Sequitur

Michael & Edi have headed out on a slow, thorough exploration of the globe.

Vessel Name: Sequitur and Zonder Zorg
Vessel Make/Model: 2007 Hunter 49 and 1908 Wildschut Skûtsje
Hailing Port: Vancouver, Canada
Crew: Michael Walsh & Edi Gelin
About: For our current location click, on Map & Tracking, then on the Google Earth logo.
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13 January 2014
26 April 2013
24 April 2013
27 October 2012 | Harlingen, Friesland
29 September 2012 | Sneek, Netherlands
19 September 2012 | Hoorn, Netherlands
13 September 2012 | Aalsmeer, Netherlands
20 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
11 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
10 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands
08 August 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg: Aalmmeer, Michael & Edi: Vancouver
28 July 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg in Aalsmeer - Michael & Edi in Vancouver
26 July 2012 | Nieuwe Zorg in Aalsmeer - Michael & Edi in Volendam
17 July 2012 | Michael & Edi in Leeuwarden, Netherlands
07 July 2012 | Edi & Michael in Vancouver, Sequitur in Saint Augustine
27 June 2012 | Saint Augustine, USA
07 June 2012 | Saint Augustine, Florida, USA
20 May 2012 | Fajardo, Puerto Rico
11 May 2012 | Terre Le Haut, Les Saintes, Guadeloupe
01 May 2012 | Carlisle Bay, Barbados
Recent Blog Posts
13 January 2014

Another New Book Released

I am delighted to announce that my new book: Carefree on the European Canals is now in print and is available on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca [...]

26 April 2013

New Book Released

The proof copy of my new book arrived by courier today. I have approved it and it is now listed on Amazon for pre-order, with a publication date of 30 April. It is a rather large book at 680 pages in an 8.5 by 11 inch format with 315,000 words illustrated by over 2400 colour photos, charts and maps. [...]

24 April 2013

One Year Out of Brazil

One year ago today we sailed Sequitur out of Brazil after enduring more than six weeks in the least-friendly country that we had experienced during our three-year voyage. In the early evening of 24 April 2012 we crossed the line on the chart dividing Brazil from French Guyana and breathed a huge sigh [...]

27 October 2012 | Harlingen, Friesland

Planing a Metamorphosis

We have added a new post to the Zonder Zorg blog at: Planing a Metamorphosis.

29 September 2012 | Sneek, Netherlands

Onward to Friesland

We have arrived in Friesland and have added a new post to the skûtsje's blog at: Onward to Friesland

19 September 2012 | Hoorn, Netherlands

North From Aalsmeer

We have moved northward from Aalsmeer and I have added two new posts: Heading North From Aalsmeer and North From Amsterdam

13 September 2012 | Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Taking Possession

We are back in the Netherlands, and I have added some new posts to the ZonderZorg blog at: Taking Possession and Settling-In and Making Plans

20 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Added a New Website

We have added a new website: Skûtsje ZonderZorg. Zonder zorg in Dutch means without worry. Our intention with the site is to provide a place to share some of the history, geography and culture of the skûtsje as we discover it. We will also use this place to document [...]

11 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Still More Skûtsje History

We continued to attempt to track-down Douwe Albert Visser, who was the owner of Nieuwe Zorg in 1941 when she was re-registered. One of the problems we repeatedly encountered in our online searches was the effect of currently having Albert Visser and two Douwe Vissers as very competitive skûtsje racers, [...]

10 August 2012 | Sequitur: St Augustine, USA - Michael & Edi: Vancouver, Canada - Nieuwe Zorg: Aalsmeer, Netherlands

Some More Skûtsje History

While I was researching the history of Nieuwe Zorg, I finally found her first registration details obscured by an apparent typographical error in a transcribed online spreadsheet. She was listed as having been built in 1901 instead of 1908. I emailed the webmaster of the [...]

Still Waiting in Las Hadas

07 April 2010 | Las Hadas
Michael
We remained in the anchorage off Las Hadas, waiting for the arrival of Sequitur's new alternator set-up, which was coming in FedEx shipments from San Francisco and Seattle. The first package, containing the mounting kits had become stuck on Monday afternoon in Customs in Guadalajara, but through intervention of Jesus of FedEx, we had hoped to see it moving again.

Then at 1611 on Wednesday the FedEx online tracking site showed that the package was once again 'in transit' in Guadalajara, marked 'paperwork available'. This sounded very promising. Then a little over an hour later, at 1718 the site showed the package as 'int'l shipment release'. Jesus of FedEx seemed to have pulled some strings for us.

Three minutes later, at 1721 the second shipment, with the alternators, regulators and sensors from Seattle, was recorded as 'at dest sort facility' in Guadalajara. We were on a roll. I triggered the FedEx automatic email notifications and we waited.

On Thursday morning, the FedEx online tracking showed both shipments still in Guadalajara. There was no change in the status of the San Francisco package; however, the package from Seattle had been promoted to 'In transit - Package available for clearance'. Then at 1244 on Thursday the Seattle shipment had its status changed to 'Clearance delay'. I emailed Jesus and again asked for his intercession. Then we waited.


I lowered the dinghy from its davits and we went ashore for the first time in six days. I popped into the marina office to tell the manager that two FedEx packages might be coming for us sometime in the next week or so. Then we went to the marine supply shop, La Casa del Pescador to see if they had any LocTite or Tef-Gel for our alternator installation. No luck there, but it is just a small marina-side outlet for the main store in Santiago, and we will try there later.

In the meantime, we negotiated a 40 Peso taxi fare (down from the asked 50) to the Wal-Mart and I looked there for LocTite and Tef-Gel or comparable products, again without luck. The main purpose of our trip; however, was to buy some fresh fruit and produce. We selected some very nice tomatoes, tomatillos, red, yellow and orange peppers, mushrooms, carrots, oranges, mangoes, bananas and apples. We also got a kilo-and-a-bit of medium sized prawns for a bit under $7 and bought a very large calamari steak, just over a kilo in weight for 8.7 Pesos, about 72 cents Canadian.

When we arrived back onboard I took advantage of the free wifi connection to use Skype to phone my father in New Brunswick and wish him a happy ninety-sixth birthday. Both he and my ninety-two-year-old mother are in good health and are looking forward to the warming weather of spring. Dad told me my brother Peter had called from his sailboat in the Bahamas the day before.


Edi shot this picture of mom and dad in their yard while we were visiting them last April. The winter's snow had just melted and dad was busy cleaning the yards and gardens.

For diner on Thursday evening I decided to cook some of the calamari steak, and since I've never cooked any before, I researched online for recipes. I find it much easier to experiment with new ingredients when they are inexpensive, and here with the cost per serving about 18 cents, the price of failure is rather minor.


One thing I saw repeated with every recipe and set of cooking instructions was that calamari needs to be cooked for either a few minutes, or a few hours; anything in between is tough. I decided on a hybrid of the various recipes, and came up with:
• Using a sharp knife, score each side of the steaks in a two or three centimetre diagonal pattern and place a sliver of garlic into each slit.
• Coat the pieces with olive oil, add salt and pepper and cover with Panko, pressing to adhere to the calamari. Let stand about 20 minutes.
• Heat olive oil in a heavy pan on medium heat, add calamari and cook for about three minutes per side, until golden brown. Serve with thinly sliced tomatillos.

One thing I reinforced in my mind yet again was that even on high, the marine propane stove does not get hot enough to properly sear panko. Also, the calamari was rather salty on its own, and didn't need any additional salt. I had prepared three pieces, one thick, one medium and one thin. After cooking, the thickest piece was the most tender, and the thinnest was the toughest, with its thinnest end quite rubbery, demonstrating the results of overcooking. I think my next version of calamari steaks will be with them diced into cubes and quickly tossed in a hot wok with sesame oil, garlic and ginger, and then set aside until the end to be added back in when the vegetables are done.

Before we went to bed on Thursday night, I checked the FedEx site again to find no change in the status of the two packages. Both were still in Guadalajara, so we went to bed waiting to see what Friday would bring. But the Friday before Easter, Good Friday is a holiday in Mexico, meaning we shouldn't hold out much hope for any action.

We awoke on Good Friday to find that there had been no change online in the status of either of the packages. The first was still shown in Guadalajara marked 'int'l shipment release', while the second was also in Guadalajara marked 'Clearance delay'. There was no reply from Jesus to my Thursday afternoon email, so I re-sent the email, suggesting he might not have received it. Then remembering that it was Good Friday, I thought that Jesus might be otherwise occupied, so we waited.


This is the middle weekend of the two-week Mexican Easter school break. There were lots of kids on the water, some being dragged around on inflatable toys behind speedboats, some water-skiing, some learning how, some razzing around on seadoos, but the one thing they all had in common was that they did it while zigzagging through the boats at anchor, rather than a bit further out where there was so much more room and where they would not disturb anyone. They seemed to have adopted very well the callous attitude of their seniors, who have been razzing through the anchorage every day since we've been here.


There were also many overloaded boats on the water. There seems to be a very casual attitude to boating regulations here and even less enforcement. This boat had so many it was difficult to count them as the came and went from inside, but there appeared to be close to two dozen on the seven or eight meter boat. It is interesting to note that with so many onboard, no one had managed to haul-in the fenders. Maybe there was no room for them onboard.

In the late afternoon on Friday I changed the pre-filters on the watermaker, and ran it while I ran the generator. In two hours I took the battery from 62% to 79%, but the pre-filters on the watermaker clogged in an hour and a quarter in the churned-up water of the anchorage. After the 25-litre membrane back-flush, we managed to net about 50 litres, a bit under a tenth of our tank capacity.


For dinner on Friday evening I prepared a stir-fry of cubed calamari steak, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, white onion, green beans, carrots, poblano, tomalillo, red, yellow and orange peppers and Roma tomato, flavoured with a bit of sesame oil, a dash of oyster-flavoured sauce and a sprinkling of freshly toasted sesame seeds. I used neither salt nor soy sauce, and yet the calamari still ended-up way too salty. I guess it is the nature of the beast; it probably needs long soaking in milk or suchlike to leach-out the salt. We pushed aside most of the calamari and enjoyed a wonderful vegetable stir-fry.


We spent Saturday acting as one of the course pylons as sea-doos, speedboats and water-skiers raced around in the anchorage. The long Easter weekend seemed to bring-out large numbers of seemingly inexperienced boaters, many of whom ventured no further from the marinas than the anchorage, and then spent hours going in zigzags and circles among the boats.


Since we had dined the previous two evenings on the results my experimentation with the large calamari steaks, we decided we owed ourselves a treat. I dug some large scallops out of the freezer and sauteed then in butter with white mushrooms, shallots and garlic, with a splash of sauvignon blanc at the finish. With this we had basmati rice steamed with tarragon, Roma tomatoes with a sprinkle of basil and plates of asparagus with mayonnaise, and we accompanied it with a 2009 Palo Alto Sauvignon Blanc from Chile.


On Sunday the speedsters through the anchorage continued until late in the afternoon, and then there was a pause for a while, until the evening shift took over. I again ran the watermaker, but this time its pre-filters clogged in only 31 minutes and shut-down the machine. This was a wasted effort; about 30 litres of water made and 25 of it used for the membrane back-flush, netting only 5 litres. I guess all the two-cycle engines buzzing around in the anchorage all day long has left a lot of oil in the water, and this very quickly clogged the filters. The colours on the water may not all have been from the sunset.

On Monday morning the FedEx tracking site showed no change from last Thursday; both packages were still in Guadalajara and there was no email reply from Jesus. Then at 0931 I received a reply from Jesus, telling me the first package was out of the Customs area and its fate was no longer in his control. He advised me to call the FedEx Mexican 1-800 number for assistance. I tried, but a problem with Skype is that it defaults 1-800 numbers to the US or Canada, and calling it gives a 'number-not-listed' kind of response. I tried all sorts of ways to make Skype call it as a Mexican number, but none of them worked.

In his email, Jesus also told me that his colleague, Fernando was working on the clearance of the second package. I called the US 1-800 number for the US FedEx call centre and spoke with an understanding woman in International Shipping who told me the first package had just been moved to the destination sorting area. She confirmed that the second package was still awaiting Customs clearance.

Then I received an email from Fernando with three documents attached. One was the commercial invoice from Balmar, the second was a personal use declaration and the third was a declaration of value. Of course, these last two were in Spanish and needed to be completed and signed. I copied the text from the forms to the Google Translate site and using the results as a guide, filled-out the Word document forms, printed, signed and scanned them to PDF and emailed them back to Fernando, asking him to confirm their receipt, and to inform me if anything else was required. And then we waited.

Meanwhile, at 1129 the status of first package had been changed to 'At FedEx destination facility', although it was still shown as being in Guadalajara. I assumed Manzanillo was a local delivery from Guadalajara, though at about 250 kilometres by road, this seems a bit far. But then, this is Mexico where the volume of FedEx packages is likely nowhere near what we see at home. Knowing one package was getting close, we waited.

And then at 1819 I received an automated tracking update, informing me that "FedEx attempted, but was unable to complete delivery of the following shipment:" and gave the tracking number for the first package, the one from San Francisco that had cleared Customs last Wednesday afternoon and had sat for the Easter weekend in Guadalajara. The email went on to say: "Unable to deliver shipment, returned to shipper. No action is required. The package is being returned to the shipper". There was a new tracking number, which showed it in its way to San Francisco. How delightful!


I immediately went to the tracking site, and sure enough, it was marked 'Package returned to shipper'. I quickly phoned the US FedEx office on Skype, and was put through to an International Agent who barely spoke English. I re-dialled a couple more times before the roulette wheel brought around someone who spoke English as a first language. She put me on to her supervisor, who efficiently took charge of the situation, sorted-out that it was probably the 'offending gels', the Tef-Gel and the LockTite that were being returned, not the whole shipment.

He also dug into the file on the shipment from Seattle, which was hung-up in Customs. He reviewed its email file and called Fernando's phone and left a message for him to respond to my last email. Within minutes, while still on the phone to the FedEx supervisor, I received an email from Fernando: "Regards, pls put over blank numero de factura "S/N" and sent this wt the other format pls NOM letter". The supervisor and I sorted-out the email to mean that I should replace the Invoice Number with "S/N" on the Declaration of Value and send it again with the Personal Use Declaration. The supervisor told me he would keep a close watch on both of the shipments for us. I redid the form, printed, signed, scanned and emailed it back to Fernando, asking for an acknowledgement and asking him to tell me if anything else was required. And then we waited.

On Tuesday morning there was little change to the online status of the shipments. The first package was still shown as 'Package returned to sender', the second was still 'Clearance delay' but the third was shown as 'On FedEx vehicle for delivery'. Hopefully the third package was only the 'offending gels'. Then mid-morning, after the third package was delivered, in San Francisco, the first had a new entry inserted at 0000 on 6 March: 'At local FedEx facility, Mexico, MX'. This was similar to the entry inserted on Monday, just before the "returned to sender" comment.

At 1112 I received an email from Fernando acknowledging my previous evening's email, saying, "thks in process". Then at 1530 I received the following in an email from Fernando: "Saludos,..anexo pedimento de la guia 412396323580, con impuestos por $ 3539.00 pesos, favor de depositar a la cta concentradora 5209 Banamex suc 4255 a nombre de Federal Express Holdings De Mexico Y CIA SNC De CV, referencia RODSCGDL51 si va a ser trasnferencia la clave es 002180425500052093.Gracias. (MAS GASTOS ADMVOS ,ESTOS SE CONOCERAN CON EXACTITUD, YA LIBERADA Y FACTURADA LA GUIA ) y enviarme la ficha por favor a la brevedad. Gracias".

I ran it through the Google Translator to see that it was payment instructions for me to settle the import fees and taxes on the package with a direct deposit at the bank. At 1605 I emailed back asking him to charge it to my FedEx account, telling him that is what Jesus had done the previous week with the first package. At 1812 he emailed me back saying he couldn't, and that I had to pay at the bank. It looks like tomorrow we'll go ashore to find a branch of Banamex.

Meanwhile, between the online package watching and emailing, I made water. We had been rationing the past few days, but now our water gauge had reached the beginning of the empty zone. I put in a cleaned pair of pre-filters and the machine ran for an hour and 17 minutes before the filters shut it down. I closely monitored the gauges and kept track of the output, recording the litres per hour, the salinity, the pump pressure and the pre-filter status. We made 67 litres on the first set of pre-filters. I changed them with a second set of cleaned filters, and this pair lasted only 33 minutes, making us 34.3 litres before shutting-down the machine. The third set ran for an hour and 46 minutes and produced 109.4 litres. The fourth run was with this last pair of filters, rinsed off. They lasted 28 minutes and produced another 26.7 litres. The fifth run was with the filters from the first run, rinsed and bleached in the sun for about 3.5 hours. They lasted 16 minutes and produced 13.8 litres. The sixth and final run for the day was the filters from the second run, rinsed and bleached in the sun for about 3 hours. They lasted 20 minutes and gave us 16.9 litres. So in 5.5 hours including the down-time to change filters, we made 268.1 litres of water, which after the membrane back-flush, netted us 243.1 litres, which is just shy of half of our tank capacity.

With all the notes and meter readings that I recorded, I should be able to better understand the watermaker. I do know that I need to find a suitable soft brush to clean the pre-filters better; the literature on the machine talks of rinsing the filters in water and using a soft brush to clean them. With care they can last through many dozens of uses. For the last three weeks I have been trying to buy replacement pre-filters to augment our existing supply of five sets, but have not received replies to my emails to two different agents in Mexico, so I again sent emails to the agents in San Carlos and Puerto Vallarta. With our recent experiences of bringing things in from the States, I am somewhat hesitant in using that route again, so we waited.

At 2021 I received an automatic tracking update email from FedEx, indicating the first package had been delivered. I had seen no change to its status on my visit to the tracking site a few minutes earlier. I quickly looked again, and saw a new entry for 1710: 'Delivered' and the location 'Manzanillo, MX'. It looks like the package was delivered to the marina this afternoon, and signed for by Ruben, the Gerente de Marina. Great, this will give us another thing to do ashore on Wednesday, besides going to the bank, the post office and the marine shop La Casa del Pescador, and of course, going to the supermarket for fresh produce and looking for a brush to clean the watermaker filters.
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