Up Date
18 January 2012 | Mazatlan
Taya
Not much has been happening since our last posting. We have had a few outings and dinners with friends during the Christmas and New Year celebrations, but otherwise uneventful.
We just enjoy our retirement and take a lot of meals on board. We have just obtained our FM2 - Mexican residence permit. We now have our CURP (social security number) and are poised to get our Mexican driver's license. It looks like we are taking roots in this beautiful and exceptionally friendly country. Next we will join the Mexican health care system (IMSS) because our country will drop us off in July, following the two year extension they granted us when we left Canada.
I have been battling a tenacious bacterial/fungus infection for the past 1 1/2 months and with the excellent care of Dr. Adrian Fernandez, Dermatologist, (300 pesos per visit) I am now back in good health. With the high level of humidity and temperature prevailing here in Mexico, it takes a lot longer to heal any lesions or infections. One has really to be very careful. We know of someone who almost lost vision in her right eye, as a result of a very benign irritation.
We have decided to take a one year hiatus here in Mazatlan, and will be moving our boat to the Isla Marina nearby on February 4th, because they include power in their moorage fee.
We have just purchased a new household air conditioning unit that we will install on our coach roof. It will be running 24 hours per day starting in March. We will build a wood canopy to channel the cold air into our large salon hatch. This will insure we are comfortable aboard Taya during the very hot summer months ahead.
Lynne will be going to Quebec from June 16th to August 18th, to visit her aging parents. I will remain in Mazatlan with Pacha, our beloved siamese cat, who is not getting any younger...just like his dad! Under no circumstances, woud we leave our pet with anyone.
We have been exchanging DVDs with friends and have spent a lot of time on that. I have also been reading a lot during the past few months. In fact we are preparing a European trip we are planning for hopefully the not too distant future. Our plan so far would take us to Spain, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. There are a lot of sights we wish to visit and we would most likely lease/purchase a car for 6 months to facilite our displacements.
On the boat maintenance side, we had to rewire our pullpit navigation lights. The welding melted our old wires in the stainless steel tubes when we replaced our lifelines in San Carlos. The electric motor of our bow thruster has been rebuilt and should be reinstalled shortly. We need to fish 4 wires from our bilge pump midship to our navigation table, to hook it up to a new Water Witch BA 200 monitor/controller we have acquired. This instrument records how frequently the pump runs, how long each time, has a high water alarm built in etc. The last project is to reseat the valves on our genset.