Back in La Paz
13 April 2011 | La Paz
Fred
Bob, Kira and Bayley arrived for Spring Break and will be spending a week aboard and they have lots of events planned with diving, snorkeling, cruising out to the islands, and more. Penny and I moved ashore to Baja Paradise Pension. A cute little place about 5 blocks from the marina so we still go there in the morning for coffee and we can hear the conspiracy channel and the net on our handheld radio. Bob brought the new control head for the autopilot so I took a stab at it after they left. Of course the hole was in the wrong place but luckily it was smaller and I was able to borrow a hole saw and cut the proper one. All in all the install went well and everything seems to work well. We participated in La Paz Bay Fest for 4 days and I spent a day being race committee for the race from the rock to the dock. It is supposed to be a downwind run down the La Paz channel but of course the wind was from the opposite direction. We got all 16 boats started and they took a long starboard tack out and Al and I followed along and then the wind was dying. So we went into Costa Baja Marina and ate our lunch waiting for the fleet. As luck would have it, the wind filled in from behind and most of the boats got a spinnaker up and finished the race just before the wine tasting event started. The next two days were full of seminars in the morning and games in the afternoon. I attended a marine refrigeration seminar and learned a few things and then a water maker seminar. There I picked up 2 important items, the numerical scale for the parts per million tester we use when making water and that even if you make water and you run over caca, the membrane filters everything out including bacteria. So not to worry, just don't make water in oily water as that will ruin the membrane. If you drink nothing but water maker water, you should take a vitamin as it literally strips all the good stuff out as well. On the games front I started out strong in Mexican Train going out twice and ending up with 49 points until the last round where I doubled my points. Still #2 at our table. Cribbage was not so good although I started fairly strong playing my mentor and teacher Al and winning 1 game out of 3. I should have won a 2nd game but didn't count 5 points which he took so that put me back by 10. He won the game by only a few so if I had been paying attention I should have beaten the champion! The next 3 games were losses so I gave up and went down and changed the oil in the boats motor. Penny fared better and had a good water painting class and her parrot is quite good. Bay Fest was all for charity and was a fun and successful event. I won 4 days slip rental at Marina de La Paz (by paying $700 pesos) which we will put to good use. That's it for now and we are leaving for the Sea of Cortez where we will be exploring the offshore islands and visiting the coves on the Baja mainland. We expect to be gone for 2 weeks or so and will be traveling with Joe and Marylou Upton on Anna. We hope to meet up with other friends as there is a mass exodus from La Paz to the Sea this week. All updates will be through the radio connection so no pictures until we get an internet connection.