Category: 2021-04 (April)

We had a time change, the phones updated on their own, we had the coffee pot time correct and it was ready by the time we got out of bed. We got our act together and called for a water taxi to get to church. It was amazingly fast. When we got to church we realized that Chris from the S/V Cherri Ann needed a ride to church. So, we took a hike and found a cab and then went looking for Chris. We found him and brought him back to church.

After church we went to lunch and walked by the Super Hawaii store (a small store with a bunch of imports) sort of like shopping in the states. Good news, we got lots of stuff, bad news, I lost my coffee cup. I think this is like 4 either coffee cups or water bottles (stainless thermal, that we fill with ice and water off the boat, since we can’t drink the local water) that we have lost between the two of us in the last two years here.  Oh well, another thing to put on the shopping list. We had shrimp for dinner! Very good! Then ran the water maker to fill the tank. 20 gph from the pressure from the hose and the low pressure pump. We could get 30 gph if we run the hp pump, but then we have to shut down the A/C.

When Renee’ went to take a shower she noticed that one of the other boats here in the marina has the dinghy/tender that we have been looking at to replace ours. As we have said multiple times, ours is too big/heavy for the two of us to get up a beach or to launch afterwards. Here is a link to the tender we are looking at. I am hoping that the 330 model will work for us. Weight is 105 lbs, as opposed to the one we have which I think is approaching 400 lbs. (probably not really that heavy but it is a big dinghy).

https://octenders.co.nz

Later in the day on Friday, we motored over and anchored off of La Manzania. It was a fairly quiet night with not too much rolling. In the morning after breakfast and getting the dinghy down, we went ashore. Renee’ did some shopping and we connected with Elton Lee from the church we went to the week before. When we were ready, we got the dinghy back out through the surf and in the process we broke one of the wheels for the dinghy and of course we got wet. Once back to the boat, we put the dinghy away and got ready to sail. We motored out to the middle of the bay and put the main and staysail up as we had about 22 knots of wind. We sailed for several hours, as the wind died down a bit, we put out the Jib. Finally got lined up on what should have been the best angle of sail for the day based on where the wind had been coming from all morning and early afternoon. Of course that was when the wind speed went below 4 knots. Effectively ending the sailing for the day. We put the sails away and motored into the channel and the marina. Then once docked we all went to the pool.

We woke up to the coffee pot making a fresh brew. Slowly waking up and getting our act together. We had breakfast and did our bible reading for the day. Then debated what to do and when to do it. We decided to run a load of wash. The things that had gotten wet with sea water, it takes forever to get them dry, and you can’t really put them in the dirty clothes basket until they are dry or they get moldy. If you wash them, they dry fairly quickly. We have a concern for water, and power. I don’t want to run the washer after we fill the tank next Sunday, as we are headed north on Monday and in case there is an issue we want as much water for that trip as possible. Tomorrow we have company scheduled to sail, and I don’t want to run the generator while sailing. Sunday is Easter and we will be going to church in the morning and running the water maker in the afternoon/evening. So, the laundry needs to be done today. About an hour of so later the wash is done, the generator is off and the battery is about 87% charged. The solar is trying at about 7 amps most of the time. But it is just not enough to really make any progress. We use 200 amp hours over night. The solar pretty much keeps up with our day time loads, but does not really get ahead on the overnight load.

A quiet day, sometime we just need that. I looked at instruments for the boat on line. Ours are from 2005, and the charts are old as well. I am leaning towards B&G instruments and chart plotter(s). A significant part of the reason behind the replacement/upgrade for the instruments is cameras. One of the cameras that we have seen on other boats and has great reviews is a FLIR. This is a “night” vision camera. This goes up the mast and has zoom/pan and tilt. Which means we could see where we are going at night. At least some and better than we currently have. Downside to this is the price, the reason we have not installed one already (Renee’ really likes the idea) is for the camera/controls and display it is probably over $20k, and it is important to note that it would probably not interface well with our 16 year old electronics. It would also require running more wires in the mast. We already have to take the mast out at some point and repair the conduit that has come apart somewhere in the mast, meaning some of the wires are loose inside the mast. Which means that when the boat moves so do the wires hitting the side of the mast and making noise, even when it is just he boat rolling due to swells at anchor. So, it is on the list for the upgrade rather than doing it separately.

We started out with breakfast then got the dinghy down and went over to see if we could help Chris with his radar and chart plotter (same model as ours). We talked for a while, then took a stab at the radar, unsuccessful. Oh well, then we came back to our boat and took naps. This retired life and schedule avoidance is great!

When we woke up and decided it was calm enough to go ashore, Chris came by with his dogs in his dinghy we talked for a bit, then he went ashore and we followed. We had a difficult landing (read VERY wet!) I almost lost my glasses and hat, and anyway we got ashore and walked to a resort to get a beer. Of  course you had to be a guest with a wrist band to get a beer, and we were not guest so no beer.  But the staff thought we needed one and gave us a couple of beers. We figured that was worth a tip, so we checked our finances, the smallest bill we had was a 500 peso note, (about $25 US). We asked for change and when the waitress came back with 2 200 peso notes and a 100 peso note, we gave her the 100 peso note. Shortly after that she brought back two more beers.  We were happy. Then we walked back to the dinghy noting the size of the waves were bigger than they had been.

As we approached our dinghy we saw Chris was still there and he was taking to another couple, we got into the conversation, and chatted for awhile then they went for a walk and Chris helped get us back out.

We got back to our boat and put the dinghy back up planning to go for a swim. About that time the other couple came by and told us that Chris had some issues getting back out and basically they had to pull him and his dingy and dogs out. We invited them aboard for a beer, and then we talked for a while more. We talked about being retired, and I asked him what he was retired from, turns out he was a switchyard supervisor at San Onofre until about 2005. We had crossed paths a bunch. Steve and Denise Pepper. We talked for another hour or so. As you might imagine. Eventually they left and we started the generator to charge the batteries and clean the boat.