Traveling the Song Line

I spent the day in a variety of tasks and projects. Somewhere along the way, I realized I was smiling and humming under my breath. I was happy. I really like what I'm doing, and am amazingly surprised at how much fulfillment I'm finding in it. Just living and going about daily routines, but feeling good about it and staying active. I have seriously enjoyed meeting people at the marina, talking with other sailors, comparing notes, and just feeling a part of the community.

Yesterday, one of the other sailors did a water run and brought me some fresh water, since the water at the marina is not potable. There is a water truck that comes on Thursday, and I may not be here. He was carting water in jugs on his bicycle. Another sailor, who's planning to leave soon, made a run for diesel fuel, and filled a 5 gallon jug for me and brought it to my boat. He even ran it through a filter. Very nice to have the support and assistance of others. I have been working on this whole string of projects, but it seems many of the sailors here are doing the same thing. It's part of the life. Stuff is scattered out on the decks, you can hear banging, scratching, sanding, power tools, cursing, and a wide variety of other activities going on as sailors get ready to get underway.

I thought I would talk a little bit about what the day looked like for me. I woke up early, had a quick breakfast then went up to the main office where the Wi-Fi is better. I checked my email, updated all my weather applications so I have the latest weather information. I spent some time looking over the new data and thinking about what it meant. I chatted with some other folks at the dock, and as I was coming back to the boat, there was a diver doing a bottom cleaning out a neighbor's boat. I talked to the diver, and he managed to get to my boat as well. It was nice to have a good thorough underwater cleaning of the boat, which hasn't happened for a while. He said everything looked good, and my zincs were about 40%. Zincs are a sacrificial support against electrolysis. With different metals in salt water, it's an ongoing issue, and the zinc erodes so that your propeller and shaft and other metal parts of your boat don't slowly dissolve into nothingness. I was very pleased I was able to manage in Spanish, as I am a bit rusty.

I had several conversations with neighbors about what their plans were, getting feedback on what might my plans were, and just generally checking in. I made plans to go to lunch with one of my dock mates. I spent a good chunk of time down below, reviewing some of the projects I was working on and moving stuff around, looking for a good route to run wiring. It seems projects involve a lot of moving stuff, as you wind up packing all the small spaces you can find with items on the boat, and when you need to get to that space, you wind up with piles of stuff all over the place. I am running heavy battery cables and control cables the length of the cabin, so I had to empty many compartments.

I worked a little bit on the outboard, moved some water up to my onboard tanks from a jug, did a little bit of cleaning, and spent a good chunk of time working on running wire through the hidden spaces on the boat up to the windlass. I managed to get the circuit breaker in, and connected all the cabling to the batteries. I got the cable run about two thirds of the way up the boat, and I will have a chance to finish tomorrow. I also hooked up the cable from the battery for the solar panels. More work on that tomorrow.

I walked into town for lunch, and my dock mate made couldn't make it. He had the chance to get a ride into town to buy some parts for his engine, and couldn't afford to turn it down. He recommended a Chinese place that opened up recently. He told me they had a lot of food on their lunch special, that I would come home with some. He was right. I had enough left over for dinner. My total bill, including drink, was about five dollars. I'm still not used to how inexpensive it is here compared to Northern California. Fish tacos yesterday at a place recommended by several cruisers. They were outstanding. $2.50 for three of them.

Stopped and changed some dollars to pesos. The peso is at a low, at about 5 cents. It makes it pretty easy to convert. I am fairly comfortable with the metric system, thankfully, as the US is one of three countries still using the Imperial system. The other two are Liberia and Myanmar. Let that sink in for a moment.

I spent about an hour on the phone with a friend stateside, just chatting. We've been talking several times a week for years now, and it's grand to be able to keep it up from here. The phone service is OK, and I am trying to be a bit more proactive keeping in touch with friends and family.

I took my folding cart along, and wound up buying water at the local 7-Eleven. People don't seem to use the tap water for drinking purposes here, for obvious reasons. I had coffee at a place a couple of days ago, and I watched her pour water out of a bottle to make the coffee. I bought two 10 L jugs of water, and brought them back to the boat. I walked back in the middle of a cluster of folks off the Carnival cruise ship docked here today. We're on very different boats, my friends. Very different. I did some digging and found the instructions to set up by boom brake, which I'll set up tomorrow. I chatted with my neighbor, who referred me to someone a few boats down who is been sailing the waters around here for over 20 years. I had a good chat with him about possible route planning and approaches to getting to Cabo San Lucas from here.

The main discussion was how far offshore to go. I was tempted to head out 50 miles or so, But the more experienced guy said 10 miles was about as far out as I really wanted to go. Beyond that you are more likely to hit some of the freighters, and the winds can either get nasty or disappear on you this time of year. I'm trying to find ways to have winds a favorable angle to my boat, and still be able to make a run into shore and drop anchor if things get nasty, the wind disappears, or I get too tired. We'll see how it goes. There are many folks here who single hand, and I enjoy comparing notes and strategies.

I took a bin up to the bow and started pulling out all the old chain and rode from the old anchor system. It was about 25 feet of chain and some 200 feet of line. It's in good shape, but it's not set up to work with the new windlass . I'll have to drag the new chain and line forward tomorrow and put it in place. I'll keep the old stuff with the old anchor for when I need to drop a second anchor.

Oh yes, I did walk over and have a conversation with some folks I met in San Diego who headed south today. We've been comparing notes on weather and route planning. He's traveling with his son in a Morgan 382, which was one of the boats that was on my short list. It looks huge to me now in comparison to my 30 footer, and 38 feet would be a bit much to handle by myself. He's meeting the wife and some other family members in La Paz in a few days. He's a retired attorney and I really enjoyed the opportunity to interact with him and his son. He talked about having a converstation with a movie star he met through his brother-in-law. She did a trans-Atlantic trip on a sailboat with her kids. He asked about how they handled rough weather. She sent them below with the nanny and told them to go into their cabin and keep the door closed. 160 foot boat. Very different boats, indeed.

Seems like the time goes by rather quickly. I will confess that I tend to wake up with the sun and when it gets dark, somewhere around 5 o'clock, I'm ready to crawl below decks, turn on the heater, and just relax a bit. About 9 o'clock I'm ready for sleep, and I'm rarely up past 10. Most evenings, I watch a movie or some video, listen to music, or read. I play Irish flute, whistle, and mandolin most evenings. I'm working up to adding in some guitar, but haven't managed it yet.

I guess the party animal, if ever it was part of my makeup, has been subdued. Life is good. Stay happy, folks. Stay happy.