John's Blog Updated. Original post with photos: http://travel.reservationkey.com/?a=1&p% Latitude: 20.691867 Longitude: -105.293009

After a morning of not much progress, and after a few hectic days, we all took the afternoon off and went out to the pool for a few hours. I also enjoyed a great sunset kayak and visited with a few boat neighbors by kayak on the way back in.

My projects for the morning included installing another rail on the deck to which we will attach additional fuel jugs, and making a very nice desk like holder for my computer in my cabin. With my new desk I can leave my computer set up all the time and it is very convenient for sitting up and working, as well as laying down and watching videos. I also have a little more storage space under the desk in the net pouch I made there.

This morning we had a few more local workers visit the boat but, not a whole lot of progress. First, Peter Vargas, our new rigger, on whom we had pinned our hopes of completing our major projects, showed up bright and early around 8:15am. But, no he was not here to start work on the but, but just to drop off his rigging report and collect payment. The plan as of a few days ago was that he was going to start working on fabricating our emergency rudder mount as of today. But now he says that his stainless steel guy, Chavas, can't get to our projects until at least late next week. And Chavas is the same guy we have been trying to deal with for the last three weeks. Why couldn't Peter have told his this last week when we first met with him? Last week he told us, yeah, no problem he would start everything today.

So now, a week later, Peter decides to introduce us to the other stainless guy in town, a guy named Hilario. Hilario does not speak much English, but is supposed to be a great welder and have a huge machine shop with lots of people working for him. Hilario showed up at the boat around 10am and took a look at our project. He said he needed to check with his shop to make sure he has the materials we need, and that he would give us a call on the phone in two hours to let us know about the materials and when he could start. But, of course, no phone call from Hilario. Tomorrow we will follow up with him and see if we can get him to actually start some work this week. It seems we have had a lot of people come by the work and look at the projects, but no one ever start working on anything.

One bright note, is that Mike Danielson, on whom we had basically given up on, showed up around 11am today and started working a bit more on our gooseneck fitting. His assistant removed everything and Mike says he will be back tomorrow morning to start putting things back together. He had to fabricate a bolt for it so hopefully that will be done and he shows up.

For yet more good news, we found out last night via email, a full ten days after our order was placed, that the barometer we ordered was no longer in stock and therefore had not been shipped. So now we have ordered another barometer from the USA and have been assured that UPS can get it to us by Friday. If that indeed happens it would be amazing. I give it a five percent chance of happening. Stay tuned for news on that one.

We have not had much news on our spinnaker, but have been assured it will arrive Thursday or Friday. Again, I have to give that a relatively low chance of happening. And I haven't even mentioned that we are STILL waiting for a part for our watermaker which we had been all but promised was going to arrive by last Thursday. Overnight to San Diego, walked across the border by our dealer's contact there, and then placed on the first plane out of Ensenada for Puerto Vallarta. Well, amazingly, somehow something did not go according to plan. Something about the airlines not being able to properly x-ray the part and would not allow it on the plane. We think it was placed on a bus instead.

Yesterday we waited for people to show up that never arrived, and then made our shopping rounds all afternoon - Pharmacia Guadalajara, Plaza Caracol, Costco, Walmart, Zaragozas, and Home Depot.