January 21 2011

Still in Mazatlan waiting for the part from the states - went on the plane today - may be available to be picked up Saturday, but probably not until Monday. It continues to be chilly (48 at night, upper70s during the day), humid and foggy. Kind of weird weather, but I suppose we will be grateful for the extra cool time come July when it is really hot. Many people have asked what our daily lives are like so I thought I would tell you about today, which was pretty typical of days at the dock.

Dennis was up by 0700, I was up by 0730. I went with Carla (s/v Moondance) to the veggie truck. He comes Mon, Wed and Fri from 0600-0900 to Marina Mazatlan. I picked up some grapes, potatoes, bread (fresh), onion, mango and tamales. It is a little bit of a walk, but not bad - just enough to get the blood pumping.  Got back to the boat by 0845. At 0900 I woke up Josh and started breakfast (french toast and bacon). We ate, I did dishes and Josh did some homework. He usually does 2-3 hours of work every day. Today he got off early because Dennis needed help with some projects. There are always projects to be done on the boat - saltwater and constant motion have a way of making things just sort of break or wear out spontaneously. Today Josh went up the mast to reattach the running backstays, move the spinnaker halyard to the port side of the mast and work on the flag halyard. While they were doing that, I did a little work on the computer then went out to work on the sea kayak that we bought from s/v Just a minute. The sun does a number on everything and in the case of the kayak, a lot of the webbing needs to be replaced. We had lots of of people coming and going commenting on what we were doing - especially with Josh up the mast. After the mast work was completed, Josh took the dinghy over to El Cid to see his friends. About 1300 the guy (Ezequiel) who does sewing came by. He needed to see our dinghy in order to give us a quote for the dinghy chaps. So I had to track down Josh at El Cid. He brought the dinghy back and went back to El Cid. We discussed the dinghy chaps we are ordering from Eziquiel and he decided he needed to take the dinghy today. That involved removing the motor from the dinghy, taking it out of the water, putting it back in on the other side of the dock moving the dinghy to the boat ramp and loading it onto Eziquiel's truck. That finished we went back to work on the boat. Dennis fixed some sharp areas on the mast and installed the final mast steps. At 1530, we showered then met friends at 1600 and went for drinks at a bar on the beach. The sunset was beautiful. After the sun went down we went to a little place called George's a short walk away. We had a very nice dinner and were back at the boat by 2030.

Nights on the boat after dinner usually involve a movie/tv shows. Tonight Josh is holed up in his boy cave, I am working on the blog and facebook and Dennis is watching a movie. We have pretty good internet here, but uploading pictures is always iffy. Not so good tonight, so always check back for pictures. I am usually in bed by 2200, Dennis and Josh by 2300. So, there you have it. The chores vary and it isn't every night that we go out, but it is pretty typical.

Since we are at the dock, we are trying to get through our list of things we want to complete before we leave on the passage to the South Pacific. The more we get done now, the less we will have to do when we get to La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta). We hope to leave for Hiva Oa in the Marquessa's between March 15 and April 1.