this! this is what I was waiting for. Yes that's a pina colada.
Lennis and the errant wire. 
the Boat, which is still nameless. which seems unlucky
the trailer and the boat.
ARRGH matey.
kicking it mexico style.Hello again and welcome back. To catch those of you up who I haven't seen lately I just left the states, Nov 4, a historic day, for mexico where I am meeting three friends of mine in San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez where we will get aboard a 27 foot sailboat and sail to La Paz, about 700 miles, at which point I will return to the Wa. This is an account of the first several days.
So the life has been half tragedy, half comical so far. Getting the boat into the water was a lot easier than we thought. We literally just backed the trailer into the water and floated off. Unfortunately when the motor was mounted it was angled slightly away from the boat so the propeller wasn't totally in the water. So as we were trying to maneuver out of the little corner of the marina where the ramp was we couldn't get the boat to respond to the motor so the wind, which has been blowing like crazy for the last 3 days began to push us into the rocks that make up the sides of the marina. The Captain, lennis, and I are were the only ones on the boat, both mike and andrea were on shore taking pictures. So lennis and I are shouting at each other trying to get the motor deep enough in the water to get the boat to turn against the wind and getting closer and closer to the rocks. After a minute or less, you know how time goes in situations like that, our keel, which sticks down below the hull about 6-8 feet, clangs into the rocks and the boat starts to list toward shore. Which makes the deck hard to stand on. Anyway we sit there for a little while longer until we figure out that the motor in reverse has a lot more control for some reason so we back the boat off the rocks and over to a dock which involved some shady turning, backward, through some little channels with sand bars on the down wind side. Fortunately we were able to make the turn into the slip, boat anchor area, and tied it down.
So the wind is howling and there is about 1-2 foot wind chop so little waves rocking the boat all over the place. And we have to still put the mast up, which we decided not to try to do until the next day when the wind was less rambunctious. Which to do a little fortune telling, hasn't happened yet and that was yesterday. So we move everything we threw into the boat cockpit back into the stern and spent the whole rest of the day organizing and preparing other things. blowing up the little raft we are going to use, getting water and fuel, dealing with paperwork, which was exceptionally easy compared with my past experiences with Latino paperwork.
So today we get up with the grand ambition of trying to raise the mast. And if you haven't stepped a mast (the official terminology) you just haven't lived. So to give you a basic idea of mast topography there are about a million wires, ropes, pulleys and attachments all over this 35-40 ft aluminum pole the size around of softball and we have to fit it over this tiny little protrusion that sticks out of the deck at the highest part of the boat. I think this part of the story will be better in person as my ability to write action drama lacks a little. Anyway so we have me pulling on a rope attached to the top of the mast from the bow (front) of the boat, an old guy we shanghaied (crusty sailor term for kidnapping some one and making them a slave on a boat) from his boat next door to hold the end of the mast in the little protrusion and mike and lennis lifting from underneath.
Well it didn't work out. We got the mast up to about 20 degrees off horizontal and it started to slide to the side and we couldn't hold it so it dropped back onto the boat. Which wasn't that bad except that a cable off the mast that was criminally engineered to fall out at the most inappropriate moment, and to add to indignity the cable is unique and individual and can't be purchased as a part!??, falls out of the mast and right into the water next to the boat and disappears. I immediately turn to the old guy and ask, "how deep is the water here?" And he replies, "oh about 35 to 40 ft." At which point lennis starts to look around for a pistol so he can shoot himself in the face. Did I mention that this cable is crucial to keeping the mast upright?
So there we all are standing around trying to wrap our minds around the fact that our mast in now useless rendering sailing out of the question and our motor is mounted like crap so we can't motor anywhere and no car to get back to the states so we can scrounge/steal a cable that will work. And out of the blue this other guy from a boat close by cruises over and after hearing the story asks if anyone is scuba certified as he has a bca and scuba tank that he just filled up. As a matter of fact lennis is a scuba guy from way back so he slips into his wetsuit and after about a half an hour later comes up from the bottom of the marina with the cable. I immediately decided that I would forego the lottery ticket I was going to buy today and be very careful as I am sure finding that cable used up all the luck our whole group is going to get for at least the next couple of days. But after a very heartfelt celebration we decided to wait until the seas are calm to step the mast and recruit every able bodied human being we can find to get it done the next time. So we have since moved on to installing the electrical system so we can have lights, refrigeration, music and power for tonight. I think we are going to work on the motor mount as well.
Also the boat is always moving from the waves and now as I am sitting here at the computer on solid tierra I can feel the whole world rocking to the ocean. It is really weird!
n
So the life has been half tragedy, half comical so far. Getting the boat into the water was a lot easier than we thought. We literally just backed the trailer into the water and floated off. Unfortunately when the motor was mounted it was angled slightly away from the boat so the propeller wasn't totally in the water. So as we were trying to maneuver out of the little corner of the marina where the ramp was we couldn't get the boat to respond to the motor so the wind, which has been blowing like crazy for the last 3 days began to push us into the rocks that make up the sides of the marina. The Captain, lennis, and I are were the only ones on the boat, both mike and andrea were on shore taking pictures. So lennis and I are shouting at each other trying to get the motor deep enough in the water to get the boat to turn against the wind and getting closer and closer to the rocks. After a minute or less, you know how time goes in situations like that, our keel, which sticks down below the hull about 6-8 feet, clangs into the rocks and the boat starts to list toward shore. Which makes the deck hard to stand on. Anyway we sit there for a little while longer until we figure out that the motor in reverse has a lot more control for some reason so we back the boat off the rocks and over to a dock which involved some shady turning, backward, through some little channels with sand bars on the down wind side. Fortunately we were able to make the turn into the slip, boat anchor area, and tied it down.
So the wind is howling and there is about 1-2 foot wind chop so little waves rocking the boat all over the place. And we have to still put the mast up, which we decided not to try to do until the next day when the wind was less rambunctious. Which to do a little fortune telling, hasn't happened yet and that was yesterday. So we move everything we threw into the boat cockpit back into the stern and spent the whole rest of the day organizing and preparing other things. blowing up the little raft we are going to use, getting water and fuel, dealing with paperwork, which was exceptionally easy compared with my past experiences with Latino paperwork.
So today we get up with the grand ambition of trying to raise the mast. And if you haven't stepped a mast (the official terminology) you just haven't lived. So to give you a basic idea of mast topography there are about a million wires, ropes, pulleys and attachments all over this 35-40 ft aluminum pole the size around of softball and we have to fit it over this tiny little protrusion that sticks out of the deck at the highest part of the boat. I think this part of the story will be better in person as my ability to write action drama lacks a little. Anyway so we have me pulling on a rope attached to the top of the mast from the bow (front) of the boat, an old guy we shanghaied (crusty sailor term for kidnapping some one and making them a slave on a boat) from his boat next door to hold the end of the mast in the little protrusion and mike and lennis lifting from underneath.
Well it didn't work out. We got the mast up to about 20 degrees off horizontal and it started to slide to the side and we couldn't hold it so it dropped back onto the boat. Which wasn't that bad except that a cable off the mast that was criminally engineered to fall out at the most inappropriate moment, and to add to indignity the cable is unique and individual and can't be purchased as a part!??, falls out of the mast and right into the water next to the boat and disappears. I immediately turn to the old guy and ask, "how deep is the water here?" And he replies, "oh about 35 to 40 ft." At which point lennis starts to look around for a pistol so he can shoot himself in the face. Did I mention that this cable is crucial to keeping the mast upright?
So there we all are standing around trying to wrap our minds around the fact that our mast in now useless rendering sailing out of the question and our motor is mounted like crap so we can't motor anywhere and no car to get back to the states so we can scrounge/steal a cable that will work. And out of the blue this other guy from a boat close by cruises over and after hearing the story asks if anyone is scuba certified as he has a bca and scuba tank that he just filled up. As a matter of fact lennis is a scuba guy from way back so he slips into his wetsuit and after about a half an hour later comes up from the bottom of the marina with the cable. I immediately decided that I would forego the lottery ticket I was going to buy today and be very careful as I am sure finding that cable used up all the luck our whole group is going to get for at least the next couple of days. But after a very heartfelt celebration we decided to wait until the seas are calm to step the mast and recruit every able bodied human being we can find to get it done the next time. So we have since moved on to installing the electrical system so we can have lights, refrigeration, music and power for tonight. I think we are going to work on the motor mount as well.
Also the boat is always moving from the waves and now as I am sitting here at the computer on solid tierra I can feel the whole world rocking to the ocean. It is really weird!
n
