A very busy day.
We started at about 8:00. Reneé took the laundry in, then when she got back, we started putting up sails, the staysail and the Jib. These are the sails forward of the mast. This took us a couple of hours. Then washed the boat, and cleaned windows, this took until about 5 pm. Actually, if you include all the work Reneé did on polishing stainless, this cleaning of the boat outside and in has taken at least a solid week. Somewhere in here, Reneé went back and got the laundry.
While washing windows, I fell getting from the cockpit to the deck, I was wearing sandals, and the only injury (besides my pride) is my little toe on my left foot.
At the end of the day we figured out that we overflowed the holding tank.
This is the life raft that was blown up yesterday.
(posted 02/19/24)
We rigged the Main Sail
Got the dinghy outboard running, which included putting all the accessories in the dinghy, like the seat, the portable manual bilge pump, the life vests, and the ladder. Then we put the cover on it and put it away. It is now ready for travel. We need to buy some more two stroke oil for it, but since we filled the gas tanks, yesterday we are good for the season. We have 2 five gallon jugs, plus the 3 gallon jug that rides in the dingh. We have rarely used more than about 8 gallons for a season.
Looking at our list, and the weather and the tides, we think we will leave here on Thursday. Tomorrow we will put up the Jib, and Staysail, then wash the boat. Wednesday, Reneé will make a laundry run, and final grocery run and I will top off the water tank. Thursday, we plan to get underway. With a planned arrival in San Carlos of about 2 weeks later. Around March 7 Thursday.
This evening, we walked back to the yard to watch a life raft popping, this one was about 14 years past certification. The certification is good for 3 years. The cost for re-certifying when they are current is about 2/3’s the cost of a new one. When they are this old, they are not worth very much. When we bought our boat, it came with an out of date life raft in a valise, which took us an hour or two to get on deck. We checked on re-certification, and decided to buy a new one. Then donated the old one to the US Power Squadron in Oceanside for training. When they popped it, it shredded itself. I will try to put the video in this post. Here is the LINK.
This was an OOPS! moment, we thought we were putting up the Staysail, but it was the Main Sail. That was a bunch of work to get it rigged, and no pictures.In the dinghy with the engine running. This is very good!!!
(posted 02/19/24)
Today we enjoyed the use of Mike Gingrich’s pickup. We drove to church. We went to Auto Zone, Sam’s, “Walmart” (Walmart has a different name in Mexico), and to Duke’s for lunch. Duke’s has great salads! They also have a pickleball court. We probably bought more food than we need but Renee is trying to provision for 3 months. We filled our gas tanks, and our propane tanks, we should be good for the whole season!
This is how we get groceries and fuel moved around.
(posted 02/19/24)
Ran the water maker and verified it works then filled the tank. I worked on the fridge some more, no change, and the auto pilot, no change. It has been a pretty frustrating week regarding these two issues. This is a place in Mexico with NO technician’s to call for help. It does not matter what you need help with, they are not here. We are going to head out without these three things working, the refrigerator, the auto pilot, and the wind speed sensor. We will pull into San Carlos in a couple of weeks and deal with it there.
This is the water tank and pump system for the marina and the apartments.
(posted 02/19/24)
Our ladder came back today…nice and straight (and the scratch marks were gone…polished out?)…1300 pesos. Neil worked on the auto pilot all day. He swapped the old one out for an upgraded model (out of our spare boat parts). Unfortunately the same error message appeared.
Renee’ got 15000 steps in looking for a stainless bolt and nut for the kayak rack. Found the bolts. Was directed to another hardware store. On the way she found a kitchen supply store where she purchased a sea salt grinder (unfortunately not refillable) and some frozen meats and veggies. The fridge on the boat is still not working. The hardware store was closed and a gal in front of it said it would be closed for two weeks.
We advertised on the Cabrales WhatsApp group site and gave away our two defective boat hooks.
Blue Pearl, Jessica, returned from a trip to Phoenix where she bought two summer sausage logs for me.
The stainless is almost all polished. The only part on done are the far back bars on the solar panels. The water on the dock isn’t working so we cannot wash the boat or check the water maker.
Our “untweaked” ladderOur signature on the wall, with updates.
