With the v-drive back in it's place in the bilge, we spent the last few days getting the boat and crew ready to leave La Paz and head for the mainland of Mexico. It's been tiring but we think we are finally ready. One of the items on our list today was to make a repair to our main sail. We noticed that a seam was coming apart, so out came the sailrite sewing machine and Lori made a nice repair. That sounds so easy..."Lori made the repair", but the event took about 3 hours. First the sewing machine had to be dug out of deep storage under the v-berth, then the mainsail had to be taken off the boom. The cockpit had to be cleared to make room for the large sail and to give Lori working room, and then the sail had to be put back on the boom once the repairs were completed. Before you know it, 3 hours have passes and all you have to show for it is about 12 inches of new stitching on a seam! This pattern seems to repeat itself day after day and project after project. You stay busy all day, but often ask yourself what happened to the day over dinner watching the sun set from the cockpit.

We had some friends aboard THIRD DAY this evening for dinner to say goodbye and compare our future cruise plans. We will see most of our new friends again further South, but some will be heading back to the States and back to what we were calling reality. In many ways, the cruising lifestyle is a throwback to an earlier time. We have time to get to know our friends and the boat pot-luck dinner takes the place of the quick fast food take out dinner. Without a doubt we have had more pot-luck dinners since casting off cruising than at any point in our lives and we have also had to opportunity to meet some real quality people from various walks of life that share our adventurous spirit.

The plan now is to leave La Paz around 0900 hours and sail/motor to Mazatlan with a stop on the way in Bahia Los Muertos. The trip is only about 60 miles and we should have our anchor down right around sunset. We enjoyed our last visit to Muertos and are looking forward to another stop, if only for a night to rest up in preparation for the 240 mile trip across the sea of Cortez.

Once we leave La Paz, I'll be back on the ham radio email and blog post updates, but I will also get back into my routine of making daily blog posts of the days events.