We have been getting ready to depart Barra in fits and starts over the last week. It is really hard to get motivated to leave such a wonderful place.

There have been some projects. One would be that we had to test the windlass since I upgraded the power supply leading to it. We took the boat out into the bay today to test the anchor windlass, dropping anchor in 40 ft of water and raising it again. Success! It works like a charm!

I'm replacing the starting battery, because it's 6 years old and was starting to show some sluggishness.

We unloaded the anchor chain onto the dock today to paint new stripes on the chain every 20 feet. This way, we can know how much chain we have let out.

We got a book of charts for the entire Pacific coast between San Diego and Panama, to help us navigate in case our instruments get fried by lightning, for example. We ordered this in the US, and had it Fedex'ed to the wife of a fellow cruiser, who was flying down the next day. That's the best way to get anything into or out of Mexico.

Pascale and I have been feeling our oats about leaving. It's so nice and comfortable here. Cruising can be scary and a lot of hard work. It's so tempting to just stay here forever and enjoy the cushy resort life. They call it 'the velvet rut'.

But no, I think we'll test the waters and head south to Manzanillo, then to Zihuatanejo. After Zihuat we really have to make a commitment because it entails a new and very expensive insurance policy that will cover us all the way to Panama and into the Caribbean.

I'm leaving open the back door, that is, we can always bail out and reverse course back to Barra and spend the summer here. It would be so easy to do. Barra is so nice!