Fourth Season in Mexico, getting
ready for SoPac
Hot, Hot, Hot, in Paradise
Again 11/20/06
We had
a pretty easy drive down from Nogales, made it through once again without having
to ‘splain what we were doing with a couple grand worth of new dinghy and solar
panels in the back of the van. Whew.
Since
our arrival here in Nuevo Vallarta, it has been unseasonably hot, and there was
an unseasonably late hurricane named Sergio that had us watching our weather
reports closely for a week or so. Serge decided to be a good boy and not bother
us, luckily. As a result of the heat, though, work progress has been slow, and
we are going to have to pick up the pace to get it all done before we head south
in a couple of weeks. When we unloaded the van at first, the entire port side
deck was stacked high, and Arabella had quite a list! We do have
everything stowed and finally were able to wash down the boat, so some progress
has been made. Besides that, I have attached one 10’ stainless tube between the
aft pushpit and the lifeline gate stanchion, and hung both new solar panels from
it. The other side will go on soon (was supposed to be today) and we’ll move
one panel over there. I’m still dreading drilling holes to run wires through
the deck, but I guess it will have to happen sometime…
We also
have sent the dodger in for restitching and zipper replacement, and have made an
appointment with Dustin from Fox marine to get the new VHF antenna installed,
and the nav light reinstalled on top of the stick.
We haul
out December 1 at Opequimar, and hope for a fast bottom job there, but can’t
seem to find the cheap Mexican bottom paint that has served us so well since the
last haulout in San Carlos. Still looking, though.
We were
fortunate to be invited to Dr. Jorges son in law’s birthday party at his
Hacienda yesterday, and really had a good time with the family and some other
gringo friends. The menu included the good doctor’s own Birria, and venison
pozole, to name a couple of highlights. Speaking of Birria (goat stew), Jorge
has been building up quite a nice little flock of goats, which Buddy took great
pleasure in herding around with a new little friend he made. Of course we
forgot our camera…
That’s
about all I have for now. We’ll try to get some pics up soon.
Hope
all is well with everyone,
Hasta,
Mike,
Barb, and Bud the goat herder
Goonies in Barra
de Navidad 12/22/06
Once
more that “deja vu all over again” feeling has come over us, as we float
peacefully in the protected waters of the Barra Lagoon.
We
pulled out of Paradise mid-afternoon on December 11, just leaving ourselves
time to make it to Punta de Mita before sunset. Even though Punta Mita is on
the extreme northwest edge of Banderas Bay, and we were planning to go south, it
seemed like a good place to take off from, and gave us a chance to check out the
engine for awhile on the way there. About
2am
I woke up and decided to get underway. With a bright half-moon painting a
silvery trail on the water to my left, I was confidently steaming along a
southerly course towards Cabo Corrientes when my reverie was rudely interrupted
by the engine alarm going off. I still don’t know what it was, but whatever
caused the overheating must have been temporary, and we were soon moving again.
Long story short, after 18 fairly uneventful hours (well, the sunrise off
Corrientes was rather spectacular, complete with dolphin escort) we
arrived at Bahia Chamela just as the sun was beginning to set, and got the hook
set just before full darkness.
Buddy
was very glad to finally reach the beach when we arrived early afternoon the
following day at Tenecatita, and he didn’t really want to return to Arabella
until sunset that night. Couldn’t say I blamed him, but someday we still hope
he will learn to relieve himself on deck while we’re underway…
So
midmorning Thursday found us gingerly picking our way through the narrow channel
to the Lagoon behind Barra, since we’d decided to save some fun tickets by
avoiding the expensive Grand Bay marina this visit. Besides, we wanted to check
out the effectiveness of our two new solar panels, and see if perhaps they might
keep up with the load from our refrigeration system. Well, after a week here,
we have to admit they don’t quite, but they do help a lot. We may (probably do)
need 4 new batteries, and also need to redo the wiring from the panels so the
Heart Interface can detect the amps they provide. The poor thing only knows
about the amps going out, and now thinks we are about 600 amp-hours in the
hole. It comes up when we run our generator, but there has been a steady
decline every day that isn’t correct.
We have
our Christmas lights up, and Barb has been putting her Christmas CDs into the
changer, so we are beginning to get into the spirit despite the tropical heat
here! Speaking of heat, one of the nice things about anchoring here in the
lagoon is the breeze we get every day, as the Marina people sizzle in the lee of
the giant hotel. It’s good to be a Goonie.
We
retrieved the van from PV the day after our arrival here, in order to be able to
pick up Sister Deb at Manzanillo Airport last Monday, and look forward to seeing
her and her friend Sue (whom she’s visiting in La Manzanilla) tonight at
Seamaster for Bonnie Gibson’s season debut.
Christmas will be a repeat of last year’s Cruiser Potluck at the Sands Hotel
with 58 people signed up so far. Hope they cook plenty of turkeys! Last year
my slightly inappropriate contribution of sushi rolls was gone in less than 2
minutes, and there were lots of them, so I may do that again.
Anyway,
we are really happy to be back in our adopted Home South, where it feels like
old friends are everywhere we look, and life is as sweet as it gets.
We hope
all who read this are well and happy, and if we have any regrets about being
here, it would be not having you all here with us.
We wish
everyone a very Merry Christmas, and the best of New Years!
Feliz
Navidad from Barra de Navidad,
Buddy,
Barb, and Mike
Holiday
Fun and the Start of a New Year -1/22/07
With a
couple of exceptions, so far 2007 is shaping up nicely for the Arabella crew.
The
holiday season was great, highlighted by a visit from my big seester Deb, and the December 30
arrival
of the ever-effervescent
Lana to our little home town away from home.
We have
made a couple of visits to Tenecatita; once for a week after the New Years
festivities were over, and for a three-dayer during the week of my daughter’s
visit. It was truly bitchen there, as usual, with crystal-clear
water for snorkeling.
Speaking of Bitchen, we finally got to meet Jody and Bob Bitchen (publishers of
Latitudes and Attitudes Magazine) when
they sailed into town early in the month. I could tell they were a bit
traumatized by their little “encounter” with the dock, but hey, if the tranny
won’t go into reverse, what ya gonna do? Several days later we lucked out and
caught them at Piper Lovers bar and had a little more time to chat with them.
What nice folks. Hope to see them again when they return from their boat show
run.
Speaking of Piper Lovers Bar, he has
finally taken the self-serving advice I’ve been offering for 3 years, and set
some services up for cruisers. He has installed WiFi in the bar, a private
shower downstairs (big goodness), will receive and hold mail for cruisers, is
getting a fax machine, has food available, etc etc. We hope it helps his
business as much as it will help us out!
So, I
suppose you want to hear the not so wonderful stuff too, eh?
Here’s
a little story I’ll call Black Monday.
We had
decided to take my daughter Lucy out to Tenecatita Monday to escape the
sometimes too much fun of Barra for a few days, and show her our favorite beach.
She was only here for a week, and there was much we wanted her to experience.
Since I get flustered trying to navigate the narrow channel in and out of the
lagoon, Barbie, my intrepid lagoon channel pilot, agreed to do it, even though
she was not quite 100% that Monday morning, for reasons we won't go in to. As
you may have guessed, we ran
pretty hard aground
trying to get out of the lagoon. No way could we power ourselves off, and the
herd of dinghys that so kindly materialized to help couldn’t budge us either.
Then a couple of pangeros showed up and offered to help, and with one pulling on
an extended main halyard to heel us over, and one pulling forward with 200
horses, we eventually shot out of that muddy trap like we’d been launched by a
slingshot. I guess nobody noticed we had run over the tow line, and when
reverse was applied, we wrapped it up really well on our prop shaft. The
pangero couldn’t get it his knot untied, so he cut my brand-new 5/8 x 250ft
three strand nylon stern rode right about in the middle. Oh joy, I guess I will
now learn how to do that kind of splicing. But I digress, things still got
worse.
Maybe I
was flustered, maybe I’m just stoopid, but I grabbed a mask and snorkel and dove
into the funky lagoon water to unwrap the line, forgetting the wallet in my
pocket. If it just had gotten wet, as has happened more times than I’d like to
relate, that would have been fine. But no, you guessed it, it floated away
un-noticed by anyone, never to be seen again. Now I get to deal with the hassle
of canceling all the cards and getting new ones imported, as well as trying to
figure out how to get a replacement driver’s license down here…
So, we
made it to Tenecatita finally, thinking that the embarrassing and extremely
hassle-causing departure was bad enough to color the day black on our memory
calendars. That was, until I found out several days later that our dear friend
Dr. Jorge Ruiz passed away that same
Monday. He had complained to me about some severe stomach pains when we saw him
last month in PV, but he didn’t want to have it looked at until he and his new
ladyfriend Sylvia sailed down here from Paradise Village with Mark and Deb on
Seangel. When we arrived here, he and Sylvia had already returned to PV a
few days prior, and Mark confided that Jorge had been looking pretty rough. We
agreed it might just have been from a week-plus aboard, experiencing an
unaccustomed lifestyle, plus the aforementioned nightlife once here in Barra.
Apparently there was advanced cancer, however, and he went extremely fast. We
will miss him greatly, and will always have fond memories of the times he
welcomed us into his family for parties at his ranch.
All in
all, it was a Monday we hope we don't see the likes of again.
When we
returned from Tenecatita to get ready to start planning to take Lucy to the
airport, we decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy the new boat
batteries, so we are in the marina for a few days to make the transfer easier,
as well as clean up the boat, fix the aft head, and spend a day or two catching
up on internet stuff like this update. I hate marinas, especially expensive
ones like this, but they do make life easier!
Plans
are still to hang down here until the end of February and then head back to PV
for final provisioning and prepping for the Pacific. WhoooHooo!
Ciao
for Now,
Webcaptain, Ladysailor, and the small, cute, but funny-looking dog
Countdown to Puddle Jump
03/01/07
So here
we are, sitting in the almost-maxed-out
Philo’s Bar in
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, digesting some of Russell’s great ribs, and thinking
about how soon it will be time to set sail (three weeks or so) on the longest
blue-water passage one can make on the planet. That’s not to say people don’t
make non-stop passages around the entire globe, but the point is, if they want
to stop somewhere they can, but on this passage, there’s nowhere to “pull over
and ask somebody for directions”, as Captain Ron would say.
Anyway,
we’re rather glad to be out of Barra, simply because the place is too much fun
and made for debauchery. It was really hard to concentrate on boat projects
while recovering from the long series of “last nights”. Those last two
sentences are really nothing but "sour grapes". The truth of the matter is
that we have so many great friends there that it really is like our second home.
Almost like our first home. So many times we'd go ashore with some quick
task to accomplish, and end up spending the day with friends at the wonderful
Sand's Hotel pool, then go enmass to the Alondra or Capri to watch sunset, then
get a bite to eat at Mexico Lindo's, then a "quick drink" at Justin's Rey Momo
bar, then another "quick one" at the Sand Bar and/or Piper Lover's, and
then...you get the picture. We'll be back.
The
trip up was fairly uneventful. We made it an overnight direct from Barra,
leaving about 8 am and arriving here in La Cruz about noon the following day.
We enjoyed some great sailing for awhile, then some slow motoring when the wind
shifted to “noserlies” and the chop got sloppy. Slight overheating problems
(déjà vu?) forced us to throttle back to 1800 RPMs, so that didn’t help our
speed either. We think we may have a small family of barnacles in the intake,
perhaps. That’ll be something to address when we get into the marina on the 11th
along with our recalcitrant tri-color light on the masthead.
Otherwise the boat is in pretty good shape for the trip, needing only a good
clean-out and sort, along with stowing provisions for three for 45 days. It’s
going to be a challenge planning meals, buying, and stowing all that food.
Luckily our van is here, and we won’t have to schlep everything on busses, like
many have to do.
One nice thing
that happened was Barb winning a beautiful black pearl at the Puddle Jump
Kickoff party sponsored by Latitude 38 at the Vallarta Yacht Club last Monday.
It was the top door prize, and we got lucky!
Since I
lost my camera about a month ago, we don’t have any new pics, but we’re hoping
Lana might give us some to put in.
I’ll
add an update as we get closer to casting off.
Hasta,
Mike,
Barb, and Buddy-dude
