Category: 2021 – 2022 Season 3

Up at 7 am breakfast and the net. John Pounder is due at about 9-9:30. We have added the aft air conditioner to our list of things that need help, as it is not blowing cool air.

John was here with two helpers, and finished removing all the wires from the arch. He will be back next Thursday to do some more work inside the boat.

Reneé added the following:

Today marks 42 years since our first date (give or take a day or two).  We got a little mushy recalling that fun fact.

After working in the morning we headed for the beach.  We set our things down on some lounge chairs under a palapa and walked along the beach for a while.  After our walk we cooled off in the pool and enjoyed happy hour.  There is an amphitheater here at the resort that offers weekend shows.  Unfortunately the show for Friday was Michael Jackson and that didn’t appeal to us at all so instead we did our normal routine of showers and a movie before bed.

Reneé got up at 6:30 to start laundry and getting organized, I got up about 7 we got breakfast, then Cano was here to help fold our sail, they are new and very stiff. Then the net, pretty short, not many cruisers left.

About that time John Pounder (the electrician) got here to continue pulling wires out of the Arch. Reneé took the laundry, Before she left, we cleaned out the part of the bilge under the shaft at the back of the boat, after she left I worked on the bilge at the front of the boat.

By about 1:30 John figured it was too hot on deck so he is wrapping up for the day and will be back in the morning.

We also defrosted the freezer, because why not.

Another productive day!

Up on time with a “plan” to get to church for the Bible study. But, we were late getting stuff done in the morning, then there was the confusion about welding work on the boat today or not.

So, we got the lines put away for the season. There’s a lot of lines to deal with, 3 for the Jib, but the sheet is over 100 ft long and about 3/4” in diameter. The halyard (goes to the top of the mast), and the furling line. The staysail has 3 as well, the mainsail has at least 9. Then the lines for lifting the dinghy and the outboard. All have to be taken off for the welding. This was pretty much an all day affair. Then the canvas that goes around the mast had to be put on. The welder didn’t come today, he got the panels last night to do shop work.

After, all that, I started working on the phone and doing some investigation on the internet about the smart solar controllers and our existing setup. I realized that we needed two more communication cables. I priced them in the states, about $19 each, (shipping handling and TAX in Mexico $93 for the two of them). My first source in Mexico $89 for the two of them, then I was referred to Marine Vallarta down here at 454 pesos each, delivered to the boat this afternoon was 900 pesos, about $45!

We went to the pool, stopped by the Pepper’s to get the food she didn’t want to leave on the boat. They are flying out tomorrow.

Somewhere in here we decided to give up getting an AB dinghy, we finally got in touch with our only hope for the AB dinghy, who had not been answering emails or returning phone calls. He admitted that he could not get one for us. We decided to go with a similar dinghy made by Highfield. I called Shelter Island Inflatables and bought one, now I just have to get it here. I am investigating with 3 importers we will see what it costs.

Up later than normal, about 8 am. We listened to the Net, had breakfast and read the Bible. Then took down the Jib, this is the second biggest sail on the boat normally. Mainsail, Jib, then Staysail, if we put up the Spinnaker that is biggest. Then Reneé took a trip to the store for buns for dinner tonight.

I ran the water maker as it has been about 11 days since the last time we filled the tank. We don’t want to have to run it while there is other work going on. So, when it was full, I checked out what we have used this year.
2,545 gallons of water, for drinking washing dishes and showers. All of that water has been dock water run through our water maker reverse osmosis system with the highest PPM reading of about 8 ppm. This compares to tap water in the states like this:

The upper limit of what is acceptable is about 500 ppm, most households are in the 350 ppm range or less. Anything less than 17.1 ppm is considered SOFT water. Bottled water is somewhat better most of the time: https://watertestingkits.com/ultimate-bottled-water-test/ but still is typically higher than what we are dealing with. In general, the dock water is supposed to be “potable” drinking water, before I run it through the water maker, but we like really clean water. If we make drinking water out of the ocean, we will probably be closer to 180 ppm or so.

Note mineral water by its very nature will have a higher ppm.

So, back to the statistics 2,545 gallons, we have been on the boat 162 days for Reneé and 152 for me this year (I went back and helped our son Nate move). Based on the 162 days, we have used 15.7 gallons of water. If you deduct half of when I was gone to average the use, it is a bit more 16.2 gallons per day. Or just a bit more than 8 gallons per day per person. (We did have guests for 8 days so maybe a bit less).

We went up to a Palapa (BBQ area near the pool), we were unable to get them to light the when we wanted it lit (5 pm) we could have had it lit at about 3:30, but they were too busy to come at 5 pm. Someone else had the area reserved for 6 pm, so we headed back to our boat with the Peppers (we had played Mexican Train and I lost again!). So, as we were walking back, I got a text from the welder Chava who said he was on the boat now. Remember we are in Mexico, I don’t speak Spanish and his English is not that good. He had said that he was starting work tomorrow AM. Turns out he was picking up the solar panels for work in the shop, the frame for the support. I really don’t want to be trapped on the boat again. It seems like I wind up waiting all day on the boat, and no body shows up for days, then they do at 5 pm.

Communications! I am done with my rant.

We had Italian sausage and watermelon salad with chocolate cake for desert. They are flying back to the states on Thursday, so this is probably the last time we will see them this season.

We got the jib down this morning, and need to fold it properly, it takes a bit of room, the sail is 57 feet tall, and 17 feet across the bottom of the triangle, and it is rather stiff material so hard to told/roll. We got the staysail down this evening. It fit in its sail bag without having to refold it. The Jib is going to take more work. On our list of things to do is to remove all the line on deck to minimize the damage from the UV radiation. To do this we run string in its place so we can get the lines back where they belong next season. Only problem is where did we stash the string from last year?

Up and breakfast the net and bible reading. Then a little after 9 am, John Pounder the electrical guy was here to start work on pulling wires out to get ready for the welding work for the new solar. We got our third bid, all are in the same range so we are going with the first one, advantage is he is doing the 316 stainless (more expensive but less polishing will be required).

The control panel for the generator got here, so I have a project to install it. Reneé cleaned the floors and vacuumed the edges of the pockets in the floor. I walked up to the Embassy to get the notary work done on selling the dinghy, first trip the other day they were closed on Friday, and when I got up there at 8:30 when they opened, I was told I needed an appointment. They gave me a slip of paper with a phone number and an email, the email did not work and the phone number did not have the country code on it and was written in a different format than I was used to so I could not get through. Later with some help we were able to figure out the number and then I got an appointment for later in the morning. I went up with my iPad (the documents for our LLC are there electronically) to show that I was authorized to sign for the LLC, which is where the dinghy was registered. Well, at the door to the embassy, the security guard (armed) made me turn off the phone, and the guy at the counter would not let me open my iPad, instead I had to go out to the mall and email the documents to the Embassy so they could check out my story. Then back in and I was done in about 15 more minutes. At this point the dinghy is really sold, we have the money, the documents all show it in the buyers name and the letter is sealed we will give it to Steve and Denny to put in the mail in the US. They are leaving Thursday. The mail in Mexico is not only bad, sometimes it is downright horrible.

At 4 we went to the pool and swam for an hour then had a beer at happy hour and back to the boat. Dinner showers and bed.