A public service message

Whenever anyone runs into us lately they ask us how the rig is going.
"Is it done yet?"
"Um... almost," is the best I can do.

I'm not real thrilled with our local La Paz rigger Dawn Rigging (otherwise known as Rig-amortis).  I'm not sure if this is a Mexico (TIM) issue, or what, but shish.

Here's our new rigger at work in 90 degree weather.  He loves it when the panga speedboats come flying in right next to him.

So if anyone asks... Yes, it's moving along.

Loose Ends...

So we're doing alright down here.  Carrie and Tamsyn have been sick (the usual Mexico suspects), and internet has been spotty, and we have also been quite busy trying to get off the dock.

Here are some backlogged pictures.

We did go to Carnival on Fat Tuesday, and had a blast.  Here folks are lining up as the twilight fades.

These guys were very cool, and definitely not from Kansas.

Here's Griffyn armed with one of the fabulous confetti eggs - ready to throw!

The costumes were fun.  This gal must have been warm in all that fur.  It was a hot night.

Rides were next.  Tamsyn and dad did the caterpillar roller coaster and a haunted house, while mom and Griffyn did bumper cars and the cycles.

Griffyn leaned in just like Steve McQueen.

When we don't go to the laundry, we sometimes do a bit in buckets on the dock (with environmentally friendly soap of course).  Here are are laundry employees hard at work.

Renaming... an old tradition

So many folks think it not a good idea to rename a boat or ship.  Others think you can name it anything you want as often as you want.  But a majority feel that if you want to rename a boat - fine; but you have to do it properly.  Many that live on, or make a living from the sea are superstitious.  And for these folks many traditions going back hundreds of years are not often knowingly broken.

Renaming done correctly has a couple of different parts.  First who are the interested parties.  Well - us of course. Oh... and that life of the party Neptunus Rex, god of the seas.  So yesterday we put the new name on.  Fine as far as it went.  But there was something yet to be done.  I secured some spirits, and this morning found the old documentation of the vessel under its old name.

So we gathered the family on the dock this morning, and folks from two other boats came to observe.  First we displayed the old documentation for the boat for all to see.  Then we burned it!  Next I asked Neptune to grant safe passage for this vessel - Madrona - and all who sailed upon her in his dominion.  Finally I cracked a fifth of good rum and poured it out into the ocean for Neptune.

So we're good now.  Knock on wood.

Home sweet home.

Here we burn the old documentation.

Now old Neptune gets his libation.

Looks good doesn't it?

Finally, we did go to Carnival this evening.  The parade got off to a very late start and it was a blast.  So much fun.  The kids were very tired by the end (and all that implies).  We might go again if we can all rest well tonight.

Here's  couple of snaps.  The parade had enough of its own flavor that for us it was great fun.

These kids were very cool.  Vendors sold hollowed out eggs filled with confetti.  People threw them at everything - the floats, the participants, and even the police cruisers.  Both our kids scored on a police cruiser.

Lots more to see, but my camera battery died.

I wanted to give a special hello to my lil Sis Alicia, who has been lost.  Seems just like yesterday paling around in Africa. Good to be back in touch. Thats all folks.

Visitors from the Great White North.

My dad and his friend John flew down to visit a week ago.  They flew in from Minnesota, and the days leading up to their flight were fraught with some uncertainty as in the days leading up to the flight Minneapolis/St. Paul was clobbered with a pretty big blizzard.  Originally they were to fly into La Paz via L.A.  But the airport up in the land of snow was buried the day they were to fly to L.A., so the alternate plans that coalesced were for them to fly into Cabo San Lucas, down in the southernmost tip of Baja California.  So the day of the flight I got up early and gassed up the 4-Runner and headed south out of town around 7:30 a.m.

Now La Paz isn't exactly noted for its excellent road signs, and before long I had a sense I was on the wrong highway.  When I went up a mountainside I knew it.  I pulled a U-turn and headed back to town. Now it was eight o'clock.  Their flight was to get in around 10:30 a.m. and I was pushing it to leave at 7:30.  Then came the overturned hay truck.  Arggh!  Down the coast I worked my way, tortuous mile by tortuous mile.  I drove into the airport at 12:00 noon.  I was imagining them sitting outside being hot and irritable.  What was I thinking.  This is Mexico.  They were still in customs :-)  They didn't miss me at all.

Now during the drive down to Cabo I crossed the famed Tropic of Cancer, and officially entered "the tropics."  It was perhaps slightly warmer in Cabo, or maybe that sweat was from being cooped up in a truck for four hours in ninety degree heat.  When I finally found dad and John ( a hometown buddy of my father's) they were well and glad to be away from snow.  I was really good to see dad.  Back we drove.  Out of the tropics, and back ultimately to La Paz.  The two of them had rented a Casa (house) on the north side of town.  It was a really nice place.  We stopped their and then went to see the boat.  Tamsyn and Griffyn were happy to see Grandpa, and John was in his element around the sailboats - he has one of his own up by Lake Superior.

The week they were around was quite nice.  In the mornings we did the usual boat stuff - some things just had to keep moving forward.  School took place, and laundry had to be washed.  In the afternoons we visited, with either them coming down to the boat or I picking them up and bringing them down our way.  We had some nice meals out, and one night they cooked a wonderful black bean soup dinner at their casa.

On one of the fine days when I had to work on the refrigerator doors on the boat, dad and everybody else went to one of the lovely beaches about 30 minutes drive to the south.  I drove them out to the beach with the promise that I would pick them up around 3 hours later.

They had a great time and Carrie took some beautiful photos that really capture the place.

Here's what Carrie had to say about the color of the water and the place:  "The color of the water changed as the depth changed, shallow water was clear, deep water was azure blue.  The volcanic land masses made me think of sleeping dinosaurs.  The place felt old and young both, stark and beautiful.  Full of contrasts.  It was a truly refreshing day.  Can't wait to anchor out in a place like this."

Castaways...

The changing colors are truly amazing.

"Lawrence of Baja"

For miles and miles - or is that kilometers?

The echos of vulcanism are everywhere.

So much to see...

Griffyn and Tamsyn found many sea cucumbers and even tiny moon snails of some sort.

Siblings.

Grandpa John and John H. explore the shoreline.

Here's one Grandpa took.

A good day...

Too soon our visit was over, and  I picked dad and John up at their place.  But instead of driving them to the airport something more interesting was about to happen.  I had transferred the title of my truck to dad for a dollar, and now we put on new Minnesota plates on the truck, and they said their goodbyes and drove north in our 4-Runner.  A last link with home.  The will be driving north, first to "Mag" Bay to see whales, and then to Loreto for a week.  Then the drive north and spending the next few weeks making their way home to Minnesota (hopefully less snowy by then) by way of many nature preserves and interesting places.  Thanks for coming down dad, and solving the truck dilemma.  We will miss you.

The two days prior to "losing" the truck we were making provisioning runs for stocking up on food for long ocean passages.  Canned gods are not at all fun to shlep around on your back.  So we made three big runs, and the main cabin of the boat is awash in big blue plastic bins full of food of various sorts.  Remember when I likened storage on the boat to one of those puzzle games where you have to move six other pieces in order to get one tile where you want it to be on the board.  So it was and is with all this food.

We had been waiting for the last of our engine work to be done before we store all the mechanical spares, many tools, and lots of lines, and various sundry items (including the kids' scooters) in the locker that makes up the "Engine Room."  In our boat, this locker is called the "Lazarette" and it can be accessed from the cockpit or the quarter beth.  Now as we had been purposefully NOT storing things there so that the engine could be accessed easily on all sides, those items destined for the lazarette were all over the boat - taking up valuable real estate.  Now that the engine work is complete, the big shift can begin.  Spare parts move out of three lockers under the port settee and food goes in.  Lines filling duffles in the cockpit now can be hung and organized, and so on.  So that is on the horizon over the next days.

Also "Carnival" is here in Mexico, and parades will march through the streets Sunday, Monday and Fat Tuesday.  We plan to attend, so that should be fun.  Today after putting the new name on the hull of our boat we went out for ice cream.  Tomorrow we will make a humble offering to Neptunus Rex so that he might bless our boat under her new name, and all that travel over the seas in her.  More about that to come.

Owen 

Anatomy of a " 1 hour job."

Back when I first saw our boat I noted that the gasket of the refrigerator was old, coming off in places, poorly repaired in other places, and quite unsanitary almost everywhere.  Now refrigerators of sailboats are not like those elsewhere.  They open from the top and you have to reach down into them from above.  Some have one door, and others have two.  These doors (or hatches) are thick because of their insulation, and heavy.  Their inner lid has a inset lip with a rubber gasket that is compressed by the weight of the lid itself.  On our boat there are two side-by-side hatches/lids.  The whole fridge space is maybe 2.5 x 3 feet, and a little less than 3 feet deep.  There's also a little freezer in that space.

Now comes the "1 hour job."  As those following the odyssey of our "refit" have no doubt gathered we've been frustrated at the slow pace of getting some things done down here in Mexico, but we have never lacked for things that needed to get done while we waited.  Last week Carrie decided to give the inside of the "refer" unit a thorough cleaning as she had noticed some mildew/mold on the interior wall in a few places.  So we let the food dwindle, and didn't replace it, and finally the few items left we put in the refrigerator of a fellow boater.  Time to go to work.  We turned the unit off, and began the defrosting.  

Carrie spent much of the afternoon nearly upside-down inside the fridge scrubbing the far corners, and generally bleaching the heck out of everything.  Our came the racks and containers too.  Everything got clean.  Except the doors.

"We can't put this back together without dealing with the doors," she stated around 2 p.m.  

"O.K.  How about we scrub them up and we'll clean the gaskets up and call it good for now?"  Was my lame response.  Neither one of us was thrilled at the prospect of dealing - really dealing - with the nasty gaskets.  So Carrie set out cleaning the doors with bleach-water and Q-Tips.  It soon became evident that we HAD to deal with the gaskets.  

The marine plywood under them was exposed, unpainted, and rotten.  Mildew had gotten into wood and under the rubber.   In places the former owners of the vessel had simply nailed the gasket back on when the adhesive holding the rubber in place failed.  The next conference between us was what to do next.  

"I think we should pull off the old gaskets and clean under where they were.  We also need to clean all the rotten wood out of there.  Then we can clean it with bleach, sand it, and seal it with Marine Tex ( a nifty marine epoxy that dries in hours and goes on really easy (It's also waterproof and white).  Fortunately back in the States I had purchased a number of possible gasket materials, but it was actually one already on the boat we decided to use.

So the next day we cleaned the old gaskets off and cleaned the rotten wood and eliminated the mildew.  In the afternoon I mixed up a big batch of Marine-Tex.  Using a putty knife I rebuilt the missing material so the new gaskets could have a smooth and sanitary surface to hold onto.  We let the hatches dry overnight on the bow of the boat.  The next morning I sanded the Marine-Tex and got out my handy tube of marine silicone and glued the new rubber gaskets in place, and the hatches/doors went back onto the bow to dry for another day.  On the morning of day three (3) of the project I put the doors in place, walked over to our master electrical panel and flipped the breaker marked "refrigeration" to the on position.  Done.  A one hour job took us three - count em - three days.  But the job is done, and done better than the previous owners have been able to do anytime in the last ten or twenty years.

So many of the tasks we've undertaken these last few weeks have been badly needed, but not real fun.  However, our list of major tasks is shrinking, and some of the worst are behind us.  Many folks refitting their sailboats for a blue water passage have taken a year or more to do what we've accomplished in weeks.  So high fives all around.

Our friend Steve took this picture of Madrona when he went up his mast to check a light.  Our Butterfly Hatch is off in the photo and is sitting near the bow.  Thanks Steve.

A partial list of other "1 hour jobs" undertaken recently.

• Rebuild companionway hatch boards.

• Install hasp lock on said hatch boards.

• New hinge on "head" door.

• Design and commission new sail bag for Genakker (to be clipped near the bow).
• Rebuild both dorade vents.

• Rebuild main cabin's "Butterfly Hatch."

• Shadow our diesel mechanic as rebuilt raw-water pump and other minor engine work done.

• Begun provisioning for sea.

• Design a "Name" for vinyl letters and find a manufacturer in La Paz.

Enjoying the Weather

We are enjoying the weather.  And the rest, well, the word "Mañana" which means "not today" was born here - everything is framed by the uneasy feeling that it "will happen some day, just not today". 

Some days when I don't feel as though I am living in a single car garage while fixing the garage - with three other people - are good days and some days are - well I just call those days when I want to pack it in "adjusting" days. 

We are still attached to a dock, can't sail anywhere. We finally have the new rigging wire, but the rigger is sick and will soon be booked well into the future. But our engine is now fixed (we have been waiting for over two months for the mechanic to return a repaired part), our frig no longer has black mold thriving all over the poorly nailed in weather stripping, many of our things have a home somewhere on the boat and as Tamsyn said today, "The toys are out and there is food aboard, it feels like home." (There was no food aboard for the three days it took to clean and re-do the refrigerator door seals - we lived on Pb & J, cookies and Banditos - our local hamburger joint). So we are getting somewhere I think. We are in the process of provisioning - getting food aboard for the next 4 months. Trying to plan for what may not exist on the Islands of the South Pacific (or at least not in our price range). It is a complicated and daunting task since it all has to fit in this little boat - with us.

Grandpa John just left with our car, Owen's Toyota 4-Runner. (His visit along with pics will be a separate blog entry.)  So now we provision either by taxi or on foot. Owen's feet are getting sore. It requires many trips to 'provision'.  Imagine trying to plan servings of fruit (2 per day) for 4 people for 3 weeks (for fresh food) and for 15 weeks (for preserved, dried, and canned food). You can do the math - it's about 784 fruit servings. Then repeat for veges, meat/beans/fish of opportunity, grains, dairy, paper and plastic products, cleaning supplies, extra parts and let us not forget water - for much more than drinking. We spend our time measuring each item in our favorite meals, doing the math and thinking about weather or not that meal will continue to be our favorite after the 15th meal in 15 weeks. We have a water-maker aboard so we try not to worry about water. (We have not had the opportunity to test our water-maker yet - but we have it aboard and the membrane is pickled so we do as we always do - plan for the time when we can sail out of the "marina", run the water-maker in clean water and test it. We are certain it will happen Mañana).

Bathing in a Boat Yard

We live attached to a dock attached to a boat yard. There is a huge 72 ton lift to lift boats down to the water or up to the yard or so that their bottoms can be scraped of barnacles and seaweed, scrubbed clean, stripped of paint (if they are steel or if they are "glass" (fiberglass) they do not need their paint stripped off), painted and all manor of boat repairs. We've seen boats come in that have hit a reef and need their keels fixed (chunks of the keel missing). We've seen boats come in that had something leaking (severely) in their keel and have had to have their keel's removed to be repaired - that looks odd - a sail boat with out a keel looks like a top heavy and narrow power boat. The boat yard is generally busy, the kids are not allowed up there without an adult during work days (6 days a week). All of this activity makes for lots of excitement for Tamsyn and Griffyn, boats are frequently powering just to our port to tie up before they are lifted out. Often they need assistance tying up to the dock (so we run out and catch the dock lines). Sometimes the boats come so close to our "slip" (a temporary spot not really a slip) that we have to stand on the bow with our whisker pole (a long pole with a hooked end) in hand ready to push their boat away from ours.  Once a very large powerboat gave a us a nice chilled bottle of red Mexican wine (for when we leave Mexico). They had a 60" flat screen TV aboard. There are a number of these mega yachts up on stilts in the boat yard - walking around them as you head to the banyo can be a little daunting. 

We use a communal shower/tiolet in the boat yard. We can't "poop" in our Lavac toilet because there are no pumping out facilities here. We only pee in it. So every time a young person has to go #2 (young 'uns are not allowed in the boat yard unaccompanied) Owen or I and the child must treck up to the banyo together. It makes for a lot of fragrant quality time.

Did I mention that we have no hot water on our boat? (I found out when I got to La Paz). So taking a shower - if you want hot water can only happen in the communal banyo (in the boat yard). The day Owen went to pick up Grandpa John he left very early - before I could take a shower, so to get one, I had to bring both Tamsyn and Griffyn with me to take a shower. They cannot be left alone on a boat even their own.  Now they get fairly dirty every day playing on the dock and on deck (since we haven't been able to give this boat a bath yet) so of-course they needed a shower, but I don't relish being naked in a hard and slippery somewhat public place with two hungry and fairly squirrelly naked and slippery children. I have done this only once before and swore I wouldn't do it again (but I had forgotten about that that morning).  We wondered up to the shower after Owen left around 7:40 AM. (The shower is near the office of the boat yard, near the front gate, near the entrance.) All the workers in the boat yard (10 or so men used to long hard days in the hot sun) arrive between 7:45 and 8:00 AM. 

Lately the showers have had a tendency to overflow - filling up the stall (a couple inches lower than the main floor) because of a clogged drain. And taking a shower with three people will take more water than taking a shower with one or two. Thus I was anticipating a bathing experience in the shower. So when my kids, who are usually angels, began splashing the water from the over flowing shower stall into the changing area I wasn't too happy about it. The "changing area" is what you walk into when you enter the banyo. The banyo door's lock doesn't work, the door blows open in a slight wind (the wind is always blowing in that direction). Earlier I had found a way to secure the door - pushing the broken block (of the lock) into the slot in the door frame so I wasn't worried about it opening on us (as it has to many other unsuspecting women). But I was getting rather frustrated with my two for throwing towels up in the air and other surly activities as I was drying off. I was "encouraging" them to get dressed and not having much luck. Well at some point - I had had enough of their playing (instead of dressing) that I gave Tamsyn a swat on her butt (Griffyn was already in time out). She let out a deafening howl (tile walls). After some scolding and finally dressing, we "unlocked" the door and walked into a completely silent boat yard. No heavy equipment generators running, no sanders or power saws running, you could have heard a pin drop. They had all been listening!! I was mortified - but clean. The three of us marched across the silent boat yard to the dock and back to our boat to hybernate for a couple of hours. 

After talking with my dock neighbors about bathing with children - and we all laughed about it - I was reminded of the quote from Pride and Prejudice, "What are we but sport for our neighbors - and to laugh at them in our turn."