Author: Neil Scheuerlein

Renee’ wrote this and posted it on Facebook today.

Come to the Sea

Mountains crawling right out of the sea, barren and quiet they whisper to me…come explore my shore, you’ll find shells, maybe more, just come.

Waves rolling, pushing, splashing… o’re the bow flying, crashing… come travel with me, yells the dark, strong, fast moving sea, just come.

Each vista is new, amazing, inviting… each day holds a promise of something exciting. I’ll come but first, with my God I’ll be talking.

Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication and listening…lifting praise, repentance, gratitude, and petitions to the Creator…first.

Now…a bay, smooth as glass, a winding trail, a diving pelican, then lifting the sail. Fish crying “catch me”, come to Mexico, come to the sea.

Bus ride to the marine store in Puerto Vallarta, got boat soap and odds and ends. John Pounder came by with a safety Allen bit so I can swap the chart plotters out.  We enjoyed an after dinner country western band at the Green Tomate.  The lead singer, a Mexican, has a great voice though his accent makes it hard to understand him.  He did a good Irish brogue in honor of St Patrick’s Day coming up.  The fiddler in the band is awesome!

Everyone showed up! Ok, so not everyone, still nothing from Victor Gonzales for the backlight in the chart plotter.

So, today we expected the refrigerator and water maker guy to show up, just not at 8 am. He got here and got to work on the fridge, found a couple of issues and fixed it, and then started into the water maker. We have identified that the “new” membrane is bad, and while he was here, the lady who is giving the second estimate for canvas work that we want to get done showed up, Renee’ is working with her and the other person about the canvas. We are looking at covers for the teak to hopefully keep the varnish a bit longer. Speaking of varnish work, that continues and is looking really good. Somewhere during this process the guy to work on the instrument problem showed up and identified the two issues, in the case of the wind speed instrument it appears that the GPS signal is not getting to the wind instrument. Which is strange, but it is what the problem is. I need to get a new speed probe to put into the bottom of the boat to make that work.

Then at about 2 pm, the sail guy showed up and we discussed sails for an hour or so. Tomorrow we will go to the sail loft and look at one of the sails, then take a trip into Puerto Vallarta.

We then relaxed for a bit, and headed out for dinner. The first place we went to was ANNA BANANA’s we did not stay very long, biggest issue was the owner smokes a pipe and it was a nasty smelling tobacco. Also the service was very slow (we are in Mexico, but this was slow even for here!).  We wandered around and found ourselves back at the Treehouse, and had dinner and listened to a guitarist and harmonica player for a bit then back to showers and to the boat.

No pictures today.

Phone calls, laundry got done in town

So, we are hanging out near the boat staying available for the work that needs to be done on the boat. I spent one day on the phone with Battleborn making sure that I had the help needed before doing a firmware update for our battery charger, of course since I had them on the phone and available, I did not need them.

On Wednesday day, Reneé took the bus to La Fuente church for a midweek Bible study.  We met Jocelyn and Bryan from Third Day and invited them over for happy hour.  Bryan really wanted to see an Island Packet.  They are from Alaska.  He is a pilot and taking a couple of years off .  They have three children who are being homeschooled.  They are Christians also.

Dinner one night was at the La Cruz Inn, a nice quaint street side restaurant, the tables are on the sidewalk and in the street next to the square.

Renee’ met with Yannis, a canvas gal, to get a quote for canvas teak covers.  She will meet with Yvette later for a second quote.

And still we are waiting for workers on the boat. So far, we have the following things we need help with:

1. The refrigerator, still waiting for help
2. The water maker, still waiting for help to figure out which membrane is bad and how to go forward
3. The instruments, wind speed and boat speed through the water, still waiting for help
4. The back light for the chart plotter, still waiting.
5. The quotes on the canvas work above.

I have been listening to the VHF net every morning, hearing occasional requests for recommendations for work on other boats. There are probably 50+ people participating in the net every morning, and I am sure more that are just listening. On the net, the recommendations come back with the same three names:

• • Scott (who I have since learned, is retiring and moving into a motor home and leaving)
  • John Pounder (who works on almost everything). He is scheduled for Friday morning at 9:30 am.
  • Gareth Clark (who also works on everything) He is scheduled to come and work on the refrigerator and the water maker, just not sure when it is “scheduled”

A name that does not come from the net is Victor Gonzales who was recommended by the Raymarine people as being able to fix the backlight. He has promised to call multiple times, yet never does. Again, this is technical work, and there are limited numbers of people who can do that work and here in this area that means ONE person. So, we wait.

We got up a bit later than normal, but probably still by 7:30 or so. We had breakfast than walked up to the main road and caught a bus. Much easier than I expected. It was about a 20 minute ride to go about 3 miles, then out and cross the street and walk about 7 blocks to get to the church.
Very friendly people at this church. We of course had to sit away from everyone else. (See the picture) Social distancing. After church we were invited out to lunch by a couple of ladies from the church. The restaurant was a short drive away and was pretty good. Afterwards they dropped us off near the bus stop and we rode back to the marina, and had a quiet day on the boat.

Beach Day!  The weather seemed perfect (in the early morning) but by the time we’d gathered our stuff (mat, umbrella, etc…) the wind had come up.  We walked the short distance to the beach next to the marina.  We parked ourselves but decided that putting the umbrella up would be too risky.  Two other couples nearby were facing the same dilemma.  We went in the water and then watched as the other couples put up their umbrellas.  One was caught by the wind and went for a ride and the other blew inside out.  So what do the locals do on windy days?  They wind surf of course!  We watch several wind surfers.  The first left his board ashore and got pulled out in very deep water still holding onto his sail.  A second one went to his rescue sailing with an extra board to bring it to the first guy.  After much upwind tacks he succeeded.  Several other wind surfers took off but unlike the first two, they had dinghies staying with them.

That evening we went to the Treehouse restaurant.  The entertainment was fabulous!  First a single guitar player, then a small group including a drummer and a few guitarists playing the oldies, then a violinist joined them and boy could he jam!  Neil and I even danced a few!  A dog ate my leftovers (in the doggy box…appropriately named) as we danced.