We upped the anchor again yesterday morning after a somewhat rolly night behind Isla Cardones. Not bad, but we wanted to be a bit closer to town. So I put out a call when the local VHF net started at 0800 as to popular anchorages and was directed to the old harbor just inside the breakwater. Good holding ground and a dingy dock nearby so we can get into town. What they didn't tell us is that it's right beside the sewage processing plant and when the wind blows just right, you know what Mazatlan had to eat yesterday(YUCK). It's not all the time, but it can be a bit strong. We're now anchored at 23 10.933N 106 25.350W for you Google Earth fans.

Once we dropped the anchor and got squared away, I took off for below decks to install more fans. It's a whole lot more humid and that makes the heat that much more intense than it was on the Baja. Even before I got started, we had visitors from China Girl, one of the boats at anchor with us. Jay and Kelly had worked their way down the coast as we had a bit later than we had last year. I had heard the name of their boat before and asked them if they were the China Girl that had been the boat people on the Amigo Net(SSB net for cruiers)had been searching for last year. We had heard a call or bulletin on the Net that Kelly's father was worried about them as they hadn't reported in and were over due. Yep, it was them all right. Nice to hear the ending of the story as we had never heard if they had been found. They clued us in on the ins and outs of Mazatlan as they have been here for a few weeks.

After a nice lunch, I started in on the fan for the stern berth(where we sleep). It has lots of good port lights and a big hatch above us, but if there is no wind, it can get real ugly back there. I tapped onto a line I had put in for a 12 volt outlet and ran extra wires to the port lights on both the port and stern sides(making sure I fastened them down every 18 inches). We bought a fan made by Caframo specifically for the stern berth that has a built in timer on it that can be set to run for 2, 4 or 6 hours. This way, it will shut off during the night when it gets cooler. A good idea that actually works. I had to remove lots of things from assorted bins along the side to get the wires run where I needed them. Out came lots of books(our library) and assorted things we had put away for long term storage. One bin had a tenant--a long legged spider that had made web all over the inside of the cabinet. He won't be a problem anymore. I drilled holes, ran the wire, attached lugs(round rings) to each wire so they could be mounted to the bus bar, and labeled it along it's run so that I will know what wire is when I look at it sometime in the future. It's a god idea to label all your electrical lines when you run them for future reference just incase something goes wrong and you need to find that line. I got the first fan done about 1700. It takes a while to lay in wire and do it right. Lots of things have to be moved and panels removed. The second fan will have to wait till we access the effectiveness of the first one to see where it should be placed. I have already laid in the wire so just picking the place and a few screws are all that are left to do.

We had planned to have one of our rib eye steak we bought in La Paz for dinner, but the wind was so strong that there was no way to light the barbecue to cook them. So instead we had a classic from our stores--Tuna Helper Tettrazini. It's so old that is isn't even made any more. It may have been old, but it made a nice dinner.

Little birds are flying all around Zephyr and Blue hasn't seen them yet. It will be interesting once she does. She is the hunter aboard Zephyr. The boys don't seem to care. Snowshoe will tag along with Blue, but she does the hunting. He'll play with it once she catches it but that's about it.

Two cruise ships (Holland America's Costerdam and Norwegian Star cruised into port a few minutes ago so the town will be full of tourista. I think we will avoid the downtown section today. I'm sort of sorry I installed the fans yesterday instead of going into town. There were no cruise ships in yesterday to clog up the streets and restaurants. We've cut back on restaurant food recently. While in La Paz, we only ate out once and that was at City Club(like Costco) after our shopping. We just don't seem to be near a restaurant or we are working on Zephyr when meal time comes around.

I'm amazed at how much dew is all over Zephyr in the mornings here. We had some in La Paz, but not much and it was gone as soon as the Sun came up. It starts collecting on deck late in the afternoon and by Sun down, it has already laid down a layer. Over night, it really gets wet with droplets all over the place. Any thing left in the cockpit is even soaked at the moisture gets in and on everything that is outside.

Today(Tuesday) we are off for town to explore. We'll hit the busses and wend our way around the city(avoiding the tourista). We want to stop in and see the marinas up the coast to see what they have to offer and how much they charge. We don't expect to stay in one for a long period of time, but a few days of luxury(hot showers are a luxury out here)is always nice. Today , it is supposed to be in the 80's so nice and warm.

I'll let you know how the exploring goes in our next post.