The Chinese food was excellent and definitely will eat there again. The conversation was good. There was Kirk "Freedom Kirkland, Shana & Jesse on Jesse's Girl, Cheryl and Ron "Lazy Days", Rich, Amy, Jason "Third Day" and of course yours truly. We took one last walk through the plaza and down to Amy's (local Mexican friend) to say goodbye and then back to the marina. Jumped into the dingy, motored back to the boat and stowed the motor then brought the dingy on board, flipped it up side down on the deck in preparation for stowing. We still have a few items to stow or lash down before heading out tomorrow morning. Estimated departure time is 8:00 am. It is about an 8 hour trip over to Isabella Island. The plan is to go over there and if weather and swell conditions are good, we will spend a few days there before heading north to Mazatlan. If weather is not good for Isabella then we will head to Mazatlan which is an overnighter.

It is Friday and everyone knows that you do not start a voyage on Friday. If you do you are looking for really big trouble from Mother Nature. So, with that being said, it was a preparation for sea day. I was up at 7:00 am and fixed a cup of tea when I saw a sailboat motor into the marina. I walked down to take his dock lines, however the guard was already there to do so. The boat name is "Freedom Kirkland" with Kirk aboard. I gave him all the pertinent information and let him be. Lori, "Third Day" came in and we pulled our laundry to make complete loads and she most of the laundry while I made two diesel fuel runs, hauling the jerry jugs with the cart.

Meanwhile back at the boat Russ was working on filling the water tanks, supervising Patty (the yard crew) who was washing the boat and re-installing the swim boarding ladder. We borrowed Amy and Jason from Third Day and put them to work scrubbing the carpets on the dock. All this was completed by 12:30 pm.

We had invited the marina workers over at 1:00 pm for hamburger lunch. So now I am mixing up hamburger with lots of garlic, organic non-salt seasoning, Worcestershire sauce and of course three eggs. I pan fried them. We had ten people including our selves for lunch. Emundo, Arie and Raul stayed until about 3:00 pm. We so enjoyed having them over.

Amy and I headed into town to get the last few items at the Kane store. I was not able to get any molida de res (ground beef). I wanted to get some for the dogs and also for other dishes like spaghetti, nor was I able to get any tomatoes. You see, the market for meat and veggies closes about 2:00 pm and I just could not get there by then. Oh well. It is now 4:30 pm, Amy and I are back at the boat. Russ and I are getting it ready to leave the marina and go anchor in the estuary for the night. We have about a half hour to get the boat anchored, everything stowed and 2.5 horse Suzuki motor put on dingy before meeting everyone on the dock to walk to town for Chinese dinner at 6:00 pm.

With the anchor down it is now time to work your ass off putting things where they belong for sea duty. When you have been on the hard as long as we were, you get out of the sea mode and move into the land mode. Our first 15 degree heel will let us know what we forgot. We were only 15 minutes late.

Today is April 22, 2010 and starts out as usual with the wake up. Rich on Third Day is going to town so I decided to go, since we will be leaving in a couple of days, I had better get the provisioning done. Amy and Jay, Rich's kids went along and helped carry all the stuff back. We got back to the boat which is still on the hard and Russ informed me that we will be pressure washing the boat topside in about an hour. So I relaxed with a cup of Ice tea and the computer. He meanwhile went over to the marina office to talk to Raul about putting us back in the water today. So we pressure washed the decks from about 1:00 to 4:10 pm and still did not get the aft cockpit. The main cockpit is the only place that soap was used. There is a reason for this, and that is, in the yard agreement they would provide personnel to clean the topside.

Then it happened. Then at 4:10 the water was turned off and then the ladder was removed while I was clipping Russ's toenails. We then heard the roar of the travel lift engines, signifying that realty was about to happen. Yes, the travel lift effortlessly rolled across the cement yard and straddled us indicating that an actual launch was about to happen, putting an end to my now so familiar and favorite night time porta pottie the Denny B's Bait Bucket.

The travel lift is in position, the slings attached. Raul raised us so gently and cautiously until the stands could be removed. With the stands clear and we in our lofty walmart beach chairs, rolled effortless across to the drop zone under a professional, caring eye of Raul and the San Blas Staff. Splash down was precisely 5:22 pm was high tide.

Huston we have a problem. No water flow out the exhaust. Russ checked the engine for fifteen minutes to no avail. When one of the San Blas Marina staff mentioned that the sling may be covering up the engine water intake. The rear dock lines were tossed a shore and the rear sling was lowered. Wala! Houston, our problem is cured. We now have water to the engine. Sixty seconds later we were in orbit, working our way to a dock landing. Four inches under the keel was observed on the way to the dock. With the lines secured to the dock, I had mentioned to Cheryl on Lazy Days that we need to have margaritas; she said "I have margaritas" and proceeded to walk to her boat. We continued to get settled in and when I walked to the next dock to look at our boat she said "now you are not even close to your boat or to the bar". So, I took that as an innovation to have a drink at the bar which was their boat. Lori from Third Day asked me about having a taco dock party and I agreed and volunteered Russ to make Guacamole and gave her what tortillas and taco seasoning I had and off she went. The dock party ended up on Ron and Cheryl's boat Lazy Days which is a beautiful 48 foot DeFever. This boat is gorgeous. We all had a great time. It turns out that we all will be leaving San Blas on the same day and all will be headed out to Isabella.



View the launch photos Click on PHOTO GALLERY to the right.

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.

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.

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