The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good
I didn't break my leg when I fell through the hatch in the middle of the Great Race.
Meri has Amoxicillin on her boat that she is willing to give me.
Third Day brought down the Spectra water maker part from the US to fix our water maker.
LA Bay has two Internet cafes.
The lump on my head I got from dropping a 10 pound water can on it is finally small enough that I can put my snorkel mask on.
The starter on the boat's port engine can be tricked into starting with a well placed screwdriver.
Patrick is able to bleed the air out of the diesel lines before starting the boat engines whenever we need to move.
Patrick has jerry-rigged the dinghy motor so he can shift it into forward with the help of a vice grip and screwdriver.
We have been having a great time with Hotspur and Third Day, and today Adios III showed up in LA Bay.

The Bad
I did break my brand new camera when I fell through the hatch in the middle of the Great Race.
Rudy has developed a staph infection on his skin that is no longer responding to the antibiotics I have on board.
The part that Spectra sent to us is not the right one and our water maker is still broken.
The Internet in LA Bay is as slow as molasses and it's hard to upload pictures.
I still have a lump on my forehead from dropping a 10 pound water can on it three weeks ago.
The starter on the port engine cannot be fixed until we reach a larger town with a parts stores.
Despite working for hours to figure out why we have air in our diesel lines, there is still air in our diesel lines.
The dinghy motor can only be shifted into forward.
Third Day left this morning headed south and we won't see them for about a month.

The Ugly
Our dinghy broke two days ago in two different ways - the shifter cable snapped and it no longer can be tilted up when entering shallow water. Our breakdowns are just becoming ridiculous.
The bruises on my leg from falling through the hatch in the middle of the Great Race are truly just ugly.

Things are looking up!

First off - no new break downs. Well, not really. Our water maker stopped working, but Patrick quickly figured out that the water flow was stopped by the three (now dead) Gobi fish who had been sucked into the water intake valve and were clogging up with pipe. But that's not really a breakdown. Thank God we did not make any fishy tasting water before we found the problem. And he also found two dead fish in the engine water intake valve in the same week, so our boat is doing better than us lately at catching fish this week. Depressing!

Meanwhile, our friends on Third Day and Hotspur have finally shown up in LA Bay. Both the captains of those vessels need Internet for work, so hopefully they will be able to manage in this absolute desert of Internet services. There are two Internet "oases" in town, but even they are not always reliable for service.

Another change for the better is that the kind American who drove the cruisers around in his pickup on provisioning runs last year has set up a "Cruiser's Sleigh Ride" for tomorrow. He shows up in his pickup and trailer and everyone who is there climbs in the back, hangs on and gets driven around town to all the grocery stores, propane, laundry and gas station. It is heaven and very fun.

And best of all, there has been a respite from the heat. Lately the morning temperatures have been in the high 70's and the daytime temperatures do not go too far over 90 degrees, so life has improved immeasurably.

The Summer So Far

We just came back to LA Bay after spending about 2 weeks out in the anchorages. We returned to Quemado which is a south wind anchorage, but when the winds changed to the north, we took our opportunity and moved to Este Ton on Isla Angel de la Garda. What a beautiful anchorage. It is very small and really only fits one or two boats. Everyday there were whales feeding just outside the entrance and at night you could listen to them breathing just over the sand spit. Every day while snorkeling we saw sea turtles and octopus.

And the beach combing was superb! I found hundreds of beautiful little shells (most, no bigger than a pea) that were all different shapes, colors and varieties. They look like jewels. Jack was thrilled to find buoys, a "perfect" bucket, and even Patrick kept a length of line he found coiled up and waiting for him. I also found a perfect skull of a tiny shore bird, a length of dolphin spine, and lots of sea urchin shells and dried starfish. Needless to say, I think JaM is floating a little lower with all our "treasures". We were going to stay even longer but one day the wind changed again and suddenly we found ourselves bounced out of the anchorage on big swells and 20 knots of wind from the wrong direction.