A New Type of Cruising

We're happy to report that our boat is working perfectly now! Our stay in La Paz was long but well worth it now that all the work is done. We were thrilled that our new paint job has gained us about two knots of speed (which goes to show how bad it was.) Our sail drives are purring along and appear to be working well. Our wax job was quickly lost under a thick coat of salt spray, but that's to be expected.

Our biggest bit of news is the change that having a car brings to the cruising life. It's just a big paperweight that you have to take care of but, when you have a car in a city it suddenly makes the provisioning difficulties disappear. No more one mile tromps through city streets in the pounding sunshine to the grocery store and then the cab ride back. No more struggling to get to three different stores in one day using public transportation. Got a hankering for that taco stand across town? No problem now. Just hop in the air-conditioned spendor and settle down into the leather seats. Oh the luxury! Having a car is definitely a luxury that you don't appreciate until you have lived without one. It's so ingrained in most Americans' lives that I don't think people can even imagine life without one.

We left the car behind in La Paz while we traveled up to Puerto Escondido by boat. Once here, Patrick and Jack took the bus to La Paz, picked up the car and drove it up to Escondido. We will leave it here when we travel north to Santa Rosalia, and then perform the same procedure to get it to Santa Rosalia. We will continue to play hop-scotch with the car and the boat and move on up north. The plan is that eventually we will leave the boat for a month or two this summer and take the car up through the States on a car trip. Grand Canyon, here we come!

Leaving La Paz, Take 2

Well it's been about five or six weeks since the last time we tried to leave La Paz. We are hoping the second attempt goes better. We're busy this morning scrubbing the boat, putting things away and tying things down. Our next posting should come from Loreto in about a week or two if things go well. Until then, we're keeping our fingers crossed that the sail drive repair was good, and that Jack's knee continues to improve.

It's not all fun and games

Every life has its ups and downs. Yesterday was just one of those days when the downs all came at once! If the gods had been smiling on us, we would already be out in an anchorage, headed north on our annual migration into the non-hurricane zone. Instead we are still tied to the dock in La Paz being pushed around by a lovely south wind that could be blowing us north if only we were luckier.

The problem? It's not the boat. It's injuries. Three of our four crewmen are down with bum legs in the last 24 hours. Patrick's limping around in great pain right now just because he is old. So, light duty for Patrick, which means no provisioning the boat to leave. Rudy had the unfortunate accident of ripping his dew claw completely out of his paw when he was climbing back on the boat. (Out of all the injuries, his is the one that makes me grimace - Ouch!) So no walking on land for Rudy until it heals over a bit since infections are such a reality down in the tropics/sub-tropics. But the icing on the cake was when Jack came home from playing with a friend with half the skin on his knee missing, and deep gashes running down his leg.

What could they possibly be playing that would cause such an injury? Well, in the tradition of thirteen year olds everywhere (but especially boys) it really wasn't such a bad idea on the scale of 1 to 10. They weren't playing with gasoline or fireworks. They hadn't climbed to the top of the garage roof to jump their skateboards off the roof. They hadn't made a pipebomb from dismantled shotgun shells and copper piping. Instead Jack was simply out knee-boarding behind the dinghy with his friend driving. That's not dangerous, really. But then Jack started jumping his kneeboard off of a mooring ball so he could get some air. He did it successfully quite a few times. Unfortunately, there's always that time when it doesn't go quite right. And the fact remains, it's just not a good idea to hit solid objects on anything when you are going at a fast rate of speed. The unforeseen complication was that the mooring ball had lots of silver-dollar sized barnacles growing on the bottom of it. Jack can now tell you from experience that running into barnacles at a high speed is not a good thing. (I could have told you that without doing it, but then I am 44). We took one look at it and got the car keys out to take him to a clinic for a doctor to patch him up.

As mentioned, infections are something that you must diligently watch out for in the tropics. Deep skin injuries caused by nasty things like barnacles, sustained while swimming in the salt water off a harbor where people don't use their sewage holding tanks is just an infection waiting to happen. So Jack is on antibiotics and we are going to hang around in La Paz for a day or so until we are sure that his wound does not become infected. We would not want to be far from a doctor if any complications start up.

The picture was taken by his friend Al and posted on Facebook, so you know Jack going to be just fine. If it's really bad, I don't think they stop and take pictures! Even thriteen year old's have some sense.

Wax On....Wax Off

I've been feeling great empathy for the Karate Kid in the last few days, except we had the electric buffer (Thank God). My arms still feel like lead lumps. Patrick has a deep-seated psychological aberration known as "wax envy". Every time we see an especially shiny boat, he gets very depressed. Finally we have gotten our boat to a point that he can feel proud. It looks pretty good for a ten year old boat. It should stay that way for maybe a month.

It's Monday morning and our work is finished. We have yet to complete the installation of the bilge pumps, but we don't have to be on the hard to finish that project, so we are calling it good. As long as the wind stays low today, we will splash back in the water. If it gets too windy, we won't do it since we are such a tight squeeze in the boat launch that we would probably get banged up and scratched if the wind caught us.

And Now for a Shameless Commercial Plug

I cannot say enough good about this miracle product. Along with Patrick's wax envy he is also acutely conscious of the greenish scum line along the water line of the boat, and rust stains on the fiberglass. Before we used a rubbing compound to get these tough stains out and it was a LOT of work and never really got clean. Then we found "MaryKate On and Off Gel". This gel took the stains away in less than a minute right before our very eyes. We de-scummed the water line in about 20 minutes of work. Simply brush it on, wait about a minute and then rinse it off. No scrubbing, no rubbing, no big mess. Even though I am not affiliated with the company I am tempted to offer a Money Back Guarantee if you buy this product. You will not be sorry!

The Beatings Continue Until Morale Improves...

Still on the hard and it's getting harder to take. I don't know how people survive when they have a serious refit to do that keeps them on the hard for months. God bless the poor beggars. Meanwhile our work is progressing really well. The starboard sail drive is installed, the port sail drive has new seals, and the bottom is painted with two coats on all, three coats on the waterline. We were on line to be dropped back in the water tomorrow (Saturday) but decided to be kind to ourselves and slow the work level down and stay the weekend. Since the yard is closed Sunday, we get an extra day of work in a deserted yard - that should be a pleasure! Our last jobs include installing the automatic bilge pumps and cleaning and waxing the hulls. Oh Joy of Joys. Thankfully we have an electric buffer.

We ended up using twice as much paint as the last (crappy) paint job and so we found ourselves a can short since we weren't thinning it with thinner like the last boatyard did. We had brought down black bottom paint and had one can left which was not going to be enough to cover the two hulls for the second coat. So we scoured La Paz and found the exact same brand and type of paint - only in blue. But being desperate, we bought the blue paint and a big bucket and combined the two. It turned into a lovely deep charcoal-navy blue. It looks really good and I like it so much better than the black. It looks great with the navy blue boot stripe. Serendipity!

Marina Singlar yard in La Paz has been a great experience so far. The workers under Enrique Abaroa are very kind and professional. We are very happy so far with how this is turning out.

It's Not Easy on the Hard

I haven't been posting much about our life while we were hanging out waiting in La Paz, trying to figure out how we were going to get repaired and moving again. It was just too depressing. We could have simply bought a brand new sail drive (our fourth) to replace the sail drive that had failed. We just weren't thrilled at that prospect since the $4,000 USD investment doesn't seems to last long before it begins to fail again and allow salt water into the engine. When we bought the boat the two brand new sail drives failed after two weeks of use and were replaced in early 2009 with another brand new one, and one was rebuilt. Things were fine until the starboard side began showing signs of saltwater intrusion again about six months ago and we nursed it along until April when the ball bearings began to go out. After all those failures, we are feeling very leery of trusting the wisdom of buying another brand new sail drive.

So we devised a new plan. When we first purchased our boat in 2008, a condition of the sale was to replace the sail drives since they were pitted and corroded from sitting in a marina 7 years. Instead of throwing them away, Patrick stored them in a storage locker in Everett, Washington just in case of a rainy day. Wise man. We have decided that it couldn't hurt to just refurbish one of them for a thousand dollars, and put that on. This way we save about $3000 USD and it will probably last as long as a new one anyway. Then we will take the one that is broken now and have it refurbished. We will find a place to carry it on board waiting for the one from Everett to fail. We plan to just keep switching them out and refurbing them as needed. That way, we will never have to be broken down waiting in some foreign port for months for parts to arrive. After our experience with our Yanmar sail drives, you can see how confident we are in them.

So on April 30th, Patrick flew "home" to Everett, picked up our car that had been in storage there and the sail drive, visited with friends and family and then hightailed it to California where List Marine in Sausalito refurbished the sail drive. He made it back to La Paz in about two weeks, arriving here May 12th. Jack, Rudy and I stayed on the boat, anchored out in the La Paz harbor during that time.

It took a few days to get reacquainted and rested and then we were hauled out of the water on May 16th at the Singlar Marina in La Paz. It really was a great experience and the crew did a professional job. Our boat is so wide that there was only about nine inches total to spare to squeeze between the concrete sides of the boat haul out slip. But everything went perfectly and we were hauled without a scratch. It was very impressive.

And now begins life on the hard. Some (smart) people simply rent a hotel room while their boat is on the hard, but we have decided to live on it while it is being worked on. We know that it will motivate us to get the job done quick, and we can keep a close eye on the work being done. Since we are parked over concrete in a boat yard, no water can go through the through-hulls which means no dishwashing, no handwashing, no toilet, and no shower on board. Also we are suspended fifteen feet in the air, above concrete in a crowded boat yard with boats all around - so no privacy, and no air. However, there is lots of noise, lots of toxic dust, and lots of heat reflected off the concrete.

We're taking advantage of this opportunity to get not only our starboard sail drive replaced (Patrick and a mechanic are working together on this), but we will also replace the seals on the port sail drive, and paint the bottom of our boat (we're doing it ourselves so we don't have to worry about getting a crappy paint job), and Patrick is going to install automatic bilge pumps, something that our boat did not come with. The automatic bilge pumps will probably never be used, but the day that you need them would be a disaster if you did not have them. The automatic bilge pump is wired in so that if there is ever standing water in the bilge, it automatically pumps it out. Right now our boat could be filling up with water and it is possible that we would only figure it out and manually start up the bilge pump when the water rose above the floor boards. So with all of this work to do, we are optomistically hoping to be out of the boat yard in a week. We shall see. Let the work begin.

Making Bagels

Every year in Mexico, more and more food products are becoming available to help keep the cravings for “a taste of home” at bay. But there are some things that just haven’t shown up yet - Thai food, good dill pickles, and bagels to name a few. There’s not much I can do about the pickles except schlepp them down from the US. Good Thai food is just something that we won’t be getting in Mexico for some time, I think. But I’m happy to say that I now can make my own bagels, thanks to Colin on Mamabird who passed this recipe along.

If you already know how to make bread, then it’s not too difficult to add this recipe to your repetoire. To make about a dozen bagels, mix the following ingredients in a bowl:

3 cups flour
1 cup plus a couple tablespoons hot water (wetter dough makes for a crispier crust, but is more annoying to knead),
Couple tablespoons of gluten if you have it (I don‘t have this so I just omit this and it‘s fine.)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1-2 teaspoons Mexican instant dry yeast (more yeast = lighter bagels).

Knead the dough 5 to 10 minutes on a floured surface. Then let the dough rest in a warm place for 20-30 mins. Put a large pot of water on to boil. Pull off a piece of dough, roll into a snake shape and then form into a loop, add a dab of water where the ends overlap and press together.

When the water is boiling, drop the bagels in, cooking just a few at a time. At first they sink, but then rise to the surface. Boil 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the water and place on a greased baking sheet that has cornmeal sprinkled on it. (A little hint, I first pull them out of the water and put them on a plate with some paper toweling so they are not sopping wet when I put them on the cookie sheet.)

Brush a little beaten egg white over the top of the bagels to help them brown. You can jazz up your bagels by sprinkling some mix of fresh diced onion, fresh minced garlic, dried onion, grated cheese, Italian herb mix, sesame seeds, or whatever appeals to you over the top. Or you can leave them plain.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until lightly golden brown. My oven is not very constant or hot, so I can’t really tell how long they would cook in a good oven that has temperature control, so keep an eye on them when you are cooking them in your oven for the first time. I tend to very slightly under-cook so that the inside is still a tad doughy, then cut in half and toast.

They are so yummy and have a great texture. Philadelphia cream cheese is available everywhere in Mexico and costs around 17 pesos for an 8 oz bar ($1.40 USD?) so you won’t go broke enjoying your taste of home. Now if only I could find some lox.