Category: 2021-03 (March)

Yvette, who is giving us a quote on doing canvas work, including a canopy that would cover the whole boat, has identified that she made the original cover when the boat was Tan Tori. I sent an email to the previous owner asking for references for this lady, and got a positive response. This shows just how small the cruising community is here on the west coast of Mexico. Although in this case, the previous owner lives in Puerto Vallarta across the bay.

We got back the quote for the sails, wow!!  That is a bunch of boat units! We are nearing the completion of the varnish work and it looks very good. I really wish we had gotten a couple of before pics, but it looked so bad we really did not want to see it. So, we will have to get some after pics and just be happy with that.

I have had a sinus headache most of the day, which has made it difficult to think about getting off the boat, but we are going to a movie at the amphitheater tonight, followed by the America’s cup show also at the amphitheater. This starts at dusk, so it should be a little cooler, yeah, never satisfied!

All of the devices are asking for updates, which means that we will both need to go sit by the office/pool etc. to do updates via wifi. Reneé got her updates done on her iPad but her phone ran out of battery power before she got done.  She was able to do the updates on the phone back on the boat. When we go for this next time, we will bring the chargers.

We had Chris over from S/V Cherrie Ann.  We met him at Isla Isabela. We talked about plans and getting things fixed etc. He is planning on going west after getting to Panama. 

After dinner, we went to the amphitheater and watched the presentation from Sea Shepard about whales, then the last race of the America’s Cup, New Zealand won.

Many phone calls and emails later spread over the last days since Gareth was here, we have a new membrane on order and being sent to the importer in San Diego who will ship it out to the marina we are in. We hope to have it in a week or so. We purchased it through Rich Boren (Cruise RO) in La Paz. The reason we did this rather than just go to Amazon and order it here is that Rich has an importer he uses regularly, and oh yeah his price was lower than Amazon. We have met with Mike at PV sails and are working through the details on ordering the sails. The varnish work continues and we have asked for a couple more coats (6 instead of 4). The price was $1,000 plus material, and we asked how much for two more coats, and were told, the agreed price plus whatever we felt was reasonable. The work looks very good and they have been hard at it. Most of the effort was the prep work, now it is a couple of hours per day putting one coat of varnish on and leaving. So, two more coats is not a big percentage of the work that went into the whole project.

In the afternoon, I decided it was time to swap the two chart plotters and put the one with the backlight issue below at the navigation station. That took a couple of hours. After I had it all in place and on, I came up with an issue where everything seemed to be working except the AIS, (Automatic Identification System) this shows on the screen ships and boats that have the AIS turned on and transmitting. It gives the name and speed and direction etc. In any case it was not working, so I was thinking through what I had done and getting ready to tear it all out and start over again to plug it all back in. Then I stopped and sat back cleared my head and thought for a bit. This was the right thing to do, as I stopped myself from going down a rabbit trail. I looked over at the switch for the AIS (which we NEVER turn off) and found it had been bumped off. I turned it back on and the problem was solved! YEAH!!!! However, I have tried to change the pages on the chart plotter on deck and I can get it to look just like I want, then when we turn the power off and back on, it goes back to the default pages. Very annoying.

No pictures today.

We were invited to join several cruiser families at Agape Church in Mescales.  A van picked us up at the town square at 9:45.  The other families were the Kelly’s (met them in Peurtor Peñasco, 5 children), the Ness’s (Third Day), and Kristen and Joe (Kyrie, 3 children from AK).  It was a lovely service with a great message on turning your problems over to God…believe, have faith.  Based on Matt 8:23-27 when Jesus calms the storm.  After returning from church we went to a market on the Malecón.

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.