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 . . .