Wednesday January 19, 2011 Mazatlan

A wise woman told me to forget the last 9 months and just post, so that is what I am going to do.  Play catch up as I go.  So, Evergreen and crew are in Mazatlan.  We spent the first week at Marina
Mazatlan and are now at the dock at the Singlar Marina undergoing repairs to our engine.  We have had a chronic overheating problem which we decided to have checked out prior to leaving for the South Pacific.  Total Yacht Works came highly recommended, so here we are.  Turns out that we have a leaky head gasket.  Took about a week to confirm the diagnosis after testing the exhaust manifold, pulling the head and sending it to the machine shop.... So, then it was going to take 10 days to get the part.  Well, Dennis decided that was not acceptable and ordered the parts himself.  They are currently in San Diego, where they will transported across the border and put on a plane to Mazatlan.  The parts are in a race with our French Polynesia Visas coming via DHL.  Their ETA is Thursday.  So we will see what gets here first. In the meantime there are always projects to do on the boat. We were without our engine when we moved from Marina Mazatlan to Singlar, so used our dinghy to move us to the new slip.  We had help from Patrick and Jack from "Just a Minute", Doug and Carla from "Moondance" (who have first hand experience with this procedure) and Robert from the boat next to us.  It was an uneventful move.

Josh is enjoying Mazatlan, getting lots of kid time in.  He has two friends at El Cid, so we rarely see him after school work is done.  He will be sorry to leave here.  School is going pretty well.  I found him a book on WWII which he really enjoys reading.  Math continues to be the most challenging subject, he does well with it, just doesn't like it.

As usual with cruising, there is lots of opportunity for socializing.  Could easily get in the way of boat projects if Dennis would let it :) !   We have been following football - unusual for us, except that the Packers are doing well.  There is a sports bar in town called Yoopers that broadcasts in English and has a good happy hour....We also enjoyed going to the old section of town with Doug and Carla from s/v Moondance.  It is very pretty.

It has been pretty cool temperature wise - lows in the 40s and highs only in the 70s.  Very different from our experience last winter.  Is good for doing projects and sleeping.  I have no real desire to get wet though.
The following are some essays Josh wrote about some of his experiences.


Spearfishing


by Joshua Morrison 1/2011

One day while my dad and I were at the anchorage of Agua Verde we decided to go spearfishing. I had just gotten a new speargun and was anxious to try it out. There was a large pinnacle rocck out in the middle of the bay that looked promising. When we got to the rock it was kind of murky but it was not bad. We circumnavigated the rock and saw some nice parrotfish but they were too deep and swam away. After awiele we decded to move to a rocky area on shore. Once we got in the water my dad caught a parrotfish about half an hour in. The thought of my dad having a better fish than me triggered my competitive nature. With my competitive side going I caught a bigger parrotfish less than 5 minutes afterwards. We were done after that and went back to the boat, cleaned off and cleaned the fish. My dad cooked the fish and it turned out very good. That was a good beginning to spearfishing in Mexico.

The Crossing from Muetos to Mazatlan

by Josh Morrison 1/11/11

My mom, my dad and I left La Paz for Muertos which is 58 miles, so a long day for us on our boat. We got into Muertos late at night, ate dinner and went to bed. We left early in the morning to go to Mazatlan, what a short night! Mazatlan is 190 miles from Muertos so we did an overnighter. An overnighter is when we go all night; we take shifts so one person is watching the boat and two sleep. The weather was uncomfortable but there was lots of weine, so we went fast. It was our first overnighter since we got back to the boat from our summer break in the states. The entrance to the marina at Mazatlan was kind of difficult because there were breaking waves it it. My Dad had to time whent we went in. Once we were in the slip and setled I went boogie boarding with my friend Jack. After boogine boarding we went to the hot tub at the marina and hung out. What a good end to a hard couple of days.