04/21/2010, San Blas Marina
Today is a good day. Russ was heading over to the marina office to pay our bill and get a receipt. Emundo said that we would be launch either Tuesday or Wednesday and since Tuesday is gone and today is Wednesday he thought he should get and pay the bill and find out when we will be launching.
I have started the gradual provisioning grocery runs in anticipation of leaving soon. Today I started out by getting up and heading to the market with Rich. Rich is making a bakery run. I am making a kitchen sink run. We decided to walk to the bakery first. When approaching the bakery door you could smell that wonderful fresh baked pastry smell. There were a few new items that we did not see before. I told Rich that something was missing and asked him to look around. It took him a nanosecond to figure it out. THE BEES! The bees were gone. Not one in sight. Rich asked in Spanish why there were no bees and the answer was it has gotten too hot and the bees left.
Rich was nice enough to walk around town with me while I did my grocery shopping. When I have a list that is longer that what my backpack or arms can carry, I take the rolling carry on luggage. With our pastries in the luggage we headed to the "Kane" store for some puppy food, milk, chips. Of course I could not leave with out the best beacon I have ever had in my life so I headed over to the beacon store and Rich headed to the flour tortilla shop. I bought a half kilo of bacon which is 1.1 pounds. The price is 68 pesos per kilo (2.2 pounds) which is about $5.50 USD. That makes it $2.75 for the half kilo. Not too bad. While here I got puppy pads, amazing that they have them. The local market is next, to pick up some vegetables and ground meat. The ground pork and beef here is awesome. They take the pork tenderloin and slice off pieces and put it through the grinder. The beef is the same way. When making hamburgers out of it you have to add to an egg to it to hold it together.
Now with all the shopping completed it is time for lunch. We headed over to the fried chicken place only to find out that it was not on today's menu. Pork tacos will have to do, well ok port tortas. This sandwich is all pork tenderloin on a grilled bollio (white roll) the condiments are guacamole sauce and salsa.
When I returned back to the boat Russ informed me that they will clean the topside of the boat tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon we will be launched. I will believe it when I see it. They have finished the blue stripe and now started the white one that is above the bottom paint.
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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04/18/2010, San Blas Marina, San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
Last night April 17th after the pot luck I decided that I should start some of the vacuuming or at the very least get the bow tent off the deck. Russ did not really want to do this because I have worked by but off already today, but I insisted and just headed up on deck, plugged the vacuum in and started sucking up the sand that was deposited there from the sand blaster. I vacuumed for about an hour and had to empty the vacuum multiple times. I did make some good progress, I got the starboard (right) side and up by the mast completed. Now it was 9:00 pm and time to watch a movie.
Today is Sunday and I woke up to Lucy tossing her cookies right by my right ear. I cleaned that up, moved to the setee (couch) and held her for a while then she threw up again. I held her and she calmed down. At 7:30 am I took Taco and Lucy out side with me. They would enjoy it and I could start vacuuming again. It really is amazing how much sand was deposited up on the boat. I vacuumed for 2 ½ hours and had to empty the vacuum so many times I lost count. But, now it looks like a boat again instead of a sand box. As I was doing this task I thought of my cat Smokey (god rest her soul). She would have loved to had a sand box the size of a boat. We were told that we would be back in the water Monday or Tuesday night. Lets keep our fingers crossed.
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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04/17/2010, San Blas Marina, San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
Russ asked Emoundo to leave the scaffolding up at the stern so we could put the Monitor Windvane on. Russ first rinsed off the stern with water to get the sanding powder off. He put a block and line on the end of the whisker pole and lashed it on top of the solar panel arch right between the panels. Russ and I lifted and moved the windvane over to the scaffolding so it sat inside.. Russ tied a rope around the windvane, while I climbed up the ladder to position myself in the aft cockpit to pull on the line to rise it up. Russ lifted while I pulled on the line. We got it up above the top of the scaffolding. Russ put two boards on the scaffolding to stand on. Then Rich on Third Day magically appears to give us a new copy of the San Blas Cruisers Guide and then offers to help. Now Russ and Rich are on the scaffolding and lifting while I pull on the line. We got it into position and the bottom support arms of the vane would not go in so we changed plans and went for the top support arms. Now Rich is on the scaffolding holding the locked off line and supporting the vane while Russ unties one of the lashing lines and I pull the pole towards the bow. Russ then re-ties the line. All of this was to get the vane closer to the slanted stern so the top support arms would go in.
Top two support arms now have bolts in them and Russ and Rich are working on the lower four support arms, two on each side. With holding your mouth just right and talking sweet along with a mallet, some finesse all went back together with no spare parts left over. Task one complete.
Tonight is the cruisers potluck. The menu was for starters bagel chips with cream cheese topped with raspberry chutney, Chips and Salsa. Main dinner entries were Chicken Curry with Red Rice, Green Bean Bake, Oriental Red Cabbage Salad, Scalloped Potatoes, Spaghetti and Yaka for desert. Everyone enjoyed the food and conversation up until the no-seeums came out and chased everyone back to their boats
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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04/16/2010, San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
Today we did water runs. Now this was a tiresome task. First Russ had to hook the whisker pole to the mast and raise it with the topping lift halyard. On the other end of the whisker pole he attached a block (pully) and threaded a line (rope) through the block that attached to the main halyard. The marina put a pump in the water storage tank and ran a hose to us. The water storage tank is pretty much at ground level and so is the hose. Now keep in mind we are at least 12 feet high off the ground. The pump is not strong enough to pump up that high. So Russ lowered the two jerry jugs (complete with microdine) down to me and I filled them and tied them both at the same time on to the end of the line and Russ raised them up to the deck by using the wench with a drill that has a wench fitting. We filled two tanks this way and it took about four times to complete the task.
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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04/16/2010, San Blas Marina, San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
Well the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. Yesterday morning we heard the sandblaster go on at about 9:30 am and turn off at about 10:30 am. Then we heard the brooms sweeping up the sand. I came up into the companion way and looked out and saw the sandblaster out in the middle of the boat yard, far far away from our boat. Yeah!!! The blasting is complete. Now they are preparing to work on the water line.
Remember the 1 1/2 faring chunks that came off the bow down to the water line, well now that has to be planed level before they can add bondo to make a bevel for a smooth entry from the aluminum side to the waterline. If this procecure is not done then there would be a lip. After the sanding and adding bondo where needed then they will put a white paint stripe.
After one month and one week on the hard we can finally see a splash date.
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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04/12/2010, San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico
The tick problem continues. Even with tick meds on Lucy, she still has ticks. I keep pulling them off and crushing them. Not sure what to do about the living quarters. Everything that we can put in the boat is harmful to the dogs. They do not have the bombs to set off here, only stuff to sprinkle around and is toxic to the animals. So I keep on pulling them off and killing them. A command decision has been made, not to let the dogs walk around town. If we go to town from now on they will be in the chest packs. The ticks here are dark reddish brown on the back and the under belly is a sort of clear speckled color. Now we have to do tick inspections every morning before getting dressed and every night before going to bed. And yes we have had a couple on us that we had to get off. Now I feel like I am becoming an expert on the ticks in San Blas and that is by no means on my "Things To Learn" list. So in this case I would much rather be TICKED OFF than TICKED ON. I can't wait to be done with the ticks. When dealing with this situation it is best to TRY and keep a sense of HUMOR if you can. Well you got it, I lost mine. No Humor, Gone, Nada, Zilch. I will try to find it soon.
| San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico |
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