2021 – 2022 Season 3 – Page 30

Wednesday December 1, 2021, La Cruz to Barra de Navidad

Up and around slowly. Today is haul out day, but not until 3:30, in the meantime, we are going to walk up to the market and hang out. We have to move our kayak off the rail and a couple of other things to make it easier to get the lifting straps around the boat but we are pretty much ready to haul out.

We had a quick trip to the market and then back to the boat. With final preparations and packing for the rest of the week. Where we hung out until about 1 pm, internet is really weak here, the phone signal is about 1 to 2 bars most of the time, and the WiFi from the marina is about nothing. So, around 1 pm, we called the yard to let them know that we were ready anytime they were.

They said that they had an issue with the brake on the boat lift, and were unsure about picking our boat up since it is pretty heavy. Having just gotten the picture from Wednesdays boat lift issue in Guaymas, we were ok with delaying pulling our boat out of the water before they were ready.

We took a hike over to the yard to go over details and when it could happen etc. then back to the boat. By this time we had a car reserved for Thursday morning, and a room at the resort starting Thursday night. So, we got on the phone and moved the car up to Wednesday night at 4, and a room for tonight. We got the car and packed and on the road by about 5, it is supposed to be about a 4 hour drive to Barra, but that assumes you don’t leave from the north end of Puerto Vallarta at 5 pm and go straight south. It took about 2 and half hours to go 27 miles across PV. Total drive time about 6 hours. In the dark, virtually no street lights, lots of speed bumps, a couple of detours to repair the road, not much advance warning etc. all in all a very interesting drive. We arrived about 11 pm, and got checked in.

This is a very nice hotel. We have stayed at the marina, but this was the first time in the resort.

Tuesday November 30, 2021, La Cruz

This day was pretty uneventful. We had just a little laundry but took it to the Lavanderia anyway so we’d have clean clothes for our trip to Barra de Navidad. Ivett came by and we showed her the worn spots on our Bimini and Dodger. She said she could reinforce them and took the three panels. She will also replace the top windows with Strataglass.

Monday night we’d moved food from the fridge to the beer cooler. We put two bags of ice in the fridge to keep the remaining food cold. Reneé made cookies for the Posse Potluck. Charlie and two others came at 5 and added Freon to the fridge system. The temps came down. After they left we regretted not having freon added to the freezer. It struggles to stay at 13 degrees…usually sits at 17-19 degrees. Charlie can return next week.

Monday November 29, 2021, Ipala/Bandereas Bay

Up at 6 am, with a plan to go back to Puerto Vallarta for haul out. There are two choices one is Vallarta Marina and Opequimar marina the other is Marina Fonatur San Blas.

Advantage of Opequimar is it is about 35 miles away, San Blas is about 80 miles north. We will start calling when we have cell service and they are open. Well we double checked and found a third option, La Cruz Marina has a boat yard, and (I did not think they could handle a boat bigger than 35 ft) that is where we will get hauled out on Wednesday afternoon. We have a few other odds and ends to attend to (this is a boat after all) so we are back in the marina. The Bimini will come down to get some repairs and new windows as we described before, we missed them when we replaced the others.

On the trip back we had some adventures, we were going straight into the wind, which means true wind speed plus boat speed (and some geometry) will give you apparent wind speed (which is what you experience). True wind speed was about 10 knots early in the day and was going the correct direction so, all the sails went out and we were doing about 8 knots with the engine on, but of course that did not last long, and pretty soon we were headed into the wind and then the wind speed went up. We put the jib (big sail way out at the front of the boat) away, and the stay sail (smaller sail forward of the mast). The main was significantly reduced already as a tear had been identified near the top and was. We had it out straight back to stabilize the boat. Wind speed apparent bounced as high as 45 knots. (Way faster than I like). In any case we tore the main sail, pictures later. We saw dolphin, and whales and fish jumping on the way back, and of course the seagull’s that circle the boat. We called all the places we could figure out to get hauled out and as I mentioned above we got it coordinated. We are getting some other stuff done as well. Like torn Bimini repairs taken care of while we are in. We have made reservations at the resort for the Panama Posse seminars.

We have company coming tonight for dinner, Glen Wilson, another IP445 owner who just happens to be in town. We had dinner on the boat and pumpkin pie. Then they headed back to their resort by cab and I had to go get ICE because our fridge decided it is done! Renee’ immediately contacted Carlos (Charlie) the guy who put our beer cooler in and he will be here tomorrow to figure out what is going on with the fridge and freezer. Neither of which seem to be working correctly.

This has been a busy day, I think it is time to quite and go to bed. It is 9:30. I am tired.

Sunday November 28, 2021, La Cruz/Ipala

Up at 6 am with planned underway at 7. Well, security showed up at 7 am to get our card for opening gates. And we were underway by about 7:10. We sailed for a couple of hours and listened to a sermon, then the wind died down and we started the motor. Of course, just as we were arriving at Ipala the wind was back up to about 28 knots! We had to bring in the main so into the wind. We are out of practice.

Then we anchored in Ipala. We looked at the charts, but not closely enough, and OOOPS! We found the rocks in this harbor, we bounced a couple of times, and then got off the rocks and went back to where we anchored the last time we were here. Downside, it is in a bit deeper than I would like, upside, no rocks. We are finding the things that we are out of practice with, and it will get better.

We really need to consider new iPhones, I used mine today to control the radio and play the sermon. So, when we got to the end of the day (about 3pm) the battery is dead, and that is where we run the anchor monitor program, so it is plugged in. This phone is a little over 2 years old, and maximum battery capacity is down to 91% which means it is not low enough to get the battery replaced by Apple, when we were in the states, I asked about it and not only will they not replace it under warranty, the authorized repair places won’t replace the battery at this level. I was told it would be better with the next upgrade of software, yeah, not so much. The reviews on the iPhone 13, the new and current phone says much better battery life.

Saturday November 27, 2021, La Cruz

Up and bible reading before breakfast and the Net. Then a trip to the swap meet to see about selling our small kayak. It only took a couple of minutes and it sold for 1000 pesos ($50 US) we spent $100 so we had it for a year or so and it is gone. Reneé has been looking at paddle boards. We have a free rack now.

We ran the water maker and finished running the various lines. Then the Flora Family Zoom call, which took an hour and a half. After it was done, we had lunch and finished up topping off the water tank. Then pack it all up and underway by about 3 pm and out to check the sails. Everything looks normal and we were back tied up and A/C running by 5:15. Tomorrow morning we will head out first thing and south. That is when we will figure out what is not ready.