boat, when we heard knocking on the side of our boat. We popped the hatch and there sat Ron and Linda bouncing about in their dinghy and handing over a sack of diet coke they had purchased for us. They saw that we hadn’t put the dinghy in the water yet and didn’t want us to have to miss our drink of choice at the end of the day. Now that’s what I call a good cruising neighbor!
We had Ron and Linda over for dinner that night and learned that they are from Loyalton, a town near Truckee, California, where I used to do a lot of soaring. When I mentioned that I had crash-landed my glider near there in the town of Chilcoot, their first question had to do with whose yard I had landed in – Chilcoot is not a large community. Apparently they knew the current reporter/editor for The Chilcoot News, but not the one beside whose property I had landed in some 22 years ago. At that time I was big news for that small place and made it on the front page of the weekly paper. Ron and Linda had been spending the last several winters cruising in the Sea of Cortez and going back home to work in the summer months. They were able to give us a lot of information we can use this summer for our own trip into the Sea of Cortez.
During that blustery day, the boat, Triple Stars, with Rob and Jan onboard, came into the anchorage to find refuge from the winds that had been battering them down the coast from the north. They had experienced 35-knot winds, which are considered gale-force winds, but were lucky to be heading in the same direction as the winds and waves. We had met Rob and Jan on the Baja Ha Ha in November and got to know them in La Paz. We invited them over to join Ron and Linda and ourselves on the boat for dinner that night, but they needed the evening to recuperate from the pounding they had gotten all day coming down the coast.
We met up with them for lunch, and then again for happy hour, on Wednesday and caught up with them and their adventures in the Sea of Cortez. Now they were heading south to the Panama Canal with a number of other boats, where they planned to avoid the hurricanes by heading south on the Caribbean side of the canal to the northern edge of South America. From there they will be heading up to Maine, where they plan to spend summers sailing in the Northeast, and then sailing south to the Caribbean each winter.
Tuesday night I was awakened from a very sound sleep by Sheilagh’s exclamations that “Jim, you have to see this! There are dozens of dolphins surrounding the boat! Come on get up!” It was about 11PM at night with an almost-full moon that allowed a lot of visibility. Sure enough there were dozens of dolphins (or porpoises) swimming back and forth under the boat lengthwise, sometimes bumping the bottom of the boat and periodically giving a gasp as they emerged from the water for a breath of air and then went back under water. Imagine the sight of multiple gray bodies swimming alongside the boat and the sound of a series of gasps from all around the boat. All of a sudden I saw a phosphorescent fish seeming to swim sideways from under the boat and then noticed that it was being held in the jaws of a dolphin. Apparently there were a school of fish beneath our boat, and the dolphins were feeding.
We turned on a spotlight we have at the stern of the boat to get a better look, and we saw very distinct gray-colored dolphins swimming into and out of the light as they went after their dinner. We almost expected them to leap up and do somersaults, since they were as close as we had ever seen them in a water show. We watched them for half an hour or so, and continued to hear their gasps and feel their bumping us on the bottom late into the night. When we asked the other boats in the anchorage the next day if they had experienced the same thing, we were met with complete blanks. They hadn’t seen nor heard anything. On Wednesday night we had the same thing happen; so either everyone else in the anchorage is blind and deaf, or the dolphins’ favorite food fish liked the bottom of our boat. Quite an experience! More Later . . .
Sheilagh fits more readily into the compartment than I do, but this fix required my strength to loosen the appropriate nuts, lever the two adjustable accessory motors to tighten the belts, and then retighten the nuts. The way into the back compartment is through a small door behind the toilet, where we have to sit on the toilet backwards to get through the opening. Facing aft there is a holding tank on the left side and the engine on the right side, with just enough space straight ahead to be on one’s hands and knees on a sloping deck to get at the engine. The engine is actually installed backwards in the boat to position the drive shaft correctly for the propeller shaft; so the belts that would normally be in the front of the engine are facing aft. We finally got the belts tightened, raised the anchor once again, and the engine worked fine. The only difficulty is that we got started an hour late, and we knew the winds would get stronger before we got to Chamela.
On the trip up the coast we had the wind directly ahead of us; so we ended up motoring all the way. The difference this time was an autopilot that worked like a charm, which allowed us to relax and enjoy the trip while the autopilot did all the work of keeping us straight – something we had been forced to do manually during this entire 4-month trip whenever we had to motor. It was a gorgeous day with 2-4’ seas, a clear sky, and even a school of porpoises that passed us going north on the starboard side. The wind was fairly strong at 15 knots, but we were able to make about 6 knots headway for the five hours it took us to get to Chamela. On the way we passed three sailboats heading south with all sails flying and apparently making very good time. I was tempted to turn around and follow them just to get a chance to sail.
I spent the entire morning just sitting on one of the raised seats on the stern and observing the autopilot to ensure that it worked correctly. I pulled out my IPod and listened to music for awhile and then switched to an audio book, World without End. This was one of those days that I etched into my brain so as to remember it when I am too old to do this anymore. Sheilagh got tired of the wind blowing in her ears and went below to read and snooze. After lunch the wind picked up (as predicted), the swells increased and the waves developed whitecaps, which caused the boat to porpoise a bit and send spray flying all over the decks and dodger windows that we had cleaned in fresh water just a few days before. We finally got under the shelter of some islands in Chamela Bay and worked ourselves up to the protected area of the anchorage in the northwest corner of the bay.
The wind was still blowing at 15-25 knots, but the waves in the anchorage were quite a bit smaller than what we had just been through. As we dropped our anchor in 40’ of water I put the engine into reverse to set the anchor and then attempted to move it back into idle. The shift lever moved, but it did not affect the transmission. A screw on the handle of the shift lever had suddenly severed and the handle was useless for getting out of reverse. I quickly shut down the engine and we let the wind help us set the anchor. As we cracked open our post-anchoring beers – something we do to relax while we watch how well the boat is holding – we had the added concern of what to do about the shift lever.
We ended up having to drill out the remnant of the screw imbedded in the shaft, but we had no replacement screw of the right size or thread number. So we drilled a hole through the gear shift lever itself and used a thinner screw, wrapped in tape to give it more bulk, and inserted it through the gear shift lever and the shaft with a bolt to keep it there. This could have been a serious problem if it had happened in a crowded anchorage, but it was minor under these circumstances. Naturally we checked out the similar throttle lever on the opposite side of the control pedestal and found the screw there was in good condition. My reason for mentioning this is that it is a common occurrence for something on the boat to break with no replacement part immediately available. Then it is a challenge to come up with a solution to the problem based on the materials available on the boat. Sheilagh thinks we would need to drag a whole extra boat behind us to have all the parts we would eventually need in the case of breakdowns, but she is not willing to tow that much freight behind us.
The next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, were predicted to have strong winds; so we decided to set out for Ipala on the second leg of our trip on Thursday, when the winds should have diminished significantly. We used that time to change our zincs on the engine and replace the raw water impeller, both as preventive maintenance activities based on the time on the engine. Our preventive maintenance schedule includes an engine oil change every 100 hours, which will come due about the time we reach Puerto Vallarta, where we can also buy the oil we need.
On Tuesday we spent the entire day on the boat, anchored in Chamela Bay with the wind and waves howling past at 25 knots most of the day. Mainly we stayed below decks and didn’t even take our dinghy off the boat, unwilling to fight the conditions in the bay to get into shore and back. We spent the day making sure that the restaurant onshore to our right stayed immediately under a specific cut in the hills behind it, indicating that we were not moving away from our anchored position. By the end of the day we were very tired of hearing the howling wind in our rigging, and were confirmed in our commitment not to sail offshore when there is any chance for a storm.
A second boat came in with us the previous day, Morningstar with Ron and Linda onboard. We got on the radio with them and invited them over for dinner that evening. We had mentioned at that time that we had planned to go shopping onshore to get some diet coke, so we could continue with our rum and cokes in the evenings. We didn’t make it in, but they did. That afternoon we were cozily ensconced in our boat, when we heard knocking on the side of our boat. We popped the hatch and there sat Ron and Linda bouncing about in their dinghy and handing over a sack of diet coke they had purchased for us. They saw that we hadn’t put the dinghy in the water yet and didn’t want us to have to miss our drink of choice at the end of the day. Now that’s what I call a good cruising neighbor!
We had Ron and Linda over for dinner that night and learned that they are from Loyalton, a town near Truckee, California, where I used to do a lot of soaring. When I mentioned that I had crash-landed my glider near there in the town of Chilcoot, their first question had to do with whose yard I had landed in – Chilcoot is not a large community. Apparently they knew the current reporter/editor for The Chilcoot News, but not the one beside whose property I had landed in some 22 years ago. At that time I was big news for that small place and made it on the front page of the weekly paper. Ron and Linda had been spending the last several winters cruising in the Sea of Cortez and going back home to work in the summer months. They were able to give us a lot of information we can use this summer for our own trip into the Sea of Cortez.
During that blustery day, the boat, Triple Stars, with Rob and Jan onboard, came into the anchorage to find refuge from the winds that had been battering them down the coast from the north. They had experienced 35-knot winds, which are considered gale-force winds, but were lucky to be heading in the same direction as the winds and waves. We had met Rob and Jan on the Baja Ha Ha in November and got to know them in La Paz. We invited them over to join Ron and Linda and ourselves on the boat for dinner that night, but they needed the evening to recuperate from the pounding they had gotten all day coming down the coast.
We met up with them for lunch, and then again for happy hour, on Wednesday and caught up with them and their adventures in the Sea of Cortez. Now they were heading south to the Panama Canal with a number of other boats, where they planned to avoid the hurricanes by heading south on the Caribbean side of the canal to the northern edge of South America. From there they will be heading up to Maine, where they plan to spend summers sailing in the Northeast, and then sailing south to the Caribbean each winter.
Tuesday night I was awakened from a very sound sleep by Sheilagh’s exclamations that “Jim, you have to see this! There are dozens of dolphins surrounding the boat! Come on get up!” It was about 11PM at night with an almost-full moon that allowed a lot of visibility. Sure enough there were dozens of dolphins (or porpoises) swimming back and forth under the boat lengthwise, sometimes bumping the bottom of the boat and periodically giving a gasp as they emerged from the water for a breath of air and then went back under water. Imagine the sight of multiple gray bodies swimming alongside the boat and the sound of a series of gasps from all around the boat. All of a sudden I saw a phosphorescent fish seeming to swim sideways from under the boat and then noticed that it was being held in the jaws of a dolphin. Apparently there were a school of fish beneath our boat, and the dolphins were feeding.
We turned on a spotlight we have at the stern of the boat to get a better look, and we saw very distinct gray-colored dolphins swimming into and out of the light as they went after their dinner. We almost expected them to leap up and do somersaults, since they were as close as we had ever seen them in a water show. We watched them for half an hour or so, and continued to hear their gasps and feel their bumping us on the bottom late into the night. When we asked the other boats in the anchorage the next day if they had experienced the same thing, we were met with complete blanks. They hadn’t seen nor heard anything. On Wednesday night we had the same thing happen; so either everyone else in the anchorage is blind and deaf, or the dolphins’ favorite food fish liked the bottom of our boat. Quite an experience! More Later . . .
March 16th – Tenacatita– Jim’s Blog #33
Friday we motored our dinghy across Tenacatita Bay to the small town of La Manzanilla (as opposed to the larger town, Manzanillo, which has an airport to the south of here) to take care of some business. We knew that we needed to get over early in the morning and back before the wind started picking up. We got away fairly early, but returned a little bit late and caught the wind and waves; so we got drenched on the 40-minute trip back across the bay. This is the bay where in an earlier blog a whale breached near us and convinced us that we should be carrying life preservers in the future – and we were carrying them this time and every time since that occasion. We also took along some jackets that we wore on the way back to absorb most of the soaking.
In town we visited the internet café that I described in Blog #26. There were a number of visitors having morning coffee and we got questioned in some detail about what the cruising life was all about. This was an expat hangout and I assume most of the folks had come down from the states in campers or trailers. I had failed to notice before that the walls of the place were decorated with wild and colorful Picasso-like murals that seemed to imitate his later works – you know, when he couldn’t seem to put the arms and legs together with the torso to make a full body. This was definitely an alternative lifestyle place. In the evenings the place is transformed to a venue for local bands, although the band hadn’t shown up the previous night. We finally got a chance to catch up on our messages, send a few, update the website with blog #32, and make a few Skype telephone calls using our laptop connections.
Then we were directed to the only FAX machine in town and paid $40 to FAX 23 pages to our tax preparer. We decided it would be far better economically to buy a scanner for the boat than to pay exorbitant prices like that in the future. The woman who ran the real estate office, where we found the FAX machine, introduced herself as a CLOD (Cruisers Living on Dirt). She had already circled the world, fell in love with Tenacatita Bay, sold her boat (Sabbatical), and was now building a beach house with her husband. She said that she gave up cruising by sailboat when the sailboat started to restrict her activities. She was familiar with the coast of Mexico, along with the coasts of many other countries, but knew very little beyond about 50 miles inland. Now she was planning to remedy that for Mexico. She had an interesting perspective and one that gave me pause only in the sense that I have always liked islands, and a boat is certainly a way to see those. I would agree with her that seeing anything of the larger countries of the world would have to take more of a motor-home approach.
That evening we had the weekly dinghy raft-up in Tenacatita Bay, where everyone brings books to trade, boat cards to pass around, and food to share. We all introduced ourselves one at a time with our 12 dinghies all tied together at the bow; so we were more or less facing everyone else. Sheilagh and I traded out about six books for four others and enjoyed a variety of edibles from mixed nuts to pasta salad, carrot and cucumber sticks to rolled-up ham and cheese appetizers in tortillas, and from chips and salsa to cheesecake. We were definitely rookies there in terms of cruising, and, as the evening wore on, we got a lot of advice from the “old hands” concerning where to go in the Sea of Cortez, what to do, whom to avoid, etc. I found myself getting a bit disgruntled by the whole advice scene even though the other cruisers were trying to be helpful. We finally escaped in order to get Sheilagh to a head in time.
Later I was contemplating why I was getting upset with the advice, and I was transported back to a get-to-know-one-another day for the incoming MBA class at Santa Clara University. As part of the process, we were assigned in small groups to talk with an “older” student as to the ins and outs of the graduate program. I was placed in a group where the “older” student had gone into the MBA graduate program directly out of college and had little business experience. For about half an hour we listened to her describe which professors to steer clear of because they demanded too much of the students. Eventually I had had enough of her negativity; so I moved on to another group where the “older” student was definitely older (more my age) and more experienced. This individual was talking about which professors to seek out, and I caught at least two names of professors I had just been told to avoid. When I probed a bit further, this older student was interested in learning something to enhance her career, whereas the former “older” student was attempting to get the best grades possible with the least amount of work.
That experience was a great lesson in itself – make sure you know someone’s biases before you accept his or her advice. I was very happy with my MBA education because I sought out challenging professors where possible who encouraged discussion and didn’t furnish a “correct answer” that might appear on a test. In the case of cruising, I was noticing that there were sailors who had been cruising for a few years but who hadn’t been as far south along the Mexican coast as we had been in our first 4 months. These were the type who had one year of experience repeated five to ten times. I also decided that I wanted a chance to experience the Sea of Cortez without any preconceived notions. If I should pick an anchorage that wasn’t as well protected as another anchorage, I could find that out for myself. I could ask the locals for the best fishing spots, making a local connection while finding out. I also didn’t want to avoid certain named people in a locale just because a cruiser I had talked with didn’t like the person or persons.
While there is a lot to learn from those who have gone before, some of us just have to learn by our own experience. My daughter, Megan, inherited this gene from me, which is not always a pleasant gene to have. If “Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn in no other way,” then I have to admit to learning a lot of life’s lessons that way, whatever that makes me. The benefit to this approach is that I usually learn the lesson well enough the first time that I don’t have to repeat it.
I have started to reread the 20-volume set of Patrick O’Brian novels, known as the Aubrey-Maturin series that deals with the days of the old square-rigged sailing ships at the end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th. The first book of the series is “Master and Commander,” the title of which was used for the movie of the same name, starring Russell Crowe. The movie was good for the fighting scenes, but it completely overlooked the character development between the big, tall, blonde Jack Aubrey (the British Sea Captain) and the small, short, and dark Stephen Maturin (the surgeon, who is also a spy for the British Navy). Naturally the movie got the casting backwards, with the surgeon taller than the captain, but in any case these Aubrey-Maturin novels are a great read, with very devoted readers all over the world.
So I read all 20 volumes a few years ago, passing over the words I didn’t know and imagining the ships’ movements in battle based on my sailing knowledge. This time I bought the book, “A Sea of Words,” which is a lexicon for defining words from the period that I don’t know, and it even includes two major essays: one which explains the Royal Navy and its organization during the war of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War, and one on Naval Medicine during the Age of Sail. I also got a companion volume, called “Harbors and High Seas,” (both by Dean King) which depicts those parts of the world where Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin sailed, describes the various ports and lands, and ties the action of the 20 novels to the real world of the time. Now I am reading this set of novels again with these two companion books in hand, and am getting even more out of the reading. Of course it helps that my bad memory makes it seem as if I am reading the books for the first time.
Why am I going into this topic of reading? The main reason is that we cruisers have discovered that we now have the time in our lives to read as much as we want, and our conversations usually include what authors and books we have found most enjoyable. This O’Brian series is one of the most popular for those who enjoy historical novels. At the same time, Sheilagh and I have discovered Janet Evanovich and her 13 novels to date centering on an accident-prone, but strangely successful bounty hunter, named Stephanie Plum. The writing is extremely enjoyable, so much so that Sheilagh or I will invariably laugh out loud as we are reading various passages. Then we have to be careful not to give away anything as we read the passage to the other. If you haven’t heard of Janet Evanovich you are in for a treat. At the same time I have to admit that the O’Brian and Evanovich series of books are so opposite in content and tone that it seems strange to be recommending them in the same paragraph. Just another glimpse into the cruising life!
Today we ended the day having dinner with John and Patti (on the catamaran, Sea Esta), a couple we had met several months ago and just ran into again. Their boat has a tremendous amount of room for a 38’ boat with plenty of room to host an entire cocktail party onboard, which they have done in the past. One of the hulls is dedicated to the kitchen and guest room, while the other has the master bedroom, navigation station, and study. The stability of the boat is amazing – they can set a drink down anywhere and it won’t slide to the edge of the table, as it would on our boat. We have to use a “flopper stopper,” a device hung out to the side of our boat on the whisker pole that helps to neutralize the sideways tipping of our boat in the swells when we are in an anchorage. Their boat has the same stability with nothing hung out to the side.
There is always a lot of discussion between sailors as to the relative merits of a mono-hull, like our boat, and a multi-hulled boat, such as a catamaran or a trimaran. While I would choose a mono-hull for crossing oceans, a catamaran seems like a great way to cruise along the shore or between islands located fairly nearby. One of the negatives of a catamaran is that it can’t be turned upright, if it should happen to capsize in a big sea, but it appears that new designs and a conservative use of sails should prevent that ever happening. A Valiant 42, like ours, has circumnavigated the globe, going around Cape Horn, where the high winds and seas turned it completely over on two separate occasions, and in both cases it came back up with the mast and rigging still in place. I can imagine the mess in the cabin, however, with stuff strewn everywhere – at least everything that wasn’t secured in a cupboard or on a bulkhead (a “wall” for non-boaters). A friend of ours in Lake of the Pines was capsized in a trimaran that he had built. If I remember right, Bill was thrown clear, but his crew had to bust through the bottom of the hull (which was pointing up) to get out of the boat.
In order to be fair, I don’t want to leave the discussion of benefits and drawbacks of multi-hulls with the single capsize drawback described above. In addition to stability, multi-hulls can travel much faster than mono-hulls, they can anchor in much shallower water, they can be run onto a beach without damage, and they have a tremendous amount of room to store stuff. Although they have two or more hulls to clean every month or so, the underwater portion that needs cleaning is much shallower and easy to get at – with the area to be cleaned probably equivalent to that of a mono-hull. My opinion is that there are benefits and drawbacks to every type of boat (as in most things in life), and it is the intended use of the boat that should be a major part of the decision process. That’s enough to cover in this blog. More Later . . .
In town we visited the internet café that I described in Blog #26. There were a number of visitors having morning coffee and we got questioned in some detail about what the cruising life was all about. This was an expat hangout and I assume most of the folks had come down from the states in campers or trailers. I had failed to notice before that the walls of the place were decorated with wild and colorful Picasso-like murals that seemed to imitate his later works – you know, when he couldn’t seem to put the arms and legs together with the torso to make a full body. This was definitely an alternative lifestyle place. In the evenings the place is transformed to a venue for local bands, although the band hadn’t shown up the previous night. We finally got a chance to catch up on our messages, send a few, update the website with blog #32, and make a few Skype telephone calls using our laptop connections.
Then we were directed to the only FAX machine in town and paid $40 to FAX 23 pages to our tax preparer. We decided it would be far better economically to buy a scanner for the boat than to pay exorbitant prices like that in the future. The woman who ran the real estate office, where we found the FAX machine, introduced herself as a CLOD (Cruisers Living on Dirt). She had already circled the world, fell in love with Tenacatita Bay, sold her boat (Sabbatical), and was now building a beach house with her husband. She said that she gave up cruising by sailboat when the sailboat started to restrict her activities. She was familiar with the coast of Mexico, along with the coasts of many other countries, but knew very little beyond about 50 miles inland. Now she was planning to remedy that for Mexico. She had an interesting perspective and one that gave me pause only in the sense that I have always liked islands, and a boat is certainly a way to see those. I would agree with her that seeing anything of the larger countries of the world would have to take more of a motor-home approach.
That evening we had the weekly dinghy raft-up in Tenacatita Bay, where everyone brings books to trade, boat cards to pass around, and food to share. We all introduced ourselves one at a time with our 12 dinghies all tied together at the bow; so we were more or less facing everyone else. Sheilagh and I traded out about six books for four others and enjoyed a variety of edibles from mixed nuts to pasta salad, carrot and cucumber sticks to rolled-up ham and cheese appetizers in tortillas, and from chips and salsa to cheesecake. We were definitely rookies there in terms of cruising, and, as the evening wore on, we got a lot of advice from the “old hands” concerning where to go in the Sea of Cortez, what to do, whom to avoid, etc. I found myself getting a bit disgruntled by the whole advice scene even though the other cruisers were trying to be helpful. We finally escaped in order to get Sheilagh to a head in time.
Later I was contemplating why I was getting upset with the advice, and I was transported back to a get-to-know-one-another day for the incoming MBA class at Santa Clara University. As part of the process, we were assigned in small groups to talk with an “older” student as to the ins and outs of the graduate program. I was placed in a group where the “older” student had gone into the MBA graduate program directly out of college and had little business experience. For about half an hour we listened to her describe which professors to steer clear of because they demanded too much of the students. Eventually I had had enough of her negativity; so I moved on to another group where the “older” student was definitely older (more my age) and more experienced. This individual was talking about which professors to seek out, and I caught at least two names of professors I had just been told to avoid. When I probed a bit further, this older student was interested in learning something to enhance her career, whereas the former “older” student was attempting to get the best grades possible with the least amount of work.
That experience was a great lesson in itself – make sure you know someone’s biases before you accept his or her advice. I was very happy with my MBA education because I sought out challenging professors where possible who encouraged discussion and didn’t furnish a “correct answer” that might appear on a test. In the case of cruising, I was noticing that there were sailors who had been cruising for a few years but who hadn’t been as far south along the Mexican coast as we had been in our first 4 months. These were the type who had one year of experience repeated five to ten times. I also decided that I wanted a chance to experience the Sea of Cortez without any preconceived notions. If I should pick an anchorage that wasn’t as well protected as another anchorage, I could find that out for myself. I could ask the locals for the best fishing spots, making a local connection while finding out. I also didn’t want to avoid certain named people in a locale just because a cruiser I had talked with didn’t like the person or persons.
While there is a lot to learn from those who have gone before, some of us just have to learn by our own experience. My daughter, Megan, inherited this gene from me, which is not always a pleasant gene to have. If “Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn in no other way,” then I have to admit to learning a lot of life’s lessons that way, whatever that makes me. The benefit to this approach is that I usually learn the lesson well enough the first time that I don’t have to repeat it.
I have started to reread the 20-volume set of Patrick O’Brian novels, known as the Aubrey-Maturin series that deals with the days of the old square-rigged sailing ships at the end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th. The first book of the series is “Master and Commander,” the title of which was used for the movie of the same name, starring Russell Crowe. The movie was good for the fighting scenes, but it completely overlooked the character development between the big, tall, blonde Jack Aubrey (the British Sea Captain) and the small, short, and dark Stephen Maturin (the surgeon, who is also a spy for the British Navy). Naturally the movie got the casting backwards, with the surgeon taller than the captain, but in any case these Aubrey-Maturin novels are a great read, with very devoted readers all over the world.
So I read all 20 volumes a few years ago, passing over the words I didn’t know and imagining the ships’ movements in battle based on my sailing knowledge. This time I bought the book, “A Sea of Words,” which is a lexicon for defining words from the period that I don’t know, and it even includes two major essays: one which explains the Royal Navy and its organization during the war of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War, and one on Naval Medicine during the Age of Sail. I also got a companion volume, called “Harbors and High Seas,” (both by Dean King) which depicts those parts of the world where Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin sailed, describes the various ports and lands, and ties the action of the 20 novels to the real world of the time. Now I am reading this set of novels again with these two companion books in hand, and am getting even more out of the reading. Of course it helps that my bad memory makes it seem as if I am reading the books for the first time.
Why am I going into this topic of reading? The main reason is that we cruisers have discovered that we now have the time in our lives to read as much as we want, and our conversations usually include what authors and books we have found most enjoyable. This O’Brian series is one of the most popular for those who enjoy historical novels. At the same time, Sheilagh and I have discovered Janet Evanovich and her 13 novels to date centering on an accident-prone, but strangely successful bounty hunter, named Stephanie Plum. The writing is extremely enjoyable, so much so that Sheilagh or I will invariably laugh out loud as we are reading various passages. Then we have to be careful not to give away anything as we read the passage to the other. If you haven’t heard of Janet Evanovich you are in for a treat. At the same time I have to admit that the O’Brian and Evanovich series of books are so opposite in content and tone that it seems strange to be recommending them in the same paragraph. Just another glimpse into the cruising life!
Today we ended the day having dinner with John and Patti (on the catamaran, Sea Esta), a couple we had met several months ago and just ran into again. Their boat has a tremendous amount of room for a 38’ boat with plenty of room to host an entire cocktail party onboard, which they have done in the past. One of the hulls is dedicated to the kitchen and guest room, while the other has the master bedroom, navigation station, and study. The stability of the boat is amazing – they can set a drink down anywhere and it won’t slide to the edge of the table, as it would on our boat. We have to use a “flopper stopper,” a device hung out to the side of our boat on the whisker pole that helps to neutralize the sideways tipping of our boat in the swells when we are in an anchorage. Their boat has the same stability with nothing hung out to the side.
There is always a lot of discussion between sailors as to the relative merits of a mono-hull, like our boat, and a multi-hulled boat, such as a catamaran or a trimaran. While I would choose a mono-hull for crossing oceans, a catamaran seems like a great way to cruise along the shore or between islands located fairly nearby. One of the negatives of a catamaran is that it can’t be turned upright, if it should happen to capsize in a big sea, but it appears that new designs and a conservative use of sails should prevent that ever happening. A Valiant 42, like ours, has circumnavigated the globe, going around Cape Horn, where the high winds and seas turned it completely over on two separate occasions, and in both cases it came back up with the mast and rigging still in place. I can imagine the mess in the cabin, however, with stuff strewn everywhere – at least everything that wasn’t secured in a cupboard or on a bulkhead (a “wall” for non-boaters). A friend of ours in Lake of the Pines was capsized in a trimaran that he had built. If I remember right, Bill was thrown clear, but his crew had to bust through the bottom of the hull (which was pointing up) to get out of the boat.
In order to be fair, I don’t want to leave the discussion of benefits and drawbacks of multi-hulls with the single capsize drawback described above. In addition to stability, multi-hulls can travel much faster than mono-hulls, they can anchor in much shallower water, they can be run onto a beach without damage, and they have a tremendous amount of room to store stuff. Although they have two or more hulls to clean every month or so, the underwater portion that needs cleaning is much shallower and easy to get at – with the area to be cleaned probably equivalent to that of a mono-hull. My opinion is that there are benefits and drawbacks to every type of boat (as in most things in life), and it is the intended use of the boat that should be a major part of the decision process. That’s enough to cover in this blog. More Later . . .
Friday, March 14, 2008
March 13th – Tenacatita– Jim’s Blog #32
We are now spending some time once again at Tenacatita on our way up to Puerto Vallarta, where we are scheduled to go into the Paradise Village Marina on April 1st for a month. We have about 120 nautical miles (that’s about 136 statute miles) to get to Puerto Vallarta with three small bays/anchorages on the way up to stop in and rest. Tenacatita is only about 10 miles west and then north of Barra de Navidad, and it usually takes about two hours to get here. When we had traversed the distance going south a couple of weeks ago, the wind had been just off our nose and we had sailed for about 3 hours on that trip to get to Barra. In this case the wind was directly on our nose as we left Barra and then followed our nose around to the north as we rounded the point into Tenacatita Bay. The wind was blowing about 25 knots, the seas had about 4-6’ swells, and there were white caps all around. Our normal speed of 5-6 knots was slowed to 3-4 knots and the boat was bucking up and down over the swells all the way with the wind blowing the spray all over the boat. We managed to travel the 10 miles in about 3 hours, arriving with a salt-covered boat and a renewed respect for the wind and waves.
I thought I’d explain a bit about why we use nautical miles instead of statute miles while cruising. The easiest explanation is that the dials and gauges display nautical miles, but nowadays there is usually an opportunity to change them to statute miles with either software or a switch. The most important reason is that a nautical mile happens to be the distance of one minute of latitude (60 nautical miles in one degree of latitude); so nearly all (if not all) charts are displayed in nautical miles. When measuring distance on a chart, one only needs to use a set of dividers (the compass with two points) putting a point on one location and the other point on the other location, and then laying the distance between the two points of the dividers along the local longitude line on the chart to measure off the distance in minutes of latitude. This sounds more complex than it really is, but just understand that in the future I will continue to mean “nautical miles” when this blog refers to “miles.”
We passed up staying in Barra through St. Patrick’s Day despite the fact that St. Patrick is the patron saint of Melaque, a nearby town, and it is rumored that the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations there rival anything you might find in New York or San Francisco. Our reason for leaving early was caused mainly by the crowded nature of the lagoon and the presence of brown effluent floating by the boat in the morning during the last few days we were there. It appeared that some of the cruisers were dumping their waste directly into the lagoon rather than saving it in a holding tank and dumping it out in the ocean periodically. It seemed that some of the boats never left the lagoon to do their dumping outside, and it was getting pretty ripe from our perspective. On Monday a diver came by to clean the bottom of the boat and earned every penny of the $50 it cost to have him do it. I wouldn’t have gone into that water for anything, although most of the day it was clear of the brown floating scum we were seeing in the morning.
It’s really a shame when a cruiser (or anyone for that matter) fouls the water that others are using. In the Barra Lagoon it appeared to me that some of the cruisers were reluctant to leave their location in the anchorage to do their dumping for fear they wouldn’t have a spot to return to. In an earlier blog I mentioned that we had anchored our dinghy in our location as we went out in the sea to dump the holding tank, and found it still there when we returned. In all fairness I have to say that some of the dumping problem could have been caused by the local town and its release of waste, and we were seeing it before the tide cleaned it out of the lagoon. At any rate, we are looking forward to cruising in the Sea of Cortez this spring and summer, where it is said there are absolutely clear anchorages with no other boats around most of the time.
In one of the big winds that sprang up in the Barra Lagoon we noticed that our wind gauge was reading zero and our anemometer at the top of the mast was not spinning. That had happened before in San Diego before we started out, and Sheilagh had gone up the mast to remove it and then gone back up to replace it when we had cleaned it out. She even recorded the event in one of her early blogs, chastising me for not knowing how to work the camera to capture her image at the top of the mast. In this case a fellow cruiser offered to help, and he and I managed to get Sheilagh almost to the top, but not as high up as she had been before. Sheilagh froze at the top in complete terror at the prospect of climbing further up without a safety line – not something we would have allowed her to do. This time we were using a block and tackle setup that we had purchased from our rigger in San Diego, but it meant that she could not get as high as she needed to be to do the job without abandoning the safety of the bosun’s chair (which is a no-no). The friend who was helping us offered to bring over his climbing harness the following day, which could give us the extra safety we needed for this job.
On Monday the friend came back with his climbing harness, but Sheilagh was indicating in no uncertain terms that it was my turn to go up. You have to be aware that when Sheilagh and I were dating during our college days we went to a favorite hiking place of mine along the Spokane River (yes, there was a day when Sheilagh would actually hike for a bit – definitely before marriage). At one point we came to a rather high bluff over the river where Sheilagh immediately walked out to the edge to look over. At the time she looked shocked to see me crawl to within a couple of feet of the edge on my hands and knees, and then decide that the view was not worth the apparent danger. I begged her to keep away from the edge in case it collapsed and I might have to go to her rescue. I have a serious fear of heights, and here I was being asked to climb to the top of our 58’ mast, and actually accomplish something at the top while clinging to the mast with hands, feet, knees, and elbows.
Just as I was climbing into the harness and saying my final prayers, a dinghy arrived with Cathy and John from Batu, our sister ship that we described in an earlier blog. We had mentioned that we would be doing this on Monday and they were there to help. John said something about preferring to go up the mast rather than expend the energy to hoist someone else up, and I was out of the harness in a flash. John is a big guy but I was never happier to haul on the block and tackle to get him to the top to retrieve the wind instrument, and then to haul him back up with the instrument after Sheilagh and I cleaned, lubed and put it back together. So now we are adding a climbing harness to our list of essential tools for the boat, and I am still hoping that the boat will capsize with the mast in the water when it is my turn to go up – or “out” should this be the case. The anemometer and the wind gauge have been working fine since.
As we were sailing over to Tenacatita in the wet and windy conditions I described earlier, Sheilagh noticed leaking under the forward hatch caused by a loose hinge. At the time we could only put a towel under the hatch to collect the leaking water, but I took it apart yesterday to find that two rivets had failed in the hinge mechanism. I had no rivets and no rivet gun, nor did I have any machine screws of the size that might be used to repair it temporarily. That meant we might have to live with a leaky hatch until we got to Puerto Vallarta, a journey that would continue to be fairly wet and wild. I put out a call to the fleet at Tenacatita asking if anyone had a rivet gun and rivets, and the boat next door, Decade Dance (say it quickly as one word) with Dave and Betty Lou aboard responded. So the morning was spent removing and replacing the forward hatch cover, discovering in the process that our silicone caulk had dried up in one tube and was on the point of drying up in the other. We now have a rivet set and a more silicone caulk added to our equipment list for future purchase. This time we should look for smaller tubes of caulk that we can throw away when we’re finished with a job and have a new one for the next job.
Yesterday we dinghied into the beach at Tenacatita to participate in the duck races that were being held that day. Since we had seen no ducks in the area – just sea birds – we were curious as to how this event would be handled. We had only heard an announcement over the morning net that this event would be taking place at 2PM with betting to open at 1:30PM. The surf was a bit high, but we made it through to the beach on the back of a wave without getting wet at all, although we observed the dinghy ahead of us unloading passengers in the water behind the surf break before attempting to come in. We walked over to the crowd on the beach and saw some thirty rubber ducks lined up, each with a number written on it in black marker. We were handed a typewritten sheet with the list of ducks and a bit of history on each of the ducks, including its wins in the past, its background as a racing duck, and other pertinent information to enable us to pick a possible winner. It was surprising to us that a cruising couple on a sailboat could find the room to keep a stable of racing ducks on their boat, but apparently they are devoted to the sport.
I picked the duck with the aviator hat and goggles, while Sheilagh picked one that was holding an inner-tube around its middle. It cost us 10 pesos apiece to participate, and it was a great way to meet some of the other cruisers who were new to us. At 2PM the two cruisers running the show put all the ducks in a plastic bucket, launched their dinghy back out through the surf, dumped the bucket just beyond the surf line, and dinghied back into shore. Several of us opened beers to await the outcome of the race and eventually noted that the ducks were being carried out to sea, rather than into shore. The organizers of the race hadn’t paid attention to the tides and the tide was definitely going out. Once again the starting team took a dinghy back out through the surf, collected all the ducks back into the bucket, and then dumped them inside the surf line. This time the ducks were tumbled shoreward with each succeeding wave and I noticed that none of the ducks really rode the waves well. The ducks were declared over the line when the surf deposited them onshore and went back out without moving them backward.
The winner turned out to be one of the largest ducks in the group. Apparently the larger size allowed it to stay higher in the water and therefore tumbled better by the waves. For the future we will have a much better chance of winning this event with this new information about racing ducks. The upshot of this experience was that we all must have come a long way along the path of relaxation, if a rubber duck race could keep 20-30 adults and children occupied for a couple of hours. Now we have to start looking for the right kind of rubber duck to allow us to dominate any future competitions. We're not competitive or anything!
More Later . . .
I thought I’d explain a bit about why we use nautical miles instead of statute miles while cruising. The easiest explanation is that the dials and gauges display nautical miles, but nowadays there is usually an opportunity to change them to statute miles with either software or a switch. The most important reason is that a nautical mile happens to be the distance of one minute of latitude (60 nautical miles in one degree of latitude); so nearly all (if not all) charts are displayed in nautical miles. When measuring distance on a chart, one only needs to use a set of dividers (the compass with two points) putting a point on one location and the other point on the other location, and then laying the distance between the two points of the dividers along the local longitude line on the chart to measure off the distance in minutes of latitude. This sounds more complex than it really is, but just understand that in the future I will continue to mean “nautical miles” when this blog refers to “miles.”
We passed up staying in Barra through St. Patrick’s Day despite the fact that St. Patrick is the patron saint of Melaque, a nearby town, and it is rumored that the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations there rival anything you might find in New York or San Francisco. Our reason for leaving early was caused mainly by the crowded nature of the lagoon and the presence of brown effluent floating by the boat in the morning during the last few days we were there. It appeared that some of the cruisers were dumping their waste directly into the lagoon rather than saving it in a holding tank and dumping it out in the ocean periodically. It seemed that some of the boats never left the lagoon to do their dumping outside, and it was getting pretty ripe from our perspective. On Monday a diver came by to clean the bottom of the boat and earned every penny of the $50 it cost to have him do it. I wouldn’t have gone into that water for anything, although most of the day it was clear of the brown floating scum we were seeing in the morning.
It’s really a shame when a cruiser (or anyone for that matter) fouls the water that others are using. In the Barra Lagoon it appeared to me that some of the cruisers were reluctant to leave their location in the anchorage to do their dumping for fear they wouldn’t have a spot to return to. In an earlier blog I mentioned that we had anchored our dinghy in our location as we went out in the sea to dump the holding tank, and found it still there when we returned. In all fairness I have to say that some of the dumping problem could have been caused by the local town and its release of waste, and we were seeing it before the tide cleaned it out of the lagoon. At any rate, we are looking forward to cruising in the Sea of Cortez this spring and summer, where it is said there are absolutely clear anchorages with no other boats around most of the time.
In one of the big winds that sprang up in the Barra Lagoon we noticed that our wind gauge was reading zero and our anemometer at the top of the mast was not spinning. That had happened before in San Diego before we started out, and Sheilagh had gone up the mast to remove it and then gone back up to replace it when we had cleaned it out. She even recorded the event in one of her early blogs, chastising me for not knowing how to work the camera to capture her image at the top of the mast. In this case a fellow cruiser offered to help, and he and I managed to get Sheilagh almost to the top, but not as high up as she had been before. Sheilagh froze at the top in complete terror at the prospect of climbing further up without a safety line – not something we would have allowed her to do. This time we were using a block and tackle setup that we had purchased from our rigger in San Diego, but it meant that she could not get as high as she needed to be to do the job without abandoning the safety of the bosun’s chair (which is a no-no). The friend who was helping us offered to bring over his climbing harness the following day, which could give us the extra safety we needed for this job.
On Monday the friend came back with his climbing harness, but Sheilagh was indicating in no uncertain terms that it was my turn to go up. You have to be aware that when Sheilagh and I were dating during our college days we went to a favorite hiking place of mine along the Spokane River (yes, there was a day when Sheilagh would actually hike for a bit – definitely before marriage). At one point we came to a rather high bluff over the river where Sheilagh immediately walked out to the edge to look over. At the time she looked shocked to see me crawl to within a couple of feet of the edge on my hands and knees, and then decide that the view was not worth the apparent danger. I begged her to keep away from the edge in case it collapsed and I might have to go to her rescue. I have a serious fear of heights, and here I was being asked to climb to the top of our 58’ mast, and actually accomplish something at the top while clinging to the mast with hands, feet, knees, and elbows.
Just as I was climbing into the harness and saying my final prayers, a dinghy arrived with Cathy and John from Batu, our sister ship that we described in an earlier blog. We had mentioned that we would be doing this on Monday and they were there to help. John said something about preferring to go up the mast rather than expend the energy to hoist someone else up, and I was out of the harness in a flash. John is a big guy but I was never happier to haul on the block and tackle to get him to the top to retrieve the wind instrument, and then to haul him back up with the instrument after Sheilagh and I cleaned, lubed and put it back together. So now we are adding a climbing harness to our list of essential tools for the boat, and I am still hoping that the boat will capsize with the mast in the water when it is my turn to go up – or “out” should this be the case. The anemometer and the wind gauge have been working fine since.
As we were sailing over to Tenacatita in the wet and windy conditions I described earlier, Sheilagh noticed leaking under the forward hatch caused by a loose hinge. At the time we could only put a towel under the hatch to collect the leaking water, but I took it apart yesterday to find that two rivets had failed in the hinge mechanism. I had no rivets and no rivet gun, nor did I have any machine screws of the size that might be used to repair it temporarily. That meant we might have to live with a leaky hatch until we got to Puerto Vallarta, a journey that would continue to be fairly wet and wild. I put out a call to the fleet at Tenacatita asking if anyone had a rivet gun and rivets, and the boat next door, Decade Dance (say it quickly as one word) with Dave and Betty Lou aboard responded. So the morning was spent removing and replacing the forward hatch cover, discovering in the process that our silicone caulk had dried up in one tube and was on the point of drying up in the other. We now have a rivet set and a more silicone caulk added to our equipment list for future purchase. This time we should look for smaller tubes of caulk that we can throw away when we’re finished with a job and have a new one for the next job.
Yesterday we dinghied into the beach at Tenacatita to participate in the duck races that were being held that day. Since we had seen no ducks in the area – just sea birds – we were curious as to how this event would be handled. We had only heard an announcement over the morning net that this event would be taking place at 2PM with betting to open at 1:30PM. The surf was a bit high, but we made it through to the beach on the back of a wave without getting wet at all, although we observed the dinghy ahead of us unloading passengers in the water behind the surf break before attempting to come in. We walked over to the crowd on the beach and saw some thirty rubber ducks lined up, each with a number written on it in black marker. We were handed a typewritten sheet with the list of ducks and a bit of history on each of the ducks, including its wins in the past, its background as a racing duck, and other pertinent information to enable us to pick a possible winner. It was surprising to us that a cruising couple on a sailboat could find the room to keep a stable of racing ducks on their boat, but apparently they are devoted to the sport.
I picked the duck with the aviator hat and goggles, while Sheilagh picked one that was holding an inner-tube around its middle. It cost us 10 pesos apiece to participate, and it was a great way to meet some of the other cruisers who were new to us. At 2PM the two cruisers running the show put all the ducks in a plastic bucket, launched their dinghy back out through the surf, dumped the bucket just beyond the surf line, and dinghied back into shore. Several of us opened beers to await the outcome of the race and eventually noted that the ducks were being carried out to sea, rather than into shore. The organizers of the race hadn’t paid attention to the tides and the tide was definitely going out. Once again the starting team took a dinghy back out through the surf, collected all the ducks back into the bucket, and then dumped them inside the surf line. This time the ducks were tumbled shoreward with each succeeding wave and I noticed that none of the ducks really rode the waves well. The ducks were declared over the line when the surf deposited them onshore and went back out without moving them backward.
The winner turned out to be one of the largest ducks in the group. Apparently the larger size allowed it to stay higher in the water and therefore tumbled better by the waves. For the future we will have a much better chance of winning this event with this new information about racing ducks. The upshot of this experience was that we all must have come a long way along the path of relaxation, if a rubber duck race could keep 20-30 adults and children occupied for a couple of hours. Now we have to start looking for the right kind of rubber duck to allow us to dominate any future competitions. We're not competitive or anything!
More Later . . .
Monday, March 10, 2008
March 10th – Barra Lagoon – Jim’s Blog #31
I’m embarrassed to say this, but I finally saw the “green flash” last night for the first time in the 37+ years I have been informed of its existence. I mentioned in my Blog #27 that I was becoming an unbeliever, and that the story had to be an excuse for drinking alcoholic beverages while watching the sun sink into the sea. Last night (Saturday the 8th of March) Sheilagh and I were dining with Ed and Cornelia of A Cappella and two friends of theirs named Sandy and Anne who were visiting from Oakland to celebrate Ed’s birthday. We were on the upper terrace of a restaurant overlooking Bahia Navidad (Nativity Bay) and facing the West. We noticed that there were no clouds on the horizon (a condition for seeing the “green flash”), but it was with no belief in my soul that it could happen, when I called attention to the fact that the upper edge of the sun (called the upper limb in celestial navigation) was just about to disappear for the day.
Everyone at the table turned to note the sun and see if the “green flash” might appear. Several other tables also turned to see it as well. Anne at our table had her camera poised for the shot and suddenly the sun dropped into the sea turning a greenish shade of yellow and then showing a full green flash as it did so. I was blown away as were all of the diners in the restaurant. Two diners, including Ed at our table, who had previously seen the phenomenon, said that it was the longest “green flash” they had seen. Then Anne produced a photograph of the flash to prove that it had happened. I was astounded that she had caught the flash so precisely, whereupon she said she had been clicking the camera continuously to get that picture. She passed the camera around with the picture displayed and promised all of us that we could get a copy of the digital image. Then a diner at the next table apologized for butting in, but said he just had to have a copy of the picture, too, and he presented his boat card with his email address so Anne could send it to him.
The result: I can now testify that I have seen the “green flash” – a fact which should allow me to die a happier death at some future date. I may also have a picture to show you in this blog when Anne gets around to sending a copy.
I mentioned in an earlier blog that I would walk you through a typical local net communication session – usually held at 8:30AM or 9:00AM in the larger anchorages. Since we are not doing anything really exciting at the moment except preparing our income taxes, I will take the opportunity to describe a local net – using Zihuatanejo as the anchorage where this might take place. The net controller is usually a volunteer who will be in the anchorage for several weeks and he/she agrees to serve as the controller on a specific morning of the week. What you see below is how these nets are conducted, along with the usual content.
“Good morning and welcome to the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Cruisers’ Net”
“Everyone switch to high power as we listen for any emergency, medical, or priority ham traffic.” Here the net controller waits about 10 seconds to see if there are any emergencies. If there were an emergency, the controller would find out the nature of the emergency, the name of the boat, the number of persons onboard, the location (latitude/longitude), and what kind of assistance was requested. This could involve help from other cruisers who might be nearby, or the Mexican or U.S. Coast Guards. I have yet to hear something of an emergency nature on one of these local nets.
“This is …(the name of the net controller)… aboard the vessel …(boat name)… along with …(names of others onboard the vessel). Today is ...(today’s date).”
“This is a controlled net, when you come to the net, please say your boat name and wait to be recognized.” This rule prevents folks from talking to one another on the frequency in use without identifying which boat is talking, and it gives the net controller the right to curtail unwanted communications. Naturally someone could transmit without identifying himself just to cause trouble, but I have yet to hear that happen.“We’ll have general check-ins now.” This is when each of us identifies our boat name. Sometimes the net controller will repeat the name of each boat as the cruiser checks in, and sometimes he has the cruisers just say their boat names and counts them. VHF range is normally only 12 to 15 miles, but the local net sometimes covers several different anchorages. In order to keep the check-ins organized, the controller will break them up into the different locations. In the case of the Zihuatanejo these different anchorages include the Municipal Anchorage, Madera, La Ropa, Ixtapa-Grand Isle, and then any land-based contacts such as local vendors for fixing sails, water makers, outboard engines, internet services, etc.
“Are there any more check-ins within the sound of my voice?” Sometimes cruisers get up a bit late and this is when they can check-in if they desire to. This also brings in cruisers who are supposedly out of range of the net at a different anchorage, but the atmospheric conditions allow them to hear the net at a greater distance than usual.
“Do we have any new arrivals? Please tell us about yourself, who’s on board, your home port, and a little about your plans.” Here’s where we find out if friends from previous ports have arrived that we might want to contact for social purposes after the net.
“Do we have any departures? Is there anyone leaving the area today?” This helps us determine if there will be additional space in the anchorage, and it lets us know when friends are leaving.
“Does anyone have the tides and weather for us today?” Usually someone takes the initiative to check the tides to announce the time and height of the low and high tides for the day to the group, although most of us have software that tells us what the tides will be for the day. This is a chance for some to become aware that a low tide might affect their boat. The weather for Western Mexico is presented on the SSB (Single Side Band – equivalent to the HAM frequencies) Amigo Net at 8:15AM Central Time that many of us listen to prior to the local net. If there are local winds or temperatures predicted that could affect the anchorage, it is presented at this point.
“Mail call – are there any vessels holding mail for another vessel or is there anyone who can carry flat, stamped mail to the U.S. or Canada?” There are often guests or cruisers heading north who will carry already-stamped mail – not packages – to be mailed from the U.S. or Canada. Guests and returning cruisers are often contacted before they come down to have them bring mail or packages with them when they come down. When someone has brought something down, this is where they notify the boat that is expecting the equipment that they have arrived with the material.
“Crew Positions – Is there anyone needing crew or anyone wanting to be crew?” There are a number of sailors who have no boat, but who want to crew on a boat to get to Tahiti or through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean for instance. This is where they can identify themselves and make contact with a boat that needs or wants crew for the next leg of the trip. Sometimes a cruiser’s spouse has sailed down from the U.S., decides that she doesn’t enjoy it, and goes back to the States by airplane. Then the cruiser looks for possible crew persons to help him take the boat back up to the U.S. – sometimes to sell the boat to keep the marriage together. There can also be bad skippers whose authoritarian ways cause a pick-up crew to jump ship in the next port. We can usually tell who these are by the frequency with which they need crew in every port.
“Lost and Found – anyone lose or find anything?” I’ve heard reports here that someone found a wallet on the beach or a credit card in an ATM machine. If a cruiser lost something he will contact the person who found the item after the net and arrange for it to be returned.
“General Announcements…” This is where cruisers can pass the word about an event in the local town, or a planned activity on the beach that could include volleyball, bocce ball, Mexican Train, or card games of some type, along with the time for the activity. Today we heard that a former cruiser, who now lived in Barra de Navidad, had died the previous day. There was also a message out last week that a cruiser, who had set out sailing single-handed from San Diego to somewhere along this coast, has not reported in for over a month – a long-enough time that the relatives are getting worried. The trip should only take a couple of weeks, but this individual may have lost the use of his radio, or lost a rudder, or had a heart attack, etc.; so all of us will keep a lookout for the vessel as we move from port to port. Sometimes a message like this will be sent about a boat that just anchored near you, and you can let folks know that the individual is safe and sound. This last message was passed on the Amigo Net for wider coverage along the coast of Mexico, but it is repeated at each local net to spread the word.
“Local assistance or services offered or needed…” When one arrives in a new anchorage, there are usually cruisers who will share what they know about where to shop for food, marine supplies, electrical or mechanical services, etc. Sometimes the questions about these general areas are raised at this time by new arrivals. For the most part this is where someone wants to find out if there is a welding shop (aluminum, flat steel, stainless steel) in the town, or an outboard dealer/mechanic for a specific outboard motor type. The response to a question can be quite detailed. For instance, here in Barra de Navidad there is a Yamaha dealer on the beach in Camarillo next to Mary’s Palapa who doesn’t speak any English but who is recognized as an expert in Yamaha outboard engines. If you want to deal with him you take a translator or the piece of equipment you need repaired and you find him on the beach, not in a building of any sort.
“Treasures of the bilge – anyone have anything to swap or trade for coconuts? Remember we do not sell in Mexico.” There is always someone who wants to get rid of something that is cluttering up his or her boat. At one cruiser flea market Sheilagh bought a manual, plastic washing machine with a handle that allowed the clothing to be spun around to help in the wash cycle. It turned out to help a bit, but it was cumbersome and had to be carefully wedged into the shower when we weren’t using it. We advertised it and sold it to another cruiser for the 20 coconuts ($) we paid for it. I would venture to guess that this particular washing machine will be traded off many times for the very reasons we found it difficult to own. In another case we bought a dinghy anchor from a cruiser in one anchorage to use in another anchorage where previous experience told us we would have a good use for it. When the seller finally made it to our anchorage, he asked if he could buy it back, but we declined to sell it. So you need to be careful that you don’t get rid of something that could be of value somewhere else.
“Anything I forgot or you would like to back up to?” This is where late arrivals to the net go back to a previous category and add to what we have already heard. Any category is fair game to be reopened.
“Let’s close with trivia or a thought for the day!” Usually someone has gotten onto the net the day before and found out what happened on this day 50-200 years ago, and repeats it for the group. Yesterday it was a joke: What did the fish say when it ran into a concrete wall? DAM! This is the usual level of deep thought that is shared with the net before terminating it.
“That’s the end of the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa cruiser net for the day.”
Immediately following that pronouncement, dozens of cruisers call each other’s boats to transact the business they want to accomplish based on the content of the net. One boat will say “Aurora, Aurora, A Cappella.” We will answer, “A Cappella, Aurora, what frequency?” A Cappella will say, “Let’s go to 68 and up.” We will both switch to channel 68 and listen to see if anyone is already using the frequency. If it is being used, we will switch to 69, and do the same until we find an empty frequency. Then we will identify ourselves and agree on a time that we plan to meet for dinner that evening, for example. Naturally, there will be inquisitive cruisers who listen in on the conversations of boats they know; so it is best to keep the communications short and to the point. Yes, we listen in to others as well, as we have pointed out in an earlier blog.
That’s enough for this blog. I hope it gives you some idea of how we communicate in the cruising community. This happens every morning, but the time can vary by anchorage; so we usually dinghy over to a boat after we have arrived and find out the local information, including the time for the local net. More Later . . .
Everyone at the table turned to note the sun and see if the “green flash” might appear. Several other tables also turned to see it as well. Anne at our table had her camera poised for the shot and suddenly the sun dropped into the sea turning a greenish shade of yellow and then showing a full green flash as it did so. I was blown away as were all of the diners in the restaurant. Two diners, including Ed at our table, who had previously seen the phenomenon, said that it was the longest “green flash” they had seen. Then Anne produced a photograph of the flash to prove that it had happened. I was astounded that she had caught the flash so precisely, whereupon she said she had been clicking the camera continuously to get that picture. She passed the camera around with the picture displayed and promised all of us that we could get a copy of the digital image. Then a diner at the next table apologized for butting in, but said he just had to have a copy of the picture, too, and he presented his boat card with his email address so Anne could send it to him.
The result: I can now testify that I have seen the “green flash” – a fact which should allow me to die a happier death at some future date. I may also have a picture to show you in this blog when Anne gets around to sending a copy.
I mentioned in an earlier blog that I would walk you through a typical local net communication session – usually held at 8:30AM or 9:00AM in the larger anchorages. Since we are not doing anything really exciting at the moment except preparing our income taxes, I will take the opportunity to describe a local net – using Zihuatanejo as the anchorage where this might take place. The net controller is usually a volunteer who will be in the anchorage for several weeks and he/she agrees to serve as the controller on a specific morning of the week. What you see below is how these nets are conducted, along with the usual content.
“Good morning and welcome to the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Cruisers’ Net”
“Everyone switch to high power as we listen for any emergency, medical, or priority ham traffic.” Here the net controller waits about 10 seconds to see if there are any emergencies. If there were an emergency, the controller would find out the nature of the emergency, the name of the boat, the number of persons onboard, the location (latitude/longitude), and what kind of assistance was requested. This could involve help from other cruisers who might be nearby, or the Mexican or U.S. Coast Guards. I have yet to hear something of an emergency nature on one of these local nets.
“This is …(the name of the net controller)… aboard the vessel …(boat name)… along with …(names of others onboard the vessel). Today is ...(today’s date).”
“This is a controlled net, when you come to the net, please say your boat name and wait to be recognized.” This rule prevents folks from talking to one another on the frequency in use without identifying which boat is talking, and it gives the net controller the right to curtail unwanted communications. Naturally someone could transmit without identifying himself just to cause trouble, but I have yet to hear that happen.“We’ll have general check-ins now.” This is when each of us identifies our boat name. Sometimes the net controller will repeat the name of each boat as the cruiser checks in, and sometimes he has the cruisers just say their boat names and counts them. VHF range is normally only 12 to 15 miles, but the local net sometimes covers several different anchorages. In order to keep the check-ins organized, the controller will break them up into the different locations. In the case of the Zihuatanejo these different anchorages include the Municipal Anchorage, Madera, La Ropa, Ixtapa-Grand Isle, and then any land-based contacts such as local vendors for fixing sails, water makers, outboard engines, internet services, etc.
“Are there any more check-ins within the sound of my voice?” Sometimes cruisers get up a bit late and this is when they can check-in if they desire to. This also brings in cruisers who are supposedly out of range of the net at a different anchorage, but the atmospheric conditions allow them to hear the net at a greater distance than usual.
“Do we have any new arrivals? Please tell us about yourself, who’s on board, your home port, and a little about your plans.” Here’s where we find out if friends from previous ports have arrived that we might want to contact for social purposes after the net.
“Do we have any departures? Is there anyone leaving the area today?” This helps us determine if there will be additional space in the anchorage, and it lets us know when friends are leaving.
“Does anyone have the tides and weather for us today?” Usually someone takes the initiative to check the tides to announce the time and height of the low and high tides for the day to the group, although most of us have software that tells us what the tides will be for the day. This is a chance for some to become aware that a low tide might affect their boat. The weather for Western Mexico is presented on the SSB (Single Side Band – equivalent to the HAM frequencies) Amigo Net at 8:15AM Central Time that many of us listen to prior to the local net. If there are local winds or temperatures predicted that could affect the anchorage, it is presented at this point.
“Mail call – are there any vessels holding mail for another vessel or is there anyone who can carry flat, stamped mail to the U.S. or Canada?” There are often guests or cruisers heading north who will carry already-stamped mail – not packages – to be mailed from the U.S. or Canada. Guests and returning cruisers are often contacted before they come down to have them bring mail or packages with them when they come down. When someone has brought something down, this is where they notify the boat that is expecting the equipment that they have arrived with the material.
“Crew Positions – Is there anyone needing crew or anyone wanting to be crew?” There are a number of sailors who have no boat, but who want to crew on a boat to get to Tahiti or through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean for instance. This is where they can identify themselves and make contact with a boat that needs or wants crew for the next leg of the trip. Sometimes a cruiser’s spouse has sailed down from the U.S., decides that she doesn’t enjoy it, and goes back to the States by airplane. Then the cruiser looks for possible crew persons to help him take the boat back up to the U.S. – sometimes to sell the boat to keep the marriage together. There can also be bad skippers whose authoritarian ways cause a pick-up crew to jump ship in the next port. We can usually tell who these are by the frequency with which they need crew in every port.
“Lost and Found – anyone lose or find anything?” I’ve heard reports here that someone found a wallet on the beach or a credit card in an ATM machine. If a cruiser lost something he will contact the person who found the item after the net and arrange for it to be returned.
“General Announcements…” This is where cruisers can pass the word about an event in the local town, or a planned activity on the beach that could include volleyball, bocce ball, Mexican Train, or card games of some type, along with the time for the activity. Today we heard that a former cruiser, who now lived in Barra de Navidad, had died the previous day. There was also a message out last week that a cruiser, who had set out sailing single-handed from San Diego to somewhere along this coast, has not reported in for over a month – a long-enough time that the relatives are getting worried. The trip should only take a couple of weeks, but this individual may have lost the use of his radio, or lost a rudder, or had a heart attack, etc.; so all of us will keep a lookout for the vessel as we move from port to port. Sometimes a message like this will be sent about a boat that just anchored near you, and you can let folks know that the individual is safe and sound. This last message was passed on the Amigo Net for wider coverage along the coast of Mexico, but it is repeated at each local net to spread the word.
“Local assistance or services offered or needed…” When one arrives in a new anchorage, there are usually cruisers who will share what they know about where to shop for food, marine supplies, electrical or mechanical services, etc. Sometimes the questions about these general areas are raised at this time by new arrivals. For the most part this is where someone wants to find out if there is a welding shop (aluminum, flat steel, stainless steel) in the town, or an outboard dealer/mechanic for a specific outboard motor type. The response to a question can be quite detailed. For instance, here in Barra de Navidad there is a Yamaha dealer on the beach in Camarillo next to Mary’s Palapa who doesn’t speak any English but who is recognized as an expert in Yamaha outboard engines. If you want to deal with him you take a translator or the piece of equipment you need repaired and you find him on the beach, not in a building of any sort.
“Treasures of the bilge – anyone have anything to swap or trade for coconuts? Remember we do not sell in Mexico.” There is always someone who wants to get rid of something that is cluttering up his or her boat. At one cruiser flea market Sheilagh bought a manual, plastic washing machine with a handle that allowed the clothing to be spun around to help in the wash cycle. It turned out to help a bit, but it was cumbersome and had to be carefully wedged into the shower when we weren’t using it. We advertised it and sold it to another cruiser for the 20 coconuts ($) we paid for it. I would venture to guess that this particular washing machine will be traded off many times for the very reasons we found it difficult to own. In another case we bought a dinghy anchor from a cruiser in one anchorage to use in another anchorage where previous experience told us we would have a good use for it. When the seller finally made it to our anchorage, he asked if he could buy it back, but we declined to sell it. So you need to be careful that you don’t get rid of something that could be of value somewhere else.
“Anything I forgot or you would like to back up to?” This is where late arrivals to the net go back to a previous category and add to what we have already heard. Any category is fair game to be reopened.
“Let’s close with trivia or a thought for the day!” Usually someone has gotten onto the net the day before and found out what happened on this day 50-200 years ago, and repeats it for the group. Yesterday it was a joke: What did the fish say when it ran into a concrete wall? DAM! This is the usual level of deep thought that is shared with the net before terminating it.
“That’s the end of the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa cruiser net for the day.”
Immediately following that pronouncement, dozens of cruisers call each other’s boats to transact the business they want to accomplish based on the content of the net. One boat will say “Aurora, Aurora, A Cappella.” We will answer, “A Cappella, Aurora, what frequency?” A Cappella will say, “Let’s go to 68 and up.” We will both switch to channel 68 and listen to see if anyone is already using the frequency. If it is being used, we will switch to 69, and do the same until we find an empty frequency. Then we will identify ourselves and agree on a time that we plan to meet for dinner that evening, for example. Naturally, there will be inquisitive cruisers who listen in on the conversations of boats they know; so it is best to keep the communications short and to the point. Yes, we listen in to others as well, as we have pointed out in an earlier blog.
That’s enough for this blog. I hope it gives you some idea of how we communicate in the cruising community. This happens every morning, but the time can vary by anchorage; so we usually dinghy over to a boat after we have arrived and find out the local information, including the time for the local net. More Later . . .
Saturday, March 8, 2008
March 7th – Barra Lagoon – Jim’s Blog #30
[Please see my brother Ken's comments on the reusing of oyster shells that I could not explain in my previous blog. His comment is attached to this blog. I actually went back and updated blog #29 with Ken's information; so new readers will not be faced with the uncertainty of not knowing this when they first read that blog. Thank you, Ken]
On Wednesday morning I decided I needed some exercise, so I took the dinghy into the golf course dock and hiked across the course to the beach on the south side of the golf course. Sheilagh was in a baking mood, as in dessert, and not into any sort of physical exercise, so I went alone. I had my IPod with me and found that the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has just the right beat for hiking. I also had my compass to make sure I kept in a generally southern direction as I attempted to stay on the cart paths and roads rather than cross the course itself. I needn’t have bothered to stay on the cart paths, because in the hour and a half I was on the course I saw one twosome and one threesome (with a guide). I’m not sure what the guide was for, but at $250 a round, he may have been sent along to order drinks, advise on club selection, and point out any particular challenges on the course.
I am not a golf course connoisseur, but this course would have to measure up to the fancier ones I have seen, including the one at La Quinta near Palm Springs, Pebble Beach in Monterey, and of course Strawberry Farms in Irvine. The grass was immaculate (and this was on Wednesday – not just the day before the weekend); there were water hazards on nearly every hole on the Lagoon course (there is also an Ocean course and a Mountain course – each making up 9 holes); there was little rough to speak of, and tall palm trees and attractive plantings everywhere. The golf carts and roads were all of hand-laid brick and painted-and-polished coconuts designated the various tee positions and the length and par of each hole. And it was entirely empty of players!
When I got to the beach I found that it was extremely steep and faced the incoming swells, so the waves immediately moved back out to sea after they hit the beach, amplifying the incoming waves to a height of 6 -10’ and causing the incoming waves to smash down with a tremendous noise and shoot spray out the back at the same time. These were not waves for surfing, as the entire wave as far as the eye could see broke at exactly the same time. There would also be no way to land a dinghy onshore without a sure capsize, and certainly no way to launch one out into the ocean. As I watched the waves for a bit, a flight of several pelicans came soaring along the top of the dune that edged the water, no doubt riding on the updraft caused by the sea breeze being deflected upward along the dune. They had no need to flap to stay up, and I was carried back to the days when I used to fly sailplanes along the edges of hills, cliffs, and mountains for hours at a time.
Along the beach there were several very nice compounds (as opposed to homes) being built, but I was struck by the fact that the beach was not very usable for anyone. It sloped too abruptly for kids to be able to play in the sand, it was not appropriate for either board or body surfing, and even sun bathing might result in sliding down into the waves without warning. The water appeared dirty, as if there was some underground leaking of oil into the water. And the sand itself seemed to have a lot of tar or some other blackish substance mixed in.
I was able to check out one of the homes that had been completed. They don’t understand Feng Shue (spelling?) here, since all the houses have glass fronts and backs with sliding glass doors that allow one to see the ocean through the front of the house and actually walk straight through. This is a no-no for Asians I am told, at least that style was avoided in the San Francisco Bay area if one ever intended to sell to an Asian family some day. Apparently it is important that the spirits not be allowed to go through a house from front to back without being detoured around some corners, but I am not an expert in this area by far.
This particular house had an infinity pool in back for swimming and another smaller one for fish or for just gazing into. For those of you who have not been exposed to the good life, an infinity pool appears to have no edge on one side – the water simply spills over one side (usually the side facing the ocean) so smoothly that it appears to merge with the sea behind it. There were four covered chaise lounges positioned on the deck in the sun with another two positioned under a palapa-like thatched roof that was open on all sides and provided shade to those who might not be sun worshipers. There were also two lavish hammocks strung between palm trees that were probably planted just the right distance from each other to support the hammocks. There was also an outside dining area, and another sitting area, and that was just the back area of the estate.
I thought about what it might be like to live there. One would be isolated from almost everything, and it appeared that all of the outdoor activity centered on sitting or lying down. It would be a great place for a retreat for a few weeks, but that would get old very quickly. It would also be a great place to entertain, but any night life would require a drive of several miles just to get to Barra de Navidad or even further to Manzanillo or some other larger city.
I prefer a sailboat that provides a “moveable feast” (taken from a book title), where we can position ourselves wherever we like – isolated in small bays or enjoying nightlife in larger towns or cities – and we have a constantly changing menu of things to see and do. We can change our climate, our neighbors and our neighborhood at will. Cruising provides us with a constant source of new friends and the chance meeting of old friends in a variety of locations. If we don’t like where we are, we can always move by simply pulling up the anchor, setting the sails, and pointing the bow of the boat where we wish to go. Wouldn’t it be great if houses could be moved so easily!
We had some excitement the other night. We heard a radio transmission from a sailboat saying that it was 25 miles off the coast south of here heading north from Zihuatanejo and that it was about to be boarded by a supposed Mexican Navy ship that was not following standard protocol. They gave the coordinates of their position; so that if something happened to them, someone would know what was going on and could follow up. That’s the last we heard until the cruiser’s net the next morning when someone asked if anything had been heard from that sailboat since its transmission. The sailboat itself responded (having arrived that evening) saying that they had called the U.S. Coastguard on their satellite phone and voiced the same message as we had heard. They said the U.S. Coastguard had gotten in touch with the Mexican Navy and the Mexican patrol boat had withdrawn. It sounded as if a satellite phone might be a good acquisition for the future.
Someone asked what protocols the Mexican Navy hadn’t followed, and the sailboat in question mentioned that 1) they were outside the 12 mile international limit, 2) the Mexican Navy would not identify the name or number of its vessel, 3) the supposed sailors were wearing ski masks to hide their faces, and 4) they were carrying automatic weapons and had them trained on the sailboat. A discussion ensued between more knowledgeable members of the cruising community where it was pointed out that the U.S. was spending a lot of taxpayer money to have the Mexican Navy interdict drug smugglers, and 12 miles out was not their limit of coverage or all the smugglers would operate outside that limit. Also, it is standard practice for them to conceal their identity as to which naval vessel they are, as well as to conceal their own identities in order to avoid reprisals from the drug smugglers on them and their families. Finally it was pointed out that even the U.S. Coastguard carries automatic weapons and has them trained on vessels when approaching them for an inspection. So, apparently, the sailboat in question was being handled appropriately by the Mexican Navy, which backed off as a favor to the U.S. Coastguard in this situation.
Several of the cruisers here in Barra de Navidad had been boarded by the Mexican Navy while transiting to or from Zihuatanejo, since this is an area of the coast where a lot of drug smuggling takes place. In every case they have been treated with respect by the Mexican Navy (included masked sailors) and there has always been an officer in charge who spoke good English. Some of the boats had been approached twice within a day or so, and they were waved on because their boat name was found in a database of those that had been recently boarded. I can imagine the fear and trepidation that would emerge as we were being approached by armed men in ski masks telling us to stop the vessel and prepare to be boarded, but we have to expect that to happen. It’s another good reason not to carry fire arms on the boat; since firing a pistol, rifle, or shotgun at the Mexican Navy could be disastrous to one’s health and the floating ability of the boat.
Last night another strong wind came up out of the northwest, similar to the one I mentioned in the last blog, but the wind was even stronger. Most of the cruisers returned to their boats from town in order to be ready to handle any dragging anchors. Sure enough, the radio began to squawk with notifications of several boats dragging their anchors. In one case the owner started up the engine, pulled up his anchor, and moved it back into place, setting it more firmly with a longer length of chain. Just behind us a smallish boat started moving backwards toward a boat to its rear and the owner was not onboard. The warning went out to the fleet, and, just as I was getting into my dinghy and dreading the soaking I would get to help out, a fleet of 6 dinghies with very powerful outboards descended on the boat and nudged it away from the other sailboat. Then a couple of the dinghy owners got up on the deck of the sailboat, started up the engine, pulled up the anchor, and re-anchored the boat just as the owner returned in his dinghy.
The owner was extremely happy that members of the fleet had saved his boat from running into another boat, which would have cost him for the damage to both boats, and I was happy to have avoided having to go out in the wet with my underpowered dinghy. As it was, I let out about another 30 feet of chain and sat on watch for the next 4 hours, making sure we weren’t being moved out of position by the wind and current. I did this by sighting a lower hill against a higher hill behind it to the side of my boat and making sure that one of the hills didn’t start moving against the other – indicating that I was moving.
We had another cruising couple coming over for dinner at 6PM that night, but they called on the radio to say that they weren’t comfortable with leaving their boat in the strong wind conditions that prevailed at that time. We agreed to wait until 7PM to see if the conditions changed, but eventually had to cancel the dinner. Then, of course, at 8PM the wind died as if it had been shut off. We plan to have the couple over this evening if the wind doesn’t repeat itself this afternoon. Just another “pleasant” day in paradise! Not!
Just to underline the fact that we do have work to do in paradise, this morning’s chores for me included finishing the polishing of the stainless steel on the boat and washing the glass in the portholes. Since it is easier to work in the cool of the morning, we usually work up until noon and then knock off for the day. Because of the amount of stainless steel on the boat this is at least a two-morning job. Sheilagh spent her morning doing some shopping in town, cleaning all the screens for the portholes (yes, we have insects here, too), cleaning up the toilet and the head in general, making home-made Kahlua (with coffee, vodka, and vanilla extract), and in her words “cleaning up after Jim” – I’m not sure what that means. Just because I leave things in places where I can get to them quickly is no reason to critique my emergency preparations. I can snatch up any of several shirts, swimming trunks, books, hats, and computer paraphernalia at a moment’s notice, unless Sheilagh has “cleaned up after me.” Would you call that a good use of her time? Not I!
More later . . .
On Wednesday morning I decided I needed some exercise, so I took the dinghy into the golf course dock and hiked across the course to the beach on the south side of the golf course. Sheilagh was in a baking mood, as in dessert, and not into any sort of physical exercise, so I went alone. I had my IPod with me and found that the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has just the right beat for hiking. I also had my compass to make sure I kept in a generally southern direction as I attempted to stay on the cart paths and roads rather than cross the course itself. I needn’t have bothered to stay on the cart paths, because in the hour and a half I was on the course I saw one twosome and one threesome (with a guide). I’m not sure what the guide was for, but at $250 a round, he may have been sent along to order drinks, advise on club selection, and point out any particular challenges on the course.
I am not a golf course connoisseur, but this course would have to measure up to the fancier ones I have seen, including the one at La Quinta near Palm Springs, Pebble Beach in Monterey, and of course Strawberry Farms in Irvine. The grass was immaculate (and this was on Wednesday – not just the day before the weekend); there were water hazards on nearly every hole on the Lagoon course (there is also an Ocean course and a Mountain course – each making up 9 holes); there was little rough to speak of, and tall palm trees and attractive plantings everywhere. The golf carts and roads were all of hand-laid brick and painted-and-polished coconuts designated the various tee positions and the length and par of each hole. And it was entirely empty of players!
When I got to the beach I found that it was extremely steep and faced the incoming swells, so the waves immediately moved back out to sea after they hit the beach, amplifying the incoming waves to a height of 6 -10’ and causing the incoming waves to smash down with a tremendous noise and shoot spray out the back at the same time. These were not waves for surfing, as the entire wave as far as the eye could see broke at exactly the same time. There would also be no way to land a dinghy onshore without a sure capsize, and certainly no way to launch one out into the ocean. As I watched the waves for a bit, a flight of several pelicans came soaring along the top of the dune that edged the water, no doubt riding on the updraft caused by the sea breeze being deflected upward along the dune. They had no need to flap to stay up, and I was carried back to the days when I used to fly sailplanes along the edges of hills, cliffs, and mountains for hours at a time.
Along the beach there were several very nice compounds (as opposed to homes) being built, but I was struck by the fact that the beach was not very usable for anyone. It sloped too abruptly for kids to be able to play in the sand, it was not appropriate for either board or body surfing, and even sun bathing might result in sliding down into the waves without warning. The water appeared dirty, as if there was some underground leaking of oil into the water. And the sand itself seemed to have a lot of tar or some other blackish substance mixed in.
I was able to check out one of the homes that had been completed. They don’t understand Feng Shue (spelling?) here, since all the houses have glass fronts and backs with sliding glass doors that allow one to see the ocean through the front of the house and actually walk straight through. This is a no-no for Asians I am told, at least that style was avoided in the San Francisco Bay area if one ever intended to sell to an Asian family some day. Apparently it is important that the spirits not be allowed to go through a house from front to back without being detoured around some corners, but I am not an expert in this area by far.
This particular house had an infinity pool in back for swimming and another smaller one for fish or for just gazing into. For those of you who have not been exposed to the good life, an infinity pool appears to have no edge on one side – the water simply spills over one side (usually the side facing the ocean) so smoothly that it appears to merge with the sea behind it. There were four covered chaise lounges positioned on the deck in the sun with another two positioned under a palapa-like thatched roof that was open on all sides and provided shade to those who might not be sun worshipers. There were also two lavish hammocks strung between palm trees that were probably planted just the right distance from each other to support the hammocks. There was also an outside dining area, and another sitting area, and that was just the back area of the estate.
I thought about what it might be like to live there. One would be isolated from almost everything, and it appeared that all of the outdoor activity centered on sitting or lying down. It would be a great place for a retreat for a few weeks, but that would get old very quickly. It would also be a great place to entertain, but any night life would require a drive of several miles just to get to Barra de Navidad or even further to Manzanillo or some other larger city.
I prefer a sailboat that provides a “moveable feast” (taken from a book title), where we can position ourselves wherever we like – isolated in small bays or enjoying nightlife in larger towns or cities – and we have a constantly changing menu of things to see and do. We can change our climate, our neighbors and our neighborhood at will. Cruising provides us with a constant source of new friends and the chance meeting of old friends in a variety of locations. If we don’t like where we are, we can always move by simply pulling up the anchor, setting the sails, and pointing the bow of the boat where we wish to go. Wouldn’t it be great if houses could be moved so easily!
We had some excitement the other night. We heard a radio transmission from a sailboat saying that it was 25 miles off the coast south of here heading north from Zihuatanejo and that it was about to be boarded by a supposed Mexican Navy ship that was not following standard protocol. They gave the coordinates of their position; so that if something happened to them, someone would know what was going on and could follow up. That’s the last we heard until the cruiser’s net the next morning when someone asked if anything had been heard from that sailboat since its transmission. The sailboat itself responded (having arrived that evening) saying that they had called the U.S. Coastguard on their satellite phone and voiced the same message as we had heard. They said the U.S. Coastguard had gotten in touch with the Mexican Navy and the Mexican patrol boat had withdrawn. It sounded as if a satellite phone might be a good acquisition for the future.
Someone asked what protocols the Mexican Navy hadn’t followed, and the sailboat in question mentioned that 1) they were outside the 12 mile international limit, 2) the Mexican Navy would not identify the name or number of its vessel, 3) the supposed sailors were wearing ski masks to hide their faces, and 4) they were carrying automatic weapons and had them trained on the sailboat. A discussion ensued between more knowledgeable members of the cruising community where it was pointed out that the U.S. was spending a lot of taxpayer money to have the Mexican Navy interdict drug smugglers, and 12 miles out was not their limit of coverage or all the smugglers would operate outside that limit. Also, it is standard practice for them to conceal their identity as to which naval vessel they are, as well as to conceal their own identities in order to avoid reprisals from the drug smugglers on them and their families. Finally it was pointed out that even the U.S. Coastguard carries automatic weapons and has them trained on vessels when approaching them for an inspection. So, apparently, the sailboat in question was being handled appropriately by the Mexican Navy, which backed off as a favor to the U.S. Coastguard in this situation.
Several of the cruisers here in Barra de Navidad had been boarded by the Mexican Navy while transiting to or from Zihuatanejo, since this is an area of the coast where a lot of drug smuggling takes place. In every case they have been treated with respect by the Mexican Navy (included masked sailors) and there has always been an officer in charge who spoke good English. Some of the boats had been approached twice within a day or so, and they were waved on because their boat name was found in a database of those that had been recently boarded. I can imagine the fear and trepidation that would emerge as we were being approached by armed men in ski masks telling us to stop the vessel and prepare to be boarded, but we have to expect that to happen. It’s another good reason not to carry fire arms on the boat; since firing a pistol, rifle, or shotgun at the Mexican Navy could be disastrous to one’s health and the floating ability of the boat.
Last night another strong wind came up out of the northwest, similar to the one I mentioned in the last blog, but the wind was even stronger. Most of the cruisers returned to their boats from town in order to be ready to handle any dragging anchors. Sure enough, the radio began to squawk with notifications of several boats dragging their anchors. In one case the owner started up the engine, pulled up his anchor, and moved it back into place, setting it more firmly with a longer length of chain. Just behind us a smallish boat started moving backwards toward a boat to its rear and the owner was not onboard. The warning went out to the fleet, and, just as I was getting into my dinghy and dreading the soaking I would get to help out, a fleet of 6 dinghies with very powerful outboards descended on the boat and nudged it away from the other sailboat. Then a couple of the dinghy owners got up on the deck of the sailboat, started up the engine, pulled up the anchor, and re-anchored the boat just as the owner returned in his dinghy.
The owner was extremely happy that members of the fleet had saved his boat from running into another boat, which would have cost him for the damage to both boats, and I was happy to have avoided having to go out in the wet with my underpowered dinghy. As it was, I let out about another 30 feet of chain and sat on watch for the next 4 hours, making sure we weren’t being moved out of position by the wind and current. I did this by sighting a lower hill against a higher hill behind it to the side of my boat and making sure that one of the hills didn’t start moving against the other – indicating that I was moving.
We had another cruising couple coming over for dinner at 6PM that night, but they called on the radio to say that they weren’t comfortable with leaving their boat in the strong wind conditions that prevailed at that time. We agreed to wait until 7PM to see if the conditions changed, but eventually had to cancel the dinner. Then, of course, at 8PM the wind died as if it had been shut off. We plan to have the couple over this evening if the wind doesn’t repeat itself this afternoon. Just another “pleasant” day in paradise! Not!
Just to underline the fact that we do have work to do in paradise, this morning’s chores for me included finishing the polishing of the stainless steel on the boat and washing the glass in the portholes. Since it is easier to work in the cool of the morning, we usually work up until noon and then knock off for the day. Because of the amount of stainless steel on the boat this is at least a two-morning job. Sheilagh spent her morning doing some shopping in town, cleaning all the screens for the portholes (yes, we have insects here, too), cleaning up the toilet and the head in general, making home-made Kahlua (with coffee, vodka, and vanilla extract), and in her words “cleaning up after Jim” – I’m not sure what that means. Just because I leave things in places where I can get to them quickly is no reason to critique my emergency preparations. I can snatch up any of several shirts, swimming trunks, books, hats, and computer paraphernalia at a moment’s notice, unless Sheilagh has “cleaned up after me.” Would you call that a good use of her time? Not I!
More later . . .
Thursday, March 6, 2008
March 4th – Barra Lagoon – Jim’s Blog #29
Before starting this blog I want to mention that our blog site will take your comments, if you have some. We usually review them to see if they are personal or for general knowledge and then publish those that others might want to read. Our daughter, Stephanie, who is a professional artist and sculptor (http://www.stephaniemetz.com/), had a thoughtful response to my tongue-in-cheek swipe at primitive artists, which you can read as a comment to my blog #23 on February 10th. Stephanie’s husband, Hayden, has also had some questions about cruising that he has sent as comments, and which serve as a basis for my describing aspects of the cruising life. If you have questions or comments that might be of interest to those who have never cruised on a sailboat (which is our primary audience, we believe), feel free to submit the comment to the blog.
One of Hayden’s questions was what do we do with the boat when we leave it to come back to the states, as we are planning to do in April. It is not a good idea to leave a boat at anchor, or even on a mooring (a buoy attached to the bottom in a permanent way), because unattended boats are subject to break-ins and theft. So we are planning to leave the boat in the Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta for the month of April, which offers docks that are protected by locked gates and security guards. We will also let our neighbors know how to get in touch with us, if necessary. The real problem with leaving a boat and going back to the states has to do with hurricane season between the months of June and October. In those months the boat needs to be far enough north or south to avoid hurricanes – the northern Sea of Cortez in the north and someplace in South America to the south.
We plan to put our boat in the port of San Carlos in the northern Sea of Cortez during the months of July and August, when we plan to visit family in the states again. Cruisers who only cruise six months of the year will often take their boat out of the water in a place like San Carlos and prepare it for a possible hurricane while they are away. In addition to positioning struts and lines to keep it locked in an upright position, that preparation involves about 4-5 days of effort to remove all the sails and all the structures that could blow off (like the dodger over the companionway), collect all the lines that would be damaged in the sun, and cover all the exposed woodwork that would fry in the sun during the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Since we plan to be gone only a couple of months, we will probably leave the boat in the water and only remove the sails and dodger. Luckily we bought a boat that has very little exposed wood on the outside; so we have been saved the effort of sanding and varnishing and would not need to cover it for a two-month period.
Part of the cruising lifestyle is to talk to other cruisers to see what they have done in the past, such as in the case of leaving their boat in a given marina, but that sort of discussion always leads to the hard-luck stories suffered by a few cruisers in the past that have made their way into cruising legend. One cruiser in La Paz suffered a break-in and lost all the things that a cruiser would want, and none of the things the local fishermen might take. His accusation of the cruiser community was not well received. One couple, apparently thinking that cruisers were the problem, decided to hide their boat in a small inlet, away from the eyes of other cruisers. They came back to find the boat stripped of nearly everything. In the case of leaving one’s boat for a time, it is far better to pay the price of keeping it in a marina than to have to pay for new laptops, radios, GPS’s, TV’s, DVD’s, clock & barometer, life raft, dinghy, dinghy motor, anchors, and solar panels, not to mention less expensive items (but still costly) such as fins, goggles, snorkels, spearguns, pots, pans, maps & charts, etc.
We took our boat out of the lagoon and out into the bay on Monday to test the repaired autopilot and to dump the holding tank – I know the latter information may be termed TMI (too much information), but it becomes a strong motivator for pulling up an anchor that is imbedded in the muddy bottom, rinsing off the entire length as it comes up, and leaving a spot in the anchorage that has been proven safe from the swinging of the boats nearby and higher than the lowest tide. Since we liked our spot, we put an anchor on the dinghy and dropped the dinghy anchor exactly where our anchor came up, leaving the dinghy to hold our place. We notified a couple of our neighbors that we were going out to test the autopilot and would be in later that morning, and it’s a good thing we did.
As we were going out the channel we passed three sailboats coming into the lagoon; so we could only hope that our dinghy and our neighbors would preserve our spot for our return. The channel out to the bay from the lagoon is quite narrow and no less than three pangas were anchored at various spots in the middle of the channel diving for oysters on the bottom, cleaning them onboard, and throwing the shells back for repeated usage by the oysters.
My original comment regarding the reuse of oyster shells was "No, I cannot explain how shells can be reused by oysters when they are dropped back to the bottom. Maybe someone can look this up and report back to us. I visualize a bunch of small, shell-less oysters waiting on the bottom to fight over their parents’ old shells, but how do they exist without shells in the first place?" My brother, Ken, did some research and came up with the following (which I have also posted as a comment on the next blog): "Adult oysters release millions of fertilized eggs in the summer months. During their 2 to 3 weeks of development, larvae (young, free-swimming oysters) may be carried great distances from where they were released. When development is complete, young oysters must attach to a hard substrate, ideally another oyster shell. If no suitable substrate exists, the oyster dies. Juvenile oysters (known as "spat") require several years to reach harvest size, but they begin to reproduce within a year, completing the life cycle." Thank you, Ken, for your research. Did you ever consider how much you are learning from this blog, everyone?
Back on track, we had to maneuver very carefully to miss the pangas while passing the other sailboats and trying to stay in the channel to keep from scraping our keel on the bottom. The fishermen didn’t seem to realize they were impeding traffic, and, as frustrated as we were, we had to remember that this is their country, their bay, their lagoon, and their fishing grounds.
Our test of the autopilot was a good one; so we now have a way to keep the boat on its heading when we need to motor from place to place. In previous blogs I have explained that we have been working with the factory for most of the past 6 months to make this happen; so we are extremely happy with this final test. Without the autopilot, the person on watch had to set the wheel, crank in some friction to hold it in that position, and then hustle like mad to go below to use the head, or record a fix, or get a drink. If we tried to combine a couple of those tasks in one trip below, we usually got back with the boat headed 30° off course. You can imagine what it would be like to hold your car’s steering wheel in one position for more than a few seconds, although our 5 knots is well below the speed of a car.
We got offshore a ways to dump the holding tank and then turned around to get back to our anchoring location before it was seized by one of the incoming boats. We made it in just in time to see one of our neighbors in his dinghy warning off one of the sailboats. He saw us coming and handed up the line from our dinghy to help us get back into our original position. The other sailboat, Far Fetched, anchored nearby and its owners, Bruce and Steve, turned out to be two brothers whom we had met in Puerto Vallarta. We invited them over to give them the information about the lagoon; so there were no hard feelings about being warned away from our spot.
As it was we missed our original anchoring spot by a few feet, which positioned us very near another boat as we swung away from the westerly winds that afternoon. We were forced to reduce our anchor rode length to 70’ versus the 100’ we had been using before. The afternoon wind came up at 15 – 25 knots and kept most of the cruisers on their boats making sure that their anchors would not drag them into another boat, or that another boat wouldn’t drag into them. The wind kicked up such waves in this small lagoon that it was impossible to use the dinghy and not get drenched. So naturally my peripheral vision caught a blur of something going over the side, which turned out to be our carpet on deck (for cleaning feet or shoes when getting onto the boat) as it was flipped over the side by the wind. I was too late with the boat hook; so I had to get out in the dinghy to bring it back. I grabbed the sodden carpet in time – for some reason it floated – and then fought my way back to the boat against fairly large waves that drenched me in a matter of the minute or so that I was out on the water.
This evening we got together with some other cruisers and took a bus to a restaurant that was known for its shrimp dishes and was reportedly “on the way” to the neighboring town of Melaque. Halfway to Melaque we spied the restaurant and tried to get the bus driver to stop. Either he was bound by the strictest rules not to stop at other than official bus stops, or he couldn’t understand what we wanted to do. As it was he kept driving and we decided to go on to Melaque and get a cab back. The bus to Melaque winds its way through a number of dirt streets on the outskirts before it reaches the town square where we could catch a cab. We finally got to the town square, grabbed two cabs back to the restaurant only to find that it was closed on Tuesday nights. So it was back to Barra de Navidad where we found a good restaurant on the water that served very good shrimp dishes. Since attitude is everything in the cruising life, we chalked this up to adventure and figured the 30 pesos apiece (5 pesos for the bus and 25 for the cab) was part of the cost of the meal.
More later . . .
One of Hayden’s questions was what do we do with the boat when we leave it to come back to the states, as we are planning to do in April. It is not a good idea to leave a boat at anchor, or even on a mooring (a buoy attached to the bottom in a permanent way), because unattended boats are subject to break-ins and theft. So we are planning to leave the boat in the Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta for the month of April, which offers docks that are protected by locked gates and security guards. We will also let our neighbors know how to get in touch with us, if necessary. The real problem with leaving a boat and going back to the states has to do with hurricane season between the months of June and October. In those months the boat needs to be far enough north or south to avoid hurricanes – the northern Sea of Cortez in the north and someplace in South America to the south.
We plan to put our boat in the port of San Carlos in the northern Sea of Cortez during the months of July and August, when we plan to visit family in the states again. Cruisers who only cruise six months of the year will often take their boat out of the water in a place like San Carlos and prepare it for a possible hurricane while they are away. In addition to positioning struts and lines to keep it locked in an upright position, that preparation involves about 4-5 days of effort to remove all the sails and all the structures that could blow off (like the dodger over the companionway), collect all the lines that would be damaged in the sun, and cover all the exposed woodwork that would fry in the sun during the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Since we plan to be gone only a couple of months, we will probably leave the boat in the water and only remove the sails and dodger. Luckily we bought a boat that has very little exposed wood on the outside; so we have been saved the effort of sanding and varnishing and would not need to cover it for a two-month period.
Part of the cruising lifestyle is to talk to other cruisers to see what they have done in the past, such as in the case of leaving their boat in a given marina, but that sort of discussion always leads to the hard-luck stories suffered by a few cruisers in the past that have made their way into cruising legend. One cruiser in La Paz suffered a break-in and lost all the things that a cruiser would want, and none of the things the local fishermen might take. His accusation of the cruiser community was not well received. One couple, apparently thinking that cruisers were the problem, decided to hide their boat in a small inlet, away from the eyes of other cruisers. They came back to find the boat stripped of nearly everything. In the case of leaving one’s boat for a time, it is far better to pay the price of keeping it in a marina than to have to pay for new laptops, radios, GPS’s, TV’s, DVD’s, clock & barometer, life raft, dinghy, dinghy motor, anchors, and solar panels, not to mention less expensive items (but still costly) such as fins, goggles, snorkels, spearguns, pots, pans, maps & charts, etc.
We took our boat out of the lagoon and out into the bay on Monday to test the repaired autopilot and to dump the holding tank – I know the latter information may be termed TMI (too much information), but it becomes a strong motivator for pulling up an anchor that is imbedded in the muddy bottom, rinsing off the entire length as it comes up, and leaving a spot in the anchorage that has been proven safe from the swinging of the boats nearby and higher than the lowest tide. Since we liked our spot, we put an anchor on the dinghy and dropped the dinghy anchor exactly where our anchor came up, leaving the dinghy to hold our place. We notified a couple of our neighbors that we were going out to test the autopilot and would be in later that morning, and it’s a good thing we did.
As we were going out the channel we passed three sailboats coming into the lagoon; so we could only hope that our dinghy and our neighbors would preserve our spot for our return. The channel out to the bay from the lagoon is quite narrow and no less than three pangas were anchored at various spots in the middle of the channel diving for oysters on the bottom, cleaning them onboard, and throwing the shells back for repeated usage by the oysters.
My original comment regarding the reuse of oyster shells was "No, I cannot explain how shells can be reused by oysters when they are dropped back to the bottom. Maybe someone can look this up and report back to us. I visualize a bunch of small, shell-less oysters waiting on the bottom to fight over their parents’ old shells, but how do they exist without shells in the first place?" My brother, Ken, did some research and came up with the following (which I have also posted as a comment on the next blog): "Adult oysters release millions of fertilized eggs in the summer months. During their 2 to 3 weeks of development, larvae (young, free-swimming oysters) may be carried great distances from where they were released. When development is complete, young oysters must attach to a hard substrate, ideally another oyster shell. If no suitable substrate exists, the oyster dies. Juvenile oysters (known as "spat") require several years to reach harvest size, but they begin to reproduce within a year, completing the life cycle." Thank you, Ken, for your research. Did you ever consider how much you are learning from this blog, everyone?
Back on track, we had to maneuver very carefully to miss the pangas while passing the other sailboats and trying to stay in the channel to keep from scraping our keel on the bottom. The fishermen didn’t seem to realize they were impeding traffic, and, as frustrated as we were, we had to remember that this is their country, their bay, their lagoon, and their fishing grounds.
Our test of the autopilot was a good one; so we now have a way to keep the boat on its heading when we need to motor from place to place. In previous blogs I have explained that we have been working with the factory for most of the past 6 months to make this happen; so we are extremely happy with this final test. Without the autopilot, the person on watch had to set the wheel, crank in some friction to hold it in that position, and then hustle like mad to go below to use the head, or record a fix, or get a drink. If we tried to combine a couple of those tasks in one trip below, we usually got back with the boat headed 30° off course. You can imagine what it would be like to hold your car’s steering wheel in one position for more than a few seconds, although our 5 knots is well below the speed of a car.
We got offshore a ways to dump the holding tank and then turned around to get back to our anchoring location before it was seized by one of the incoming boats. We made it in just in time to see one of our neighbors in his dinghy warning off one of the sailboats. He saw us coming and handed up the line from our dinghy to help us get back into our original position. The other sailboat, Far Fetched, anchored nearby and its owners, Bruce and Steve, turned out to be two brothers whom we had met in Puerto Vallarta. We invited them over to give them the information about the lagoon; so there were no hard feelings about being warned away from our spot.
As it was we missed our original anchoring spot by a few feet, which positioned us very near another boat as we swung away from the westerly winds that afternoon. We were forced to reduce our anchor rode length to 70’ versus the 100’ we had been using before. The afternoon wind came up at 15 – 25 knots and kept most of the cruisers on their boats making sure that their anchors would not drag them into another boat, or that another boat wouldn’t drag into them. The wind kicked up such waves in this small lagoon that it was impossible to use the dinghy and not get drenched. So naturally my peripheral vision caught a blur of something going over the side, which turned out to be our carpet on deck (for cleaning feet or shoes when getting onto the boat) as it was flipped over the side by the wind. I was too late with the boat hook; so I had to get out in the dinghy to bring it back. I grabbed the sodden carpet in time – for some reason it floated – and then fought my way back to the boat against fairly large waves that drenched me in a matter of the minute or so that I was out on the water.
This evening we got together with some other cruisers and took a bus to a restaurant that was known for its shrimp dishes and was reportedly “on the way” to the neighboring town of Melaque. Halfway to Melaque we spied the restaurant and tried to get the bus driver to stop. Either he was bound by the strictest rules not to stop at other than official bus stops, or he couldn’t understand what we wanted to do. As it was he kept driving and we decided to go on to Melaque and get a cab back. The bus to Melaque winds its way through a number of dirt streets on the outskirts before it reaches the town square where we could catch a cab. We finally got to the town square, grabbed two cabs back to the restaurant only to find that it was closed on Tuesday nights. So it was back to Barra de Navidad where we found a good restaurant on the water that served very good shrimp dishes. Since attitude is everything in the cruising life, we chalked this up to adventure and figured the 30 pesos apiece (5 pesos for the bus and 25 for the cab) was part of the cost of the meal.
More later . . .
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
March 1 – Barra Lagoon – Jim’s Blog #28
We are now one of 50+ boats in the Barra Lagoon, which means it’s getting very crowded in here. Thank goodness the tides are moderate during the quarter moon, because a lot of boats are anchored in fairly shallow water and we are very close to one another. At extremely low tides some of these boats are going to be touching the bottom. In fact Sheilagh just pointed out a sailboat in a shallow part of the anchorage which has just tipped over from the vertical by about 15° because it is sitting on the bottom. It is a strange sport to sit here and wait for boats to go aground. We have already cautioned a number of boats entering the channel who were about to run aground on a hidden bar – either over the radio or while heading into town in our dinghy. We are always surprised that these boats haven’t slowed down to just a couple of knots; so their momentum won’t run them onto hidden bars so far that they can’t be backed off easily.
The swells outside the lagoon are extremely high and breaking very loudly on the beaches around here. At night we wake up occasionally swearing that we hear thunder, but it is only the waves breaking on the beaches. Inside the lagoon we are protected from these swells. We also have a dock-like wall to which we can tie our dinghies when we need to go into town, so we don’t have to handle landing and taking off from a beach. We understand that the higher swells in Tenacatita (just north of us) have confined some cruisers to their boats, since the waves breaking on the beach are too much to handle with a dinghy – and there are no docks there.
We finally got our mail from early February and found several tax forms among the junk mail, along with a notice from the IRS that we are being audited for 2005. That pretty well sealed the fact that we need to return home in April and pick up some documentation prior to filing our taxes for the year, especially since the IRS told us we needed to reply 30 days after the date of the notice (which we got 20 days later). We’ll take care of it, but it did bring up the concern of how we handle the same type of notice if we are in the South Pacific. We may need to keep 7 years of tax papers with us on the boat or find a good spot to keep them. There is probably someone who has already started a business of holding cruisers’ financial papers while they are gone; we just need to find the service.
We also received our repaired autopilot after paying more customs on the components we had sent out to be repaired. Apparently we were supposed to have found some official in Mexico and gotten a stamped approval that the serial-numbered items we were sending back to be fixed were actually in use on our boat and therefore not subject to customs. No one can tell us just who is authorized to give us this approval – an approval that would be accepted by customs upon the return of the items. There are agents who would charge us 5% of the value of the items to do this for us, but we have heard cruiser stories that customs does not necessarily honor these approvals. I am now convinced that there is more bureaucracy in Mexico than in the United States. If one out of six persons in the U.S. is being paid by a government agency, then the ratio must be one out of three in this country, and the other two must be fishermen or shop owners from our limited perspective.
I have re-installed the autopilot and done a check of it at anchor, but we are waiting until tomorrow to test it out in the bay. I’m almost afraid to test it because I don’t want to find out that it doesn’t work. So far we have spent more than the cost of an entirely new autopilot to get this one repaired and calibrated, if we count in the shipping and customs duties. This is all part of the cruiser experience that I am documenting in this blog – just so you don’t think that everything is completely wonderful. Naturally we choose to put up with these out-of-country difficulties to have the mild tropical climate far from the cold of the U.S. this winter.
At the moment Sheilagh is even questioning the climate benefit against the problems of always being concerned about the availability of water, the pumping out of our holding tank, the lack of ease of walking a block to a convenience store for something we are missing, the possibility of dragging our anchor, or (worse yet) the dragging of someone else’s anchor that puts them in a position to run into us. Most of the cruisers are leaving our keys in the ignition and our windlass powered (the windlass raises the anchor); so that others can rescue our boat if we are in town while our boat is threatening, or being threatened by, another boat in the anchorage.
We met Jake and Sharon from the boat, Jake out of Seattle, Washington, and had appetizers and drinks on their boat the other evening. They have a Hunter 45 with a width of 13’10” (about a foot wider than ours and five feet longer), and it seems very roomy compared with our boat. The interesting fact is that they have been living on a boat of some sort during the past 20 years or so. Both were professionals who had to have a professional wardrobe while they were living aboard – Jake in financial accounting and Sharon as a teacher. They kept these wardrobes on the boat, alternating a winter and summer wardrobe with a storage location on shore. Jake mentioned that the need for a suit had declined over the past several years, so he had been down to one formal suit and wore business casual most of the time, which was my experience as well. I have heard that some companies are going back to suits and ties; so I am very thankful that I could get out of the rat race when I did.
Sheilagh and I took a “primo” bus into Manzanillo from Barra de Navidad yesterday. A “Primo” bus has soft, comfortable seats, air-conditioning, curtains on the windows, a good suspension system, and very few stops – exactly the opposite of the local buses. It cost us about $4.50 apiece for an hour-long, one-way trip to the local Wal-Mart and Soriana stores (Soriana is the local equivalent of Wal-Mart). Previously we had sailed our boat down to Manzanillo – a four-hour trip at a minimum – to ship out our autopilot. The one-hour bus ride down (and one-hour back) was much easier than the boat ride for a simple shopping trip. Our manually-operated blender had broken down, denying us that essential Mexican drink – a blended Margarita. We decided it was time for an electric blender because the electricity we saved by hand-cranking the manual blender to break down the ice cubes was not worth the effort.
We bought a good blender at Wal-Mart, but found it was missing a knob when we got all the way back to the boat. A metal washer took the place of the knob, since it would not have been worth the journey back. We have noticed that it is difficult to find a boxed item in the small appliance section of either Soriana or Wal-Mart that hasn’t been opened previously. Apparently a lot of cannibalizing of parts goes on in these sections of the stores that we need to be aware of for the future. Next time we’ll have to open a few boxes ourselves and make sure we have all the parts before we leave the store. We also bought a few DVD’s to augment what we already have, and made sure to get our cheeseburger and fries fix at the Burger King next to the Soriana store.
Since we had gotten off the “Primo” bus at Soriana’s, we had to take a local bus back to Santiago (Mexico not Chile) to get to a “Primo” bus station. We got off a bit early, when the local bus took a turn away from our intended destination, but we finally got directions from a local citizen and got some exercise walking a few blocks to the correct bus station. As I look back on my years owning a car, I don’t believe I could ever have given someone directions to either a local bus stop or a “primo” bus station. It reminds me of how much of the support infrastructure we are not familiar with depending on our lifestyles. No wonder our legislators in Washington (and in Sacramento) are out of touch with the rest of the country, if we ourselves are out of touch with what goes on around us every day.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but the bus drivers in Mexico (local or “primo”) decorate the space around their seats much as cubicle dwellers in the business world decorate their cubicles. There is an abundance of Our Lady of Guadalupe pictures that are no doubt intended to help provide divine protection for the drivers from traffic accidents. The gear shift lever arising from the floor is often decorated with a leather sheath and tassels with the name of the driver’s wife or girlfriend worked into the leather.
The local bus driver on this trip had a woven tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe above the window combined with his and his wife’s name embroidered on it, possibly a wedding gift or a warning from the wife for other women to keep their hands off. The “primo” bus driver on the way out had a crucifix and a graphic of the head of Jesus with a crown of thorns, possibly a statement of how he viewed his job. And the returning “primo” bus driver had a white, fur-edged mirror with three stuffed frogs of different types hanging from it and from the ceiling. My thought was that the last driver didn’t feel the need for divine intervention, or he was worshipping a god with which I was not familiar.
More later . . .
The swells outside the lagoon are extremely high and breaking very loudly on the beaches around here. At night we wake up occasionally swearing that we hear thunder, but it is only the waves breaking on the beaches. Inside the lagoon we are protected from these swells. We also have a dock-like wall to which we can tie our dinghies when we need to go into town, so we don’t have to handle landing and taking off from a beach. We understand that the higher swells in Tenacatita (just north of us) have confined some cruisers to their boats, since the waves breaking on the beach are too much to handle with a dinghy – and there are no docks there.
We finally got our mail from early February and found several tax forms among the junk mail, along with a notice from the IRS that we are being audited for 2005. That pretty well sealed the fact that we need to return home in April and pick up some documentation prior to filing our taxes for the year, especially since the IRS told us we needed to reply 30 days after the date of the notice (which we got 20 days later). We’ll take care of it, but it did bring up the concern of how we handle the same type of notice if we are in the South Pacific. We may need to keep 7 years of tax papers with us on the boat or find a good spot to keep them. There is probably someone who has already started a business of holding cruisers’ financial papers while they are gone; we just need to find the service.
We also received our repaired autopilot after paying more customs on the components we had sent out to be repaired. Apparently we were supposed to have found some official in Mexico and gotten a stamped approval that the serial-numbered items we were sending back to be fixed were actually in use on our boat and therefore not subject to customs. No one can tell us just who is authorized to give us this approval – an approval that would be accepted by customs upon the return of the items. There are agents who would charge us 5% of the value of the items to do this for us, but we have heard cruiser stories that customs does not necessarily honor these approvals. I am now convinced that there is more bureaucracy in Mexico than in the United States. If one out of six persons in the U.S. is being paid by a government agency, then the ratio must be one out of three in this country, and the other two must be fishermen or shop owners from our limited perspective.
I have re-installed the autopilot and done a check of it at anchor, but we are waiting until tomorrow to test it out in the bay. I’m almost afraid to test it because I don’t want to find out that it doesn’t work. So far we have spent more than the cost of an entirely new autopilot to get this one repaired and calibrated, if we count in the shipping and customs duties. This is all part of the cruiser experience that I am documenting in this blog – just so you don’t think that everything is completely wonderful. Naturally we choose to put up with these out-of-country difficulties to have the mild tropical climate far from the cold of the U.S. this winter.
At the moment Sheilagh is even questioning the climate benefit against the problems of always being concerned about the availability of water, the pumping out of our holding tank, the lack of ease of walking a block to a convenience store for something we are missing, the possibility of dragging our anchor, or (worse yet) the dragging of someone else’s anchor that puts them in a position to run into us. Most of the cruisers are leaving our keys in the ignition and our windlass powered (the windlass raises the anchor); so that others can rescue our boat if we are in town while our boat is threatening, or being threatened by, another boat in the anchorage.
We met Jake and Sharon from the boat, Jake out of Seattle, Washington, and had appetizers and drinks on their boat the other evening. They have a Hunter 45 with a width of 13’10” (about a foot wider than ours and five feet longer), and it seems very roomy compared with our boat. The interesting fact is that they have been living on a boat of some sort during the past 20 years or so. Both were professionals who had to have a professional wardrobe while they were living aboard – Jake in financial accounting and Sharon as a teacher. They kept these wardrobes on the boat, alternating a winter and summer wardrobe with a storage location on shore. Jake mentioned that the need for a suit had declined over the past several years, so he had been down to one formal suit and wore business casual most of the time, which was my experience as well. I have heard that some companies are going back to suits and ties; so I am very thankful that I could get out of the rat race when I did.
Sheilagh and I took a “primo” bus into Manzanillo from Barra de Navidad yesterday. A “Primo” bus has soft, comfortable seats, air-conditioning, curtains on the windows, a good suspension system, and very few stops – exactly the opposite of the local buses. It cost us about $4.50 apiece for an hour-long, one-way trip to the local Wal-Mart and Soriana stores (Soriana is the local equivalent of Wal-Mart). Previously we had sailed our boat down to Manzanillo – a four-hour trip at a minimum – to ship out our autopilot. The one-hour bus ride down (and one-hour back) was much easier than the boat ride for a simple shopping trip. Our manually-operated blender had broken down, denying us that essential Mexican drink – a blended Margarita. We decided it was time for an electric blender because the electricity we saved by hand-cranking the manual blender to break down the ice cubes was not worth the effort.
We bought a good blender at Wal-Mart, but found it was missing a knob when we got all the way back to the boat. A metal washer took the place of the knob, since it would not have been worth the journey back. We have noticed that it is difficult to find a boxed item in the small appliance section of either Soriana or Wal-Mart that hasn’t been opened previously. Apparently a lot of cannibalizing of parts goes on in these sections of the stores that we need to be aware of for the future. Next time we’ll have to open a few boxes ourselves and make sure we have all the parts before we leave the store. We also bought a few DVD’s to augment what we already have, and made sure to get our cheeseburger and fries fix at the Burger King next to the Soriana store.
Since we had gotten off the “Primo” bus at Soriana’s, we had to take a local bus back to Santiago (Mexico not Chile) to get to a “Primo” bus station. We got off a bit early, when the local bus took a turn away from our intended destination, but we finally got directions from a local citizen and got some exercise walking a few blocks to the correct bus station. As I look back on my years owning a car, I don’t believe I could ever have given someone directions to either a local bus stop or a “primo” bus station. It reminds me of how much of the support infrastructure we are not familiar with depending on our lifestyles. No wonder our legislators in Washington (and in Sacramento) are out of touch with the rest of the country, if we ourselves are out of touch with what goes on around us every day.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but the bus drivers in Mexico (local or “primo”) decorate the space around their seats much as cubicle dwellers in the business world decorate their cubicles. There is an abundance of Our Lady of Guadalupe pictures that are no doubt intended to help provide divine protection for the drivers from traffic accidents. The gear shift lever arising from the floor is often decorated with a leather sheath and tassels with the name of the driver’s wife or girlfriend worked into the leather.
The local bus driver on this trip had a woven tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe above the window combined with his and his wife’s name embroidered on it, possibly a wedding gift or a warning from the wife for other women to keep their hands off. The “primo” bus driver on the way out had a crucifix and a graphic of the head of Jesus with a crown of thorns, possibly a statement of how he viewed his job. And the returning “primo” bus driver had a white, fur-edged mirror with three stuffed frogs of different types hanging from it and from the ceiling. My thought was that the last driver didn’t feel the need for divine intervention, or he was worshipping a god with which I was not familiar.
More later . . .
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