We’ve done a lot this week to buy needed equipment to continue our cruising in Mexico and to visit friends while we’re in California. On Monday we flew on Alaska Airlines (what are they doing flying anywhere near Mexico with that name?) from Puerto Vallarta to LAX after a last-minute excursion to pick up a part at the airport prior to leaving. About two hours before our planned departure for the airport we got a message from our forwarder that our stern seat had arrived at the Puerto Vallarta airport and had to be picked up immediately. As we were discussing what to do, we were overheard by Steve and Jamie of Reba, who volunteered to use their car to take me to the airport to pick it up. With the car we easily got that done in an hour, when it would have taken us at least a couple of hours by bus, if not more. Thanks to Steve and Jamie for that help.
We were able to use airline miles to pay for our flight and for some reason we got to fly First Class with them. After more than two years of business travel without an airline meal, we actually got to eat a very good chicken Caesar Salad during the 3+ hours of the flight. The big effort when we got to LAX was finding the fastest moving Customs line from the three we were herded into. After a few minutes I noticed that our line was being serviced by one slow-moving customs agent, while the line next to ours was being serviced by four agents. By that time another flight had come in and filled up the faster line, while we had progressed very little at all. I grabbed Sheilagh and moved to the faster line, rather than continue to stew over the inadequate supervision that had set up the inequity in the lines. As it was we got through the longer line faster than if we had stayed where we were.
Sheilagh thinks I have a long way to go before I get into such a relaxed retirement state of mind that I will no longer care that one line takes four times as long as another to go through. Having spent most of my life involved in making work more efficient, I am still very frustrated when I see most bureaucratic operations where there is no motivation on the part of management to streamline anything and improve the service to the taxpaying customers – us. Checking in to the various Port Captains as we go from place to place in Mexico (where we deal with office members who often don’t speak much English) is still more efficient than dealing with the customs agents we encountered at LAX. After passing the main agent we had to go through another line, where an agent checked to make sure our stamp from the first agent was present, and then we waited in another line to surrender the customs declaration form itself. I still can’t figure out why the first or second agent couldn’t have collected the form while reviewing it.
We grabbed a car and drove down to Newport Beach to stay with our daughter, Melissa, on our way down to San Diego. We dropped by the next morning to have breakfast with Kristi (the other grandmother) who had kept our granddaughters, Delaney, Riley, and Paige for the night. Then it was on to San Diego where we hit several stores to buy impeller blades and oil filters for the engine, diet cola syrup for our Soda Club machine on the boat (that injects carbon dioxide into our self-made sodas), screening material for our hatches to keep out no-see-um bugs, any movie that happens to be on sale, a variety of stainless steel screws and nuts, extra line for the Monitor wind vane – let’s just say enough stuff to fill up the largest number and sizes of bag that the airlines permit. We left that bag in the back of our car at the condo and will go back to retrieve it when we are back in Melissa’s vicinity in LA.
Then we hopped a plane for Sacramento, where we rented a car, did more shopping at REI for a body harness to be used by either of us when going up the mast, and had dinner with our daughter, Megan and her boyfriend Rob at a Chicago deep-dish pizza place called The Chicago Fire. That night we dropped in on Chuck and Rene at Lake of the Pines, where we stayed for three days as we did more shopping and visiting. Sheilagh found some summer clothing to replace the overused and many-times washed clothing she has been wearing for the past 5 months. We also found a sale on DVDs at WalMart where we picked up about 30 DVDs at $5 apiece – our entertainment for the long hot summer ahead in the Sea of Cortez. We also got a collapsible hand cart, some clothing for me, and a DVD player to take the place of our computers as the source for movies.
During this time frame I got a sore throat and stuffed up sinuses that we finally decided were caused by pollen in the air – another reason for living on the water near the desert, as in the Sea of Cortez. We got some medication and began fighting it, but my voice gradually deteriorated so I had a difficult time communicating during our visits with friends such as Roger and Jeanette, Chuck and Nancy, and Gary and Bonny. Then on Friday evening we met with old sailing friends at the clubhouse to talk over our journey so far and to catch up on what they’ve been doing. These friends include Mitch and Lori who own a 25’ sailboat and a Millimeter, Allan and Kym with a Laser II, Tom with a fast catamaran, Lori and her son Zale (her husband Mark is in Australia helping to prepare a boat for the next around-the-world sailboat race – Mark owns a Prindle catamaran), and Ken with numerous small sailboats at any given time and who (with Mitch) started the laser sailing school at Lake of the Pines. Everyone seems to be doing fairly well and looking forward to sailing on Lake of the Pines in the not-too-distant future – still a little too cold in early spring at 2000'.
For dinner we joined Bill and Colleen, whom we have known for a while and who recently purchased a 57’ power boat for cruising in the Pacific Northwest. These two seem to be my most avid blog readers (besides Mitch), since they quoted my blogs to ask about specifics on certain stories rather than ask about the stories themselves. It’s nice to be appreciated! They are outfitting their boat with all the modern cruising amenities including satellite TV, air-conditioning, bow and stern thrusters (that allow them to sidestep into and away from a dock), and even an automatic man-overboard system that brings the boat back around to the point at which someone pressed the man-overboard button on the GPS (assuming someone was still aboard to press the button). It sounds like a very comfortable boat that would allow one to live in luxury while cruising. Nevertheless they are embarked on being trained in all the things that everyone needs to know on the ocean including boat handling, rules of the road, and the many systems the boat has that will need maintenance. No need to feel guilty about making life easy; but the downside is there are more systems to keep operable!
On Saturday we met our daughter Megan at the Hertz lot at the Sacramento Airport, moved all of our stuff into her car and drove down to San Jose to visit our daughter and her family, Stephanie, Hayden, and little Evan James (Jimmy to me). On Sunday evening Stephanie and Hayden hosted a potluck party for friends and family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the house was full. We went through about a fifth and a half of Tequila and a lot of salt in the Margaritas we handed out, not to mention lots of sodas, beer, and wine. We also consumed two complete tri-tips, the famous Goetsch German Potato Salad (made with a Betty Crocker recipe), several other salads, and three deserts consisting of a chocolate cake, a cheese cake, and a berry pie. Everyone went home stuffed and we had a chance to show everyone the map of our journey over the past five months, first down and then up the coast of Mexico. Looked at on the map, we are even impressed with the cruising we have done.
I had a chance to compare my tanned leg to my brother Brian’s white one, and I liked the tan one better. Brian had just returned from a one-week sales reward trip to Maui, but one week of tanning can’t compare with five months of Mexican sun. We extended numerous invitations for folks to join us for a week or so of cruising throughout our trip, but most have a hard time conceiving of life on a boat. There seems to be a big worry about sea sickness, squeezing into a small shower, getting hot under the summer sun, etc. There are always patches for sea sickness, we can always shower off on the side of the boat to avoid the small shower, and we don’t know how hot it will be in the Sea of Cortez this summer. But my feeling is that anyone can survive a one-week adventure; so let us know if you are interested. This invitation only pertains to friends or family (after all, we’re not sure who is reading this and we don’t want to be inviting serial killers).
That’s enough for now. More Later . . .
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