We are now in La Paz after a bit of a rugged passage from Mazatlan. If we were to have gone directly to La Paz from Mazatlan we would have had a 52 hour trip, which means two consecutive overnights with no break in between – it’s very difficult to park by the side of the road in a sailboat, or stop at a fast food place to break up the trip! So we planned a two-part trip: 30 hours from Mazatlan to Los Muertos, and then a second 12-hour segment after some rest at anchor in between.
The forecast for the “Southern Crossing” (Mazatlan to Cabo San Lucas or to La Paz) was ideal for Friday and was supposed to hold over on Saturday. That forecast would have given us tail winds and a fairly smooth sea. However, we had not completed all the provisioning and work that we had planned before setting out. Also, I mentioned in an earlier blog that I am not superstitious generally, but there are so many instances of disastrous voyages that commenced on Friday, that we think it wise to forego leaving on that day.
On Saturday our propane tank was delayed in being filled, which caused us to get it back at 2PM, a time for starting out that would have gotten us to Los Muertos after sunset – not a good time of the day to be coming into an anchorage. Although we could have increased the engine speed to make it a bit earlier, the wind was blowing at 15-20 knots directly into our proposed path as we got ready to set out. There were also whitecaps on the waves with swells working against the path we would be taking. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to help us decide to put off our trip until the next morning.
So, while most of you were preparing for Memorial Day barbecues and family outings on Sunday, we set out at 6AM for the 180 nautical mile trip (a nautical mile is 15% longer than the miles we use on the highways). Over time the weather kicked up to what it had been the previous day, and neither Sheilagh nor I were feeling completely healthy. The attached video shows how it was in the early stages of the day and we haven't shown pictures of the stuff strewn around the cabin from the later bumpy ride.
For 18 hours we rode a bucking bronco (okay, hobby horse) over four-foot seas with swells just 4 seconds apart. We cranked up the engine and that only helped to bury the bow into the incoming swell as we plunged over the last one. That slowed us down significantly even though we were using both our sails and the engine to make the six knots we had planned for. What was worse was the constantly jolting ride that had no consistency about it. I should hasten to add that this was not even close to being that kind of hardship that mariners encounter when they ride 40-60’ seas around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, but it was not pleasant.
At about midnight the wind and the swells declined significantly; so we could make up some of the time we had lost bucking the waves. During this “uncomfortable” day we began asking ourselves what it might be like to encounter the same conditions for 20 days in a row, if we were to head for the South Pacific and got into some weather. We decided that we much prefer day trips that can be put off until we actually see the weather we will be encountering.
However, there were some good aspects of the trip. We didn’t put on any weight because neither of us felt like eating anything. At one point we got to see a marlin jumping continuously as it went by, and it wasn’t even connected to a fishing line. We also saw several turtles floating on the surface and at least two schools of dolphins playing together a ways from the boat – no, the dolphins were not molesting the turtles. At one point I saw several dolphins cutting across from where they were playing on a direct line to the bow of our boat. I had forgotten to take the camera with me; so I can only describe that there were about 6 dolphins cruising in the bow wave caused by our boat, constantly rising and falling on the wave, jumping at times, and seeming to make way for one another to come into the main flow of the water. As soon as I decided they would be there long enough, I ran back to the cockpit, grabbed the camera and returned to find no dolphins anywhere. That’s often the way it is, but I want to assure you that I wasn’t suffering from some sort of hallucinogenic vision at the time – at least I don’t think so.
When we sail at night we always wear life vests with tethers that we clip to the boat; so one of us won’t be lost overboard without the other one being aware. Often there is only one of us in the cockpit on watch at any given time. We also rig jack lines from the bow to the stern on both sides of the boat, which we clip into when we have to go forward; so we’re always connected to the boat. We also have a rule that we don’t go forward at night, even on a jack line, unless the other one is in the cockpit observing the process. These life vests are fairly light weight, but the back collar has always cut into our necks and caused us to be uncomfortable on watch. On our trip to California we picked up some sheepskin, and Sheilagh fashioned collars out of the material for the collars of the life preservers. If we ever fall overboard and are found by another boat, they may think we’re aviators with the aviation-like look we have when we’re wearing them. They are certainly a lot more comfortable than before.
We made it to Los Muertos almost exactly 30 hours after our departure, arriving at just after noon. There was only one other sailboat in the anchorage, and it looked as if the Giggling Marlin Restaurant on the beach was closed. Our intent was to leave the anchorage at midnight for the 12-hour run up to La Paz, allowing us to negotiate some tricky waters after sunup and arrive at Marina La Paz at noon on Tuesday. We had a late lunch at 2PM and hit the rack for some sleep soon after.
At 11:30PM we woke up and prepared to set out at midnight. We were immediately disoriented because the wind had changed, the boats on our right were now on our left, and we couldn’t seem to get oriented to the direction we needed to take to get us out of the bay. It didn’t help that there was no moon and everything was absolutely black. We decided it wasn’t essential that we leave at midnight; so we went back to sleep to wait for the moon to rise in a couple of hours. At 2:30 we woke up again with the moon out and found it very easy to get our bearings. We pulled up the anchor and set out at 3AM with a beautiful evening full of moon and stars and a flat sea. It was our first launch at night, and everything worked out fine.
We had planned to arrive in La Paz about 12 hours after our departure, but we found that the current was strongly in our favor from 8AM on, and we arrived at about noon, having motored on a calm sea the entire way. We were assigned a slip in Marina La Paz that would have required some tricky maneuvering with a 1.8-knot current pushing us sideways into a cement pier with a work platform in the way of our maneuvering. We expressed our concern and the marina sent out a power boat to move the work platform, after which we sailed into the slip without any trouble. Friends caught our lines and tied us off, after which we grabbed a quick lunch and slept for the rest of the day. I can only surmise that the vigilance of keeping alert during a passage takes a lot out of us despite our lack of exercise or hard labor in the process.
That night we went to dinner with Ed and Cornelia of ‘A Cappella’ (old friends) and Barry and Pat of ‘Pacific Voyager,’ whom we had last seen at Barra de Navidad several months before. We had great ribs and hamburgers at ‘Bandidos Restaurant,’ which is a permanent location in the backyard of a local house for what was once a street vendor who cooked his meat on a grill over his pickup engine – the pickup being the transportation on the street. He still uses the grill on the pickup, but now uses a deep fat fryer for the French fries on another stove, and has expanded his operation to include tables and chairs set among the palm trees and served by attentive waiters and waitresses with music from large speakers set around the yard. Everything was excellent and a unique experience altogether. We both hit the bunks again that night and slept until dawn. More later . .
Friday, May 30, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
May 23rd – Marina El Cid, Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #46
We dusted the bird shit from our sandals and made tracks from Isla Isabela just after the last blog. The first thing we did was get out of the wind blowing off the island, turn all the fans on in the boat, and expunge all birdlike aromas from the environment. We had a great day of sailing with the wind just off our nose, making 5 knots to the northwest in 10 knots of wind on a fairly calm sea. The difficult passages usually result when the wind has been blowing awhile and the swells have kicked up to 4-6’ in size and we are forced to plow through them. Every time the boat dips over a swell and into the next one, there is spray blown over the bow of the boat and the boat shudders a bit as it recovers from the impact to the wave. In this case we had very small swells; so the sailing was very enjoyable.
We had to sail overnight and were contacted by another sailboat, Harmony, close behind us with Virginia and Robert onboard. We had a bit of discussion in the wee hours of the night or morning with “Ginn” and learned that they were coming north from Ecuador to Mazatlan, and then on to San Carlos to put up their boat for a 6-month visit to the U.S. During the night they passed us, since we were reefed down to a staysail and a very short mainsail for safety at night. We were also planning to arrive after dawn and just about the time the marina would be open. We ended up tying up at the fuel dock at Marina El Cid at about 8AM and waiting until 9AM when the marina and the fuel dock opened for business. There was the sailing vessel, Harmony, at the dock, waiting since 7AM for the fuel dock to open. We had a chance to meet Rob and Ginn and talk a bit before we both got fueled, at which point they sailed off the same day for San Carlos, a two-day trip farther north from Mazatlan.
We welcomed the opportunity to rest a few days at Marina El Cid, with access to several swimming pools, bars (with seats in the swimming pool), fresh water, electricity, and cable TV once again. We’ve been busy while we’ve been here, cleaning up the boat, servicing the winches, and relaxing – yes, it takes effort to relax when you’ve been involved in raising a family for 30+ years and still haven’t got the hang of the leisure life. One could argue that it’s not possible to appreciate relaxation unless you have experienced the opposite – similar to the philosophical thought that one can’t appreciate “good” if there is no “evil” to compare it to. In that respect we certainly appreciate the relaxation we have, although we both can’t sit very long without thinking of something that needs fixing or cleaning.
As part of the cleaning process this week we washed the boat, cleaned all the windows (called port lights on the side of the cabin and hatches on the top), cleaned out the bilge, and did a gigantic load of wash. We also got out to Wal-Mart and purchased a replacement for our widescreen TV that was acting up. We now have a 20” screen instead of the old 15” screen, and are enjoying the movies and news for a short time yet. We will be playing our movies on the new screen, so it will be of value even without the cable hookup.
We also spent three afternoons breaking down our seven winches (two on the first day, two large ones on the second day, and three smaller ones on the third day), cleaning them thoroughly, greasing them up again, and putting them back together without having extra pieces left over. The winches are supposed to be cleaned and serviced every couple of years, and it looked as if ours had never been serviced in the 11 years they’ve been in use. We had to use tools to scrape off the old dried grease, tooth by tooth on the main gear, and each of two nested sets of gears, in each winch. We did this using a pan of diesel fuel to wash off all the parts, and then we greased everything up by hand. We worked in the cockpit with the gears and bearings set out in the order in which we removed them, and used steel brushes, tooth brushes, screwdrivers, rags and paper towels to clean everything up.
We both detest rubber gloves; so we had to live with diesel-smelling hands for a couple of days, although we washed and showered after each day of work. The winches took about two hours apiece to complete, and we timed the work each day to start at 4PM in the afternoon to take advantage of the bimini shades on the boat and the cooling breezes. The mornings would have been cooler, but the slant of the sun under the bimini would have made it a lot warmer. That also allowed us to shower and relax at dinner. It certainly feels good to have the winches serviced, and we are both impressed with the precise machining of the parts that we’ve been working on.
We have also taken some time to relax at one of the swimming pools most days, although our experience a couple of days ago was unique. I went out early to find a place to relax, but was unable to find chaise lounges in the shade immediately around the pool. Then I noticed some lounges in the grass under a set of trees and grabbed two of them. A little while later Sheilagh came tripping over the grass toward me and suddenly stopped short, startled and shuddering. Then I noticed that there were some five very ugly 3’ long iguanas stationed on the grass around the lounges I had selected, and there was no way Sheilagh was going to run that gauntlet. I drove them off using a couple of sandals smacked together, and they stayed away long enough for Sheilagh to get settled. After that they stayed about five feet away and dozed in the sun. Of course, Sheilagh kept checking under her chaise lounge to make sure that none of the iguanas was setting up housekeeping there. Since then we have lounged with the lizards and they have become far less fearful. Nevertheless Sheilagh is not interested in adopting one as a pet on the boat to take care of insects – I can’t see why not.
It's a truism about cruising that there's always something else to repair or fix. The water pump that supplies pressure to all our fresh water faucets started acting up a couple of days ago. It kept running longer than the normal time it took to pressurize the accumulator, and it was quite loud. Since Sheilagh is the designated plumber in the family, she took it upon herself to troubleshoot the problem for several hours. Of course that meant taking all the pots and pans out from beneath the sink, removing a drawer and a cupboard door, and taking up the floor over the components in the back berth. She checked out everything and found no reason for it not to work. We contacted a boat mechanic in the marina, who took a look at it and suggested that it had served its time over the past 11 years. He didn’t have any replacement pumps, but suggested a dealer in La Paz who can help us replace the pump in the next few days.
We also ran into a problem with getting ballots in the mail in a timely fashion. We missed the primary because our ballots didn’t get to us in time, and now only Sheilagh received a ballot for the local election in early June. Apparently I had missed a previous election due to travel, and now I have to reapply for permanent mail-in ballot status. It appears the world isn’t really set up for folks who don’t want to hang around the hearth and home. I certainly don’t want to pass up my chance to vote in the U.S. despite my being away.
Today we walked a few blocks from the hotel to Henderson’s, which is the only place in town recommended for providing aged meat that is similar to what we can get in the States. It’s an out-of-the-way place, tucked into an alcove in a small strip mall, and it has a sign that simply says “Henderson’s.” As we walked in we found four or five large deep freezers with sliding glass lids and signs on the walls detailing the costs of the various cuts of meat. The salesgirl knew right where certain cuts of beef or pork chops were buried under other meat in the various freezers. We started out with six filet mignons, four pork chops, two large packs of aracerra, and several other cuts of meat. As the salesgirl was ringing up the order, we checked to make sure that she took a credit card (tarjeta de credito) and found that she didn’t. We pulled out our cash and realized we had only brought the equivalent of $100 with us and found out there was no ATM nearby. As we prepared ourselves to put some of the meat back, we were presented with a bill of 570 pesos ($57). We were astounded, but paid the money and got out quickly before the total could change. Now our freezer is full of meat and there's no place to make ice cubes - always a trade-off.
Our next stop was a package store for a case of beer and one of diet coke, which we strapped to our collapsible lift truck – the whole shopping trip costing less than $100. We must have been accosted by a dozen taxi drivers or pulmonia drivers to take us the four blocks back to the hotel/marina. “Pulmonias are open-air taxis, similar to large golf carts with two sets of seats, front and back, and a small space for packages in back. We had used one to bring our new TV and other food purchases from Wal-Mart a couple of days before. We declined all offers and simply wheeled the load back on the lift truck. The lift truck was one of the items we brought back from the States in April. It folds flat and small, with the wheels swiveled sideways during the collapsing process. We got it at West Marine and it’s great for toting groceries, fuel cans, etc.
Tomorrow we set off for La Paz, first sailing overnight directly to Los Muertos on the Baja peninsula, resting there a night and then on to La Paz the following day. The winds are predicted to be ideal for the trip and we are looking forward to it. We will be delayed a bit to get our propane tank topped off, something which takes place on Saturday here at Marina El Cid. We left our tank with the office Friday night and are expecting it back at noon on Saturday. Then we’ll set out on the 30-hour trip to Los Muertos. We’ll report again from La Paz. More later . . .
We had to sail overnight and were contacted by another sailboat, Harmony, close behind us with Virginia and Robert onboard. We had a bit of discussion in the wee hours of the night or morning with “Ginn” and learned that they were coming north from Ecuador to Mazatlan, and then on to San Carlos to put up their boat for a 6-month visit to the U.S. During the night they passed us, since we were reefed down to a staysail and a very short mainsail for safety at night. We were also planning to arrive after dawn and just about the time the marina would be open. We ended up tying up at the fuel dock at Marina El Cid at about 8AM and waiting until 9AM when the marina and the fuel dock opened for business. There was the sailing vessel, Harmony, at the dock, waiting since 7AM for the fuel dock to open. We had a chance to meet Rob and Ginn and talk a bit before we both got fueled, at which point they sailed off the same day for San Carlos, a two-day trip farther north from Mazatlan.
We welcomed the opportunity to rest a few days at Marina El Cid, with access to several swimming pools, bars (with seats in the swimming pool), fresh water, electricity, and cable TV once again. We’ve been busy while we’ve been here, cleaning up the boat, servicing the winches, and relaxing – yes, it takes effort to relax when you’ve been involved in raising a family for 30+ years and still haven’t got the hang of the leisure life. One could argue that it’s not possible to appreciate relaxation unless you have experienced the opposite – similar to the philosophical thought that one can’t appreciate “good” if there is no “evil” to compare it to. In that respect we certainly appreciate the relaxation we have, although we both can’t sit very long without thinking of something that needs fixing or cleaning.As part of the cleaning process this week we washed the boat, cleaned all the windows (called port lights on the side of the cabin and hatches on the top), cleaned out the bilge, and did a gigantic load of wash. We also got out to Wal-Mart and purchased a replacement for our widescreen TV that was acting up. We now have a 20” screen instead of the old 15” screen, and are enjoying the movies and news for a short time yet. We will be playing our movies on the new screen, so it will be of value even without the cable hookup.
We also spent three afternoons breaking down our seven winches (two on the first day, two large ones on the second day, and three smaller ones on the third day), cleaning them thoroughly, greasing them up again, and putting them back together without having extra pieces left over. The winches are supposed to be cleaned and serviced every couple of years, and it looked as if ours had never been serviced in the 11 years they’ve been in use. We had to use tools to scrape off the old dried grease, tooth by tooth on the main gear, and each of two nested sets of gears, in each winch. We did this using a pan of diesel fuel to wash off all the parts, and then we greased everything up by hand. We worked in the cockpit with the gears and bearings set out in the order in which we removed them, and used steel brushes, tooth brushes, screwdrivers, rags and paper towels to clean everything up.
We both detest rubber gloves; so we had to live with diesel-smelling hands for a couple of days, although we washed and showered after each day of work. The winches took about two hours apiece to complete, and we timed the work each day to start at 4PM in the afternoon to take advantage of the bimini shades on the boat and the cooling breezes. The mornings would have been cooler, but the slant of the sun under the bimini would have made it a lot warmer. That also allowed us to shower and relax at dinner. It certainly feels good to have the winches serviced, and we are both impressed with the precise machining of the parts that we’ve been working on.
We have also taken some time to relax at one of the swimming pools most days, although our experience a couple of days ago was unique. I went out early to find a place to relax, but was unable to find chaise lounges in the shade immediately around the pool. Then I noticed some lounges in the grass under a set of trees and grabbed two of them. A little while later Sheilagh came tripping over the grass toward me and suddenly stopped short, startled and shuddering. Then I noticed that there were some five very ugly 3’ long iguanas stationed on the grass around the lounges I had selected, and there was no way Sheilagh was going to run that gauntlet. I drove them off using a couple of sandals smacked together, and they stayed away long enough for Sheilagh to get settled. After that they stayed about five feet away and dozed in the sun. Of course, Sheilagh kept checking under her chaise lounge to make sure that none of the iguanas was setting up housekeeping there. Since then we have lounged with the lizards and they have become far less fearful. Nevertheless Sheilagh is not interested in adopting one as a pet on the boat to take care of insects – I can’t see why not.It's a truism about cruising that there's always something else to repair or fix. The water pump that supplies pressure to all our fresh water faucets started acting up a couple of days ago. It kept running longer than the normal time it took to pressurize the accumulator, and it was quite loud. Since Sheilagh is the designated plumber in the family, she took it upon herself to troubleshoot the problem for several hours. Of course that meant taking all the pots and pans out from beneath the sink, removing a drawer and a cupboard door, and taking up the floor over the components in the back berth. She checked out everything and found no reason for it not to work. We contacted a boat mechanic in the marina, who took a look at it and suggested that it had served its time over the past 11 years. He didn’t have any replacement pumps, but suggested a dealer in La Paz who can help us replace the pump in the next few days.
We also ran into a problem with getting ballots in the mail in a timely fashion. We missed the primary because our ballots didn’t get to us in time, and now only Sheilagh received a ballot for the local election in early June. Apparently I had missed a previous election due to travel, and now I have to reapply for permanent mail-in ballot status. It appears the world isn’t really set up for folks who don’t want to hang around the hearth and home. I certainly don’t want to pass up my chance to vote in the U.S. despite my being away.
Today we walked a few blocks from the hotel to Henderson’s, which is the only place in town recommended for providing aged meat that is similar to what we can get in the States. It’s an out-of-the-way place, tucked into an alcove in a small strip mall, and it has a sign that simply says “Henderson’s.” As we walked in we found four or five large deep freezers with sliding glass lids and signs on the walls detailing the costs of the various cuts of meat. The salesgirl knew right where certain cuts of beef or pork chops were buried under other meat in the various freezers. We started out with six filet mignons, four pork chops, two large packs of aracerra, and several other cuts of meat. As the salesgirl was ringing up the order, we checked to make sure that she took a credit card (tarjeta de credito) and found that she didn’t. We pulled out our cash and realized we had only brought the equivalent of $100 with us and found out there was no ATM nearby. As we prepared ourselves to put some of the meat back, we were presented with a bill of 570 pesos ($57). We were astounded, but paid the money and got out quickly before the total could change. Now our freezer is full of meat and there's no place to make ice cubes - always a trade-off.
Our next stop was a package store for a case of beer and one of diet coke, which we strapped to our collapsible lift truck – the whole shopping trip costing less than $100. We must have been accosted by a dozen taxi drivers or pulmonia drivers to take us the four blocks back to the hotel/marina. “Pulmonias are open-air taxis, similar to large golf carts with two sets of seats, front and back, and a small space for packages in back. We had used one to bring our new TV and other food purchases from Wal-Mart a couple of days before. We declined all offers and simply wheeled the load back on the lift truck. The lift truck was one of the items we brought back from the States in April. It folds flat and small, with the wheels swiveled sideways during the collapsing process. We got it at West Marine and it’s great for toting groceries, fuel cans, etc.
Tomorrow we set off for La Paz, first sailing overnight directly to Los Muertos on the Baja peninsula, resting there a night and then on to La Paz the following day. The winds are predicted to be ideal for the trip and we are looking forward to it. We will be delayed a bit to get our propane tank topped off, something which takes place on Saturday here at Marina El Cid. We left our tank with the office Friday night and are expecting it back at noon on Saturday. Then we’ll set out on the 30-hour trip to Los Muertos. We’ll report again from La Paz. More later . . .
Sunday, May 18, 2008
May 16th – Isla Isabela – Jim’s Blog #45
We had a very enjoyable stay in San Blas for several days and have now moved on to Isla Isabela, a National Wildlife Preserve that was made famous by Jacques Cousteau in one of his films over 30 years ago. On our way down the coast we had to pass up anchoring here due to a crowded anchorage and a southern ocean swell that would have made anchoring difficult. This time we arrived at about 2PM yesterday to find the anchorage empty, and only one other boat joined us later in the afternoon. There was very little wind all day, so we motor-sailed over, using our mainsail to assist the engine with what little wind there was. The 30 mile passage took us about 5 hours of autopilot-and-GPS-guided effortless voyaging to arrive exactly at the anchorage.
We arrived in Isla Isabella to the sight of hundreds of birds circling in the sky and an initial smell of bird shit (“eau de avian” according to Ed of A Cappella), which had us wondering why we came. We shut up the boat from the “fresh air” of Isla Isabela on the first night to get away from the smell, using our fans to circulate the cooler air in the boat – not sure what we would do when it got hotter on the next day. We met John and Bridget of Sailsoon (in the picture), who were anchored next to us, and they offered to guide us on a tour of the main island. Note the black dots in the air above were hundreds of birds circling over the rather barren island.
We arrived in Isla Isabella to the sight of hundreds of birds circling in the sky and an initial smell of bird shit (“eau de avian” according to Ed of A Cappella), which had us wondering why we came. We shut up the boat from the “fresh air” of Isla Isabela on the first night to get away from the smell, using our fans to circulate the cooler air in the boat – not sure what we would do when it got hotter on the next day. We met John and Bridget of Sailsoon (in the picture), who were anchored next to us, and they offered to guide us on a tour of the main island. Note the black dots in the air above were hundreds of birds circling over the rather barren island. 
There are some trails over and around this volcanic tip of an island, but they are sometimes difficult to follow. Frankly, if we hadn’t had John and Bridget as guides, we probably would have turned back any number of times. This is an example of a frigate bird, fairly newly hatched, sitting about eye-level in the trees. If we weren't careful we could walk right under them and possibly get a dose of bird shit as we did so. 
The rather rugged trail goes over the top of the edge of the crater and down to the edge of Lago Crater (Crater Lake) and then over the lip on the other side – all of this to get to the blue-footed boobies on the north end of the island. It seems the frigate birds control the southern half of the island, and they are nesting everywhere – nests on the ground and nests in the trees, I’m talking eye-level. The trail passed through a wilderness of volcanic rock and dried up trees with twigs poking out into the trail. Then suddenly we would be circling a banana grove, with small pineapples just emerging from some low plants. We saw lizards and iguanas in addition to frigate birds, but had to step carefully to avoid loose lave rocks, burrows into the earth, and spider webs strung across the path. This was an other-worldly trip where we expected dinosaurs or aliens at any time.
When we finally got to the north shore we saw just one blue-footed boobie (and here it is), several yellow-footed ones, and some green-footed ones. We grabbed a couple of pictures to show that we had been there, but no one was handing out the T-shirts; so we had to make do with the pictures. We were expecting crowds of blue-footed boobies with mothers squawking to keep us away from eggs or young ones in nests, but this was the end of the dry season and probably not a good time to give birth to young birds. Our guides, John and Bridget, said that they had been to the island in the rainy season with lots of small birds in nests, leaves on the dry trees we had been passing through and bananas hanging heavy in the banana grove. In the course of the hike we got to smell sulfur from the lake in the crater along with the smell of, you guessed it, more bird shit.I actually had the thought that the Galapagos might not be the wonderful place I have been envisioning, if the smell is this bad. I tried to eat a ham sandwich for lunch and all I could smell was bird shit, which caused my stomach to reject the food. Sheilagh suggested this might be the basis for a new diet – just rub some bird shit lotion under your nose before eating, and anything you tried to eat would turn your stomach. We are scheduled to leave tomorrow for a 15-hour trip to Mazatlan, but we may end up leaving earlier, if we can’t keep any food down.
This is the lovely Sheilagh pausing in her efforts to organize the famous Manos Verdes (Green Hands) Dinghy prior to going into the beach. Yes, she's still smiling. This is an attempt to break up the discussion of bird shit for a brief moment or two.Later in the day we invited John and Bridget over for a spaghetti dinner that evening and a chance to get to know one another better. I was feeling queasy all afternoon. I couldn’t get the smell of bird shit out of my nostrils and each time I noticed the smell a bit stronger, it went right to my stomach. About an hour before our guests were due to come over, Sheilagh pulled out some cherry syrup that was advertised as a way to settle an upset stomach, and I took the allotted dose. No sooner did I swallow it than my stomach protested in a big way and strongly urged me to get to a head. I made it to the head in time, dropped to my knees, and began “worshipping at the porcelain shrine” as my daughter, Kimberly, would have put it.
My stomach felt a bit better after the purging, but it was a little late to cancel the dinner. I made it through dinner with very little food consumption by me and I was a bit quieter during the conversation than I usually am. It’s difficult to “keep it all together” when one has the constant urge to puke. I was ready to take off last night and get away from the smell, but fishermen had ringed the anchorage with buoys guarding nets at about 5PM, preventing our escape until morning, when the buoys and nets would be pulled in. Not to belabor my pain and anguish, I made it through the night and we set off for Mazatlan by noon. Nothing like the smell of fresh air blowing over the boat!
I’m convinced that people who want to preserve nature in its primitive state have never experienced it in its primitive state. Isla Isabela could use some heavy doses of air freshener to make this a pleasant experience. Or perhaps someone could be paid to clean up after the birds, since they won’t clean up after themselves. Hey how about creating aviaries and zoos; so we can see nature in its primitive state but don’t have to smell it? Do I sound like a curmudgeon? So be it!
More later . . .
My stomach felt a bit better after the purging, but it was a little late to cancel the dinner. I made it through dinner with very little food consumption by me and I was a bit quieter during the conversation than I usually am. It’s difficult to “keep it all together” when one has the constant urge to puke. I was ready to take off last night and get away from the smell, but fishermen had ringed the anchorage with buoys guarding nets at about 5PM, preventing our escape until morning, when the buoys and nets would be pulled in. Not to belabor my pain and anguish, I made it through the night and we set off for Mazatlan by noon. Nothing like the smell of fresh air blowing over the boat!
I’m convinced that people who want to preserve nature in its primitive state have never experienced it in its primitive state. Isla Isabela could use some heavy doses of air freshener to make this a pleasant experience. Or perhaps someone could be paid to clean up after the birds, since they won’t clean up after themselves. Hey how about creating aviaries and zoos; so we can see nature in its primitive state but don’t have to smell it? Do I sound like a curmudgeon? So be it!
More later . . .
May 13th – San Blas – Jim’s Blog #44
We had a very enjoyable stay in San Blas for several days. My last posting was done on Mother’s Day, the 11th. During the rest of that day, we took a two-mile walk to the San Blas fort on the bluff overlooking the harbor to get some exercise. 
Here's the lovely Sheilagh leaning against one of the big guns that supposedly defended San Blas from some invading force. The story of the fort seems to be one of having been taken over by rebels from the Spanish, then retaken by the Spanish, then being abandoned by the Spanish to be taken over again by the rebels. In the recapture of the fort by the Spanish, a priest by the name of Mercado jumped to his death off the bluff rather than be taken. He now has a statue on top. In those days the clergy got intimately involved in politics, particularly on the side of the rebels. This is after the Spanish brought the clergy in to take the lead in converting (and subjugating) the indians. I guess the clergy developed the leadership skills, but objected to the aim of the Spanish.
A little old man came up to us on top of the fort with two bags of pamphlets and engaged us in conversation in his limited English and our limited Spanish. It turns out that he is now retired from his position as museum manager, and that in his younger days he wrote a brief history of San Blas, which was what the pamphlets were all about. Recently he had someone help him translate the original Spanish into English, and he was beaming with pride at being able to offer a bilingual history of San Blas to us at the low, low cost of 40 pesos ($4). Now that price for a pamphlet is quite steep, but we were impressed with his dedication to his "history" and his effort to support himself, so we now have a signed copy of his "book" and a picture of him and me together. The English translation leaves a lot to be desired, but the experience was priceless. 
At the top of the fort we noticed a baseball game being played down below and decided to stop by. The field and stands were in okay condition, the players were in their 20's, 30's, and 40's representing rival towns, and the crowd seemed dedicated to watching the proceedings most intently. We noticed that the teams shared batting helmets, bats, catcher paraphernalia, jerseys, etc. At these games the beer is served in half-sized bottles, possibly to limit the intake. However, we noticed rows of empty bottles at the feet of many of the fans.
On the 12th, we went into town for some shopping, picking up shrimp and oysters, along with a variety of vegetables, before grabbing several tacos for lunch at a local spot named the "Wala Wala" Restaurant - you can try to escape the hometown, but it follows you everywhere. If it were written as "Walla Walla," where I spent my boyhood, it would be pronounced "Waya Waya;" so this is as close as one can get to the spelling and pronunciation in Mexico - here's a picture.
The next attempt was to get on my knees, further forward on the kayak, and see if redistributing my weight would help. It turns out that this position raised my center of gravity, so my dunking was even more dramatic. I tried a few more waves and feel like I am on the way to success, but I have a lot more pratfalls to perform before I reach the perfection I seek. I finally pulled the kayak up onto the beach and joined Sheilagh for some lunch at the local palapa. What I hadn’t counted on was the increased size of the waves after lunch when the tide began coming in. The surfers were now active, and I had some heart-stopping moments as I paddled directly up into a couple of breaking waves to get back to the outside so I could paddle back down the estuary. I wish Sheilagh had stayed around for a shot of me rocketing up and over a breaking wave, just narrowly avoiding being thrown backward into the wave. I can see that this sport is going to take a lot of practice.
That evening we went into town to help celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima (or was it Our Lady of Lourdes?). We sat at an outdoor café on the main square and had dinner as we watched the goings-on. It appeared that the pious people in town were in the local church celebrating Mass from about 7PM to 8:30PM with a lot of singing. The rest of the town was milling about in the main square waiting for the services to be over. A couple of men had put up an erector-set-like tower in the main square with fireworks attached, and that seemed to be the focus of attention. The younger kids gradually appeared with large flat pieces of cardboard that they would hold over their heads. After the church services the crowd became quite large, covering the entire square. As we were just finishing up our dinner, we saw some of the crowd start running our way as sparks and fireworks appeared to be following them. A young man was running through the crowd carrying what appeared to be a cow made of sticks covered with fireworks that began shooting off all around. This is what had prompted the group on our side of the square to seek shelter.
The stick cow made several tours through the square, igniting bottle rockets and sparklers that leaped into the fast dispersing crowd in front of it. When all the fireworks on that contraption had exploded, someone ignited a set of pinwheels on the tower in the middle of the square, which gave off sparks as they spun around and eventually released rockets into the crowd as the stick cow had done. Now it became clear that the kids were using the cardboard pieces as shields as they ran under the tower, allowing the sparks to fall all around them. One of the rockets into the crowd caught a young man under his arm and burned a hole in his shirt, not to mention his skin, but he now had bragging rights.
The people were shrieking and laughing as all this was going on, with only a few babies crying out for some respite from the noise and confusion. There were mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, young lovers, teenagers, and kids of all ages. There were no attempts by scolding parents to keep the kids under control and no one seemed to mind that there was bedlam everywhere. The only missing element was the phalanx of attorneys who would have been present and offering their services if this had gone on in the States.
There were eventually some eight pairs of pinwheels that caused havoc in the crowd, putting everyone on edge who had any brains. Okay, if we’d had brains, we’d have gotten out of there, but we kept ourselves huddled behind some locals who unknowingly served as our shields. We had no idea ahead of time that this is how one celebrates a feast commemorating the visit of the Virgin Mary. We had expected a sedate procession from the church and around the main square with a statue of the Virgin supported on a platform of some sort – we saw no likenesses of Mary anywhere. We still can’t figure out how potentially damaging firecrackers have anything to do with celebrating a feast day for the mother of Christ.
When we returned to the beach to get our dinghy that was being watched over by Pépe (20 pesos a day for his family to keep an eye on it), we learned that Pépe had taken his very pregnant wife to the hospital to have the baby that was very ready to be born when we had arrived. His father had taken over the watch on our boat, and he reported that a baby boy had been born an hour earlier, and he was awaiting our return for our dinghy before joining them. We thanked him for his keeping watch for us, paid him a bonus, and urged him to get to the hospital himself. We were very impressed with how responsible Pépe and his family were for such a small amount of payment per day.
We left for Isla Isabela the next morning and will report on that in the next blog. More later . . .
Here's the lovely Sheilagh leaning against one of the big guns that supposedly defended San Blas from some invading force. The story of the fort seems to be one of having been taken over by rebels from the Spanish, then retaken by the Spanish, then being abandoned by the Spanish to be taken over again by the rebels. In the recapture of the fort by the Spanish, a priest by the name of Mercado jumped to his death off the bluff rather than be taken. He now has a statue on top. In those days the clergy got intimately involved in politics, particularly on the side of the rebels. This is after the Spanish brought the clergy in to take the lead in converting (and subjugating) the indians. I guess the clergy developed the leadership skills, but objected to the aim of the Spanish.
A little old man came up to us on top of the fort with two bags of pamphlets and engaged us in conversation in his limited English and our limited Spanish. It turns out that he is now retired from his position as museum manager, and that in his younger days he wrote a brief history of San Blas, which was what the pamphlets were all about. Recently he had someone help him translate the original Spanish into English, and he was beaming with pride at being able to offer a bilingual history of San Blas to us at the low, low cost of 40 pesos ($4). Now that price for a pamphlet is quite steep, but we were impressed with his dedication to his "history" and his effort to support himself, so we now have a signed copy of his "book" and a picture of him and me together. The English translation leaves a lot to be desired, but the experience was priceless. 
At the top of the fort we noticed a baseball game being played down below and decided to stop by. The field and stands were in okay condition, the players were in their 20's, 30's, and 40's representing rival towns, and the crowd seemed dedicated to watching the proceedings most intently. We noticed that the teams shared batting helmets, bats, catcher paraphernalia, jerseys, etc. At these games the beer is served in half-sized bottles, possibly to limit the intake. However, we noticed rows of empty bottles at the feet of many of the fans.
On the 12th, we went into town for some shopping, picking up shrimp and oysters, along with a variety of vegetables, before grabbing several tacos for lunch at a local spot named the "Wala Wala" Restaurant - you can try to escape the hometown, but it follows you everywhere. If it were written as "Walla Walla," where I spent my boyhood, it would be pronounced "Waya Waya;" so this is as close as one can get to the spelling and pronunciation in Mexico - here's a picture.After a return to the boat for a nap, I decided it was time to experiment with my new kayak in the surf. It was necessary to paddle down and out of the estuary to get into the ocean waves off Stoner’s Beach. Next time I’ll check the tide tables before going out, because the tide was coming in as I was going out, and my headway was minimal. I paddled over to the side of the estuary where the current wasn’t so strong and managed to make it out of, and around, the mouth of the estuary and into the ocean.
I paddled carefully toward the beach looking over my shoulder for the right-sized wave for my first efforts at kayak surfing. I realized I had to get through the larger waves to get to the small ones I wanted to practice with, but the waves had other ideas. I tried a three-foot wave almost immediately (I was looking for one-foot waves to start) and was quickly upended, as the bow of the kayak insisted on turning back into the wave. I had tied the painter of the kayak to my ankle, the paddle to my wrist, and I had a hat-with-a-neckband and sunglasses-with-a-sport-band to hold them both on. The dumped kayak began pulling me into the beach with the wave pushing it, the paddle was encumbering my efforts to get up, the glasses stayed with me, but were coated with salt water, and my hat took off on its own. I managed to grab the hat, recover the kayak, get the paddle untwisted, and shook much of the water off my glasses, just as the next wave hit and I had to hang onto everything as it pushed me to the beach.
I had just spent 30 minutes paddling the kayak against the tide and was not feeling particularly energetic after being dumped so unceremoniously; so I jumped back into the kayak and paddled back out against the waves to get back in the estuary and use the incoming tide to save my strength. At the time I thought it better to follow the dictum: “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,” rather than the one that states: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
The next day I checked the tide tables and found that I could ride the outgoing tide at 10AM, do some practicing on the beach, and let the tide bring me back in at 1PM. Sheilagh took the dinghy into town and walked to the beach to get pictures and join me for lunch. This day the waves were a bit smaller – way too small for the two or three surfers waiting for better waves before going out. In the meantime I had done some thinking and realized that my kayak needed to be moving faster when the wave hit, and I had to employ some method for keeping the bow straight ahead instead of turning. Sure enough, I caught a small wave at a faster speed and rode it into the beach, before it dumped me in front of the surfers as I failed in my attempts to keep the bow straight at the end. I easily dumped the water out of the kayak and got back out into the waves. I tried a number of ways to use the paddle to keep the bow straight and had some success, but only on smaller waves. Here's a long distance view of one of my minor successes - you can see I'm not challenging the big breakers.
I paddled carefully toward the beach looking over my shoulder for the right-sized wave for my first efforts at kayak surfing. I realized I had to get through the larger waves to get to the small ones I wanted to practice with, but the waves had other ideas. I tried a three-foot wave almost immediately (I was looking for one-foot waves to start) and was quickly upended, as the bow of the kayak insisted on turning back into the wave. I had tied the painter of the kayak to my ankle, the paddle to my wrist, and I had a hat-with-a-neckband and sunglasses-with-a-sport-band to hold them both on. The dumped kayak began pulling me into the beach with the wave pushing it, the paddle was encumbering my efforts to get up, the glasses stayed with me, but were coated with salt water, and my hat took off on its own. I managed to grab the hat, recover the kayak, get the paddle untwisted, and shook much of the water off my glasses, just as the next wave hit and I had to hang onto everything as it pushed me to the beach.
I had just spent 30 minutes paddling the kayak against the tide and was not feeling particularly energetic after being dumped so unceremoniously; so I jumped back into the kayak and paddled back out against the waves to get back in the estuary and use the incoming tide to save my strength. At the time I thought it better to follow the dictum: “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,” rather than the one that states: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
The next day I checked the tide tables and found that I could ride the outgoing tide at 10AM, do some practicing on the beach, and let the tide bring me back in at 1PM. Sheilagh took the dinghy into town and walked to the beach to get pictures and join me for lunch. This day the waves were a bit smaller – way too small for the two or three surfers waiting for better waves before going out. In the meantime I had done some thinking and realized that my kayak needed to be moving faster when the wave hit, and I had to employ some method for keeping the bow straight ahead instead of turning. Sure enough, I caught a small wave at a faster speed and rode it into the beach, before it dumped me in front of the surfers as I failed in my attempts to keep the bow straight at the end. I easily dumped the water out of the kayak and got back out into the waves. I tried a number of ways to use the paddle to keep the bow straight and had some success, but only on smaller waves. Here's a long distance view of one of my minor successes - you can see I'm not challenging the big breakers.
The next attempt was to get on my knees, further forward on the kayak, and see if redistributing my weight would help. It turns out that this position raised my center of gravity, so my dunking was even more dramatic. I tried a few more waves and feel like I am on the way to success, but I have a lot more pratfalls to perform before I reach the perfection I seek. I finally pulled the kayak up onto the beach and joined Sheilagh for some lunch at the local palapa. What I hadn’t counted on was the increased size of the waves after lunch when the tide began coming in. The surfers were now active, and I had some heart-stopping moments as I paddled directly up into a couple of breaking waves to get back to the outside so I could paddle back down the estuary. I wish Sheilagh had stayed around for a shot of me rocketing up and over a breaking wave, just narrowly avoiding being thrown backward into the wave. I can see that this sport is going to take a lot of practice.That evening we went into town to help celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima (or was it Our Lady of Lourdes?). We sat at an outdoor café on the main square and had dinner as we watched the goings-on. It appeared that the pious people in town were in the local church celebrating Mass from about 7PM to 8:30PM with a lot of singing. The rest of the town was milling about in the main square waiting for the services to be over. A couple of men had put up an erector-set-like tower in the main square with fireworks attached, and that seemed to be the focus of attention. The younger kids gradually appeared with large flat pieces of cardboard that they would hold over their heads. After the church services the crowd became quite large, covering the entire square. As we were just finishing up our dinner, we saw some of the crowd start running our way as sparks and fireworks appeared to be following them. A young man was running through the crowd carrying what appeared to be a cow made of sticks covered with fireworks that began shooting off all around. This is what had prompted the group on our side of the square to seek shelter.
The stick cow made several tours through the square, igniting bottle rockets and sparklers that leaped into the fast dispersing crowd in front of it. When all the fireworks on that contraption had exploded, someone ignited a set of pinwheels on the tower in the middle of the square, which gave off sparks as they spun around and eventually released rockets into the crowd as the stick cow had done. Now it became clear that the kids were using the cardboard pieces as shields as they ran under the tower, allowing the sparks to fall all around them. One of the rockets into the crowd caught a young man under his arm and burned a hole in his shirt, not to mention his skin, but he now had bragging rights.
The people were shrieking and laughing as all this was going on, with only a few babies crying out for some respite from the noise and confusion. There were mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, young lovers, teenagers, and kids of all ages. There were no attempts by scolding parents to keep the kids under control and no one seemed to mind that there was bedlam everywhere. The only missing element was the phalanx of attorneys who would have been present and offering their services if this had gone on in the States.
There were eventually some eight pairs of pinwheels that caused havoc in the crowd, putting everyone on edge who had any brains. Okay, if we’d had brains, we’d have gotten out of there, but we kept ourselves huddled behind some locals who unknowingly served as our shields. We had no idea ahead of time that this is how one celebrates a feast commemorating the visit of the Virgin Mary. We had expected a sedate procession from the church and around the main square with a statue of the Virgin supported on a platform of some sort – we saw no likenesses of Mary anywhere. We still can’t figure out how potentially damaging firecrackers have anything to do with celebrating a feast day for the mother of Christ.
When we returned to the beach to get our dinghy that was being watched over by Pépe (20 pesos a day for his family to keep an eye on it), we learned that Pépe had taken his very pregnant wife to the hospital to have the baby that was very ready to be born when we had arrived. His father had taken over the watch on our boat, and he reported that a baby boy had been born an hour earlier, and he was awaiting our return for our dinghy before joining them. We thanked him for his keeping watch for us, paid him a bonus, and urged him to get to the hospital himself. We were very impressed with how responsible Pépe and his family were for such a small amount of payment per day.
We left for Isla Isabela the next morning and will report on that in the next blog. More later . . .
Sunday, May 11, 2008
May May 11th – San Blas, Mexico – Jim’s Blog #43
[Be sure to catch one of Sheilagh's infrequent blogs covering the "woman's" point of view immediately following this one.]
We left La Cruz on Friday, the one day of the week that superstition says one should never leave on a voyage. However, we were only continuing a voyage that started on Thursday; so we thought everything would be fine. As a matter of fact, it was fine except for the lack of wind. We had mild swells and enough wind to provide a cooling breeze as we motored around Punta Mita and headed north. In fact the weather was so pleasant that we decided to skip Chacala and go directly to San Blas.
We had enjoyed our previous stay at Chacala on the way down, where we had to use an anchor both at the bow (in front) and at the stern (in back) because there were so many boats anchored there at the time. This kept us from swinging into the other boats and it kept our bow into the swells in this very small anchorage. [I use the terms “front” and “back” for those who have no experience with boating terms, but are still attempting to follow this blog – why, I don’t know.] Chacala had very little in the way of restaurants, and, if you have been following this blog, you may remember that Chacala is where we got the chicken and beef that were too tough to cut – causing us to start eating fish at fishing villages, duh!
Bypassing Chacala only added three hours to what was to have been a six-hour sail. With the engine and the autopilot working flawlessly, it was a breeze to make San Blas with very little effort. We spent the day listening to music and books-on-IPod, and relaxing in the cockpit, as the boat did all the work getting us to San Blas. We saw a pod of dolphins pass on the starboard (right) side, but saw no boat traffic other than a few fishing boats off the beaches. The lack of other cruisers gives us the impression that we’re late for whatever event everyone else has gone to. Actually there was a cruiser celebration at Loreto in the Sea of Cortez north of La Paz that took place in early May; so many cruisers left us behind as we were vacationing in California.
[Sheilagh suggested I warn you that the next several paragraphs are navigation-specific, they caused her to lose interest in the first paragraph, and they might hold little interest for some of you. If this is the case for you, you may skip down to the next bracketed section advising you that my navigational meanderings are ended.]
I really enjoyed the trip up the coast on Friday despite the lack of sailing conditions because this boat is so totally impressive to me. It occurred to me that I have better and more redundant navigation equipment than I had on the P3B Orion in the Navy. In those days GPS hadn’t been invented and our other systems were not particularly helpful. We set up an inertial navigation system prior to every flight with our position at the airport, and it was supposed to track us throughout the flight if we fed it speed, drift, and any other variable we could throw in. I remember that it was almost always inoperative immediately after takeoff (I think the takeoff jarred it out of alignment), and it usually showed us hundreds of miles away from the airport where we landed after a typical twelve-hour mission.
We also had a Loran Alpha system that could be useful near the coast of the U.S., but could only provide us with an approximate line of position (it takes two lines of position crossing at a 90° to provide a fix). Modern Loran systems show a constant latitude/longitude readout, but that early system required that we have a large area Loran chart, identify which stations were covered on the chart, select two stations that could be reached by our equipment, tune the two stations together on an oscilloscope-like machine, superimpose the sine wave for each station, and read off a number that amounted to the delay in the signal from each station reaching us. Then we had to plot that line on the chart and search for two other stations that might give us a crossing line of position. In Hawaii and elsewhere in the middle of the Pacific there were never sufficient stations to give us two good crossing lines of position. Needless to say Loran was not a favored navigational device.
On longer over-water missions we used a sextant with a periscope that could be inserted through an opening in the overhead to track our position in relation to the stars. Since an airplane moves through the air in a corkscrew fashion the sextants were designed to take a reading on a star for a timed, 2-minute duration. We used an assumed position to select the three brightest stars in the sky that were in different directions in the sky. We would calculate where the star should be, then find it with the sextant (the constellations were always upside down in the sextant), start the timer, and attempt to keep the star in the center of the bubble with a knob that controlled the altitude for a full two minutes. We then consulted the Air Almanac and other volumes to get the position of the star over the earth and our distance from that star’s position on the earth.
That process took about ten minutes per star, and then we would “shoot” two more stars to get crossing lines of position. Even if we worked quickly and accurately and the lines of positions crossed reasonably closely to mark a fix, our aircraft was usually 20 to 30 minutes beyond the fix the navigator had just plotted. At an average speed of 300 knots or more, our aircraft would already be 100 to 150 miles past the fix when it was finally computed. When we returned from a mission away from Hawaii, we had to cross the ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) at an exact time (within a few minutes), at a designated altitude (no problem), and at a specific position (5 nautical miles on either side was allowed). If we didn’t report everything accurately 15 minutes prior to coming through the ADIZ, the defense radars on the slopes of Haleakula would sound a warning that could cause interceptor aircraft to launch on us. You can imagine how frantic it got at the navigation station about an hour away from the ADIZ, when we had to rely on these now outmoded navigational devices – at that point the navigator was considered to be in “asshole and elbows” mode, huddled over the navigation table computing a star shot or standing on a seat as he shot a star.
The story is not all bad, however. The aircraft also had an ADF (Automatic Direction Finding) receiver that would point a needle on a compass card in the direction of whatever station was tuned in. When the navigator finally brought his ADIZ estimate to the cockpit, we pilots, who had been navigators ourselves, would look it over carefully and compare it to where we thought we should be, based on numerous previous missions like the one we were on. If there was any question regarding the navigator’s competence, we would simply tune in a radio station playing Hawaiian music, switch on the ADF, and the needle would point right to Hawaii. Then we would make a call as follows: “Hawaii Approach Control, this is flight Charlie-Delta-04 on a navigation training flight (indicating to the controllers that our estimate could be off quite a bit), approaching the ADIZ from 035°M at flight level 24, estimating penetration at 0410 Zulu, at an approximate position of latitude X and longitude Y.” That would cover us if we were not exactly where we said we were, and the ADF bearing got us in the correct quadrant for the air defense radars to see us and hopefully not launch on us if we were not in the exact window we had estimated.
Why did I go into all this navigation stuff above? Only someone who had to navigate with the equipment from yester-year, can appreciate the ease of navigating today. Now our boat has two installed GPS (Global Positioning System) units that show us our precise location on an electronic navigation chart (we also have a handheld GPS unit as another backup). To take a fix we simply look at either of the GPS units and plot the latitude and longitude on a paper chart we keep. We use the chart as a way to back ourselves up if our GPS units should fail, or if something should happen to the GPS satellites. We have a sextant as a backup, but we have yet to need it or use it, although we have a computer program that takes the place of the Air Almanac and the other volumes, in addition to doing all the computations for us.
[If you desired to skip my comments on my experiences with the navigation equipment of 30 years ago, you may continue here with very little negative impact on your psyche!]
I think of what we have now and what we had back in the 70’s, and I have nothing but huge respect for the sailors of old who ventured away from their homelands to discover all the lands that are bordered by the oceans of the world. We don’t have to heave-to with our sailboat when we come into a new bay or cove, lower the dinghy, and row slowly forward heaving a lead line with a weight on the end to see if the water is deep enough for our boat to anchor. We already have charts with all the depths of the bays and coves listed, cruising guides that discuss where to eat and what to do in each town, an automatic depth meter to tell us if the charts are correct, and a GPS that directs us to the exact mouth of an estuary as it did for us in San Blas. So I spent a lot of the trip up the coast thinking about how good we cruisers have it with the modern inventions we have today, as I listened to music on my IPod under the shade of our bimini, as the autopilot and the diesel engine kept us on a direct GPS line for San Blas. It doesn’t get much better than that, unless we could have sailed.
We made it into the San Blas estuary at about 5:30PM and found only four boats there. Previously we had anchored in Matanchen Bay, which is around a point of land from San Blas and requires a bus ride to get to the town of San Blas. Supposedly, by anchoring a mile or so from land in Matanchen Bay, cruisers can avoid the no-see-um bugs that descend in droves after sundown. This time we anchored right beside the town with a full set of screened portholes and a new set of screens for the hatches that Sheilagh had completed before we set out. Sheilagh settled on the use of Velcro strips on the inside of the hatches with Velcro-edged screens that can be put up or taken down very easily. Following instructions from the cruising guides, we sprayed all the screens with bug spray, closed up everything at dusk, and avoided the bugs quite well.
Saturday was Mother’s Day in Mexico, and today is Mother’s Day in the U.S. We will be going into town to an internet café so Sheilagh can call all our girls and allow them to wish her the congratulations she deserves for raising such great daughters. Of course we will also be congratulating our two daughters who are also moms, Melissa and Stephanie. More later . . .
We left La Cruz on Friday, the one day of the week that superstition says one should never leave on a voyage. However, we were only continuing a voyage that started on Thursday; so we thought everything would be fine. As a matter of fact, it was fine except for the lack of wind. We had mild swells and enough wind to provide a cooling breeze as we motored around Punta Mita and headed north. In fact the weather was so pleasant that we decided to skip Chacala and go directly to San Blas.
We had enjoyed our previous stay at Chacala on the way down, where we had to use an anchor both at the bow (in front) and at the stern (in back) because there were so many boats anchored there at the time. This kept us from swinging into the other boats and it kept our bow into the swells in this very small anchorage. [I use the terms “front” and “back” for those who have no experience with boating terms, but are still attempting to follow this blog – why, I don’t know.] Chacala had very little in the way of restaurants, and, if you have been following this blog, you may remember that Chacala is where we got the chicken and beef that were too tough to cut – causing us to start eating fish at fishing villages, duh!
Bypassing Chacala only added three hours to what was to have been a six-hour sail. With the engine and the autopilot working flawlessly, it was a breeze to make San Blas with very little effort. We spent the day listening to music and books-on-IPod, and relaxing in the cockpit, as the boat did all the work getting us to San Blas. We saw a pod of dolphins pass on the starboard (right) side, but saw no boat traffic other than a few fishing boats off the beaches. The lack of other cruisers gives us the impression that we’re late for whatever event everyone else has gone to. Actually there was a cruiser celebration at Loreto in the Sea of Cortez north of La Paz that took place in early May; so many cruisers left us behind as we were vacationing in California.
[Sheilagh suggested I warn you that the next several paragraphs are navigation-specific, they caused her to lose interest in the first paragraph, and they might hold little interest for some of you. If this is the case for you, you may skip down to the next bracketed section advising you that my navigational meanderings are ended.]
I really enjoyed the trip up the coast on Friday despite the lack of sailing conditions because this boat is so totally impressive to me. It occurred to me that I have better and more redundant navigation equipment than I had on the P3B Orion in the Navy. In those days GPS hadn’t been invented and our other systems were not particularly helpful. We set up an inertial navigation system prior to every flight with our position at the airport, and it was supposed to track us throughout the flight if we fed it speed, drift, and any other variable we could throw in. I remember that it was almost always inoperative immediately after takeoff (I think the takeoff jarred it out of alignment), and it usually showed us hundreds of miles away from the airport where we landed after a typical twelve-hour mission.
We also had a Loran Alpha system that could be useful near the coast of the U.S., but could only provide us with an approximate line of position (it takes two lines of position crossing at a 90° to provide a fix). Modern Loran systems show a constant latitude/longitude readout, but that early system required that we have a large area Loran chart, identify which stations were covered on the chart, select two stations that could be reached by our equipment, tune the two stations together on an oscilloscope-like machine, superimpose the sine wave for each station, and read off a number that amounted to the delay in the signal from each station reaching us. Then we had to plot that line on the chart and search for two other stations that might give us a crossing line of position. In Hawaii and elsewhere in the middle of the Pacific there were never sufficient stations to give us two good crossing lines of position. Needless to say Loran was not a favored navigational device.
On longer over-water missions we used a sextant with a periscope that could be inserted through an opening in the overhead to track our position in relation to the stars. Since an airplane moves through the air in a corkscrew fashion the sextants were designed to take a reading on a star for a timed, 2-minute duration. We used an assumed position to select the three brightest stars in the sky that were in different directions in the sky. We would calculate where the star should be, then find it with the sextant (the constellations were always upside down in the sextant), start the timer, and attempt to keep the star in the center of the bubble with a knob that controlled the altitude for a full two minutes. We then consulted the Air Almanac and other volumes to get the position of the star over the earth and our distance from that star’s position on the earth.
That process took about ten minutes per star, and then we would “shoot” two more stars to get crossing lines of position. Even if we worked quickly and accurately and the lines of positions crossed reasonably closely to mark a fix, our aircraft was usually 20 to 30 minutes beyond the fix the navigator had just plotted. At an average speed of 300 knots or more, our aircraft would already be 100 to 150 miles past the fix when it was finally computed. When we returned from a mission away from Hawaii, we had to cross the ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) at an exact time (within a few minutes), at a designated altitude (no problem), and at a specific position (5 nautical miles on either side was allowed). If we didn’t report everything accurately 15 minutes prior to coming through the ADIZ, the defense radars on the slopes of Haleakula would sound a warning that could cause interceptor aircraft to launch on us. You can imagine how frantic it got at the navigation station about an hour away from the ADIZ, when we had to rely on these now outmoded navigational devices – at that point the navigator was considered to be in “asshole and elbows” mode, huddled over the navigation table computing a star shot or standing on a seat as he shot a star.
The story is not all bad, however. The aircraft also had an ADF (Automatic Direction Finding) receiver that would point a needle on a compass card in the direction of whatever station was tuned in. When the navigator finally brought his ADIZ estimate to the cockpit, we pilots, who had been navigators ourselves, would look it over carefully and compare it to where we thought we should be, based on numerous previous missions like the one we were on. If there was any question regarding the navigator’s competence, we would simply tune in a radio station playing Hawaiian music, switch on the ADF, and the needle would point right to Hawaii. Then we would make a call as follows: “Hawaii Approach Control, this is flight Charlie-Delta-04 on a navigation training flight (indicating to the controllers that our estimate could be off quite a bit), approaching the ADIZ from 035°M at flight level 24, estimating penetration at 0410 Zulu, at an approximate position of latitude X and longitude Y.” That would cover us if we were not exactly where we said we were, and the ADF bearing got us in the correct quadrant for the air defense radars to see us and hopefully not launch on us if we were not in the exact window we had estimated.
Why did I go into all this navigation stuff above? Only someone who had to navigate with the equipment from yester-year, can appreciate the ease of navigating today. Now our boat has two installed GPS (Global Positioning System) units that show us our precise location on an electronic navigation chart (we also have a handheld GPS unit as another backup). To take a fix we simply look at either of the GPS units and plot the latitude and longitude on a paper chart we keep. We use the chart as a way to back ourselves up if our GPS units should fail, or if something should happen to the GPS satellites. We have a sextant as a backup, but we have yet to need it or use it, although we have a computer program that takes the place of the Air Almanac and the other volumes, in addition to doing all the computations for us.
[If you desired to skip my comments on my experiences with the navigation equipment of 30 years ago, you may continue here with very little negative impact on your psyche!]
I think of what we have now and what we had back in the 70’s, and I have nothing but huge respect for the sailors of old who ventured away from their homelands to discover all the lands that are bordered by the oceans of the world. We don’t have to heave-to with our sailboat when we come into a new bay or cove, lower the dinghy, and row slowly forward heaving a lead line with a weight on the end to see if the water is deep enough for our boat to anchor. We already have charts with all the depths of the bays and coves listed, cruising guides that discuss where to eat and what to do in each town, an automatic depth meter to tell us if the charts are correct, and a GPS that directs us to the exact mouth of an estuary as it did for us in San Blas. So I spent a lot of the trip up the coast thinking about how good we cruisers have it with the modern inventions we have today, as I listened to music on my IPod under the shade of our bimini, as the autopilot and the diesel engine kept us on a direct GPS line for San Blas. It doesn’t get much better than that, unless we could have sailed.
We made it into the San Blas estuary at about 5:30PM and found only four boats there. Previously we had anchored in Matanchen Bay, which is around a point of land from San Blas and requires a bus ride to get to the town of San Blas. Supposedly, by anchoring a mile or so from land in Matanchen Bay, cruisers can avoid the no-see-um bugs that descend in droves after sundown. This time we anchored right beside the town with a full set of screened portholes and a new set of screens for the hatches that Sheilagh had completed before we set out. Sheilagh settled on the use of Velcro strips on the inside of the hatches with Velcro-edged screens that can be put up or taken down very easily. Following instructions from the cruising guides, we sprayed all the screens with bug spray, closed up everything at dusk, and avoided the bugs quite well.
Saturday was Mother’s Day in Mexico, and today is Mother’s Day in the U.S. We will be going into town to an internet café so Sheilagh can call all our girls and allow them to wish her the congratulations she deserves for raising such great daughters. Of course we will also be congratulating our two daughters who are also moms, Melissa and Stephanie. More later . . .
Sheilagh's Rare Blog 5/11/2008 San Blas, Mexico
(I refer to Jim's blog above this, so read his first!)
It’s Mother’s Day and we’re in the estuary in San Blas, anchored with three other sailboats.
Jim has been over there blogging for quite a while and he read me his latest for posting when we dinghy into town later today. Susan Jessie, our long-time neighbor from Sunnyvale said she wanted to know my take on this adventure, you know, a woman’s perspective! This seemed like a perfect opportunity! MY summation for the day’s trip that Jim described would have been something like: “We pulled up the anchor in La Cruz and motored on calm seas to arrive and anchor in San Blas just before a beautiful sunset.”
What was going on in my head was “attention-deficit” classic and notably female!!
My brain was doing its usual casting about: wondering if the swells would stay small, if the wind would come up, and if/when it did, we’d be sailing and I’d be “tweaking” the sails for max efficiency the rest of the trip. Since I like to keep busy, that would seem to be a solution for boredom, but the sail trim interests Jim more than me so it seems like I’m just taking orders non-stop! Then I mentally beat back the part about this boat being my house, and it’s rolling, for crying out loud, and technically (though not likely) subject to sinking! Then there’s the part where I can sit and read for about 15 whole minutes before I get restless and begin to wonder what I can clean, but its hard to get into cleaning a moving object. I fiddle with the GPS, mark our position on the chart, make a sandwich mid-day and go below and sleep to make the time go by.
So the male/female part seems to be that Jim can just relax and do almost nothing or totally enjoy the challenge of sailing. He’s retired and feels no need to be productive while I fret about being useful and busy. I certainly appreciate gentle seas and an autopilot but I can just feel Jim over there wishing there was more wind so he could get the sails up—it is, after all, a sailboat! But he was apparently very content appreciating this navigation experience as opposed to his Navy experience and happy to read and listen to his Ipod music and stories. I can work myself into a real funk about having no purpose at this stage in my life. Some women have hobbies like beading or photography or they genuinely enjoy the sailing—I haven’t ever been a “hobby” person (I kept a partially hooked rug for years out of guilt that I “should” finish it!) and though I do enjoy some sailing, after x number of hours, I’m just ready to be there (the attention thing), and attached to land either by anchor or dock (woman as keeper of the safe home).
I feel guilty even putting this to paper—Jim suggested I put it out there as a way to organize my mind--that and he just doesn’t do “girl-talk” very well! I was having this heart-felt conversation with him yesterday and it became apparent it was a one-way conversation! Aaaakkk!! He keeps wondering why I don’t experience it the way he does—but then that would make me more like a guy wouldn’t it? Vive la difference!!
I do enjoy the beauty of this boat, her efficiency, her systems, that it takes intention and detail for everyday tasks. We’ve seen incredible sea life and expect to see more in the Sea of Cortez. The other cruisers have been intriguing people and its easy to have instant rapport—we’re all a bit in awe of our adventures and proud of ourselves for stepping into unknown territory. Me included!
Jim can’t fathom why I don’t want to become a Sudoku master!! Now THERE’S a reason for living!
Ah, that feels better now. I'll be sending everyone who comments $50 for the therapy session....NOT! But thanks for listening.
It’s Mother’s Day and we’re in the estuary in San Blas, anchored with three other sailboats.
Jim has been over there blogging for quite a while and he read me his latest for posting when we dinghy into town later today. Susan Jessie, our long-time neighbor from Sunnyvale said she wanted to know my take on this adventure, you know, a woman’s perspective! This seemed like a perfect opportunity! MY summation for the day’s trip that Jim described would have been something like: “We pulled up the anchor in La Cruz and motored on calm seas to arrive and anchor in San Blas just before a beautiful sunset.”
What was going on in my head was “attention-deficit” classic and notably female!!
My brain was doing its usual casting about: wondering if the swells would stay small, if the wind would come up, and if/when it did, we’d be sailing and I’d be “tweaking” the sails for max efficiency the rest of the trip. Since I like to keep busy, that would seem to be a solution for boredom, but the sail trim interests Jim more than me so it seems like I’m just taking orders non-stop! Then I mentally beat back the part about this boat being my house, and it’s rolling, for crying out loud, and technically (though not likely) subject to sinking! Then there’s the part where I can sit and read for about 15 whole minutes before I get restless and begin to wonder what I can clean, but its hard to get into cleaning a moving object. I fiddle with the GPS, mark our position on the chart, make a sandwich mid-day and go below and sleep to make the time go by.
So the male/female part seems to be that Jim can just relax and do almost nothing or totally enjoy the challenge of sailing. He’s retired and feels no need to be productive while I fret about being useful and busy. I certainly appreciate gentle seas and an autopilot but I can just feel Jim over there wishing there was more wind so he could get the sails up—it is, after all, a sailboat! But he was apparently very content appreciating this navigation experience as opposed to his Navy experience and happy to read and listen to his Ipod music and stories. I can work myself into a real funk about having no purpose at this stage in my life. Some women have hobbies like beading or photography or they genuinely enjoy the sailing—I haven’t ever been a “hobby” person (I kept a partially hooked rug for years out of guilt that I “should” finish it!) and though I do enjoy some sailing, after x number of hours, I’m just ready to be there (the attention thing), and attached to land either by anchor or dock (woman as keeper of the safe home).
I feel guilty even putting this to paper—Jim suggested I put it out there as a way to organize my mind--that and he just doesn’t do “girl-talk” very well! I was having this heart-felt conversation with him yesterday and it became apparent it was a one-way conversation! Aaaakkk!! He keeps wondering why I don’t experience it the way he does—but then that would make me more like a guy wouldn’t it? Vive la difference!!
I do enjoy the beauty of this boat, her efficiency, her systems, that it takes intention and detail for everyday tasks. We’ve seen incredible sea life and expect to see more in the Sea of Cortez. The other cruisers have been intriguing people and its easy to have instant rapport—we’re all a bit in awe of our adventures and proud of ourselves for stepping into unknown territory. Me included!
Jim can’t fathom why I don’t want to become a Sudoku master!! Now THERE’S a reason for living!
Ah, that feels better now. I'll be sending everyone who comments $50 for the therapy session....NOT! But thanks for listening.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
May 8th – La Cruz, Mexico – Jim’s Blog #42
Today we left the relative comfort of the Paradise Village Marina and started on our trip north, stopping overnight at a nearby anchorage, called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (pronounced whana-cost’-lee, with the accent on the second syllable), where we have anchored before. This is just an hour or so north of Paradise Village, but explaining why we set out and only made one hour of headway before anchoring for the night has everything to do with winds, tides, and scarcity of full-service fuel facilities. In San Diego nearly every marina has a fuel dock; so it is relatively easy to grab some fuel before sailing out for the day. Not so in Mexico.
Before setting out we needed to get about 40 gallons of fuel (half of what we can carry) from the only fuel dock in Banderas Bay, which is located in Marina Vallarta (where the cruise ships anchor) about an hour south of the Paradise Village Marina. That means going out into the bay and re-entering another marina an hour south of us. When we fueled up on our last visit several months ago, we were advised to come in later in the morning, after the pangas and fishing boats had gotten fuel for the day. When we got there at 11AM that time, the tide was going out and we were forced to counteract the tide pulling us out as we waited nearly an hour in the channel for our turn. At that time we even had wave runners (little one-person high speed craft) jump in front of us for a quick fill up.
For this fueling effort we decided to go in at slack high tide (no movement of the water into or out of the marina), which happened to be 12:42PM today. It would also bring us into the fueling dock after everyone else had been fueled for the day, and, if we had to wait, we wouldn’t be bucking the tide as we waited. This time frame is a little late to start a voyage, since the closest anchorage outside of Banderas Bay is Chacala, nearly eight hours north of us. Everything went off as planned. We got to the fueling dock in very calm water and had no one ahead of us. We were fueled up in 15 minutes (about $2.50 per gallon) and out at about 1PM with a gentle 10-knot breeze, allowing us to sail the two hours north to La Cruz. If we could have done all this at 8AM, we would have been well on our way today, but that’s the story of cruising and you can’t fight mother nature or the commercial boating interests in Mexico.
Tomorrow we will set out early in the morning to get around Punta Mita (the northwest point of Banderas Bay) and on up to Chacala for a day or two. It’s nice to know that we really don’t have anything driving us except our own convenience. Of course there is also the specter of hurricane season driving us north, a season that starts in June and ends in October. Normally hurricanes don’t go much further north than Puerto Vallarta, and we will be well up into the Sea of Cortez by the end of May, so we shouldn’t have much to worry about. Nevertheless, we will be hanging near a couple of hurricane holes this summer just in case a storm does make it further north than normal. In these “holes” we would strip the sails off the boat, remove anything else that could be blown off, set out several anchors and/or tie off to trees on shore, and then get off the boat and pray for a quick dissolution of the storm.
Since my last blog, we made a supply run to Costco and loaded down a taxicab with meat, cheese, tomato sauce, cooking oil, flour, toilet paper, paper towels, Ziploc bags – generally large volume items that we would be using for a few months. Our boat was in a slip right next to the parking lot and the gate and ramp that led down to the dock. So it was very convenient to take a cab right to the boat and unload it there. The only problem was the lack of boxes or bags at Costco, which caused us to unload the cart with individual bottles and cans directly into the cab and then unload everything on the ground when we arrived at the marina. Passersby could see what we would be eating for the next several months as we hurriedly made multiple trips from the parking lot to the boat, but the proximity of the boat helped a lot.
Our boat ended up spending about a month and a half at the marina, while we were there for about three weeks of that time. It was a bit of an effort to leave the safety and security of the marina to head out again. I’m afraid we had gotten accustomed to modern grocery stores nearby, a fresh water swimming pool every afternoon to cool down, running water at the dock that was drinkable, all the electricity we could want, and even a cable TV hookup. This last convenience got us back into watching the news, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, and Seinfeld reruns. We also had the opportunity to see the mainstream media cover the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, until we realized that they would keep on talking about anything and everything 24/7. How can the media stand to hear themselves talk about the same things over and over? We certainly couldn’t.
Now we will get back into living on the hook with dinghy trips into small towns for whatever vegetables and necessary food items we can find at the local shops (tiendas). Already we are glad to be away from the flotsam and jetsam of dead fish, floating coconuts, scum, and other debris that seem to inhabit marina waters, flowing in and out on the tide, but never seeming to really flow out to sea. Our anchorage here has clean-looking water all around, but who knows how clean it is. At least the smells are better here, we have more privacy, and there are no dock lights shining into the portholes and hatches all night.
At the moment it is 8PM, still plenty of light outside, and we are both stripped down to shorts to stay cool. We put up a wind-scoop to direct air down through our forward hatch, and we have been using our cabin fans most of the day to keep the air circulating. We can’t use an air conditioner while anchored because it would take too much electricity from our batteries to keep it running, but we get a lot more wind in the anchorage than we ever could in a protected marina environment. Even in marinas cruisers make judicious use of air conditioners, because the cost of the electricity is passed on to the boat owner.
The hardest part about leaving was saying good-by to some new cruiser friends, John and Kathy of Batu, who will be spending the next six months at Paradise Village. Puerto Vallarta is considered a hurricane hole, but it has never been visited by one as yet; so there is little to worry about from that standpoint. John and Kathy have been cruising for quite a while and are interested in staying put for awhile. We’ll miss playing Mexican Train with them, because Kathy insists on losing big every time. The flip side of this coin is that we will be meeting a lot of cruising friends – who departed for the Sea of Cortez ahead of us – as we journey up to Mazatlan, La Paz, and points north. Whenever we enter a new anchorage, we will no doubt see a boat anchored there with cruisers we have met before.
We will be out of internet contact for the next week or so. We will get back in touch when we get to Mazatlan, and hopefully we will have some stories to tell. One of the activities I want to do is use my kayak to surf Matanchen Bay, which is supposed to have some of the longest surf breaks in Mexico. I plan to tie the kayak to my wrist; so it will stay with me, if I fall overboard. I still remember surfing in Hawaii in the 70’s on a long board before they had tethers to keep the board near at hand. I can’t count the number of times I got tossed off my board during my learning phase, only to have to swim all the way into the beach to get it. I can’t believe I didn’t invent the concept of the tethered surfboard back in those days, but some of the boards were so large that the first thing you wanted to do when you fell off was to get away from the board to keep it from striking you.
More later . . .
Before setting out we needed to get about 40 gallons of fuel (half of what we can carry) from the only fuel dock in Banderas Bay, which is located in Marina Vallarta (where the cruise ships anchor) about an hour south of the Paradise Village Marina. That means going out into the bay and re-entering another marina an hour south of us. When we fueled up on our last visit several months ago, we were advised to come in later in the morning, after the pangas and fishing boats had gotten fuel for the day. When we got there at 11AM that time, the tide was going out and we were forced to counteract the tide pulling us out as we waited nearly an hour in the channel for our turn. At that time we even had wave runners (little one-person high speed craft) jump in front of us for a quick fill up.
For this fueling effort we decided to go in at slack high tide (no movement of the water into or out of the marina), which happened to be 12:42PM today. It would also bring us into the fueling dock after everyone else had been fueled for the day, and, if we had to wait, we wouldn’t be bucking the tide as we waited. This time frame is a little late to start a voyage, since the closest anchorage outside of Banderas Bay is Chacala, nearly eight hours north of us. Everything went off as planned. We got to the fueling dock in very calm water and had no one ahead of us. We were fueled up in 15 minutes (about $2.50 per gallon) and out at about 1PM with a gentle 10-knot breeze, allowing us to sail the two hours north to La Cruz. If we could have done all this at 8AM, we would have been well on our way today, but that’s the story of cruising and you can’t fight mother nature or the commercial boating interests in Mexico.
Tomorrow we will set out early in the morning to get around Punta Mita (the northwest point of Banderas Bay) and on up to Chacala for a day or two. It’s nice to know that we really don’t have anything driving us except our own convenience. Of course there is also the specter of hurricane season driving us north, a season that starts in June and ends in October. Normally hurricanes don’t go much further north than Puerto Vallarta, and we will be well up into the Sea of Cortez by the end of May, so we shouldn’t have much to worry about. Nevertheless, we will be hanging near a couple of hurricane holes this summer just in case a storm does make it further north than normal. In these “holes” we would strip the sails off the boat, remove anything else that could be blown off, set out several anchors and/or tie off to trees on shore, and then get off the boat and pray for a quick dissolution of the storm.
Since my last blog, we made a supply run to Costco and loaded down a taxicab with meat, cheese, tomato sauce, cooking oil, flour, toilet paper, paper towels, Ziploc bags – generally large volume items that we would be using for a few months. Our boat was in a slip right next to the parking lot and the gate and ramp that led down to the dock. So it was very convenient to take a cab right to the boat and unload it there. The only problem was the lack of boxes or bags at Costco, which caused us to unload the cart with individual bottles and cans directly into the cab and then unload everything on the ground when we arrived at the marina. Passersby could see what we would be eating for the next several months as we hurriedly made multiple trips from the parking lot to the boat, but the proximity of the boat helped a lot.
Our boat ended up spending about a month and a half at the marina, while we were there for about three weeks of that time. It was a bit of an effort to leave the safety and security of the marina to head out again. I’m afraid we had gotten accustomed to modern grocery stores nearby, a fresh water swimming pool every afternoon to cool down, running water at the dock that was drinkable, all the electricity we could want, and even a cable TV hookup. This last convenience got us back into watching the news, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, and Seinfeld reruns. We also had the opportunity to see the mainstream media cover the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, until we realized that they would keep on talking about anything and everything 24/7. How can the media stand to hear themselves talk about the same things over and over? We certainly couldn’t.
Now we will get back into living on the hook with dinghy trips into small towns for whatever vegetables and necessary food items we can find at the local shops (tiendas). Already we are glad to be away from the flotsam and jetsam of dead fish, floating coconuts, scum, and other debris that seem to inhabit marina waters, flowing in and out on the tide, but never seeming to really flow out to sea. Our anchorage here has clean-looking water all around, but who knows how clean it is. At least the smells are better here, we have more privacy, and there are no dock lights shining into the portholes and hatches all night.
At the moment it is 8PM, still plenty of light outside, and we are both stripped down to shorts to stay cool. We put up a wind-scoop to direct air down through our forward hatch, and we have been using our cabin fans most of the day to keep the air circulating. We can’t use an air conditioner while anchored because it would take too much electricity from our batteries to keep it running, but we get a lot more wind in the anchorage than we ever could in a protected marina environment. Even in marinas cruisers make judicious use of air conditioners, because the cost of the electricity is passed on to the boat owner.
The hardest part about leaving was saying good-by to some new cruiser friends, John and Kathy of Batu, who will be spending the next six months at Paradise Village. Puerto Vallarta is considered a hurricane hole, but it has never been visited by one as yet; so there is little to worry about from that standpoint. John and Kathy have been cruising for quite a while and are interested in staying put for awhile. We’ll miss playing Mexican Train with them, because Kathy insists on losing big every time. The flip side of this coin is that we will be meeting a lot of cruising friends – who departed for the Sea of Cortez ahead of us – as we journey up to Mazatlan, La Paz, and points north. Whenever we enter a new anchorage, we will no doubt see a boat anchored there with cruisers we have met before.
We will be out of internet contact for the next week or so. We will get back in touch when we get to Mazatlan, and hopefully we will have some stories to tell. One of the activities I want to do is use my kayak to surf Matanchen Bay, which is supposed to have some of the longest surf breaks in Mexico. I plan to tie the kayak to my wrist; so it will stay with me, if I fall overboard. I still remember surfing in Hawaii in the 70’s on a long board before they had tethers to keep the board near at hand. I can’t count the number of times I got tossed off my board during my learning phase, only to have to swim all the way into the beach to get it. I can’t believe I didn’t invent the concept of the tethered surfboard back in those days, but some of the boards were so large that the first thing you wanted to do when you fell off was to get away from the board to keep it from striking you.
More later . . .
Sunday, May 4, 2008
May 3rd – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – Jim’s Blog #41
We’re back in Puerto Vallarta, winding down from the busy trip to California and preparing to head north to the Sea of Cortez. We arrived to find the deck of our boat covered in dust and bird droppings, the bottom covered with small, sharp barnacles, and the pump for the head plugged up with seaweed. We also arrived with seven bags of gear and supplies (five of them approaching 50 pounds in weight) and a kayak paddle – all of which had to fit into the boat. Not surprising there has been a lot to do while the temperature has been hovering in the 90’s and the humidity about as high. I realize it’s impossible to generate sympathy for a couple like us with nothing to do but vacation in Mexico for the next six months in our own sailboat, so I’ll stop trying.
We had a great flight from LAX to Puerto Vallarta, flying first class on Alaska Airlines – the last of our free airline miles until we start paying for flights again to earn more miles. Ours was the first of three flights to get in at that time; so we quickly got a porter at the airport to stack up his lift truck with our 7 bags of equipment and headed for customs to beat the rush. The man who preceded us through customs pressed the not-so-magic (for him) customs button, got a red light, and was directed over to a table to have his bags examined. Sheilagh preceded our bags, pressed the magic button, and luckily got a green light to bypass the customs inspection. We’ve been told that if she had gotten a red light, she should have gone over to the examination table with the bag she was carrying, and I should have pressed the button for myself and the rest of our luggage. Since the magic button is unlikely to show two red lights in a row, this is the popular method for getting through the check with two people. As it was we went through together on Sheilagh’s green light without my having to press anything.
Within a couple of days we waded through the supplies and equipment we had brought and found places for everything onboard. While Sheilagh was reorganizing, I helped by 1) fixing the ship’s clock with a new clock component from Michael’s, 2) building a shelf for Sheilagh’s sleeping quarters using some teak wood we had brought along, 3) constructing a new step for getting onto the boat using more of the teak we had brought along (the teak we brought weighed about 15 pounds in our luggage), and 4) inflating and using my new kayak. Some would say Sheilagh did all the work of moving everything in, but I thought I was very accommodating by staying out of the way and allowing her to put things where she wanted them.
Since the first couple of days I also installed a Sirius radio add-on to our FM stereo receiver that we purchased at a Best Buy in California to let us keep up with the news when we are isolated in the Sea of Cortez this summer – no, we did not buy it to hear Howard Stern. We also had the top of the boat thoroughly cleaned a couple of days ago and a diver cleaned the bottom for us today. The engine was put back together while we were away, having been put through a 1000-hour check along with new fuel valves, a cleaned-out heat exchanger and a new thermostat. We think we’re ready for another 1000 hours on this engine.
Thinking about what could go wrong in the Sea of Cortez, where we will be fairly isolated; we purchased another propeller for the dinghy along with a replacement water pump for that motor. We already have the replacement water pump and several impellers for the diesel engine; since a lack of cooling could prevent us from using the engine at all. We will be checking the engine thoroughly on our trip up to Mazatlan, and then to La Paz, so if something goes wrong with anything we will still have those population centers available for repairs. We haven’t used the water maker for about 5 weeks now, which means we will need to check that out again on the way up. Of course we’ll fill our water tanks with the marina water before we go in case the water maker has problems.
We were invited for dinner by John and Cathy of a sister sailboat, Batu, who showed us the movie they had made of their trip from Hawaii to Tahiti twenty years ago. I came away from seeing the footage with the desire to see it for myself, but Sheilagh thinks we should buy a copy of the tape from them and eliminate the need to visit the place. I get the idea she is not eager to sail across the Pacific, but I’m sure I can find crew to help me, and she can fly there to join us. We have a lot of discussions ahead of us about what we want to do. We’ll tackle the Sea of Cortez first and then worry about the next step.
With the warm weather and high humidity every day I’ve been retreating to the lap pool on the hotel grounds to cool down and get a little exercise at the same time. This is the least popular of the three hotel pools, because it’s occupied by those of us who are not interested in looking at others and being looked at in return. I foresee that jumping into the water will be a major way to cool off in the Sea of Cortez and I’m getting ready for that. Sheilagh has never been as interested in the water as I’ve been; so she foregoes most of the trips to the pool in favor of working on some aspect of the boat. That girl just can’t relax!
A couple of days ago we both got our teeth cleaned at the local dentist office, and were informed that our teeth are fine – the cost was $44 apiece for the cleaning and the examination, which we consider to be a bargain since we carry no dental coverage for the present time. Major health insurance coverage is a must-have, but we are covering our own costs with dental and prescription drugs while we wait until we turn 65 for Medicare coverage. Costs in Mexico appear to be reasonable, although named prescription drugs are as expensive as in the U.S. We have been getting prescription drugs for the past five months by simply walking into the pharmacies and asking for them. Before we went to California I had failed to stock up on enough meds for the three weeks. Imagine my surprise when I realized I needed a doctor’s prescription to get the same meds I had been getting in Mexico without a prescription. Thankfully the last doctor I was seeing in San Diego before starting the trip called in a prescription for me during the California trip.
If you are wondering why I mention a mundane thing like teeth cleaning, I should remind you that a number of folks who read this are interested in cruising someday, and we are trying to include some information that might be helpful to them. Feel free to skip over this kind of thing, if you are not interested. Hopefully when we get back out on the water, these blogs will become a bit more interesting than they have been for the past several weeks. Maybe I should go fight a crocodile to make this more interesting, but I’m squeamish about swimming among creatures with large teeth and larger appetites.
I’m thrilled with the new kayak I got at the sailboat show, which is a newly-developed inflatable model (by Airis, a division of Walker Bay) that takes very high air pressure, making it extremely rigid. This means I’ll be able to use it in waves, much like a surfboard. The inflatable kayaks I’ve tried in the past are usually a bit limp and either take on a lot of water easily or tend to fold up when a wave catches them. I’m looking forward to some good wave riding – who knows, I just might be able to stand up on it and use it as a surfboard.
This evening we pulled out one of the 80+ DVDs we purchased in California (mostly bargain ones we got at $5 or less) and enjoyed watching Wild, Wild West reruns as we prepared and ate dinner. It took us back nearly 40 years to when I was stationed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, where I was being trained to fly the P3 Orion prior to going to the P3 squadron at Barber’s Point, Hawaii. Every evening when I got back from flight training or ground school, we had dinner in front of the TV and watched Wild, Wild West reruns (the show ran through 1969) with the athletic-and-tough Jim West and the master-of-disguise Artemis Gordon (played by Robert Conrad and Ross Martin respectively). This show has been called “the closest TV ever got to capturing the flavor of comic books,” and for us it was a great way to wind down at the end of the day.
Later on one of our children questioned how we, having been married just a couple of years, could waste time and the chance to be together by eating in front of the TV and watching Wild, Wild West. One reason was the fact that our dining furniture consisted of TV trays (no dining table) in our small apartment at that time. But later this daughter did exactly the same thing with her husband of a couple of years – with a different show – and commented on how it was a great way to wind down from a busy day. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! We have about 30 of the Wild, Wild West shows to go through during future dinnertimes. More later . . .
We had a great flight from LAX to Puerto Vallarta, flying first class on Alaska Airlines – the last of our free airline miles until we start paying for flights again to earn more miles. Ours was the first of three flights to get in at that time; so we quickly got a porter at the airport to stack up his lift truck with our 7 bags of equipment and headed for customs to beat the rush. The man who preceded us through customs pressed the not-so-magic (for him) customs button, got a red light, and was directed over to a table to have his bags examined. Sheilagh preceded our bags, pressed the magic button, and luckily got a green light to bypass the customs inspection. We’ve been told that if she had gotten a red light, she should have gone over to the examination table with the bag she was carrying, and I should have pressed the button for myself and the rest of our luggage. Since the magic button is unlikely to show two red lights in a row, this is the popular method for getting through the check with two people. As it was we went through together on Sheilagh’s green light without my having to press anything.
Within a couple of days we waded through the supplies and equipment we had brought and found places for everything onboard. While Sheilagh was reorganizing, I helped by 1) fixing the ship’s clock with a new clock component from Michael’s, 2) building a shelf for Sheilagh’s sleeping quarters using some teak wood we had brought along, 3) constructing a new step for getting onto the boat using more of the teak we had brought along (the teak we brought weighed about 15 pounds in our luggage), and 4) inflating and using my new kayak. Some would say Sheilagh did all the work of moving everything in, but I thought I was very accommodating by staying out of the way and allowing her to put things where she wanted them.
Since the first couple of days I also installed a Sirius radio add-on to our FM stereo receiver that we purchased at a Best Buy in California to let us keep up with the news when we are isolated in the Sea of Cortez this summer – no, we did not buy it to hear Howard Stern. We also had the top of the boat thoroughly cleaned a couple of days ago and a diver cleaned the bottom for us today. The engine was put back together while we were away, having been put through a 1000-hour check along with new fuel valves, a cleaned-out heat exchanger and a new thermostat. We think we’re ready for another 1000 hours on this engine.
Thinking about what could go wrong in the Sea of Cortez, where we will be fairly isolated; we purchased another propeller for the dinghy along with a replacement water pump for that motor. We already have the replacement water pump and several impellers for the diesel engine; since a lack of cooling could prevent us from using the engine at all. We will be checking the engine thoroughly on our trip up to Mazatlan, and then to La Paz, so if something goes wrong with anything we will still have those population centers available for repairs. We haven’t used the water maker for about 5 weeks now, which means we will need to check that out again on the way up. Of course we’ll fill our water tanks with the marina water before we go in case the water maker has problems.
We were invited for dinner by John and Cathy of a sister sailboat, Batu, who showed us the movie they had made of their trip from Hawaii to Tahiti twenty years ago. I came away from seeing the footage with the desire to see it for myself, but Sheilagh thinks we should buy a copy of the tape from them and eliminate the need to visit the place. I get the idea she is not eager to sail across the Pacific, but I’m sure I can find crew to help me, and she can fly there to join us. We have a lot of discussions ahead of us about what we want to do. We’ll tackle the Sea of Cortez first and then worry about the next step.
With the warm weather and high humidity every day I’ve been retreating to the lap pool on the hotel grounds to cool down and get a little exercise at the same time. This is the least popular of the three hotel pools, because it’s occupied by those of us who are not interested in looking at others and being looked at in return. I foresee that jumping into the water will be a major way to cool off in the Sea of Cortez and I’m getting ready for that. Sheilagh has never been as interested in the water as I’ve been; so she foregoes most of the trips to the pool in favor of working on some aspect of the boat. That girl just can’t relax!
A couple of days ago we both got our teeth cleaned at the local dentist office, and were informed that our teeth are fine – the cost was $44 apiece for the cleaning and the examination, which we consider to be a bargain since we carry no dental coverage for the present time. Major health insurance coverage is a must-have, but we are covering our own costs with dental and prescription drugs while we wait until we turn 65 for Medicare coverage. Costs in Mexico appear to be reasonable, although named prescription drugs are as expensive as in the U.S. We have been getting prescription drugs for the past five months by simply walking into the pharmacies and asking for them. Before we went to California I had failed to stock up on enough meds for the three weeks. Imagine my surprise when I realized I needed a doctor’s prescription to get the same meds I had been getting in Mexico without a prescription. Thankfully the last doctor I was seeing in San Diego before starting the trip called in a prescription for me during the California trip.
If you are wondering why I mention a mundane thing like teeth cleaning, I should remind you that a number of folks who read this are interested in cruising someday, and we are trying to include some information that might be helpful to them. Feel free to skip over this kind of thing, if you are not interested. Hopefully when we get back out on the water, these blogs will become a bit more interesting than they have been for the past several weeks. Maybe I should go fight a crocodile to make this more interesting, but I’m squeamish about swimming among creatures with large teeth and larger appetites.
I’m thrilled with the new kayak I got at the sailboat show, which is a newly-developed inflatable model (by Airis, a division of Walker Bay) that takes very high air pressure, making it extremely rigid. This means I’ll be able to use it in waves, much like a surfboard. The inflatable kayaks I’ve tried in the past are usually a bit limp and either take on a lot of water easily or tend to fold up when a wave catches them. I’m looking forward to some good wave riding – who knows, I just might be able to stand up on it and use it as a surfboard.
This evening we pulled out one of the 80+ DVDs we purchased in California (mostly bargain ones we got at $5 or less) and enjoyed watching Wild, Wild West reruns as we prepared and ate dinner. It took us back nearly 40 years to when I was stationed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, where I was being trained to fly the P3 Orion prior to going to the P3 squadron at Barber’s Point, Hawaii. Every evening when I got back from flight training or ground school, we had dinner in front of the TV and watched Wild, Wild West reruns (the show ran through 1969) with the athletic-and-tough Jim West and the master-of-disguise Artemis Gordon (played by Robert Conrad and Ross Martin respectively). This show has been called “the closest TV ever got to capturing the flavor of comic books,” and for us it was a great way to wind down at the end of the day.
Later on one of our children questioned how we, having been married just a couple of years, could waste time and the chance to be together by eating in front of the TV and watching Wild, Wild West. One reason was the fact that our dining furniture consisted of TV trays (no dining table) in our small apartment at that time. But later this daughter did exactly the same thing with her husband of a couple of years – with a different show – and commented on how it was a great way to wind down from a busy day. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! We have about 30 of the Wild, Wild West shows to go through during future dinnertimes. More later . . .
Friday, May 2, 2008
April 27th – Newport Beach, California – Jim’s Blog #40
Ahhh! We just settled into our hotel suite in the Renaissance Hotel near the LAX airport to spend the night prior to an early departure tomorrow morning back to Puerto Vallarta. We thought it better to pre-position ourselves near the airport rather than have our daughter, Melissa, drive us up to the airport from Newport Beach in the morning traffic. It would also have rousted out our three small granddaughters a little too early in the morning to make them “happy campers” the rest of the day. We spent most of the week with our oldest daughter and her husband, Melissa and Tim, and their three daughters, Delaney (newly turned 8), Riley (an energetic 5), and Paige (a fully-on-top-of-things 3).
Delaney celebrated her birthday on the 22nd with just the family and both sets of grandparents at a Japanese restaurant of her choosing that featured cooking the meal on barbecues built into the tables – I can report that no one was burned in the process. Then the full-on birthday party was on Sunday afternoon (just completed) that featured three hours at a roller skating rink with about 20 small guests and their accompanying parents. The place was a bedlam of noise and activity, but Sheilagh and I both strapped on our skates and did a few circuits, even skating together during the couples skating. We both quit just as we were beginning to get overconfident with our resurrected abilities. It’s just when you think you’ve mastered a long ago competence that “the gods” visit you with a penalty for the sin of pride – like pitching you headlong at a wall and causing you to break something in the process. We could just imagine taking the plane out tomorrow with casts on our legs and walking with crutches.
Melissa had talked over the birthday gift situation with Delaney, and they had decided to forego personal presents in favor of having guests bring unwrapped toys that would be donated to the Orangewood Children’s Shelter in Orange County. Delaney and her guests already had plenty of toys and apparently another child had done something like that in the past; so perhaps the pendulum is swinging back away from the sort of luxurious birthday parties with chauffeured limousines that one of our daughters had been invited to many years ago. We are quite proud of Delaney and her parents for this charitable way to celebrate a birthday. The kids all had a great time skating and the roller-skating staff handled the pizza and the serving of ice cream and birthday cake in a separate section of the restaurant area devoted to that purpose. Melissa commented that it was one of the easiest birthday parties she had ever given.
I recall that in my youth roller skating rinks and bowling alleys were considered the places in town where undesirable kids used to hang out who would help turn us toward a life of drugs and crime. Sheilagh says I am showing my age when I mention stuff like this from “the old days,” but it does bring up the fact that there are cycles in everything and we are now old enough to see the extreme ends of a lot of the cycles. Now we are putting ourselves into a new life of cruising where everyone else is telling us how wonderful it used to be before there were a lot of cruisers. One of our reasons for going up into the Sea of Cortez for the summer is to get away from the fleet of sailboats among which we have been sailing for the last five months and find some of those isolated anchorages with crystal pure water where the bottom is visible to thirty feet in depth or more and the fish seem to be in a large fishbowl all around us. We’ll let you know what we find.
We also celebrated Tim’s birthday on the 26th, a low key dinner with the family and the grandparents present. After the age of 21 I don’t mention ages anymore; so Tim can be whatever age he wants to be. During the week we got to spend time with the family at their various activities, and we were amazed at how busy they all are in a given day. We were also impressed with the organization that the parents have set up to keep things organized. Each of the girls has her own room and each one lays out the clothes on the floor of her room that she intends to wear to school the next day, including shoes; so it looked as if there was a child lying face up on the floor of each room when we went in to kiss the real person goodnight. Each carries a specific thin shoulder-strap bag to and from school that contains the paperwork to be passed between teacher and parent each day. The student doesn’t need to remember to dig through a pile of homework to find the form that needs to be signed by the parent. Why didn’t we think of that?
Earlier in the LA visit we had attended the Long Beach Grand Prix with Lisa and Bob, my sister and brother-in-law, along with their children and grandchildren. They furnished the tickets and the ear plugs, and we got to watch very fast and NOISY racecars compete on some of the streets of Long Beach. Even more fascinating to me were the exhibits in the convention center, where the California Highway Patrol, LAPD, Long Beach Police, Navy, Army, and Marines (I didn’t see the Air Force there) were all manning recruiting stations – apparently targeting people who like to drive fast. Maybe the Air Force was missing because racecars are too slow for those interested in real “jet” speed.
The Marines had two chin-up bars side by side to challenge attendees to see if they were tough enough for the Marines – brilliant marketing! Having just attended a sailboat show in Oakland that week, I noticed a vast difference in the two events. At the Long Beach Grand Prix there was something for everyone, and most of the exhibits got kids interested in cars and racing, whereas the sailboat show didn’t really have much for kids, and a certain basic knowledge of sailing was presumed to pre-exist in the attendees. I was fascinated by both events, but the Long Beach Grand Prix really reflected the heartland of America for me, and I realized I was more interested in a quiet sailboat race than a noisy road race – so much for being a “true” American.
Tim and Melissa started a restaurant, called the Beach Pit Barbecue, three years ago in Costa Mesa on Tustin, just off 17th – yes, we are being flagrant supporters of their efforts by publishing this. During this visit we were able to visit their latest Beach Pit Barbecue at the Tustin Garage (historical site) in Tustin, California, which is about three to four times as large as the first one. After the Long Beach Grand Prix we showed up with my sister Lisa’s extended family of children and grandchildren, meeting up with Tim and Melissa and their children, and taking over four tables with our crowd. The place was as loud and active as the race had been – a very popular place after opening only a few weeks before. Melissa and Tim took orders for our group and ran them back to the kitchen without bothering the waiters and waitresses.
They soon came back out to report that the kitchen was backed up with orders and the computer had gone out. What was to have been a family get-together soon became a rescue operation by Tim and Melissa, who had to leave us to get things fixed. Melissa went to fix the computer system and Tim began to marshal the forces. Soon each one was popping back out with pitchers of beers and sodas, and a particular waiter and waitress began bringing orders to the table. In all the confusion we didn’t get our specific orders exactly, but all the food we got was great. And it was inspiring to see our oldest daughter and her husband wade into the confusion and bring order to it all.
Sheilagh and I could appreciate all that was going on, but I think we both longed for the peace and quiet of cruising on a sailboat by the end of the week. I can’t forget to mention that while we have been cruising, I have more or less perfected the playing of Sudoku – to the point where I don’t bother anymore with the “easy” and “medium” level games, which offer no challenge anymore. My sister, Lisa, however, reminded me that she had beaten me in a timed Sudoku at our last meeting, and she desired the opportunity to defend her “championship.” I have to explain that our previous competition involved an “easy” Sudoku game that I tackled in the normal manner that I do the complex ones. She did a great job of taking shortcuts to win hands down.
So this time I insisted on duplicating a “hard” puzzle and timing our efforts. I hate to brag (not really), but I was finished before my sister had placed a quarter of the numbers in the blank squares! We repeated the competition on another puzzle with the same results. Granted my sister is 10 years younger than I am, nevertheless she has accused me in the past of being not just over the hill, but way down the hill from her; so it was very satisfying to show that we old codgers can still compete in mental challenges. Now, if I could just remember where I put my book of Sudoku puzzles and my pencil!
One last family mention: we had the opportunity to meet with a cousin of mine and her husband, Sheila and Billy Fernandez, along with my two sisters, Linda and Lisa, and their husbands, Barry and Bob. As a couple, Sheilagh and I had last seen Sheila and Billy some 30 years ago when we and they were both stationed in Hawaii. Billy worked for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) during his career and was transferred to a number of locations, including New Orleans and the Bahamas, before retiring first to Hawaii (too hot and muggy) and now to Oceanside – just a few miles from San Diego (where we have our retirement condo). The lunch together stretched to an enjoyable three hours as we caught up on the lives of all four couples, and now we can look forward to visiting with Sheila and Billy when we leave off cruising in favor of a more conventional retirement.
We thoroughly enjoyed the visit with our oldest daughter’s family, but we can’t imagine being that busy on a daily basis ever again, and we marvel that we used to operate at something close to the speed that all of our children are now operating. Thank goodness we can now slow down in retirement and not feel that we have some need to keep up with the younger folks. On the next blog we will be back in Puerto Vallarta and will keep you up with what we are doing to prepare for our departure north into the Sea of Cortez on or about May 7th. More later . . .
Delaney celebrated her birthday on the 22nd with just the family and both sets of grandparents at a Japanese restaurant of her choosing that featured cooking the meal on barbecues built into the tables – I can report that no one was burned in the process. Then the full-on birthday party was on Sunday afternoon (just completed) that featured three hours at a roller skating rink with about 20 small guests and their accompanying parents. The place was a bedlam of noise and activity, but Sheilagh and I both strapped on our skates and did a few circuits, even skating together during the couples skating. We both quit just as we were beginning to get overconfident with our resurrected abilities. It’s just when you think you’ve mastered a long ago competence that “the gods” visit you with a penalty for the sin of pride – like pitching you headlong at a wall and causing you to break something in the process. We could just imagine taking the plane out tomorrow with casts on our legs and walking with crutches.
Melissa had talked over the birthday gift situation with Delaney, and they had decided to forego personal presents in favor of having guests bring unwrapped toys that would be donated to the Orangewood Children’s Shelter in Orange County. Delaney and her guests already had plenty of toys and apparently another child had done something like that in the past; so perhaps the pendulum is swinging back away from the sort of luxurious birthday parties with chauffeured limousines that one of our daughters had been invited to many years ago. We are quite proud of Delaney and her parents for this charitable way to celebrate a birthday. The kids all had a great time skating and the roller-skating staff handled the pizza and the serving of ice cream and birthday cake in a separate section of the restaurant area devoted to that purpose. Melissa commented that it was one of the easiest birthday parties she had ever given.
I recall that in my youth roller skating rinks and bowling alleys were considered the places in town where undesirable kids used to hang out who would help turn us toward a life of drugs and crime. Sheilagh says I am showing my age when I mention stuff like this from “the old days,” but it does bring up the fact that there are cycles in everything and we are now old enough to see the extreme ends of a lot of the cycles. Now we are putting ourselves into a new life of cruising where everyone else is telling us how wonderful it used to be before there were a lot of cruisers. One of our reasons for going up into the Sea of Cortez for the summer is to get away from the fleet of sailboats among which we have been sailing for the last five months and find some of those isolated anchorages with crystal pure water where the bottom is visible to thirty feet in depth or more and the fish seem to be in a large fishbowl all around us. We’ll let you know what we find.
We also celebrated Tim’s birthday on the 26th, a low key dinner with the family and the grandparents present. After the age of 21 I don’t mention ages anymore; so Tim can be whatever age he wants to be. During the week we got to spend time with the family at their various activities, and we were amazed at how busy they all are in a given day. We were also impressed with the organization that the parents have set up to keep things organized. Each of the girls has her own room and each one lays out the clothes on the floor of her room that she intends to wear to school the next day, including shoes; so it looked as if there was a child lying face up on the floor of each room when we went in to kiss the real person goodnight. Each carries a specific thin shoulder-strap bag to and from school that contains the paperwork to be passed between teacher and parent each day. The student doesn’t need to remember to dig through a pile of homework to find the form that needs to be signed by the parent. Why didn’t we think of that?
Earlier in the LA visit we had attended the Long Beach Grand Prix with Lisa and Bob, my sister and brother-in-law, along with their children and grandchildren. They furnished the tickets and the ear plugs, and we got to watch very fast and NOISY racecars compete on some of the streets of Long Beach. Even more fascinating to me were the exhibits in the convention center, where the California Highway Patrol, LAPD, Long Beach Police, Navy, Army, and Marines (I didn’t see the Air Force there) were all manning recruiting stations – apparently targeting people who like to drive fast. Maybe the Air Force was missing because racecars are too slow for those interested in real “jet” speed.
The Marines had two chin-up bars side by side to challenge attendees to see if they were tough enough for the Marines – brilliant marketing! Having just attended a sailboat show in Oakland that week, I noticed a vast difference in the two events. At the Long Beach Grand Prix there was something for everyone, and most of the exhibits got kids interested in cars and racing, whereas the sailboat show didn’t really have much for kids, and a certain basic knowledge of sailing was presumed to pre-exist in the attendees. I was fascinated by both events, but the Long Beach Grand Prix really reflected the heartland of America for me, and I realized I was more interested in a quiet sailboat race than a noisy road race – so much for being a “true” American.
Tim and Melissa started a restaurant, called the Beach Pit Barbecue, three years ago in Costa Mesa on Tustin, just off 17th – yes, we are being flagrant supporters of their efforts by publishing this. During this visit we were able to visit their latest Beach Pit Barbecue at the Tustin Garage (historical site) in Tustin, California, which is about three to four times as large as the first one. After the Long Beach Grand Prix we showed up with my sister Lisa’s extended family of children and grandchildren, meeting up with Tim and Melissa and their children, and taking over four tables with our crowd. The place was as loud and active as the race had been – a very popular place after opening only a few weeks before. Melissa and Tim took orders for our group and ran them back to the kitchen without bothering the waiters and waitresses.
They soon came back out to report that the kitchen was backed up with orders and the computer had gone out. What was to have been a family get-together soon became a rescue operation by Tim and Melissa, who had to leave us to get things fixed. Melissa went to fix the computer system and Tim began to marshal the forces. Soon each one was popping back out with pitchers of beers and sodas, and a particular waiter and waitress began bringing orders to the table. In all the confusion we didn’t get our specific orders exactly, but all the food we got was great. And it was inspiring to see our oldest daughter and her husband wade into the confusion and bring order to it all.
Sheilagh and I could appreciate all that was going on, but I think we both longed for the peace and quiet of cruising on a sailboat by the end of the week. I can’t forget to mention that while we have been cruising, I have more or less perfected the playing of Sudoku – to the point where I don’t bother anymore with the “easy” and “medium” level games, which offer no challenge anymore. My sister, Lisa, however, reminded me that she had beaten me in a timed Sudoku at our last meeting, and she desired the opportunity to defend her “championship.” I have to explain that our previous competition involved an “easy” Sudoku game that I tackled in the normal manner that I do the complex ones. She did a great job of taking shortcuts to win hands down.
So this time I insisted on duplicating a “hard” puzzle and timing our efforts. I hate to brag (not really), but I was finished before my sister had placed a quarter of the numbers in the blank squares! We repeated the competition on another puzzle with the same results. Granted my sister is 10 years younger than I am, nevertheless she has accused me in the past of being not just over the hill, but way down the hill from her; so it was very satisfying to show that we old codgers can still compete in mental challenges. Now, if I could just remember where I put my book of Sudoku puzzles and my pencil!
One last family mention: we had the opportunity to meet with a cousin of mine and her husband, Sheila and Billy Fernandez, along with my two sisters, Linda and Lisa, and their husbands, Barry and Bob. As a couple, Sheilagh and I had last seen Sheila and Billy some 30 years ago when we and they were both stationed in Hawaii. Billy worked for the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) during his career and was transferred to a number of locations, including New Orleans and the Bahamas, before retiring first to Hawaii (too hot and muggy) and now to Oceanside – just a few miles from San Diego (where we have our retirement condo). The lunch together stretched to an enjoyable three hours as we caught up on the lives of all four couples, and now we can look forward to visiting with Sheila and Billy when we leave off cruising in favor of a more conventional retirement.
We thoroughly enjoyed the visit with our oldest daughter’s family, but we can’t imagine being that busy on a daily basis ever again, and we marvel that we used to operate at something close to the speed that all of our children are now operating. Thank goodness we can now slow down in retirement and not feel that we have some need to keep up with the younger folks. On the next blog we will be back in Puerto Vallarta and will keep you up with what we are doing to prepare for our departure north into the Sea of Cortez on or about May 7th. More later . . .
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