Make Me Laugh Again

Well It is Christmas Eve, and we don’t have a lot planned. Bethany is coming over to paddle board with Reneé. So, we had breakfast, read the Bible for the day and I started the watermaker while Reneé went to the store. Later, the guys working on the dinghy got here, and Karen needed help moving her boat, and Bethany got here. Oh and Patrick brought back the scraps of wood from the project he borrowed from us the other day. I spoke with Mike about our Boom Vang, he is off looking for parts. We will see when we see. So, by 3:30, Bethany has gone, the guys are still working on the dinghy and our water tank is full. Reneé headed over to the pool and I am waiting to see what is next.

We got a call from Nate to let us know that his new job at Walmart starts January 4th!!!! This is awesome news! Next up he will be looking for another place to live that has a lower cost than $1,100 a month. It probably won’t be as nice as where he is but there are other things to consider as well.

So, we had a couple of guys working on our dinghy wheels. It has been one of those projects that takes forever, and just doesn’t go right. I think we are going on a year of screwing around with these things. One of the downsides to cruising in Mexico. The company that makes the wheels has a great reputation, and they make two sizes and they have a great warranty, but….. well we are in Mexico and the company is in California. So, first I had to find the company then after finding out they are trying to retire, I had to find someone who carried the wheels. They told me that they could sell me a set for cost, I asked about the warranty, and finally they came through. I told them the ones we had were too small for our dinghy, so they came through with a complete set of the larger wheels. Actually the wheels are the same size, it is the bars and tracks that are bigger. So, we did not see that they were larger (we were in the states and the dinghy and parts were in Mexico). So we only brought the bars back with us. Which of course did not fit, so I had Brendan mail the rest of the hardware from Kansas via UPS. Apparently UPS doesn’t want to do business in Puerto Vallarta and it took about a month to get the parts here, including having the marina driver drive clear across Puerto Vallarta (25 miles, over an hour each way) after the UPS people said that they were unsuccessful in finding anyone at the office (open 7 days a week, from 9 am) at 10 am on Saturday. Oh and the gate is always manned and they take deliveries there. The next day they said, it is out for delivery and finally the next day we called and just told them to hold it. Anyway the two guys working on the project because not only are the wheels two different sizes, they use a different arrangement for attaching the racks. So, today 4 attempts to get the holes correct and … well maybe Monday or Tuesday.  That makes it nap time.

At 6 pm we headed over to the next dock for the Christmas party and white elephant gift exchange. A couple hours of mingling and eating and drinking and then back to our boat for showers and bed.

 

Reneé left right after breakfast to take a bus to Sam’s.  She met Salvador, MayCo, there at 9 to pick up the instrument cover.  He did a wonderful job on it.  She shopped at Sam’s and Chedraui before returning.  A woman who Reneé passed several times while shopping, took pity on Reneé as she walked to the bus stop carrying three heavy bags.  The woman took one and helped Reneé find the right bus.  Her name is Lynn and she is from Canada.  Neil helped Karen on Serenity splash.  Aaron stopped by to look at the dinghy wheel mount issue.  He will return tomorrow.  We watched Polar Express.

Helping Karen splash her 46 foot catamaran (S/V Serenity) was interesting. Her boat is the one we helped last week go into the yard, her starboard engine failed just as she was getting to the first strap going in. This resulted in a loss of control and banging the starboard side of the boat on the concrete wall in the lift. I spoke with Peter Vargas while I was there about some work I want done and he commented on her boat that the transmission cap (where you add oil) had been left off and spewed all the oil out into the engine room, which was part of the problem. Anyway, when they splashed her boat, we had Karen, me and Tommy another sailor I found just reading a book. When we got there, the yard decided that they would move her boat from the lift to the fuel dock without power and then verify the engines worked. So that changed the job for Tommy and I. We moved Karen’s stuff from her car to the boat, then Tommy rode with Karen back to the dock while I drove her car over.

That was an interesting drive, first I had to wait for the animal crossing of the road (a 3 foot VERY green iguana and then the construction work with a flagman who was watching above to make sure nothing dropped from the 4th or 5th floor above the road.  All in all a rather long drive for 5 or 6 blocks. By the time I got parked Karen had her boat tied up.
I talked to another guy about his boat (S/V Chelsea Amor) and his canopy, that he and his partner (wife?) were busy washing. Then finally back to the boat where I realized I had left my water bottle in the boat yard. So, I walked back over, figuring it was gone. But the security guard at the gate called to me as I walked in and handed my bottle back to me. I had only been in and out of this yard for a week, a few times per day. They are pretty observant here.

 

Up slow again, (what is the rush anyway?) breakfast, the net, bible reading and then Reneé will walk over to the office, we are supposed to have a couple of packages from Amazon, and then the laundry will get taken in. We have some lines that need to find a home somewhere on the boat. The freezer appears happy todayt is , at about 14 degree’s (back to normal). We have someone coming by to look at/fix the dinghy wheels, maybe today maybe mañana. I will also check in with Mike about our boom vang. That pretty well covers the plans for today. 

Reneé added this:

Laundry got done.  Reneé put up Christmas lights.  Eddie Vargas stopped by and said he knew of a guy who could fix the issue with the dinghy wheels.  The new mounts have holes in different places than the old mounts.  When the sun went down, the Christmas lights turned on.  There is a boat decorating contest here at the marina so Neil and I walked around to see all the decorated boats (all 10 of them) on the 12 docks.  Some sailors handed out bribes to get your vote like spiked egg nog, mulled wine, or cookies.  Yeah, we got into the spirit a little and offered brownies.

Up slow, breakfast, the net and bible reading. Reneé is making bread and I will work on the dinghy this morning. We got the stuff for the new dinghy wheels, and the dinghy needs air. So, that will take up the morning. But first we will go visit Patrick and Lisa that we met in Barra.

We visited Patrick and Lisa, he wants to leave on 12/23, she wants to spend Christmas here with her relatives, it is an interesting dynamic, he is the captain and she is crew. As in the connected on find crew/find captain.

Then as we were walking back to our boat, there was a refrigeration guy coming down to work on our neighbors boat. We asked him to take a look at our freezer. So, when he got done next door, he worked on ours. We will see.

We started into the project of dinghy wheels, and found out the new ones use different holes. This quickly escalated beyond my ability, so about that time Eddie Vargas (the guy working on our mast boot, waiting on parts) came by and checked in about the parts issue. I told him we would be here until mid January and that we had not given up yet. While he was there I asked about the dinghy wheels, and he said he had “a guy” who could handle this and would have them come by this week. And, with that it is time to go to Puerto Vallarta for the plastic work, and dinner down town.

We took two busses and a cab and got to the place for the plastic work. The guy said he could have it done Thursday, and will meet Reneé at Sam’s club on Thursday at 9 am. This will save a huge trip. After dropping off the piece, we walked down to the Malecon (walkway at the beach) and had dinner and walked some more, then had dessert and walked some more. Finally sitting for a bit to watch 4 guys dressed in indigenous people clothing climb a tall tower, then wind 4 ropes around the top of the tower, then tie the ropes around themselves and lowered themselves down spinning around the pole, while one played the flute and beat a drum. Pretty impressive. Not something I would ever do.

At the end of the evening, we looked at getting an Uber back to the marina, 750 pesos (at 20 pesos to the dollar, $37.50) we elected to take the busses again. It took three bus rides at about 90 pesos ($4.50) for the two of us. Then showers and bed.

Up at 7 am, breakfast, the Net and our bible reading. Listened to the Panama Posse call as well.
I contacted
Maureen Chadwick

Coastal Climate Control, Inc. – Veco NA

Annapolis  MD  USA

301-352-5738

About our freezer issue. I found out that our freezer is almost certainly overcharged, and I got instructions on how to “fix this”. The advice I have had locally has been to just replace the compressor (about $1200 +/-) it appears I just need to let some freon out.

Our new sails were put up! We started the order process in March, we were promised September, and kept getting told “about 3 weeks”. So, today they went up. Slight issue when the staysail was the wrong size, the guys putting the sails up started with that sail as it is the smallest. They had it all the way to the top, but still had about 10 feet of sail on the deck. Turned out, the company making the sails mixed the bags up, and reversed the staysail and the mainsail. Anyway all the sails are up. But we found that the boom vang is stuck. This is a spring loaded piston used to support the boom. So, they took it back to the shop. If it isn’t one thing it’s something else.

We had planned to take the engine control cover in to Puerto Vallarta to get it replaced. This is an example of just how much harder things are to do while in cruising. We have found 1 company that can do this, the guy is only available between 4 and 6 pm. The location is in Puerto Vallarta so it means rush hour traffic to get there and the last time we left here at 5 pm, it took 2 and half hours to get across PV (~25 miles). When we get there, he will look at what we have and tell us if he can do it. Also, he said he is pretty busy, so we don’t know how long to do this. But, while we planned to go at about 3pm, to head off, that was when I was getting info about the freezer, so this has been deferred until tomorrow. 

We took a walk at sunset out to the beach and then into town. Finally called it a day and went back for a game of cards and bed.