February 9 – 19, 2012: We made the arduous 5 mile trip to Bahia Santiago making water while under power. This bay is quite beautiful with its long sandy beaches and colorful umbrellas. It’s a great walking beach with roped off swimming areas, impressive homes, restaurants and loaded with tourist activities. Let’s not forget the loud music, jet skies and squealing kids romping in the water. This was a good area for us while conducting the radio nets as we had access to the internet for weather and decent listening conditions.

Friday and Saturday I couldn’t shake the effects of a sour throat, ear ache and cough. By Sunday the bug won the battle and I was down sleeping for the next 3 days. Not much to write about when looking at the back of my eyelids. By Wednesday, I managed a trip to the beach. That was a big adventure surfing into shore and hustling off the dinghy in time not to get soaked by the next wave. It was probably a 9.95 in the scoring category. Watching the cruisers come into the beach is quite the entertainment factor. We all wear clothes we don’t mind getting wet. It’s just the way of surf landings.

Wish I had daring stories of grand adventures these past two weeks but quite frankly all we did was take it easy. There has a nasty flu/cold bug going around in the Barra de Navidad area and most likely I got my share. Bob wasn’t all that perky either or he used the excuse of my illness to take naps “to be quiet”. I guess that lame reasoning works too.

Actually the real news to report was the rain … yes rain. We had about 2 inches and cloudy skies for the past 10 days. Yahoo! The boat finally got rinsed off from the tip of the mast to her decks.

The laundry is now piling high. It’s actually easier to take the boat back to Barra for laundry facilities. At Santiago or Las Hadas the logistics of getting this chore done is far too much work …hauling it down the beach … hauling it on the bus … finding a laundry mat, etc etc. No thanks!

Santiago 19° 11.451N 104°40.356W