06/13/2012, Going through one to get another
On our recent failed attempt to cross the Sea of Cortez, both Lori and Cortez were passed out from the exhaustion of bashing into the wind and sea. Cortez always heads for Lori's lap while up in the cockpit and in this case he stretched out on her while she was out cold.
All that bashing makes you hungry and I'm sure I lost a few pounds on the way to La Paz from Barra, but it sure didn't take the crew of THIRD DAY long to get back into the La Paz Food Scene! A famous Gina Burger is lovingly prepared by starting out by toasting a type of sweet bread sponge dough burger bun. When the burger patty and cheese are ready, that's when the real love begins. We typically order "con toto" or with everything which includes: lettuce, grilled onions, tomato, avocado, mustard, ketchup, and the kicker....Media Crema or cream. Yes that's right, heavy cream is squirted atop the veggies from a squeeze bottle in an almost obscene display of caloric abandonment and Mexican decadence.
It's fair to say that in my life of travel, around the US for work and now Mexico, I've had my share of burgers. I know there are many styles of burgers and it's hard to sometimes compare one to another, but I can honestly say that I think a Gina Burger here in La Paz could be the best burger I've had. It could be the street card atmosphere of sitting on plastic patio chairs set up in the drive way of a house, it could be the fact that they cost $28 pesos ($2US), or perhaps it could be the generous application of cream as the finishing touch on the burger. But whatever it is, I love it and so do Amy and Jason.
Now that I think about it, everyone I have ever taken to Gina Burgers is impressed and gets addicted to them. I have Patrick on Just a Minute to blame for my addiction as he first took me to this sacred spot of Burger Paradise and I'm happy to spread the addiction throughout the cruising fleet here in La Paz.
| 4th Yr. 2012 Cruising Season |
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Comments [3]
06/10/2012, Where Size does matter
For all the talk of "Sailing" there is sure a lot of diesel being used here in the Sea of Cortez. That's not to say we don't sail every chance we get or that some cruisers rarely if ever motor from point A to point B, but the truth is most cruisers in the Sea of Cortez spend the majority of their time either motoring or motor sailing. (at least the truth as I see it, but I' could be blind and bumb) The wind of course is free, if you don't count the sail maintenance, but even with the cheaper diesel prices in Mexico, motoring costs Money, Pesos, Dollars, or as I like to measure it, Tacos.
The laws of Physics come into play where a heavier boat burns more diesel to plow it through the water. Our 15,000lb Pearson 365 would motor at 4kts burning about 0.5 gallons of diesel per hour, but our 55,000lb Hudson Force 50 burns just under 1.0 gallons of diesel per hour while motoring at 5kts. So some quick math tells us that with diesel in Mexico costing $2.91/gallon, it costs is $2.80/hr to motor. When I look at this from a standpoint I can relate to, that's a little bit more than the $28Peso Gina Burger here in La Paz!
Being a numbers guy, if we motor at 5kts from La Paz to San Diego the 1000nm trip will take us 200 hours, or cost us $560 in Diesel. The only problem is that when we go to fill up the boat in San Diego or Port San Luis, diesel won't cost $2.91/gallon but closer to $4.50/gallon. So that means we will be filling up our tanks in Turtle Bay along with all of our fuel cans and empty milk jugs we can find aboard! Besides when we install our diesel boat heater to survive the cold in Port San Luis, we will need all the cheap Mexican Diesel we can carry. Just the thought of needing a heater to stay warm is hard for me to wrap my head around as I sit here in a 89-deg boat cabin with a 12v fan blowing on me.
| 4th Yr. 2012 Cruising Season |
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06/08/2012, The End Starts Here
According to our GPS Chart plotter, we dropped our 60lb Drag-Q-R anchor in the La Paz Bay in the exact same spot that we pulled it to leave about 5 months ago. We love and trust our 100lb manson supreme anchor to hold us firmly in place where our secondary 60lb CQR just looks like a toy dingy anchor in comparison when hanging on the bow of this monster boat. But more scary than using our CQR anchor is using our secondary rode of all 3/4" nylon with only 15ft of 1/2" chain on the end! It looks like a piece of dental floss holding our boat in place and you can see the uneasy looks we are getting from the anchored boats around us.
We have been using our secondary anchor and rode since we left Barra de Navidad. The reason we are using our secondary anchor and rode is that we are preparing on sending our 300ft of 1/2 chain up to Mexicali to be re-galvanized. Our friends on SV Just a Minute just had their chain re-galvanized and after two years of full time anchoring, our chain is a complete rusty mess flinging rust on me and everything around when we deploy and retrieve our anchor.
The other major project about to start here in La Paz is having Diego start stripping the teak in our upper Salon. He did such a great job on our exterior teak, we decided to turn him loose on the boat interior. Just how far he gets will be determined by our eventual La Paz departure date for San Diego, sometime in July. I have some other projects that need to be done before the 1000nm trip affectionately known as "the Baja Bash", like rebuilding the helm hydrolic pump, re-working our main engine fuel system, tighten the rudder packing, repair the torn mainsail, and tighten the forestay. Not really too much to worry about going in, it's the new projects you FIND while working on the other ones that you always worry about on a boat!
| 4th Yr. 2012 Cruising Season |
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