Make Me Laugh Again

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.

Phone calls, laundry got done in town

So, we are hanging out near the boat staying available for the work that needs to be done on the boat. I spent one day on the phone with Battleborn making sure that I had the help needed before doing a firmware update for our battery charger, of course since I had them on the phone and available, I did not need them.

On Wednesday day, Reneé took the bus to La Fuente church for a midweek Bible study.  We met Jocelyn and Bryan from Third Day and invited them over for happy hour.  Bryan really wanted to see an Island Packet.  They are from Alaska.  He is a pilot and taking a couple of years off .  They have three children who are being homeschooled.  They are Christians also.

Dinner one night was at the La Cruz Inn, a nice quaint street side restaurant, the tables are on the sidewalk and in the street next to the square.

Renee’ met with Yannis, a canvas gal, to get a quote for canvas teak covers.  She will meet with Yvette later for a second quote.

And still we are waiting for workers on the boat. So far, we have the following things we need help with:

1. The refrigerator, still waiting for help
2. The water maker, still waiting for help to figure out which membrane is bad and how to go forward
3. The instruments, wind speed and boat speed through the water, still waiting for help
4. The back light for the chart plotter, still waiting.
5. The quotes on the canvas work above.

I have been listening to the VHF net every morning, hearing occasional requests for recommendations for work on other boats. There are probably 50+ people participating in the net every morning, and I am sure more that are just listening. On the net, the recommendations come back with the same three names:

• • Scott (who I have since learned, is retiring and moving into a motor home and leaving)
  • John Pounder (who works on almost everything). He is scheduled for Friday morning at 9:30 am.
  • Gareth Clark (who also works on everything) He is scheduled to come and work on the refrigerator and the water maker, just not sure when it is “scheduled”

A name that does not come from the net is Victor Gonzales who was recommended by the Raymarine people as being able to fix the backlight. He has promised to call multiple times, yet never does. Again, this is technical work, and there are limited numbers of people who can do that work and here in this area that means ONE person. So, we wait.

We got up a bit later than normal, but probably still by 7:30 or so. We had breakfast than walked up to the main road and caught a bus. Much easier than I expected. It was about a 20 minute ride to go about 3 miles, then out and cross the street and walk about 7 blocks to get to the church.
Very friendly people at this church. We of course had to sit away from everyone else. (See the picture) Social distancing. After church we were invited out to lunch by a couple of ladies from the church. The restaurant was a short drive away and was pretty good. Afterwards they dropped us off near the bus stop and we rode back to the marina, and had a quiet day on the boat.

Beach Day!  The weather seemed perfect (in the early morning) but by the time we’d gathered our stuff (mat, umbrella, etc…) the wind had come up.  We walked the short distance to the beach next to the marina.  We parked ourselves but decided that putting the umbrella up would be too risky.  Two other couples nearby were facing the same dilemma.  We went in the water and then watched as the other couples put up their umbrellas.  One was caught by the wind and went for a ride and the other blew inside out.  So what do the locals do on windy days?  They wind surf of course!  We watch several wind surfers.  The first left his board ashore and got pulled out in very deep water still holding onto his sail.  A second one went to his rescue sailing with an extra board to bring it to the first guy.  After much upwind tacks he succeeded.  Several other wind surfers took off but unlike the first two, they had dinghies staying with them.

That evening we went to the Treehouse restaurant.  The entertainment was fabulous!  First a single guitar player, then a small group including a drummer and a few guitarists playing the oldies, then a violinist joined them and boy could he jam!  Neil and I even danced a few!  A dog ate my leftovers (in the doggy box…appropriately named) as we danced.

We got up got breakfast and did our daily devotion/bible reading. Then checked the time and I got on the phone with Tyler from Apple support. This required sending him an email to call me. His day started at 11:30 east coast time, or 10:30 my time. We worked through the process and eventually were successful in getting the iPad password reset. Kyle went to my Mom’s house and I sent another email to Tyler who did call Kyle and verified that no help was required at that end. So finally we have her new iPad working and the old one reset. We got a new shipping package setup to send the old one back and it is being sent to Kyle who has the old iPad. Everything looks good.

So, what did we accomplish? First lets look at where we started:

My mom needed a tablet to allow her to read books/check emails/access the internet/watch movies on her TV that came from the internet etc. This was in 2017. My older brother gave her a Kindle, but it did not do everything else. We bought her an iPad mini, as she did not want the full size iPad. I set it up for her. A couple years later she finally upgraded to a smart phone and by that time she had attempted to use the password that she thought was correct for her Apple ID. For whatever reason it did not work, and she crossed it out. Being unable to get into the Apple ID, whoever set up the iPhone (might have been me, might have been my nephew, might have been a son) set her up with another Apple ID. Apparently this was part of the problem, both Apple ID’s have the same phone number, which the senior advisor says is not OK with their system. In any case, at this point we have two Apple ID’s, one person, one phone number and a multitude of devices, a Windows based PC, an iPad, an iPhone, and an Apple TV.

Now, we get to 2020. We bought her a new iPad mini. Slightly more speed, slightly more ram, and slightly more battery life. When I bought it, I was unaware how much of an issue the Apple ID was going to be, and I believe I set it up in the purchase for her old Apple ID. When it arrived, we were (of course) back in Mexico. So, Kyle went to her house to set it up, the instructions for setting it up said that the password could be reset as you were setting up the new device. What they really meant was you could change the password as you were setting up the new device, but you had to KNOW the old password. So, about half way through the process, it got to the place where you had to have the Apple ID password and everything stopped. The data transfer from the old one to the new one had gone fairly smoothly including all the settings on the new one to match the old one, including FIND MY DEVICE was turned on. This was, as it turned out , a big deal, as if that is turned on you can not reset/wipe the iPad without the Apple ID password. 

This began the process of getting the password reset on the Apple ID. Multiple attempts to reset it using the tool from Apple the techs don’t have access to this, and can’t even see the progress and don’t get told why it was or wasn’t successful, all they can do is tell you how to use it. So several weeks later it is still not working. Next up was another link to request removal of the Apple ID from the devices (note this is plural as in both of them) well the case number is only connected to one device, and after about a week, I got the email that the device was unlocked. I had to find where in the email it identified the device, only way it was identified was by the serial number. But that was the old one. Several more calls and hours on the support line, I finally got in touch with Tyler who was one of those guys who has to get it right, he was really trying to convince me that he was better than all the rest, after several phone calls and being able to get back to one person who actually seemed to be a bit better than average we were able to get the second iPad unlocked. 

Kyle made the trip back to my moms and rebuilt the new iPad, then transferred all the pictures via air drop from the old one to the new one then reset the old iPad to blank status. At this point, the new iPad is all set up on the same Apple ID as my moms phone. Her PC and Apple TV are still on the old Apple ID. But at least there are no missing files. We go through the process of setting up the return of The old iPad to Apple (part of the purchase agreement for the new iPad we can sell the old one back to Apple). then make another attempt to reset the password on the old Apple ID. Which is when we discover that each Apple ID can have one phone number, and each phone number can be associated with one Apple ID. Which is probably where the whole reset stuff started. In any case, I then contacted my mom and told her that if she happened to run across the password for the old Apple ID let me know and we would work through it. 

So, shortly after I got done telling her that she texted back with a password that she said had not worked and she crossed it out, (I mentioned this above). I tried the password and of course it worked. Good news, it worked and we have access to the old Apple ID! Bad news, we have already reset both iPads to the new Apple ID, and have taken the effort to automatically forward all the email from that Apple ID email account to her old email, a complicated kludge to get around this problem. Next summer, I will probably undertake the project to move the iPad from the “new” Apple ID back to the original one. 

End result the iPad was purchased December 30th, and actually working March 5th.

After all that was done, I took a walk to see if I could find the sail loft for north sails to talk to the guy who sells them here in La Cruz, nobody was in the shop, so I walked around back to the pool area, and saw a life raft in the water and figured out that the last raft class (being taught by Mike the sail guy) was going on. I wandered over to where they were in the water and waited for the class to end. When it did I introduced myself to Mike and gave him a boat card. With a request to contact me about sails. 

This was about all we got done today. Enough frustration for one day. 

No pictures today.