Vacation?

Exploring the ruins of a Spanish cathedral in San Blas

Cruising (aka doing boat repairs in exotic locations) is full of ups and downs.  We have some really nice days in the sun: exploring local places, eating local food, swimming off the boat and catching big fish.  However, much of our schedule revolves around the massive amount of work it takes to keep this home of ours afloat.  Puerto Vallarta is, supposedly, the last big place as you go south to get items for a sail boat at any kind of reasonable price.  Now that we have been traveling aboard Moments for five months we know more about what we need and what we don't need. We are also in the midst of doing maintenance projects that we would have had to do even if we were still parked in Seattle.  I have mentioned before that our life includes many lists, and the boat work list has been long.  However, I am happy to report that in the last few weeks it has shrunk considerably.  I think Adam is so tired of doing boat work that he actually does a little dance and grabs a beer every time he gets to cross something off the list.  Currently I am singing his praises because yesterday he put his wonderful electrical engineering brain to work and re-wired part of our electrical system (staying up to 4AM) to fix a problem we had with our batteries and he still got up in the morning to make be birthday pancakes!

The remains of our old windlass after its first motor overhaul

Adam going a little crazy with the teak work.

Each boat has its problems and in general we have been very happy with Moments.  We feel fortunate that we have not found anything so problematic that it has really limited our plans for this year.  Sure, the paint is flaking off in places and our windlass died after only a few uses, but the boat is solid, she handles well and for her age is in remarkably good condition.  So you may be asking yourself, if things are so rosy then what is all this work you are doing?  Well in the last week we have totally overhauled the refrigerator ripping out the old (moldy and wet...ewww) insulation, stripping all the caulk, replacing the old insulation with something that hopefully...um...insulates and re-caulking the entire box.  We also brushed off the compressor with a toothbrush and troubleshooted the wiring, which appears to be original.  While the caulk was drying and we were madly trying to consume all of our food before it spoiled we also replaced the jib halyard, refinished all of the exterior teak, scrubbed and painted the engine mounts, re-bedded a leaking window, wired and installed a switch in the galley for the propane, troubleshot multiple electronic devices, climbed the mast to replace light bulbs and check out the rigging and last but not least totally restructured our head and finally, permanently installed our composting head.  In addition, many of these projects required shopping missions and I have come to learn that any "run to the store", no matter how small, takes at least a day in Mexico

John and Adam brainstorming about boat work

Adam with the repaired windlass

Now you may say...wow...these people sound like they are quite handy.  The truth is we are both doing a lot of things we have never done before and have no clue how to handle.  I am not clueless with a screwdriver and Adam definitely has an edge with the electrical systems but we have a whole library here on the boat and are fortunate to have 3G service where we are anchored.  Yeah for Google.  In spite of the fact that we are working hard and often don't believe that we are actually on vacation we are excited about what we are learning and it is quite a triumph when things start working the way they should or you want them to. I figure that these skills will come in handy even after we make it back to dry land, and maybe, possibly if there is another boat in our future.

Lastly, both Adam and I really want to thank our friends and family for all of the Christmas gifts we received.  We would not have been able to do many of these projects without your support.  Thank you!  Much love from Mexico.

Feliz Navidad

A group shot over the bay in Yelapa during a short respite from the heavy rains

John, brave enough to enter the cold water at the end of our hike

The river on the beach at Yelapa

Becca, Adam and I displaying exactly how soaked we got on our hike!

Over the past week we played host to our first set of live-aboard visitors!  John and Becca, our good friends from Seattle came for Christmas and got here in the nick of time, arriving at 2AM on Christmas Day.  Although we have had some wonderful crew, we have not had visitors here on Moments since Adam and I were living here together.  These friends in particular were excellent guinea pigs as they themselves live on a boat and have cruised up into BC and Alaska not long ago.  They know what it is like to live on a boat and how difficult it is to pick both a location and a time of arrival.  Instead, they flew standby and traveled overland (quite an adventure and a story for another time) to meet up with us in La Cruz, a small town on Banderas Bay.   We spent a wonderful Christmas together making beignets, catching very large fish and lounging in the sun.  Unfortunately, Christmas was our last sunny day and since then we have been dealing with clouds and rain.   To Adam and I, the rain was at first a welcome change and a much needed bath for Moments.  But of course, to our friends from Seattle the rain was a little too close to home.  Still, we have managed to have quite an excellent visit getting to catch up with good friends.  Some of the highlights were: catching very big fish, getting to watch less-than-24-hour-old baby tigers nuzzle with their mother, lounging in the hot tub at the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club, swimming in Banderas Bay, walking on the beach in Nuevo Vallarta and dancing salsa in the street outside of a Cuban restaurant in Puerto Vallarta.  Today we hiked to a large waterfall outside of Yelapa, the small town in cove where we are anchored.  Despite the rain we were determined to have fun and are very sad to see our friends go.  Soon we will be rounding Cabo Corrientes and heading south. Next big stop Barra de Navidad!

Land Ho!

This post is about our wheels, our lifeline: our dinghy.  We have a 10’ Apex , rigid bottom inflatable dinghy (small boat or lanchita here in Mexico).  The dinghy has a fiberglass bottom and detachable wheels on the back to make beach landings a little easier, because it is heavy.  Also, it is not much fun dragging anything through wet sand, especially a 10’ boat.   There are oars which Adam tries to use to save gas but this type of boat doesn’t row very well.  I say Adam because he gets frustrated when it is my turn to row and the boat only moves in circles. Most of the time we are quite a distance from our intended target and rev up our outboard engine, which gets us there both easier, faster and in more of a straight line. In the sailing world (as with anything else really, though here it seems more pronounced) everyone has strong opinions about everything.  You have to take advice, especially about gear, with a grain of salt, shall we say.  Adam and I did a ton of research about dinghies before we bought one because this is a crucial piece of equipment and no small purchase. We couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone.  Although our current dinghy has served us well so far, there are definite changes we would make could we do it all over again.  More on this later.

We use our dinghy to get to shore and carry everything we need back and forth when we are not in a marina.  We try not to stay in marinas and since arriving in Mexico on November 11, we have only spent two nights in one.   They are nice, the boat doesn’t move, you have electricity and water, you can easily get into town and load up with food and did I mention the boat doesn’t move?  However, they are expensive and most definitely a splurge for us. Instead, after we have set the anchor and have stayed on the boat a while to make sure it holds, we get the dinghy ready.  While we are sailing long distances the dinghy rests upside down and deflated on our foredeck (front part of the boat).  Getting it off involves one person lifting the bow with the spinnaker halyard (the line that lifts the sail) until the other person can crawl under the boat and pump up the pontoons enough to make it float.  Then as one person (typically me) lifts, the other person (Adam) guides the boat over the side and into the water wrestling it to stay upright and trying not to get hit in the head when it is lowered.  Sorry, Adam.  If there is any wind this is much more difficult.  After a final pump-up the motor is next.  The motor, which came with Moments, is a 4-stroke Yamaha.  This, of course, meant little to me until I was actually out here and learned how to use an outboard motor for the first time in my life.  This is a relatively small outboard motor but I can’t imagine us dealing with a bigger one because I don’t think I could lift anything heavier.  We get the motor onto the dinghy by attaching it to a block and tackle (pulley system) hooked to the end of the boom which, once the motor is hoisted we can then swing it out over the water and lower it down onto the dinghy.  Writing this, I realize that it sounds much easier than it actually is, you will just have to take my word on the matter.  Because the block and tackle is often frustrating, sometimes I stand on the boat and lift the motor over the side while Adam stands in the (floating and bouncing around) dinghy and takes it overhead to set it on the back of that boat.  And sometimes, here in Mexico, the fishermen will take you into shore if you pay them a few dollars.  Very appealing if I do say so, myself!

Once this is all said and done we then either lock the dinghy to the boat or lift it a few feet out of the water for the night to try and dissuade dinghy thieves which would definitely leave us stranded.  This is all done in reverse when we are preparing to head out sailing again.  Though occasionally on smaller passages we only take off the motor and drag the dinghy behind us.  This slows us down a bit but definitely saves time on either end.

As you have probably guessed, a dinghy is not just the boat. It includes an outboard motor, gasoline, safety equipment, oars, pump and all of the equipment you have on board to lift and stow the outboard and dinghy.  I do not want to say that we are not grateful our appreciative of our dinghy which as of yet has served us well, but there are definitely some improvements that could be made.  Here are my suggestions for other cruisers:

1)      Get the smallest, lightest boat you can possibly deal with.  I would suggest a 6-8’ inflatable with an aluminum bottom.  You will want to get it on and off the deck more if it is lighter and there is less chance that someone will be injured.  Also a lighter dinghy means a lighter sailboat so that you can travel faster an also use less gasoline when you are putting around with your outboard.  Most importantly this means you can use a smaller motor, and this brings me to my next point.

2)      Get the smallest motor that you think will plane your dinghy.  When the dinghy planes it lifts out of the water and travels much faster.  With our current combination of motor and dinghy we can barely get it to plane if only one of us is in it and the wind and waves are exactly right.  When it planes you also get less wet, and we have definitely had some butt-soaking dinghy rides.

There are also some other smaller points such as the necessity of UV resistant materials and oars that float but that information seems more consistent.  We bought our dinghy second hand and are currently in the process of trying to figure out how to patch it because we may need to do that very soon.  This is a useful skill for any cruising sailor because every boat out here has a dinghy, the vast majority of them inflatable and at one time or another in need of patching.

Lastly, we have yet to name our dinghy.  Any ideas, readers?

On a side note, thank you for all of the blog comments and emails.  It is very nice to hear from friends and family, especially at this time of year.  We are currently in Mantanchen Bay outside of San Blas a wonderful town with cobble-stone streets, ruined Spanish forts and a laid back way of doing things.  The view is wonderful but there is no place like home for the holidays. 

Sleepless Nights

Do you know what it feels like to be sea-sick in your sleep? Because I do.

Adam and I have finally departed Santa Barbara after being able to spend time with my Grandma and Great Uncle, who live there permanently, as well as two of my uncles, my Dad and his wife Jane.  Everyone traveled in for an extended birthday party and bon voyage.  We also accomplished quite a few of what Adam calls “capital improvement projects.”  He says that soon we will be moving from the “capital improvement phase” to the “preventative and reactive maintenance phase.” Joy of joys.  Still, I have to say that after three (make that 20+) years of brain-intensive work, the novelty of hard physical labor every day has not yet warn off.  We rise with the sun, work hard all day, go to bed with the sun and sleep soundly. 

Well, sometimes it is less soundly than we would like.  Tied up in a nice no-wake marina makes Moments a pretty cozy home, but at anchor we constantly fret about whether the anchor is dragging or not.  I am sure our nerves will continue to be more at ease as we gain experience anchoring Moments.  Or at least I hope this is true because our marina budget is almost maxed out after the trip down the coast!  Currently, we make sure the anchor is holding by leaving the chart plotter on most of the night so that we can see the arc of our swing on the rode (anchor chain).  This is not a great solution as it uses so much of the precious energy we have stored in our batteries.  Currently, I write to you while on my anchor watch shift here in beautiful East Fish Camp anchorage on the southern side of Anacapa Island.  Anchor watch is not a super sleep-friendly option but saves energy and calms Adam’s nerves enough that he can sleep and not walk around like a zombie (a very grumpy zombie) the next day.  Tonight, all is calm; there is a nice breeze blowing in, just enough for the turbine to give the batteries a little juice, and the rolling swell is barely noticeable.  Then there are nights like last night.

We are still not sure what happened, but from what we can put together it seems like the Santa Anna winds blew in across Santa Cruz Island last night at about 2-3AM.  The Santa Anna’s are notorious, warm, strong winds that blow in from the northeast with very little warning.  They are often responsible for the spreading of wildfires throughout southern California.  Yesterday we had a beautiful ride from Santa Barbara during which we saw (not exaggerating) hundreds of dolphins, some that even raced the bow of our boat!  We got to Santa Cruz Island at twilight and decided to stay for the evening rather than continue the passage to Anacapa.  Along with a few other boats, we dropped our hook at Yellow Banks Anchorage where the boat was not motionless by any account, but there was adequate protection from the northern swell.  We had plenty of room to move, even if the anchor began to drag, so we turned on an alarm on the chart plotter, checked the forecast and went to sleep.  I am not sure when it really started to roll, but I do remember waking up nauseous, hardly able to walk down the boat due to the roll and before long I was tossing my cookies overboard.  After significant teamwork and getting soaked by more than a few waves we made it to our sheltered little cove on Anacapa just in time for the winds to die down. We spent the rest of the afternoon at anchor napping and drying our clothes on the rigging.

We definitely learned some things from our experience this morning, and I became much more comfortable and confident at taking the helm during rough conditions.  Still, what I keep being reminded of every time we are sailing is how the ocean is truly amazing.  From the dolphins, turtles, seals and sea lions we have seen, to the fish I dream about catching, to the wind and waves of this morning and then finally the calm rocking this afternoon amongst 30-foot-tall kelp stalks in crystal clear water.  Too bad it is so cold or I would pull on my snorkel gear and go hang with the fishes.

My watch is up and it is my turn to sleep. On to Catalina tomorrow and Newport Beach the next day!  More to come.

BTW I have received many helpful messages letting me know that it is difficult to comment on the blog.  This problem should be fixed, but if you are willing give it a try so that I know you all are out there reading.