Logs & Stories -  March 2003

March 22nd - En route to Mazatlan

(Email via Maritime Mobile Radio Service)

We left La Paz Thursday late, and spent the night at Balandra to accustom ourselves to motion again; the weather was very obliging and we rocked and rolled all night. Left the next day just before 1 p.m., and at 1 p.m. today we were at N 23 degrees, 37 minutes and W 108 degrees, 2 minutes. We had to put in the second reef to slow us down, as the wind yesterday had us going faster than planned -- even surfed to 11 knots on one wave (I was off watch and asleep, but it woke me up and I watched us surf to 8 knots on the next 10 waves!). We have a bit over 85 miles to go, and we're hoping to arrive sometime after dawn tomorrow. Rick on the Sonrisa net this morning told us there is no dredging on Sundays, so we're hoping we won't have to hang out around the entrance. Apparently there is a dogleg in the entrance and once in, you're committed with no room to turn around, a problem if they're dredging, which they usually are except for two times each day. Our friends on Catherine Estelle will be waiting for us to call so they can come out and assist us in, something I appreciate.

Must finish lunch so I can crash -- I think over the past two nights I have gotten maybe one night's sleep!!

March 12th - La Paz

(Email from Karryn via Internet Cafe)

La Paz, BCS

Despite the lack of updates on the web site, we are all well. We've been extremely busy over the last two months, with the pace only increasing to the point where I am now working from the moment I wake up to when I pass out. The latter usually happens before all the chores are done, so I have been waking up later to finish the dishes.

We spent January setting up the haulout, trying to get everything we had to get done in La Paz finished before we pulled the boat out of the water. We didn't quite succeed, but we made our first attempt to get the boat out of the water Feb. 3rd. The tide wasn't quite high enough, so we rescheduled for 11 days later and then got back to getting more stuff done. Unfortunately the tide still wasn't high enough on the 14th, so we rescheduled our haulout for the following Monday at another yard that was not quite so dependent on the height of the water.

This time everything worked smoothly, thanks to the driver (Rigo) and the rest of the gang at Coast Marine, which is located at Marina Palmira. We spent two weeks living on the boat in the boatyard while putting in long days working on everything below the waterline. We had hoped to get some topsides work done, but that didn't fit in. However, we are pretty happy with the amount and quality of the work we got done, and everything that had to be done was checked off the list. We were, however, doing a couple of last-minute things as they backed the trailer under the boat!

That was Monday (3/3); on Wednesday we loaded up the boat with everything that we pulled off it in preparation for hauling out. It's not still all put away, as Bill knows where it all goes and he left the following Friday, driving north with Jim on Seawitch.

Bill and Jim are on their way back from San Diego, where Bill got new tourist cards (visas), a few boat parts and consumer electronics (including a digital camera – look for new pictures soon!). I've been loading up the boat with all the stuff that we can't buy on the mainland. After stowing it all someplace, we'll be heading for Mazatlan to meet Bill's mom Yvonne and his niece Arlyn.

I've also been trying to tie up loose ends; the work list is huge and I'm already figuring out which jobs must be done here and which can be done in Mazatlan. Since most of what I've been doing is provisioning (not just food!), I have bags of stuff in various places and everything must find a home… Friends on Keeshond (pronounced ‘kays – hond) are leaving for French Polynesia from here, and we've been commiserating about trying to squeeze in just one more item. They don't have much sympathy for me, having helped load the boat from the storage unit, and they say that the people on dock A at Marina de La Paz, where we were loading the boat, are envious of our storage space! No matter how much space one has, it never seems enough…

Regarding boat lists: everyone has one (or more), they always have many items on them, and the lists never get shorter. We have learned that anything less than a priority B only gets done if it rides on the back of a priority A; anything that's marked as a priority D, well, just forget about it! Herb Payson in his book ‘Blown Away' said it best when describing the work done in preparation for leaving on their cruise, although it's true for any port departure: ‘Back at the marina we busied ourselves with a final checklist that, like Zeno's Paradox, was continually halved but never eradicated.'