Mary wants me to specifically mention the exciting event that happened to us today! Hold your breath (we sure have had to lately) and wait for it After swimming and boogie boarding on the beach today we returned to the boat and showered for the first time in 11 days. OK, so not a full length hot shower like we are used to, but a boat special and it was definitely the high light of our day. Before leaving San Diego we purchased a one gallon bug sprayer from Home Depot on the recommendation of another cruiser. This is how it works, first a swim, then a thorough lather with shampoo that somehow through the magic of modern chemistry still works in salt water, next a salt water rinse, and for the finale we do a fresh water rinse from the sprayer. 1/2 gallon of our precious fresh water does all four of us. Yes, Mary is also fantasizing about buying a water maker.

We are in Bahia Santa Maria, another coastal bay with a small fishing camp and miles of beaches, but for the first time the water is warm enough to swim comfortably. We arrived yesterday morning after a mixed sail, the first 24 hours were a deep reach with the speedo parked between 6 kts and 7 kts and the boat motion so smooth that down below it felt like we were on rails. The wind died on my watch and I nursed it for another 3 or 4 hours of fickle rolly conditions before giving in to less than one knot of boat speed and motoring for the last 5 hours. This morning was school for Mary and the boys and some boat maintenance for dad. The highlight was finding a bad antenna connector in the bilge and fixing the main VHF radio. Reading between the lines this was 3 hours of sweaty skinned knuckles crawling around the cabinets trying not to disturb the teacher or students with my muffled cursing, followed by 30 minutes of soldering once I figured out the issue. After chores we went swimming off the boat for the first time on the trip and then rowed ashore for body surfing and boogie boarding. Now, the temperature is about perfect, the anchorage is calm and we are clean and dry. It is the little things in life that you come to appreciate.

The weather forecast has really light winds for the next couple of days so it looks like we will be here for a while before we make the next hop to Cabo San Lucas. We heard a little bit of news from another cruiser from WA about rough weather at home -- love to get an e-mail with an update.

Hope all is well.