Called Nan today to tell her to send our mail down with Peter and Diane's daughter Denise who is coming from San Diego next Wednesday. Nan wasn't at the shop but John took the message.
Went over to EAGLE'S SONG in the afternoon to report on our trip and while there met some of newcomers in the marina; Allen, a seventy-two year old single hander on the sailboat CARIOCA III and Barry and Dominique from THANK YOU JACK, a power boat. Both spent the summer in La Paz. The class of '91 is starting to arrive.
El Viernes, 2 Noviembre 1990
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And, another work day. Got our awning back up then serviced and greased the bikes, the Evenrude, the Johnson, and the dock cart. I then took the cover off the Ranger and emptied the junk out of it. Things faired pretty well in it...there was a little green slime on some of the stuff way down in the bottom and the rolled up Metzelers had some water in them, but no real problem. Lois took time from her vacuuming to help me get the Metz down on the dock where I unrolled it. I then spent the best part of an hour looking for the fittings. I knew I'd put them away in some safe place, but I couldn't remember where. After searching everywhere else, I finally found them in plain view packed a clear plastic bag in the starboard stair locker, a place I'd been into a dozen times since our return ...I just never saw them. Anyway, I got the Metz all put together with the Johnson on it, dumped it in the water, put a little gas in the tank, pulled the starter rope, and it ran! Looks like our little old Johnson may go for another season.
It got a little too hot in the afternoon to work on the dock, so I got caught up on all the engine room maintenance then worked on the Guatemala log while Lois sewed new lines on our life-rings...they had used polypropylene line, a dumb thing to do on something which is most probably going to be constantly exposed to the sun. Quiet dinner at home, after which we watched our Guatemalan videos. We got some pretty good shots, but it's not like being there. One cold winter we'll go back for a longer visit.
El Sabado, 3 Noviembre 1990
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I attacked tbe Ranger today, pulling off the green-stained cover and emptying everything out on the upper deck. There actually wasn't as much slime in it as I'd expected. The cover cleaned up nicely with a little Joy and Clorox and sun, as did the boat itself. The steadying sail is putting up more of a battle...rather than the green mold it's covered with a black mildew of some kind. I suspect enough time in the sun will bleach it out. It sure bleached me out! ...I think I got a bit more sun than I needed today.
We had Peter and Diane over for dinner this evening. My strip steak turned out to be almost unchewable and Lois' banana-strawberry desert didn't turn out the way she wanted it, but her hot potato casserole and "French tomatoes" were great. After dinner we looked at the videos we took in Guatemala. They turned out pretty good. As always, I wish I'd taken more.
El Domingo, 4 Noviembre 1990
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Today turned out to be sort of a lost day, at least as far as getting anything done is concerned. We had planned on riding our bikes over to Jack Tar Village for breakfast, but Lois was having a bit of trouble with her innards so we stayed home instead, just going up to the little store long enough to place a call to Kristie. All we got was the answering machine. Diane came over for a while for a Show and Tell session of Guatemala goodies, and later Lois rode with her and Peter out to the Commercial Mexicana to buy a few groceries. I just loafed around the house getting charged up to go fight with the world tomorrow.
El Lunes, 5 Noviembre 1990
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Well, I got all charged up to do battle and the enemy wouldn't fight. Peter and Diane gave Allen, Dominique, and myself a ride into the bank this morning where Diane was prepared to spend the day if necessary squeezing money out of them with her new Visa card. No problema! Gerardo, the nice young man at the credit card desk approved her request in about a minute. I also made a cash draw, as did Dominique, then we all walked down to the photo processing shop where I left our four rolls of Guatemalan pictures. At that point I split off, went to the copy shop to get mucho copias of my papers, then rode the bus back to the Port Operations building on the cruise ship dock. I got there about 10:45 and found two other boaters waiting for the Jefe, a Frenchman who I didn't know, and John, the skipper of SYMPATICO II, who we'd met last spring (I just looked up his wife's name; it's Molly). We all waited until about a quarter after eleven when the Jefe came in, then went in to see him one at a time. No one got any satisfaction. When my turn came I took my papers in, explained that our import permit would expire on the 7th, and asked for an extension. He looked at the permit, had his secretary look at it, then turned to me and asked, "What's the problem?" I'm a little slow, so I explained again that our permit expires the 7th and we wanted to stay legal. He just shook his head, looked at his watch, and said, "Hoy est cinco, no problema!" It finally dawned on me that he was telling me to come back on the seventh! What could I say? As I left he went back to chatting with his secretary.
Outside the Port Operations building I found that they have installed one of the new computer phones, so I called Kris via USA Direct. She had some bad news for us, they won't be coming for a visit until after the first of the year. They've found that Bob has a small cancer in the prostate and is sceduled for surgery the last week of November. Other than that, they are both doing well.
From there I took a taxi around to Opequimar, bought a gallon of Tip Top Teak oil (They didn't have Daley's which I usually use), and then walked along the chain of big marina condos around the harbor to the Porto Bela where I got a beer and a bite of lunch. I decided to try a little different strategy for getting back to the boat; it's a bit over a mile from the entrance at the highway to the marina, quite a walk. Instead of getting off the bus there I rode it on to the Jack Tar Village entrance where there are usually a bunch of taxis parked. Of course when I got there today there were none, but I only had to wait about five minutes before one showed up. He charged me 10,000 pesos ($3.40) for the ride into the marina, a considerable saving over the 25,000 to 35,000 they charge from the airport or downtown.
El Martes, 6 Noviembre 1990
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Town again today. Diane was going in to Rodrigo's, her hairdresser, so Lois decided to come along and see if she could get her hair cut also. (She still won't let me try; I know I'd do a great job!) We dropped the ladies at Rodrigo's then Peter took me over to Old Town to see a Doc about my Coast Guard physical. I didn't learn until the day before we left Seattle that it is possible to renew your Coast Guard license by mail, and that if you renew it within 12 months after it has expired you don't have to go through the written test procedure again. Mine was due last March and I had just let it expire because it wasn't practical to go to the States at that time. I've never used it commercially, but it's kind of nice to have. Anyway, Peter hauled me to this guy named Mabrey, a redheaded young man who specializes in treating tourists with the "touristas". He gave me my "physical", filling out all the blanks on the Coast Guard form even though he didn't have any equipment to do either an eye or hearing test. He charged me fifty bucks, kind of steep for a dry lab physical, but what do you do?
That didn't take very long, so Peter and I wandered around town for a while. He checked on some speakers he was having rebuilt and had been promised this morning...they weren't ready of course, promised again for three this afternoon. Then, while Peter went off to get a haircut himself, I headed for Migracion with five copies of my crew list. I figure that if we check out of PV now, while our Import Permit is still valid, we might avoid a problem in the future. So in I went, to be led into the back room and turned over to a young lady in a khaki uniform with about the shortest mini-skirt I've ever seen and a blouse which looked like it was going to pop its buttons any minute. She looked at my crew list and other papers, then in her book, and then told me that we hadn't checked in when we came here in May. Reading upside down and trying to avoid getting in the line of fire of a flying button, I pointed out the name SEA RAVEN on line 183 of her book. With that she stomped off with the crew lists and returned a few minutes later with them signed and stamped. She said the fee was 5,000 pesos which I gave her. Peter later told me that he'd never heard of such a fee...it's probably right now putting an even greater strain on the buttons.
That taken care of, we got the car lubed and the oil changed, then stopped at a place called the Almond House for a beer before going back to pick up the ladies. When they were finished we had very good lunch at a place called QUINO'S deep in Old Town beyond the tourist area. I guess Peter and Diane have been going there for several years, Quino gives them first class service.
Back at the boat, we found the sky clouded over for the first time since we've been back, so took advantage of the shade to scrub the cap rail. Tomorrow I'll put a coat or two of oil on it. It sure needs it...the rainy season really dried out the wood!
El Miercoles, 7 Noviembre 1990
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Peter and Diane weren't going into town this morning but Peter offered to loan me his car to go in to the Aduana. I'm very hesitant to borrow anybody's car here in Mexico, but I wanted to get the paperwork over with and I didn't have to drive through town to get to Port Operations so I did. It's a nice old Mercury station wagon with air conditioning, in pretty good shape except for a falling down headliner and cracking upholstery, just right for hauling things around. I got to Port Operations about 10:30 and used the phone outside to call and wish Dad a Happy Birthday before going in. The Jefe was in his office when I got there and after a few minutes wait while he attended to others, he heard my plea for a new Permiso de Importacion. No way! He said that he was waiting for instructions from Mexico before issuing any renewals, but that there was "No problem" with the fact that ours was expiring. I told him that we were heading north and still he said there would be no problem. There didn't seem to be much I could do about it so I thanked him and left.
Deciding to get the rest of the paper out of the way while I was there, I went next to the Port Captain's office where a pretty young lady got out her stack of carbon paper, typed the Port Captain's name on my five copies of our crew list, rubber stamped them with his seal and signature, and told me to take them to Migracion then come back the Port Captain's office. Well, I wasn't about to drive Peter's car downtown and I doubt if I'll ever make it back to Migracion or the Port Captain's, but we have our signed and sealed papers if someone should want to see them.
Outside the building, I used the phone again, this time to call Nan. She had nothing new in the way of news except that Allstate had screwed up our car insurance again...transfered it to California. With the cars in the hangar it isn't very important. On the way back I stopped at Opequimar to see if they had some pencil zincs. Nope! What looked like a good start on a real marine supply a couple of years ago has now gone completely to pot. They fired Debbie, the one person who knew something about buying, and the guy they have in there now doesn't know what he has or what he ought to have. Their stock is rapidly becoming a hodge-podge of slow moving items. Too bad, there are enough boats here for a well run marine store to do well. My next stop was Club de Precios (Sort of a mini- version of the US Price Clubs) where I bought film, a new toaster (Ours finally gave out), a tarp, beer, and a few other things. They have a lot of imported stuff that you don't see in the local stores.
I got Peter's car back to the boat OK without anybody bashing me or vise-versa.
Barry and Dominique came over for a drink and to talk about points south. They are one of the very few powerboat cruisers we've met who are thinking about going beyond Mexico. We showed them our video's of Costa Rica and Panama. Nice kids, hope they keep going and don't chicken out when they get to Acapulco.
El Jueves, 8 Noviembre 1990
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Mail day! That's always a big day for us. Denise Halferty flew in from San Diego for a visit with her folks and brought us a package of mail which Nan had forwarded. The only personal mail we had was a letter from Nan and a postcard from our Costa Rican friend, Omar, but there were several bank statements and other business mail. I spent a good part of the day balancing checkbooks and writing letters. Other that for that it was pretty much a lost day. Eagle's Song moved off of the dock for the first time in a month, taking Denise and her boy friend for a ride out to Yelapa. It's about time we went out for a shakedown run.
El Viernes, 9 Noviembre 1990
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Got a coat of oil on the rail this morning...it's going to need another. I don't think it's ever been so dried out. The Tip Top Teak oil I'd gotten from Opequimar just disappeared as I put it on. It's been longer than usual between oilings and the summer rains and sun have done their work. I also got two of the doors scrubbed down ready to oil and I'll put another coat on tomorrow.
I was messing with the oil and Lois had just finished a load of wash when Peter showed up wanting to borrow the Metz. Denise and Bill, her boy friend, had taken his dinghy up the river and now a movie company over at the fuel dock was putting out a call for extras. Peter wanted to go see what was happening. After putting a little air in the port tube which seems to be leaking a little, he and Lois took off. That was the last I saw of her for the rest of the day. After while Peter came back to report that she'd been hired, along with every other Gringo willing to stand around in the hot sun and have their picture taken. When Denise and Bill came back they too got into the act. I stuck with my boat work. It was about 6:00 before Lois came down the dock, sunburned but happy, carrying her pay envelope with 60,000 pesos (About $20.00), the first earnings for either of us in more than four years. They had also fed her dinner so I had to scrounge for leftovers. She says the movie they are making is a pilot for a CBS mini-series called Something Bullet. The scenes they are making here are supposedly in Florida, but it costs a lot less to do the movie here. Sounds like a shoe-string operation, one camera and a mostly Mexican crew, but she had fun. She sent Peter back once for her sun glasses...she should have also asked for the sunscreen.
El Sabado, 10 Noviembre 1990
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Got quite a bit done today, second coat of oil on the rail, plus the doors scrubbed down and a couple of coats on them. Tip Top Teak is a lighter oil than Daley's and doesn't stain the deck so much when I spill a drop. We'll see if it lasts as long. I also pulled the Metz out of the water, scrubbed the bottom and located a couple of small leaks in the port tube. I'll patch those tomorrow.
I spent a good part of the day writing more letters for Denise to take north. Seems like we have a lot of bones to pick with various and sundry...Blue Shield applied double deductable on Lois' medical claims, our renters' July check never got credited to our account, the Duwamish Yacht Club is fussing about proof of insurance, Farmers & Merchants Bank hasn't sent us a statement, and Security Pacific wants to charge us too much for its services. I wrote a whole bunch of nasty notes.
The Halferty's kids decided to go out for the evening after Diane had cooked up a fine dinner, so she invited us to share it with them. Lois had already fixed up a salad so we had that plus Diane's really good baked chicken dish. Made up for missing dinner last night. I really don't need to eat as well as we do...I find I've gained five pounds since we've been back.
08:40 Off the dock! For the first time since the 28th of May, almost six months, we cast off the lines and are off and running. We both felt a little eerie as we crossed the entrance bar and started to experience the low swell in the bay. There was only ten feet of water on the bar this morning at close to the 5.8 ft high tide; it must be filling in. They supposedly dredged it to 9 feet at low tide just last year. It was a calm and pretty morning as we ran down with the morning offshore breeze toward Las Islas Tres Marietas in the mouth of Banderas Bay. It's about 15 miles out there, just right for a shakedown run on a beautiful morning. As soon as we got over our queasiness and felt that everything was running properly I untangled the fish lines and hung a couple of lures behind. All systems A-OK, Gimmy purring along at 1100 rpm, cruise generator putting out 120 volts to the freezer, Tex, the Satnav, pointing the way for George, the autopilot, to steer, and Raider showing the islands right where Tex said they should be. There are a few sportfishers heading out but they soon pull away from us as they run for the fishing grounds outside of the bay. As for us, there's no action on the lines this morning.
11:30 We drop our hook in about fifty feet of water on the south side of the two easterly island of the Tres Marietas. The islands break up the pacific swell so there's just a little wind chop from the morning breeze. The water was clear, so I cranked up Gennie, changed the filters in the watermaker, and then started it. After spitting out a little discolored water from it's long pickling, it ran normally, producing water which passed the taste test nicely. We ran it for about a half hour discharging into a bucket to make sure that all of the sodium bisulfide pickling solution was flushed out.
With that job done, I decided to go for a swim and check the thru -hulls again. They were OK but the water was so clear that I could see a bunch of other crap growing along the keel and on the rudder, so got out our new 50 ft hose and a dive tank and went down to clean it up. We had seemed to be running a bit slow on the way out here and it's no wonder...I must have scraped a hundred pounds of barnacles, muscles, and other growth off the bottom of the keel, the rudder, and rudder shoe. This was a different mix of growth than usual...larger animals piled thicker. It took a lot of scraping. I used all the remaining air in one tank, then had to get out the other to finish scraping the prop which had developed a pretty good cover just in the three weeks since I last did it. I must have spent more than an hour in the water which was perfect for the job, just the right temperature and so clear I could see the entire length of the boat. Surprisingly, I didn't see a single fish, even with all the junk I was scraping off. Usually there are dozens right at my sholder.
14:00 We haul our brand new shiny chain up with the hydraulic windless which seems to have the hickups, probably from lack of use. It works OK with a bit of urging, but I think I'd better run it a bit while at the dock to make sure the rough spots are smoothed out before we go cruising. We put out the fishing lines again but still had no luck. Didn't want to get back to the harbor entrance until close to high tide so we ran slowly, cruising first to Las Crusas, then along the long beach with all its hotels and resorts to the harbor jetties. We came back through the entrance about 5:30 with Charley reporting 6 feet under our hull (That's about 2 feet under the keel).
18:00 Tied up at the dock again. Good day, good news. At least at the moment, everything looks ready to go cruising again. All we need is food on board.
Peter & Diane left for Guadalajara early this morning, leaving Lois in charge of feeding Titu and Julia, their dog and parrot. Titu is a little, white, long-haired ragmop that growled at Lois when she tried to pour her some water after having given her a dish of food. Julia is a green parrot with nice red, yellow, & blue markings on her head. She's only about six months old and isn't talking yet, but she sure can whistle. She also has a tendency to bite any hand that comes near the cage, so Lois kept well away from her beak. Diane hopes to bring back another parrot from Guadalajara, some exotic bird for which she may pay as much as $2000. Seems a little steep to me.
The washing machine stopped in the middle of a load this morning so I had to take it apart. It was evidently corrosion on the contacts of the timer switch. I took the timer out, sprayed the contacts with TV contact cleaner, and it's working again; but, while I had it apart, I decided to clean up some of the rust around the lid and got myself into a major job. A year ago when I did the same thing I put a piece of plastic tubing around the lip to protect it. That was a bad idea! It evidently held the moisture and increased the rusting. Now the lip was so rusted that it just crumbled, leaving a jagged edge. I scraped, wire brushed, and pounded all the rust off, then used some epoxy putty to reform the edge. Tomorrow I'll repaint it. It won't look very good but it may last until we get back to the States and can replace it.
Took my dive tanks over to Berry on THANK YOU JACK and he filled them for me. He's an interesting guy, an RV salesman, motorcycle race track owner, investment counselor, travel agent, you name it. Not quite fifty, he's got heart problems and was told to quit working or die. He's having a hard time slowing down.
My next project was to get a coat of epoxy on our washing machine lid. I got it all cleaned up, the paint on, and had laid it out on the forward deck to dry when they started to burn the dry grass in the field right next to the marina, upwind of course. I was down below and, by the time I realized what was happening, my nice coat of epoxy had little fuzzy black hair all over it. To make matters worse, the dang stuff sagged, making nice little rivulets on the surface. Oh well, it wasn't going to look very good anyway with my cobbled up putty job on the inner rim. Tomorrow I'll sand it down a bit and put on a coat of spray paint. Maybe that will make it look a bit better.
By the time the field fire burned down the whole boat was covered with fine little ash strings two to three inches long. The wind would blow them into little drifts in the corners of the deck and in the hatches and doors. I went over and closed most of the doors on EAGLE'S SONG but they too will have a big cleanup job. I think that was the last of the field close around the marina...they have been burning for a week but always before the wind was blowing the smoke and ash away from us.
My big job for the day was changing Gimmy's oil. While I was warming him up I ran the windless and it seemed to run smoothly. I think the jerkiness may be due to the heavy galvanizing on our new chain. If so it'll smooth out after a few uses. The oil change went well, with only a minor spill as I got over-enthusiastic when adding the new oil. I put the waste oil in one of the five gallon plastic pails and set it up by the trash containers and it was gone in about five minutes. Don't know whether it was the oil or the pail they were after.
It's Tuck's birthday and I tried calling him from the little store. I think I may have gotten his answering machine but am not sure. From here the man at the store does all the dialing and talking, then has you pick up the phone when he tells you to. By the time I got on the line it was quiet but I left a message anyway.
We had Berry from THANK YOU JACK over for dinner. Lois fixed a great meatloaf. She does really well, considering that we are about out of food. She got some hamburger up at the little store and made it into something good. Provisioning is our next big task. We shut down the freezer today and let it defrost, so it will be all fresh when we bring home our groceries.
It was hotter today than it has been for a long while, and more humid. Our little indoor/outdoor thermometer was reading 98o inside and 97o out. After we finished putting our stuff away we just lay around doing nothing until the sun got down toward the horizon, then went over to THANK YOU JACK and spent a couple of hours with Berry, marking his charts from Acapulco to the Panama Canal with all our favorite anchorages. He's missing a few.
We went to dinner with Peter & Diane at a Japanese restaurant called the TSUNAMI, a really neat place in the Vallarta Plaza. It's small, with only about four tables and a counter, behind which the three cooks prepare the meal. There was, of course, tempura, but that's about the only thing from the usual Japanese menu. I can't come close to remembering the names of the dishes, but they were all delicious! Most were mixtures of seafoods rolled in "seaweed", some cold, some hot, served with various sauces. It was a very nice change from our usual diet. Diane says it's her favorite place to eat. Unfortunately for her, it's closing on the 25th of this month and not planning on opening again until sometime next year at a new location downtown.
We discovered today that Pywacket with Harry and San is in the harbor. We met them two years ago in Mazatlan when we took the trip with Lydia. We stopped by the boat in the Metz but no one was home. Maybe tomorrow.
While I was pushing the cart through the market I started feeling a little woozy and, by the time we got back to the boat, even worse--- head hurt, stomach hurt, gut rumbling, running a fever. I spent the rest of the day doing nothing alternating between the bed and my chair trying to keep cool. Hope this doesn't last long!
Called Nan from the little store. She had a few things of interest. She and John have set the wedding day, June 26th, so we have a date to shoot for. She also said that Tuck might be coming for a visit sometime in December, and also that my birthday message had gotten through to his answering machine.
Lois didn't get much shopping in today. The ladies arrived back about four, having spent much of the day at the bank---Diane's bank card had gone belly up again and she spent most of the day there trying to get them to give her some money. Lois was pretty upset ---she had counted on a good day in the tourist shops on the malacon.
We had our Thanksgiving dinner on EAGLE'S SONG. Peter & Diane hosted a traditional feast, with Diane cooking the turkey and about twenty of we other yachties bringing the fixin's. Lois baked a couple of pies, apple and pecan, and took a big bowl of mashed potatoes. Dalmar and Estrelia Costa, the Halferty friends who helped us with the Aduana when we were north and they wanted to see our papers, were there. In the conversation it turned out we had met them before in the Sea of Cortez. They are good friends of Rafael and Marsha on PERIGRINA. EAGLE'S SONG is big enough to handle the crowd and it turned out to be a nice party. It was quite different than last year when we had Thanksgiving with sixteen European cruisers on "Mr. Robinson's" island in the San Blas---served a dinner on the beach of sea snails, lobster, fish, rice, and fried bananas by Mr. Robinson's family. This year the food was more traditional, but not any more enjoyable.
Right after breakfast this morning I was back into the engine room, this time to fix my leak for good. I dug around in my box of pipe fittings until I found a bronze "T" and nipple, then took my little hacksaw and cut out all of the dozen plastic fittings which Seaborn had used to follow the hull contour down into the bilge. It was kind of a sloppy job --- the damn hot water tank kept slowly draining while I was doing it. I was glad I'd shut off the power to it yesterday --- at least I didn't get blistered. When I removed the last of the plastic I found the outlet from the tank almost plugged with rust. (Message there: Replace it ASAP) I installed my bronze "T" and nipple, put my bronze hose bib in one outlet and attached the hose I installed yesterday on the other. Now the only plastic in the hot water line is in the long pipe running up the center of the boat. We should be leak free for a while.
While doing all this I had noticed that the transmission had developed quite a bit of rust which was lifting the paint; so, as long as I was a mess anyway, I decided to clean that up. I got out the drill motor and a wire wheel and went to work. I got the rust pretty well off of it but, by the time I did, the engine room and I were really messed up. I hosed everything down, set the fan at the door to dry the place out, and headed directly for the shower. Took me almost a half hour of scrubbing, using a stiff brush, to get the crud off of me. There are disadvantages of doing a job like that in nothing but shorts.
We also got a few other jobs done today. I filled the gas tank for the Metz, then went over to the fuel dock and had our 6 gallon jug filled. I was surprised to find that gasoline was only about 85 cents per gallon, considerably less than stateside prices these days. We then pulled the Metz out of the water and scrubbed down the bottom again. It had developed quite a growth of barnacles in just the last three weeks which Lois scraped off. I got the bikes greased down, folded up, and stowed in the forward stateroom; and also scrubbed the last of the black marks off the hull where the fenders had been rubbing. The bad news for the day is that just about dinner time the alarm went off---the bilge switch wasn't working and the bilge was full. I went down and watched while Lois held the switch on the manual position to drain it. The float wasn't stuck, the electrical contact just isn't being made. That means a trip to the bilge tomorrow. Fun, fun, fun!
It was after noon by the time by the time we got out of the market so we stopped on the way back by our favorite PV restaurant, the Islas Marias, across from the airport. Today we drew one of those waiters whom you always hope you'll get but seldom do, a guy named Javier who kept five tables of customers, one a big one at which about ten people were seated, happy without seeming to have a bit of trouble. His eyes were always moving, and you only had to think about wanting something and he was there with it. In addition to waiting all the tables he found time to bring around and serve everyone who wanted it a small tequila drink. I'm not sure exactly what was in it but he would hold a napkin over the mouth of the triple shot glass, strike the table with the base which caused bubbles to form in the glass, then ask you to drink it in one gulp. It wasn't strong and actually tasted pretty good. For lunch Lois had the ribs (I have to admit they are even better than mine) and I the mesquite broiled game hen, again about as good a barbecued bird as I've ever tasted. I gave Javier a 30% tip, something I seldom do. We'll miss that place---wish we'd been able to take advantage of it more often while we were here.
Back at the marina, we borrowed Peter's big dock cart to haul our stuff to the boat, then spent an hour or so finding places to put it. By the time we were through I was ready for a nap, not the bilge, so posi'ble ma|ana. We didn't feel the need for any dinner after our great lunch but went over to EAGLE'S SONG about 8:00 and cleaned up a little of the leftover desserts from Thursday's big dinner. Barry and Dominique were supposed to come also but didn't show, so we still have a goodly supply of cheesecake and apple, mince, and pecan pie.
When I came out I was a mess, of course... I had on nothing but my working cutoffs. We went out on the dock where I stripped down and scrubbed, with Lois using the hand brush to get the black spots I couldn't see. I then started working on cleaning rust from the auxiliary pump bracket getting it ready to paint while Lois started a wash. During the rinse cycle the alarm came on again. Our pump wasn't working! When I checked I found that the pump, which had always sat loose in the proper position, had now decided to walk forward until the hose interfered with the switch...it was back to the bilge again. After a couple of tries, I succeeded in fastening the screen bracket on which the pump mounts to the floor of the bilge with a screw. It should now stay put. Another shower on the dock and I was ready for a nap.
We'd been shooting for leaving today but by this time I'd pretty much given up on that idea. Instead I painted the transmission and auxiliary pump --- blue this time because my green spraypaint can refused to function --- and did a few other things to get ready. Barry came over and we went over his list of charts to identify those he'd need between here and the canal. We had steaks which we'd gotten from Mexicana Comercial for dinner...not very good. Odd that Costa Rican meat was so much better than that we can get in Mexico; they seem to both raise the same kind of cattle.
16:00 Shore power cable stowed, lines cast off, and we're on our way amid blasting horns from EAGLE'S SONG and THANK YOU JACK. My calculations we right on---Charley was reporting five feet as we crossed the bar, giving us just a foot of clearance. It was a beautiful afternoon; about 85o, a light breeze from the south, one to two foot seas. We decided to go for Punta Mita, about two hours away, so I pointed the way to George and went down to check the engine room. All OK there. I turned on the cruise generator breaker. Whoops, nothing! I checked the hydraulics. Yep, on and running. Tried the breaker once more and when I got the same result the light dawned --- my fears about screwing with the generator brushes had been fullfilled! For a moment I thought about going on, at least to La Cruz five miles up the way, but when I then thought about going after those hard-to-get-at brushes in a hot engine room I decided to do a 180.
16:30 Headed back for the Nuevo breakwater.
16:45 Peter was waiting to take our lines as we eased back up to the dock. I rolled out the power cord, hooked it up, and in a few minutes we were back in home comfiguration. We'll let the engine room cool tonight and I'll work the problem tomorrow.
Dominique came over a while later and told us of their fueling problems. First Dominique had tried to leap for the aft step as they were leaving their slip, missed, and cracked her shin pretty badly. She was having a bad time getting the blood stopped and had come over to see if we could help. I put a king sized Band Aid with Mycitracin on it which seemed to do the job. Their other problem was that the mud packing insects of Nuevo Vallarta had plugged up all the fuel vents on THANK YOU JACK. When they tried to get fuel into the tanks it of course backed up, splashing fuel all over the decks before they found and fixed the problem.
I don't think I've mentioned those little beggers before. They look like a small hornet and love to build little mud nests in every hole they can find. We've found their nests in everything from the recessed screw holes on my radio speaker to folds in the curtains. They even filled the holes in our cribbage board! If they can't find a hole they will attach the mud to the surface of something. They are hard working little buggers --- it doesn't take them long to build a nest an inch long and half inch in diameter. Our fuel vents would be an ideal target for them. That's something I'd better check before we run again.
The rest of the day just floated away. We spent most of it working on our Christmas letters. If they are going to get to people on time this year we'd better have them ready for mailing in Mazatlan. I had about half done before I thought to run my new spelling checker on them. Now I have to go back and fix some of my errors. That danged thing might teach me to spell yet. While we were doing that a couple of interesting couples wandered down the dock. The first, Vern & Jan Otto, was from Seattle, and after chatting a bit we found that they had owned a slip in the Duwamish Yacht Club during the time our boat was there. Vern had recognized the SEA RAVEN and come down to check. They now own a condo in PV and a slip at the Marina Puerto Vallarta. The other couple's names were Gladimir and Dorita. Gladimir is a Yugoslavian who married a Mexican lady and has sailed a boat called TOM TOM for many years. It's now moored in a slip in the old marina near Islas Iguana. They lived for 13 years in Mazatlan and know Gus and Lydia well. Asked us to say Hello when we got there.
08:15 Punta de Mita, our turn point (N 20o 45'/W 105o 35'). I've got the radar on as well as the fishfinder as we work our way past the point. The sailing directions have some spooky words about this point, saying, "There is a dangerous breaking shoal one mile SSW of the point and a dangerous sunken rock two and one half miles SSW." When we came past two years ago I followed a shrimper, this time I set our course for 1 1/2 miles off the point and watched the bottom very closely. We never saw the "breaking shoal" and never had less than 15 fathoms of water.
08:30 We'd just started changing heading when I looked back and saw a wake on our starboard line --- fish on! I thought at first it was a bonito but it turned out to be a small female dorado, the first female we've caught since being back in the Pacific. For some strange reason all the dorado we caught last spring were males. I got her off the hook and threw the line back in and almost immediately caught myself a boobie. The miserable birds were diving for our lures. We hooked two of the stupid things and, remembering my bruises from last time that happened, both times let them drown before hauling them in. They are big, strong, birds -- nothing to fool with. Even dead, I had to cut them off the hook because their skin is so tough I couldn't work it out. Both were snagged in the side of the head as they dove on the plastic squid.
09:45 Heading NNE now, straight for Chacala, and we're in the trough of waves coming from the west. After a couple of pretty good rolls we throttle back, Lois holds a heading into the waves, and I go up to put out the flopper-stopper poles. We should have done that before we left the harbor but it's been so long that we've forgotten the procedure. I dropped the port foil in the water, figuring that it would be enough. It was. We had a nice comfortable ride for the next four hours.
11:00 We're running in nice lear water so I decided to check out the watermaker even though we don't need any. It ran fine, but my little leak is back. I didn't show up when we ran out at Islas Marias the other day. One more thing for the squawk list.
13:35 Into the bay at Chacala (N 21o 10'/W 105o 14'). It's just as pretty as we remembered it --- curving white beach with it's row of palapa restaurants under the tall palms, the old Port Captain's little blue and white building sitting on the hill behind the concrete pier. There is one other vessel in the bay, a small sailboat -- the SPELL BOUND. I put down the Metz and got the awning up while Lois put the house in "home" configuration, then we just settled down to enjoy being out on the water again. There doesn't seem to be much activity on the beach, just one trailer and a handful of people are visible. Tomorrow we'll go ashore and see if our old Port Captain friend is still here.
I worked on my squawk list this morning. The running light problem was easy --- I had forgotten that when I had changed the lights from 12 volt to 24 volt that I had to also change to a circuit breaker on the 24 volt bus. The one which now has to be on is the one labled "HEAD" not the one labled "RUNNING LIGHTS". The fix was to put a piece of tape over the engraved lable. My watermaker leak was a tougher problem --- it turned out to be another mystery. There's a drip coming out of the bottom of the sheet metal enclosure, but I can't find any sign of water on the interior! I don't dare take it apart --- we are too dependent on it to risk damaging it when I have no way of getting repair parts. After an hour of fussing, I gave up and borrowed one of Lois' cake pans to catch the drip. By emptying it every hour or so while making water we can keep the compartment dry.
We wandered down the beach to Restaurante Doris where Ta|a, cook, waitress, and dishwasher, was lying in a hammock, her teenaged son the only other person around. We ordered a cerveza and chatted with her for a while. The pretty daughter who was here two years ago has moved to L.A. to join her brothers. Ta|a says she now has eight "hijos" in Los Angeles, with only the one boy remaining here. I'm not sure whether "hijos" includes the "hijas" or whether there are a few of those there also. She said this has been a bad year for all of the resturant operators here in Chacala---the road from the highway is very bad and the tourists aren't coming. As we walked on down the beach the empty palapas and trailer parks bore testimony to her story. One trailer, one camper, and one beatup old bus were the only sign of campers, and most of the restaurants were closed.
On the way back up the beach we decided to boost the local economy by having lunch at the Doris. I remembered Ta|a's Camerones Diablo as being very good, so we ordered that. It wasn't bad, but not as good as I'd remembered, maybe because the shrimp weren't as fresh. On the way into shore we had stopped by the SPELL BOUND and met Denny and Steffany, two first time cruisers from Playa del Rey, California. They stopped by while we were eating lunch and we chatted a while. Denny is a boat broker in Playa del Rey. They said they figured they ahd enough money for seven months of cruising and wanted to find out what it was all about. They are waiting here for a buddy boat that went by way of Mazatlan to catch up. Said they'd been having a bad time with mosquitoes and rolling, but are getting out the netting. I suggested that a stern anchor would make life on their little boat more comfortable.
Back on the boat, I took my own suggestion and got out our stern ground tackle. It took a while to get it organized --- one of the shackles was frozen with rust and I had to cut it off --- but we got out a stern hook to keep us pointed into the swell. We didn't roll very badly last night but it's always more comfortable if we can stay out of the trough.
We picked Denny and Steff up in the Metz, went ashore, then walked over the hill to the little beach on the northwest side called Chacalilla to find it almost deserted. There were a few locals sitting in front of the little palapa restaurant but it wasn't serving any food and had only warm beer and pop. I asked one of the old guys sitting there where all the touristas were and he said they only came on the weekends. It was a warm day and we didn't feel much like having a warm beer so we climbed back over the hill and down through the village to Restaurante Doris where we spent the next couple of hours sipping cerveza frio and chatting with our new friends. I gather that Denny must have sold a boat which paid a pretty good commission, giving them enough money for a few months of trial cruising. They left Playa del Rey the first of November and made a pretty fast run down to Cabo and then to here. Both had been here in Chacala before, crewing on another boat, and liked it so much they couldn't wait to get back. They plan on going as far as Acapulco before heading back north next spring.
Back on the boat, Lois read while I took a nap. I woke up to find that we had new neighbors, the ELYSIUS, a ketch of forty-plus feet, two couples and a big black airdale on board. Friends of Denny's, coming here on his recommendation, they anchored between us. Before dinner I went for a swim and looked at our prop. There are a few small barnacles on it but nothing serious yet. Denny & Steff came over for a dinner of Lois' good baked chicken and spent the evening ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the SEA RAVEN. As a boat broker, Denny knows a good thing when he sees it. More?