Make Me Laugh Again

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.

 

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.

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.

Breakfast and our bible reading, then coordination of stuff today. Reneé is going to get laundry done, we have a load of rags washing on the boat, and I will be supervising polishing the stainless steel (on deck) today. I am also going to continue cleaning up the old picture files. So far I have identified more than 6 GB of duplicate pictures that I can delete. The hard drive in our MacBook Pro is only 1 TB, and right now it only has about 25 GB free. So, I need to do some cleanup. We MIGHT pull the anchor and chain out and check the markings at the various intervals.

The last thing we told Mike about the sails, was that if he did not have confirmation that the sails would be in his loft by tomorrow, he should put our old sails back on the boat and we will sail to Barra that way, we will be back by the second week in December to get the sails. He texted at this morning about 9 am, that he should know more by 11 am. 

Mike just called, the new sails are still in custom. The old Mainsail has a rip near the top from sun damage, he is fixing that and then after his crew gets back at about 3, they will be down to rerig the boat. 

By the end of the day, the stainless steel was all polished, the old sails were back up, and the straps that need sewing are off to Ivette.

We went to dinner at the La Cruz Inn  complete with dancing horses.

Today we are moving the boat over to La Cruz. We have a couple of small things to get done before we leave here, like tying the dinghy down (normally we have straps but they broke and the new ones will get sewn later today or tomorrow), put the outboard cover on, and some other odds and ends. It is about 8.3 miles from slip to slip, so between 2 and 3 hours.

We have no special plans for Thanksgiving, it is not celebrated here in Mexico (by the Mexicans) and many of the cruisers here are Canadian, and we have just not connected with any from the US that are celebrating it this year. This makes 3 years without a real Thanksgiving dinner. 2019, we were in Turtle Bay and had high winds and waves, so we did not want to get off the boat. 2020, we were in Santa Rosalia (Baja California) we arrived    late the night before. The other cruisers that were there had nothing planned. We had pie with another couple late in the day. Today we will move the boat, and have pumpkin pie later.

We tied up around 11:30. Got shore power hooked up and started washing dock lines. Reneé went to the office to finish checking in. Things to get done here, have Ivette sew the straps for the dinghy, wash dock lines, check the marking on the anchor chain and most importantly get sails

Well by the end of the day, no news about the sails, we walked over to the bathrooms and had showers. Then watched a movie Don Knots in the Reluctant Astronaut.