After a week in Barra I took off for Santiago/Manzanillo for a week to play while waiting for the school kids to get off their extra long Christmas vacation. Of course this made mi nieta a little sad because she and her classmates were getting a little anxious to get to the video conference. A sail to Santiago from Barra is about 5 hours of pleasant off wind conditions. Dropped anchor off the upscale restaurant hoping to get easy access to wifi. It turned out the wifi signal I got was from about a mile away from the other end of the beach. I stayed put because I was further away from the crowd of other anchored boats so I could run my generator each evening to enjoy my decadence of watching a movie with the lights on and keeping my batteries up. You'all are probably wondering what that post picture is all about. The definition of cruising is "fixing boat things while in exotic anchorages". The first thing that broke was my instant 'on demand' hot water heater. I bought the big one on the right about 13 or 14 years ago on ebay and it was shipped from China straight to me. For $135 (including shipping), I think I got my moneys worth although I ordered one that was way too big for my boat. The one on the left is my new one I bought at Coppel (a Mexican department store) in Manzanillo for $170 and is exactly the size I needed. It is also made in China and sports a German manufacturers name. So I sucessfully installed it and was taking warm showers with more water pressure than my backup Sunshower that I used for a few days while waiting for my new water heater. The next item to break was my dinghy(car). It sprung a leak right at the end of the tube in the cone. I didn't have enough glue to effectively put enough patches on it so a good cruising friend of mine donated his glue and patch kit. Got it fixed after a couple of patching episodes. You see, a dinghy on a cruising boat is like having a car back at home. If you don't have a dinghy you can't go ashore unless you call a water taxi (if there is one in the area you are anchored) or swim to shore. Last year I had a backup dinghy and a backup outboard...this year I am living dangerously by having only one of each. Yesterday I finally had the video conference between the schools here in Mexico and Rancho Cordova. You see, this is the only way to see my granddaughter in school. I baked 2 batches of Toolhouse cookies and bought fresh leche for the kids to consume (a bribe maybe?). Of course my wonderful daughter-in-law Karen tried to match my hospitallity by making cookies for the kids on the other end. I absolutely love to see the kids interact on theses video chats. For the little effort I take to do this, the reward is so gratifying that I want to do it on a daily basis. Now I can cruise for a month or two with no obligations and enjoy the guacamole and chips under a palapa on the beach. Oh yeah, I forgot to relay a little 'dream come true' episode (sorta, kinda) in the anchorage at Santiago. I was sitting down in the boat one afternoon when I heard some giggling and some yelling hello. I went topside and there were 2 people in the water holdiing on to my dinghy. The girl asked if they could rest holding on to the dinghy and I said yes and then asked them to come aboard while they rested up from their swim to the boat from the beach. Needless to say the girl was a very nice (visually and mentally) young Mexican and the young boy was Swiss. We had a very nice visit and chatted for a long time before they swam back to the beach. the boy was on vacation from Switzerland and the girl (who spoke very good english) was hoping to get into Scripps in San Diego. They were the kind of young people that give you hope that our society will survive.