I first arrived back here on the afternoon of Sunday the 18th of September. Had brother Don's little Toyota truck loaded to cab level with goodies, including about 70 pounds of frozen meats intended to supplement our normal Mexican and fish diet. Al and Beth were still here and all was well, except ----- the refigeration had quit in mid-August, about the same time as the Onan impeller gave up! Well, our meat was packed in dry ice, so I spent the next day cleaning up the mess -- we'd left a little cheese in the refrigerator which had melted in the 110 degree-plus heat and run down the inside, and the water from frost in the freezer had collected a healthy scum of black algae. What a stink! Fortunately, the freezer came to life when I put some freon in it and by Wednesday we were down to 10 degrees and seemed to have things pretty much back in shape.
I changed the impeller on the Onan, then spent the rest of the week stowing the stuff I'd brought back from the States and updating the inventory. Al and Beth were very helpful, as usual, and I got acquainted with a couple of the other crews on the dock: Bill and Debbie King on the "Marjorie Grace" and Simon Elman and Penny on the "Amobel". There's a bit of hard feelings on the dock toward "Niahani Bob", a boater who has sort of taken over the Marina management without authority (or pay), but so far I've had no problem with him. Rosie is gone and Edith is back which helps with the communication -- between Edith and Bob we have pretty good translators.
By Friday the 23rd I had things under control enough to take the day and drive down to Coyote to visit Peter and Mary of the "Santa Maria". They have purchased a house trailer and are busy building a palapa on the beach there. After so long on that little 28 foot boat, they are living in luxury in a space as big as ours!
Headed back with the truck on Saturday intending to spend the night in San Quintin, but got to driving and couldn't quit. Got to Don's place about 8:30 after a fifteen hour drive - the longest I've made in forty years! A couple of more days of shopping for last minute items and I was on my way back again, this time by air. I decided to try out Aero Mexico's new service through Guaymas. It works but it ain't easy, or cheap! I had to first fly from San Diego to L.A. and L.A. to Tucson via U.S.Air ($104.00, it would have been $81.00 if I'd purchased the ticket four days ahead), then Aero Mexico from Tucson to Guaymas, a fifty minute flight ($59.00 including "airport tax"), a taxi to the Armida Hotel ($10.00), hotel for the night complete with lots of las cucarachas ($35.00), taxi to the ferry ($5.00), and ferry fare to Santa Rosalia ($3.50 tourist class which includes a small room without cucarachas), about $220 overall, not including a side trip to look over the marina at San Carlos. I'd have gotten here sooner, and a lot cheaper ($14.00) on the bus, but it was an interesting trip and I met a couple of neat people on the ferry - Roberto Aguirre, a Mexican antenna salesman, and Tony Rios, a desk clerk at the Punta Chivato hotel. Roberto came by a couple of days later and spent several hours with me on the boat, but that's another story.
When I arrived in Santa Rosalia on the hot Wednesday afternoon of 28 Septiembre things weren't going so good. The freezer, which had run so well for four days last week, had quit again and all of our meat was thawed, up to about 50 degrees. I rushed it up to the marina freezer which, fortunately, was almost empty. Then, the next day one of the marina owners, Ruel, took it to the freezer in his little grocery store, Abarrotes "Nanci". This time I couldn't get the freezer going again - the compressor refused to run for more than a few seconds. With the help of Carlos, a Mexican who together with Pepe sort of keeps things going around the marina, I've contacted a refrigeration repair man at the local tech school, Tech. Luis Gonzalez Aguilar (2-09-65). He showed up this morning and confirmed what I had feared, a burned out compressor, probably the result of low voltage on the docks. I spent the rest of the day pulling the compressor out and working on my maintenance list. Looks like I'm in for a 28 hour bus tour to Tijuana.
Went back and pulled the whole condensing unit today after deciding that, if I can't get an exact model number replacement for the compressor, I'd better take the whole unit to San Diego. The Johnstone catalog lists more than a hundred compressors and they don't carry Copeland so the chances are pretty good that I'll have to settle for a different unit which will fit in the same space. Luis said an outfit called Pameco Air handles Copeland in San Diego so I called Shirley and asked her to call them first thing in the morning to find out if an exact replacement is available.
Talked by radio to Phyllis Nansen on the "Fram" this morning through Amobel Penny. They are in Puerto Escondido and will probably still be there when we head south. It'll be fun to compare notes with them! (They were moored for two years with us at the Duwamish Yacht Club in Seattle)
Sitting under the palapa at the marina drinking a cerveza and congratulating myself on my good fortune, I got to talking to Ken and Jane from "Sunglade" and I jokingly offered my bus ticket to anyone who wanted to take a ride. An hour later Ken came by and said Jane had decided to go and would bring back my compressor for me along with some epoxy they needed. Well, more good fortune! People say the Downwind system works, but I'll feel a lot more confident with somebody I know looking after my stuff.
Hacking away at the maintenance list, got the engine zincs checked today - need a new plug for the starboard GMC pencil.
Had dinner at a tiny restarante across from the farmacia where a lady named Maria fixed the best burritos ever!
Ken got a radio message from Jane today saying she will be back tomorrow. I've got my fingers crossed hoping the compressor she brings will be the right one!
Met three young ladies at dinner tonight who are on a six month tour by bus and hitch-hiking, two from Germany, one from Australia. They loved Canada and are enjoying Mexico, but hurried through the States because, "It is too expensive, and dangerous!" An interesting commentary on the richest nation in the world.
Didn't get much accomplished today. I partially assembled the refrigeration unit (Carlos contacted Luis and says he will be down tomorrow), made a beer and ice run, and helped Zack remove his broken shaft. After looking at the shaft it's not surprizing it broke. Starting with an inch and one quarter stainless shaft with a cross section of about 1.23 sq in, some dummy had turned it down to one inch to fit the flange, then cut a 1/4 inch keyway in the side reducing the effective cross section to about 0.72 sq inch. The crack was old and had started at the keyway. I believe our shaft is a full two inches with no cuts where a crack can start.
I sure regretted the language barrier while trying to understand exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it. Luis watched the current draw very closely with his clamp meter - it seemed to be pretty steady between 5.6 and 5.9 amps. He also tried to explain to me how he was using the high-to-low pressure ratio but I never quite grasped what he was saying. To compute the ratio he converted gage pressure to absolute by adding 14.7 to both high and low side readings. He said that it should never exceed 10/1. For the record it varied as follows:
Box Temp High Low Ratio
65 F 150 20 4.75
40 138 15 5.14
35 128 10 5.78
20 120 7 6.21
It appears to me that there is not quite enough refrigerant because the second cold plate is not frosting like the first did. I think Luis is playing it on the safe side and will probably add more when he returns Sunday morning. In any case it appears that we are back in business on our refrigeration! I'll wait a few days for things to stabilize before retrieving our meat.
I also experimented with painting the deck today. Found that I'm probably going to have to do the painting either in very early morning or at night. The surface was so hot that the gel was setting even as I brushed it on. I got a couple of square feet covered but then the wind came up and I had to quit. We had one of those north winds which pull all the dirt from the smelter yard and give us a good dusting. I'll have a job tomorrow cleaning up the mess. I almost feel like leaving it until we're ready to leave but it's awful having everything you touch feel gritty.
Didn't do much else today except wash down and vacuum the boat. We had a bit more north wind but the heavy equipment wasn't working in the yard, so the dust wasn't bad.
Pepi arrived early this morning looking for work, so I put him to oiling the rail while I fiddled with a bunch of little jobs. Zack and Jodie are leaving in the morning for the States, so I wrote several letters and printed out copies of this log to have them mail. Then I got out the epoxy and did some glueing jobs that have been on standby for quite a while. It was hot today, hit about 95. Not a day for great exertion.
I forgot to mention that our neighbors on the port side came back over the weekend, George and Cheri on the "Sailabout". We were anchored with them last fall while we were waiting for the gale warnings to come down in Port San Luis (Avila Bay). Anyway, about 10:30 George came over in sort of a panic. He had opened up his deck seams for recaulking and then discovered that his caulking had gone bad. He asked if I could contact Downwind Marine for him on the single sideband radio (The rules of HAM radio say no "business" communications). I'd never done it before but said I'd be glad to try. Sure enough, when I called on 12A (12,429.2) they answered. Ses, the radio operator at Downwind, seemed to be reading me very well although I could barely make out what she was saying. In any case, George has his polysulfide on it's way and I learned one more method of communication.
Ran the engines today which really warmed the place up, so I spent most of the afternoon on a long siesta, a very nice custom.
The Margorie Grace came back from their overnight at San Marcos this afternoon. They had a couple from San Diego, Mark and Barb Smithy, with them who came over to our boat for a tour. Mark is the assistant retail manager at Kettenburg, the largest marine store in Southern California. Might be a good contact.
I went to El Muralla, the chicken place, for dinner and when I got back a school of lisa, or mullet, were swarming around the stern of the Aurone. The lisa are abundant in the harbor but they feed on aquatic plants so won't take a hook. The Mexicans seem to catch them by jigging. Just for fun I got down the big salmon net and held it in the water under tham. I got nothing with my first sweep, but they were soon back and my next try bagged a three or four pounder. I filleted it and popped it in the freezer. The meat looks similar to the mackerel, mostly white with a bit of red on the sides. Interestingly, once I caught one the school disappeared and didn't come back, at least not until after I'd finished the filleting on the dock.
Just after sunset we were treated to a spectacular display as a huge thunderhead built out to the east toward Isla Tortugas. The lightning in the big cloud, which changed slowly from white to pink in the setting sun, was continuous for more than a half hour.
Went to El Mairen for dinner for the first time since I've been back. Had a delicious turtle stew, the name of which I never caught. Neo and Philipa were as gracious as ever!
Early this morning a couple of fishermen in a small boat came into the harbor and, spotting me awake, came over to the boat. They had three yellowtail and a big cabrillo in the bottom of the boat but had only a line wound on a piece of board with no hook on the end. They were quite excited about the "grande pesca" just outside and indicated that they needed a "currican!". I thought at first they just needed a hook but, after I got out the tackle box, it became apparent that currican meant an artificial lure. I gave them one of the small casting jigs with a treble hook and, in return, they gave me a nice ten to twelve pound yellowtail. Interestingly, I've never seen a Mexican fisherman with a fishing pole; (except in the company of a gringo) they use a hand line with either a lure or a weighted and baited hook on the end. They are very good at casting with the hand line and then retrieving it with a jerking arm motion which seems quite effective.
Spent the whole day cleaning! Seems like I can't get one thing clean before something else is dirty again!
I went up to the Farmacia at 7:00 this evening to call Lois and found at least ten people all crowded into that tiny store waiting for calls. The kid doing the calling could only say, "Ahora no!" (Not now!) Well, I'd told all the folks on the dock that I was going to get word on the baby, so when I got back they were disappointed. Jack, on the "Ventura", volunteered to try a phone patch on the HAM net. It worked! After a bit of trying he found a HAM named Grant on Whibey Island who made the patch to Puyallup. The news I got wasn't so great - no baby yet, but it was nice to talk to Lois anyway. Sounds like I'm going to be batching it for at least another ten days. I'm sure going to be in need of a haircut when she gets here!
We had sort of an impromtu party on the dock tonight. It started with the launching of Ken and Jane's dinghe which they have been working on for weeks. I offered them a drink to celebrate and before long there were eight or ten of us sitting around on the dock drinking rum and coke and swapping tales. It went on until 11:00 PM - never did get dinner although people kept digging out munchies.
Worked on the Metz again today; the super weatherstrip adhesive didn't work, so I had to do those patches over as well as several more. I used Resistol 5000 this time which has done well before. I also painted the bare spots with hypalon. I'll check it again with soap suds in the morning.
Ken and Jane left on the Sunglade this evening; they're going north to careen their boat and wanted to catch the October high tides. I'll miss them - never saw such a hard working couple.
Dinner at Terrazo - Ed's birthday - not bad but Marie's little place across from the Farmacia California is still the best food in town.
I went down to the PEMEX station this morning, found a nice couple in a camper who were heading north, and gave them the letters to Lois. I also mailed a copy through the Mexican mail. It'll be interesting to see which arrives first.
The harbor sure is filling up with boats; in addition to the 14 boats on the docks there are 10 anchored out. A lot of them are staying for the festivities this weekend - Santa Rosalia Days start tomorrow.
Ran the engines today - I think everything is in shape to go cruising as soon a Lois gets back. I'm ready!
Sort of a nice lazy day today. I vacuumed the boat, again, washed the bathroom rugs, and started in on washing the windows. I can't get too excited about final cleaning until we are ready to leave - another north wind could make it all for nought.
Talked to Mom on the telephone this afternoon - missed Dad - she's sounding good.
The fiesta started this evening with the crowning of the queen and a speech by the governor. I had watched with interest, men working to install a huge air compressor near the speaker's stand. It was and ancient thing and they were having some difficulty in getting it ot operate. I couldn't imagine what the planned to do with it. Well, tonight I found out; they had hooked up a couple of the old steam whistles from the smelter and, as the governor came to the part of his speech where he said there were better days coming for Santa Rosalia, he emphasized his point by blowing the whistles. The crowd roared!
It's quite a party! They have booths all around the plaza, plus up a couple of streets - half of them selling food of some kind. Rides for the kids up another street, a model of the town with many of the buildings accurately enough portrayed to recognize, and lots of pictures and data on both history and current status of Baja industry and agriculture spread across the front of the Palace Municipal and along another street. I'll spend some time tomorrow looking at those displays.
Ran into my chubby friend, Jose, from the Port Captain's office. He remembered me immediately and, grabbing me by the arm, gave me the tour of the place. It was only 7:00, but he'd already had a few too many cervezas and it was with some difficulty that I finally escaped. He remembered the cap I gave him and kept saying, "No problem, mi amigo, no problem! You want to stay a year, no problem!" I'll have to stop by and see him at the office.
After my battle with the radio I decided to walk up to the plaza and look at the displays; they are all gone! Evidently the people of Santa Rosalia can only stand so much serious business. All that is left are the bars, food and nicknack stands, rides, and bandstands with amplifiers which do a nice job of sending their music to the marina a half mile away. I missed my chance for enlightenment.
While we were talking to Phyllis she gave me the names of some Ham operators in Seattle who are often on the Manana or Seafarers nets. They could get a message to us almost anywhere we go. They are:
Russ (206)284-0982
Al Carlson (Somewhere in north Seattle)
Bob Hayden (206)454-7243
I washed down the boat even though I know I'll have to do it again before we leave; it was getting so bad I couldn't stand it. While I was in the process, a man I met at the fish taco stand the other day stopped by for a chat. Nice guy, a retiree who worked many years for the phone company in Seattle and Tacoma; named Wally Panabaker. He raced hydroplanes on Lake Washington in the days when an individual could still play the game. He now has a six bedroom house on the top of the hill in Santa Rosalia which he rents for $250 a month. Says he really enjoys being one of the six permanent gringo residents of the town. At the moment he is batching while his wife recovers from surgery in San Diego. I think he is lonely; he talked for a long time.
Don't know what happened to the rest of the day. Walked up to Maria's for a burrito dinner, then in the middle of the night, woke up with a miserable pain in my left hip. Don't know what I did to deserve that, but I can hardly walk! I promised Wally I would come see his house on the hill; hope I can make it!
Al Warawa showed up this evening on the bus from La Paz. He's picking up his motor home which he plans on driving down the mainland to Puerto Vallarta. I'll send some mail with him to the States.
It was a nice day and my hip was feeling better (I must have slept on it wrong), so I walked my bike up the hill to Wally's house. It, the house, is a real beauty! It overlooks the ferry landing and has a spectacular view of the sea and islands; six bedrooms, three and one half baths, and a swimming pool which he hasn't filled because he's worried about the neighbor kids. We sat and had a beer while he talked again about his hydroplane days in Seattle. He was a semi-professional waterskier who got into hydroplanes and raced in the 50's with the likes of Russ Slay and Bill Muncey. Never won any big ones, but had a lot of fun running with the big boys.
Wally invited me to use his phone to call Lois, so I went back in the evening when I'd told her I'd call. It's sure easier calling from a quiet home than it is from the crowded and noisy drugstore; the call went through immediately. She's coming home! Will be on the 8:00 AM bus Friday morning unless Don and Shirl decide to drive her down. I was surprized when she mentioned that latter possibility, but I guess they really enjoyed their trip last spring.
I ran both engines today; I've been running the
GMC for a few minutes every day since Simon cleaned the prop.
Went to dinner with Amobel & Peregrina to a taco place I hadn't tried before; very good! I guess I haven't mentioned Peregrina before - Rafael and Marsha. Rafael is a Spaniard who spent most of his career in Mexico, an artist who designed many of the Mexican postage stamps currently in use. A very nice guy with a sense of humor and complete command of English, he has been acting as translator for we English speaking folks. The "Peregrina" is an interesting sailboat, a 36 ft catboat with the single non-shrouded mast far forward and a huge wishbone boom that can be swung out at ninty degrees when running downwind. It appears to be a very comfortable live-aboard.
They ahd left Fallbrook at 5:00 AM and were pooped, so I jumped on the bike and went to town for burritos. Wouldn't you know, Maria's place was closed so I had to settle for the second best, Dona Maria's. I suppose that is a little confusing but the two best burrito makers in town are named Maria and Dona Maria. (There ought to be a ~ over the n in Dona but I haven't figured out how to make the printer do that.)
Looks like we're read to head out tomorrow. 'Bout time!
Don and Shirl pulled out about 7:30 this morning as we started securing things for cruising. We washed down the deck with fresh water for the last time, put away the tarps, bike, and hoses, and tried to get all the loose stuff that creeps out when you're docked back where it belongs. It'll take a bit of rolling before we get it all together again.
13:30 - Dropped anchor in the south anchorage on Isla San Marcos. We hadn't planned on going far today; this was sort of a shakedown. I cranked up Jennie and started the watermaker, which has been pickled since May. It ran OK, although at first there was quite a cloud of grey in the discharge water, but the fresh water has a bit of odor to it, perhaps a reminant of the sodium bisulfite. I ran it for about 1/2 hour, then changed the filters and ran it again for an hour. We'll run another hour or so before starting to put it in the tank.
It's sure nice to be out where it is clean and quiet again, although we could still hear trucks on the highway five miles away. It was a warm night, sea flat and very little breeze. We slept with no cover, any warmer and we'll be up on deck.
Tach stopped working as we came in last night
Small leak in ONAN flow sensor
Depth recorder rubber band rotted(Broke my head trying to fix while running)
Inverter won't start(Need to disable low voltage cutout)
07:40 - Cranked up the anchor. Both Lois and I are out of condition - glad we only had 100 feet of chain out! We ran around Punta Chivato, across to Bahia Concepcion, and down to Coyote. I ran the HRO most of the way. There is still a very slight stale odor to the water but by the time it goes through our two activated charcoal filters that will be gone. We're getting a good product water flow in this warm water.
11:40 - Anchored in Coyote. Peter saw us as we entered the cove and called on the radio, so we got down the Metz and went over to their new Palapa on the beach. They have a really nice setup here: a thirty foot trailer under one side of the Palapa on the sand beach, a $400.00 car on the other side, and their boat on a mooring right out front. They don't have much money invested, but have a place to call home.
We talked for a while, then came back to the boat and I went to work on the bottom. The water temperature is just perfect, about 85-90 degrees, and it sure felt good because the afternoon air temperature was up to 97. Pepi did a pretty good job on the hull above the four foot level, but he hardly touched the bottom of the keel. We still have quite a beard growing down there. I worked for about an hour and a half with Lois moving a line for me so I could stay down easily. By then I was pooped. I was using the snorkle and it was so much work getting down and up that I didn't have much time for scraping.
About 6:00 o'clock Peter and Mary came out to the boat for a shrimp dinner and we had a nice evening visiting. Peter lectured us on all the political and crime problems on the mainland. I think he may be still justifying to himself his decision to put down a few roots on the shore. Other boaters we've talked to haven't had the troubles he experienced. It's good to have a warning though - we'll make sure the pickpockets don't have much to steal.
Peter says he has a "Hookah", a small gasoline engine driven compressor which can be used in water under 50 feet. He'll let me use it tomorrow to finish my bottom work.
The bottom paint seems good, and is doing it's job very well. What few barnacles there are come off with a touch. The bronze fittings are another story; all were encrusted with barnacles! The rudder shoe looked like it was made of rough concrete! Lots of scraping. The zincs are in pretty good shape; all about half gone except for the prop hub zinc which was completely missing, threaded rod, nuts, and all. I spent and hour installing another (Our last, because Doc Freeman sent us a #4 rather than a #2). Anyway, I got the bottom all clean so we should be OK for at least another six months if the dang prop hub zinc will stay put. It should; I put a new stainless rod into the shaft, secured it with a locknut, threaded the zinc itself onto the rod and tightened it with my chain wrench, then put two stainless locknuts behind the zinc.
Went to Peter & Mary's for dinner. Had scallops and "Chocolates", a brown clam abundant in this bay. Great!
Then I went to work on the tachometer. Turned out that the problem was a worn splined shaft between the engine and a 90 degree reduction gear which turn drives a shaft with magnets on it, thus generating the electrical signal which goes to the indicator. The "fix" that I came up with was really quite simple; I reversed the shaft. But, for reasons of which I'm still not sure, I spent a frustrating hour and a half getting it to work. Even now I'm not sure how long it will last, because the reduction gear is obviously worn quite badly and gets hotter than it should be after a few minutes running. For the record the gear has the numbers 1565192 and 1:.500 stamped on it which I assume are the GMC part number and the gear ratio.
The third frustrating project for the day was the inverter low voltage cutoff circuit. It's designed to turn off the load when battery voltage gets below 18.9 volts. That's OK, although the way we use it it is not necessary, but the damn thing won't turn back on again unless the batteries are fully charged to 24 volts. For the last three years we've been able to work around this problem by using the spare batteries which were always charged. Now they are getting a little old so that trick doesn't work. The importance of all this is that we don't like to have to start Jenny just to get our morning coffee.
This morning I pulled the inverter out, took it apart, and tried to find the proper place to put a jumper which the manual says will disable the LVC circuit. Not only does the manual not tell you where the jumper should be located, the circuit diagram is not of the unit we have! After an hour of probing I finally found what I thought was the relay that dropped out and, unable to do the proper thing, jumped the relay it'self. If the diagram had been correct that should have worked; it didn't! After getting it all reinstalled, I found that both the line power and battery power circuits stay on at the same time. So tomorrow I've got the job to do over.
Oh well, it was a beautiful day, not too hot with a nice breeze. Lois and Mary worked on making new seat covers for some aluminum chairs out of a pair of Lois' old jeans. Things could be a lot worse.
12:35 Departed Coyote Bay with a ten to fifteen knot breeze off our bow, just enough to send spray across the windows Lois had just finished cleaning. That was inevitable!
14:30 Anchored at Punta Domingo. I napped for an hour while Lois read, then put up our staysail. It's amazing how much that little sail helps us stay put when we are at anchor. Without it we tend to wander back and forth, tacking first one way and then the other.
That finished I went for a swim and checked our prop zinc; it's still on and solid. It may be that it doesn't get loose until some of the zinc has been eaten away. As long as we are in warm water it's easy for me to keep and eye on it. I have no idea when we lost the last one.
Stuffed clams for dinner - good! To bed early; we'll head for San Juanico in the morning before the wind picks up.
13:00 Got a call on the radio from Al on the Aurora. He'd been to La Paz and made a tentative appointment for us to haul out on the 26th of November. Out, in, and two coats of bottom paint would cost us $450. We'll keep that in mind, but after getting a good look at our bottom this past week I don't think it's necessary.
12:55 Hook down in San Juanico, and guess who's here. Ralph and Phyllis Nansen on the "Fram", our neighbors from the Duwamish whom we have been looking for since last year. We kept missing them by days. The wind was blowing pretty good from the south so we didn't go visiting immediately; instead I continued the saga of the flow sensor. I took it out again and this time I really did it in. Had it so I thought it would work and was reassembling it when I managed to crack the PVC housing. At least I won't have to fuss about it for a while. I'll try to contact Downwind tomorrow and have them send us a new one in La Paz.
17:00 Went over to Fram for drinks and had a nice chat with Ralph and Phyllis. They went to the mainland last winter, then spent the summer in and around Puerto Escodido where they have a car. They said they really enjoyed the summer there and that it never got as hot as it did elsewhere in the Baja. We'll have them over for dinner tomorrow and get all the poop on the mainland.
In the morning I had an inspiration and installed a wire from the LVC reset button on the inverter down to my closet. That solved the problem I've been fussing about for days; now I can turn on the coffee without getting out of bed - a very important project.
In the afternoon I swam and checked our prop zinc again - still in good shape and well attached. Then we took the Metz out for a while - walked the beach looking for shells. Later we went over to the Fram for a birthday party for Barbara on the Aurora. Don, Brenda, and the two boys from the Willow were there, as well as George and Cheri from the Sailabout. Had two cakes and rum punch. Ralph and Phyllis know how to entertain! They came over to our boat for dinner and brought their charts, so we had a grand time getting the story of their experiences on the mainland last winter.
At 8:00 o'clock Al had a scheduled Ham contact with Seattle, so Phyllis tried getting on board with our radio. The Ham in Seattle said he was getting our signal OK but we were distorted so badly we couldn't be understood. At times I've had similar comments from KMI; something must be not quite right about our transmission. Al still managed to find out that Dick and Allyn had a baby girl on the 1st of November, new which made Lois' day for her!
I also broke in my new speargun today or, I should say, I took it into the water for the first time. Peter says that if you want to spear fish you have to think like a fish. It's obvious that I haven't figured that out yet. Although I was surrounded by Sargent Majors and other tiny reef fish, the only good size fish I saw saw me first and took off before I got within fifteen feet of him. I took a couple of shots at almost eating size in amongst the rocks, but only succeeded in dulling the point of my spearhead. Anyway it was fun trying, and the water is perfect - about eighty degrees.
Al and Barbara came over for a couple of hours and we had a nice chat comparing notes on our cruising. They both quit Boeing when Al was 45, went to Alaska and the Queen Charlottes during the summer of '86, then went to Hawai in '87 before coming down here and are planning on heading for New Zealand next spring. Al is a long time Ham and tried out our radio to see if he could determine why Phyllis had trouble talking to Seattle the other night. He had no trouble talking to people in Alabama and Iowa so we're not sure what is happening. Maybe we had some contols set wrong the other night.
I used the Damsel I shot for bait, all of which was stolen by the ittsy-bittsy fish, so we had dinner of the mullet I netted in Santa Rosalia harbor - nice white meat, but a trifle oily. It left a bit of a "fishy" aftertaste.
10:40 Anchored in our favorite spot in Balandra. One Moorings charter boat here but otherwize we have the place to ourselves. We were prepared to battle bugs but, as has been our past experience, we didn't find them. The guys that wrote the guide books must have been here in the summer.
I spent the afternoon patching another hole in the Metz and putting a coat of non-skid on the forward deck. I think the stuff we got from Doc Freeman's is going to work quite well. We're going to all white on the deck; it doesn't look quite as nice as the contrasting grey but stays cooler, as much as twenty degrees cooler. That is important down here! Click here for MORE.