Fixing the Dinghy and ignoring Badoo
29 August 2011 | Santa Rosalia, Mexico
Larry Nelson
We've actually left the dock at San Carlos, but tied to a new dock in Santa Rosalia. Hopefully, it isn't for 2 months like the last time! The forecast for the trip across the Sea of Cortez was for 1 foot seas and 4-5 knot winds. What we actually experienced was 7 foot seas and 18 knot winds. The remnants of thunderstorms during the night before we left took more than half the next day to die out. We made it without incident though and our friends in Santa Rosalia had arranged a slip for us. Back to air conditioning!
We did leave Anne in Hugh's capable hands and are receiving "wellness reports" from Anne. (May it always be so). We remain hopeful for her full recovery. We now have a stock of antibiotic eye drops in our own medicine chest.
Now it is time to fix the Dinghy again; this time hopefully the fix will hold air. The instructions say not to do this in the sun and not to do it in temperatures over 77F. Tough to do, but apparently necessary. So we "ripped" off the old patches (I didn't know you could do that!). We used Xylene to clean the dinghy chemically where the patch is going and sandpaper to scuff the surface. Ed and Connie Quesada brought us hypalon patching material that is 6 inches wide and 3 feet long (just what we needed) and new glue (from Newport CA where they live). We moved the dinghy up to the cruisers lounge ashore where it can be out of the sun and in cool ambient air. Tonight after dinner we will move quietly into our stealth dinghy repair facility and "make the fix". It will have all night where it is cool (at least not hot) to cure. By morning we will have a reasonably strong repair. Ed even bought me new paint for the dinghy so that we can paint it after we repair it. I'm hoping that this third fix will be the charm. If not, I have some "goop" to put inside the dinghy. We're pulling out all the stops this time. You see, a cruiser without a dinghy is like a teenager without a car. Life simply stops! The picture shows the patch on the dinghy.
There are a number of pleasant surprises recently in our lives and one that is not small is that our friends Paul and Judy Meany (SV Grace) stayed an extra day at Santa Rosalia so they could see us. What a treat. We will see them again soon in the Bahia de Los Angeles where we are headed. In the meantime, we swapped ebooks and movies and Paul introduced me to a program (Calibre) for ebook management. Wow. If you haven't looked into this, use Google and go find out about it. Its a cruiser's dream.
Apparently a number of our friends (and us!) have been inundated with Badoo notices. What the heck is Badoo? You will have to tell us. It acts like it might be a new Google social network? We aren't initiating this intentionally even if we are initiating it! Anyway, it doesn't appear to be malicious and I don't think we are initiating it. I think/hope it will pass. Let us know if you have some action you would recommend that we take. Please include an explanation!