Getting Ready

THE PASSAGE, PART 1, PREPARATION

I know this is late and it has taken us a long time to get any information out after our passage but we were tired after the passage and hence laziness ruled over productivity.  Now you may get bombarded with blogs(I doubt it but that is our intention as of right now) with the creative and original thought that you would expect of people who have spent three weeks in the most uncomfortable surroundings your little city dweller minds could think of(have you figured out this trip has given me a bit of a superiority complex, some people my say 'enhanced' my superiority complex but I would say listen to me not them as I am obviously better).

Our passage started in La Paz around the 9th of May.  Between the 9th and 18th of May we busied ourselves in La Paz getting the boat ready for passage.  We did take 2 days off and go and visit josh and Christine in Pescadero.

Christene and Josh's little abode

 but I still count that as working for the passage.  We managed to finally come to a suitable arrangement for doing work.  We had quite a big list of chores to do and decided to divide these up from the start and let everyone do their share when the wanted.  This seemed to work very nicely and everything was done by the time we were ready to leave(the list of chores will be posted in  separate blog under the name 'LIST OF CHORES').

Now a little about La Paz.  Ever since we had bought the boat we have heard about La Paz.  It is revered in the sailing community the way the the Emerald city is reviled by the inhabitants of Oz.  It is the Promised Land.  We met so many people on our travels that only wanted to get to La Paz and then all would be well.  It ended up being pretty funny as we just kept running into people with this mentality.  So naturally being the cynical group that we are we spent a good 2 months just ripping on La Paz.  Small knowing smiles would appear whenever we met someone else who 'just wanted to get to La Paz' and inevitably that conversation would provide a good days worth of humor for the boat.  It got so bad that I developed this uncontrollable need to go to la Paz and see what this place really is about(when I started this trip I had no desire to go to La Paz and when we passed it with out going there on our way through Mexico I never once thought it was a shame we didn't go).  And so after much thought and deliberation we changed our plans due to refrigeration issues and forsake our chance at Guatemala, El salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, The Galapagos and Easter Island  and instead ended up in La Paz(yes refrigeration was that big a deal to us and it was probably the best decision of the trip so far).  and this is what we found

Wouldn't you know it La Paz is the Promise Land.  This was by far my favorite city in Mexico.  It is super safe and very friendly. It has everything you need,  a downtown with a good dose of charm and a Mexican downtown that provided just the right amount of intimidation and discomfort that a non spanish speaking white person would want.  And then there is the sailing community which is naturally huge and obviously brings in large amounts of money to the town.  It covers every form of boater in every financial bracket.  This makes for endless interesting meetings and conversations as well as a certain recklessness in the boating attitude culminating in the numerous boats that manage to become 'involved' in accidents and are in need of repair. I always thought we were in the 'very good chance of damaging the boat' bracket, but after La Paz I wouldn't even put us in the 'average chance of damaging the boat bracket'.  Then you have the sunsets which are like the picture below every night we were there.  There are numerous places you can sit and have a drink or something to eat to watch these and they are fantastic.

So that is La Paz.  And we were lucky to be able to provision here and get the boat ready.  It made our lives easy and a lot more enjoyable than what it could have been at a lot of the other places.  After a fun filled month hanging around La Paz and the bottom of the Sea of Cortez we had our refrigeration fixed(and it is great)  the boat chores done and the boat stocked with food and parts and we were ready to go.  Our original plan had been to leave La Paz on the 14th, stop in Cabo on the 16th and be on our way to the Marquesas.  The reality was a little different.

A lot of what I am about to talk of next was censored when it first happened.  The reason for this was that we didn't really want anyone to worry and we have a few members of our family's that are following us quite closely that would worry.  Its funny when the roles are reversed and you started sheltering your parents from things you don't think they can handle.  Maybe it is just preparing us for when we have our own kids.   Now that it is all said and done I can give you a few more details.  We left La Paz on the 18th of May(4 days late because we couldn't get our shit sorted)) about half way through our trip to Cabo, Don informed me that he had noticed the starboard water tank was leaking.  He had known about it for a while and chose to censor it from the rest of the crew to see how it would play out.  I only found out because I was in the habit of checking it too.  When I probed some more it became apparent we were going to lose half our water supply about 3 hours after leaving Cabo.  This was a concern.  So we stopped at a the closest marina which ended up being 14 miles short of Cabo.  Here we set about dealing to the minor problem which had presented itself on our trip from La Paz to Cabo(which takes about a day and a half).  We commenced these positions for the next 2 days.

Two days later we had managed to fix our tank and in the process fix the third water tank we had originally left as we didn't need it.  So we went from having half our water supply in a tank we knew would be good to having all our supply plus half as much again in 1 tank we new would be good, one tank we were pretty positive would be good and one tank we had no idea about.  So for a few days it was a little sketchy as to what would be reliable and what wouldn't(you can never really trust a fix on the boat till about a month later, from what we have found and then it is just as likely to fail as anything else on a boat which is pretty much everything on our boat). 

We got to Cabo the afternoon of the 21st and pulled into the fuel dock to fill up on fuel and water(we didn't do this at the marina we stayed in because we found out the fuel was unreliable and the water undrinkable).  Upon completing this process we found our water line from our tanks to the sinks were leaking rather bad and our main water filter had finally clogged up enough that it would no longer let any water through.  So now we have lots of water(supposedly) but no way of getting it to the taps.  The next two hours saw Carl running back and forth between the boat and marine stores trying to find a filter and fittings to fix our leak.  Don losing any kind of hand to eye coordination he might have possessed in the past and cutting his hands three times in the space of three minutes(one was a real bleeder too) which then relegated him to expressing his opinion about what to do while I did it.  While this is going on the girls are dealing with the guy on the fuel dock is getting more and more pissed because we have been sitting at his dock for 3 hours not really doing anything(if only he knew, we tried to tell him but it was Cabo so he didn't care , he just wanted us to leave so his fuel dock could look a little more attractive to people with some real money,  can't really blame him there).  We eventually eliminated the filter as we could find no replacement, plugged the leak and put everything back together.

 So off we went with 275 gallons(yes we know this is a lot) of crapy tasting water spread across one good water tank and  two suspect water tanks.  A suspect water line. Two lame looking tiny water filters and a ridiculous amount of plumbing parts that we are not even sure will fix a problem if we have one. 

And so starts part 2.  The crossing.

Whales and things

So first let me apologize for the slackness of our posting lately.  The trip down form california was as speedy as possible so we could make a wedding here in Puerto Vallata and because the weather was not being very nice so we had to try and avoid that.  There will be some posts pop up in the next few days about that so I will leave it there.

What I am here to talk about is the Whales.  The are everywhere here and have been pretty active since we left Ventura.  So far we have seen 1 Blue whale(they are real big and can have a tongue that weigh's the same as an elephant,  Average elephant is 8000 pounds, average baby elephant is 260 pounds, and the average person is 170 pounds(I am giving humanity the benefit of the doubt here).  So evidently a Blue Whales Tongue can weigh as much as 1 elephant, 32 baby elephants or 48 Humans, Thats a pretty sweet tongue).  We also sore some humpback whales and some Pilot whales.  The pilot whales are the most playful and are always jumping around and slapping their tales.  We watched one of these guys slap his/her tale for a good 30 minutes coming out of Cabo.  I hope there was some good food around cause that whale must have been tired after that display.

So we sore whales everyday and like most things you see everyday you get used to and a little less excited about.  The really good part about this was that no one took any pictures/video of whales.  Most of us used the excuse "I just want to enjoy the moment and not miss it by getting the camera" but after a week or two it was more laziness than anything, plus most were a long way off.  The one exception to this was the humpback that decided to play with us.  Out of no where while sailing the boat takes a massive lurch upwards and this huge fin comes out of the water on our starboard side.  It was close enough to touch and came out as high as the deck. Everyone freaked out a bit and yelled and screamed.  I checked the bilge to see if we were taking on water(their wasn't any but I am paranoid about those things). and then everything settled down and we both went on our merry ways.  My one hope in this situation was that from the whales perspective it went like this

Whale 1(we will call Fred):  Hey Jim here comes another boat.  You want to have a go

Whale 2(his name is Jim if you hadn't noticed):  Nah Fred I am kinda over it.  That last boat was kinda lame and put me on a downer.

Fred:  Ah whatever Jim.  This has been the best day so far, I am going for it
(Fred swims towards our boat, Sonaring the tune to mary had a little lamb)

Fred: Oh I got you now boat., have a taste of Humpback Fred's wake, oh yea that felt good now now suck on my right tale fin(to me this would be the same as the middle finger)

Fred and Jim:   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Jim:  HAHA that was brilliant.  Did you see the faces on that lot.  Nice work Fred

Fred:  Told you that looked like  a good boat.  I bet those suckers are even checking their bilge for water.  Chumps

Jim:  Ok, Let me go next, where is the next boat


And that is our experience with whales so far.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Turtles. There have been lots of turtles floating around in the sea of Cortex.  They are cool but they don't do much except stick their heads up for a moment to look.

Seals and Sealions.  These guys are everywhere including 20 miles off shore.  Super playful and they will follow you for a while.  The ones in Ensanada were really loud and aggressive.  We were even warned to keep the dog away from the sides as he would get taken by a sealion if he got to close.

Flying Fish.  These guys are crazy and are everywhere.  They charge around about a half a foot off the water.  Really agile and quick.  Can be a little scary at night when you can't make out exactly what they are.

Hope all is well and happy reading

How low can you go

So in the past I have been accused of being a pessimist and extremely negative in my opinions/blogs.   This has got me thinking and after much thought and debate between my many sparkling personalities I have decided to embrace my negativity and use it to express some real feelings about our little adventure.  I will not can-da-noodle anyone(yes I know this is a made up word but it seems to fit into my present mind set) and try to tell it how I see it.  Enjoy and if you don't like it then bypass these posts every 5 days.  See I even provide easy outs for people.  negativity is underrated.

So life is Cruising along up here.  Being 15 feet off the ground in a 48 foot boat that is weighing around 18 tonnes is not the most settling feeling.  However you do what you do to survive. 

Thursday was Lisa's birthday.  'Best birthday ever' I think was her opinion of the day.  There may have been a mild/severely sarcastic tone along with her response but I am not sure.  She did get a brand new wind turbine and a vegan red velvet cake so I am not sure what possible reason she could have for complaining.  She is 34 though so maybe that has something to do with it.

Carl and Don did a great job on the Wind Turbine and It has been humming along for a good 12 hours now.  Funnily enough it puts me right to sleep.  The electrical has not been hooked up yet.  This means there is a reasonable amount of power moving along the wire and out into nothingness.  I can't wait until Don and Carl start seeing who can hold on the longest and Leslie and I get some real life practise for our EMT/Medical skills.

The mood on the boat has turned decidedly nasty.  Our first real storm and it has nothing to do with the weather.  Everyone is super tired and stressed and this tends to come out like sharp bursts of lighting rather than seeping out like the water inside the boat is currently doing through our keel (yes I know water seeping out is meant to be a good thing but the thing is if it can seep out while we are up on blocks that means it can seep in when the boat goes back in the water).  We always knew personality clashes and general bitchiness would be a problem and we need to learn to deal with it.  We haven't figured that out yet but we will.  I blame Don

The mast step was taken out on Wednesday.  Don and I helped our new friend John smash/rip/pry and burn 4 big bolts and a steel plate from the keel.  It took about 3 hours and my arms hurt so much afterwards.  Hammering a copper wedge under a steel plate with 10 inches of swing room for the hammer is about a pleasant as driving for 3 hours in a seat positioned for a 4 foot 2 midget (not sure if a 4 foot 2 person qualifies as a midget but in my books they do now).  Once the step was out it was power washed and then inspected.  Upon where it was determined that the step was unrecoverable and would cost about a grand and a week to build a new one.  Don released a moment of pure fork lightening while I smiled purely based on the thought that my estimation for how long we would be on blocks was right and Don's was wrong.  Then I thought about the thousand dollars and stopped smiling, But Don's pain got the better of me and I started smiling again.

So that is about where we are at.  The boat leaks, we are oozing money like the keel is oozing water, Everyone wants to smash everyone else in the face on a regular basis, and the actual weather sucks for the first time since we have been here.

I blame Don

and the road goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on...........

Andy:

we are referred to as "the computer people"

So our updates have started to get a little random since the arrival of the ladies and Carl.  Don and I had developed a very efficient and effective routine that covered everything we needed to do and have access to for the day.  Then the other three came along and it seems like all Don and I are doing are covering for mistakes they have made.  However, that still means three people are getting work done instead of two which I guess is better.  5 people getting work done would be even better though.

the Craigs looking sharp

Henkel talking through the tecate

I should be done today

The last couple of days it really seems like these lists just never get smaller.  We are still starting projects only to find they release more projects rather than just being done.  Don spent the week with the mechanic rebuilding the engine.  He has developed quite the tradesman's attitude.  By this I mean he has a dramatic sigh and deep thinking face when asked anything about what he is doing followed by some quick, hard to understand statement that is filled with part names we have no idea about.  All this is then finished by an ETF (estimated time finished) which has steadily gotten further and further from the truth as the week goes by.  Based on yesterdays estimate it is now appropriate to multiply Don's estimate of how much time he needs by 3.

"Let's go!"

Carl has jumped into the fray with an enthusiasm unrivaled by anyone.  He has managed to keep this for the whole week and we all hope this never leaves.  Carl has fallen straight back into his role of disagreeing with Don on absolutely everything.  This is a major factor leading to my earlier comment about Don's productivity going down.  He does do this with such vigor that it is hard to knock him for his distractions.  His projects this week have included bagging dog food for a day to keep any bugs out.  He replaced the binnacle compass, he hung extinguishers and finished the week off with two days of toilet maintenance and replacement (there will be pictures and video of this).  He seems to like this last job and handled the smells with only a couple of screams that would rival any 10 year old girl.

indoor plumbing is pending

Leslie has been charging around the boat organising shit.  I am really not sure what shit she has been organising but she sure looks like she has been doing a lot and she does it in such a classy way that you don't really ever question what she is doing.  Except evidently when you are writing a  blog about what Leslie has been doing this week.  When asked, her response is a resounding "weeding out what doesn't belong and practicing my Spanish"  sounds good to me.  Plus she cleaned a lot, people that means a lot.

working hard

Lisa has been charging around cleaning stuff.  Taking apart and cleaning the kitchen and then putting it back together.  Pulling out as many recipes from her cook books as she can before we get rid of them.  More cleaning and a little cooking.  All of that took about 35 minutes and the rest of her week has been spent establishing herself as the pack leader when Carl is not around.  This has meant that Raleigh gives 60% of his attention to Carl and 39% of his attention to Lisa.  I get about 0.25% of this attention and most of this is Raleigh rolling his eyes at me because he has to share Lisa's attention with me.  Dogs in my opinion are overrated and should not be allowed in bedrooms.

he freaking loves to lay in walkways

Raleigh has been adapting well.  He has taken the crew into his pack quickly and is a very good dog.  He consistently makes very supportive whining sounds when we leave and come back.  I take this as him saying "go have fun guys, don't worry about me I am just a dog and have had way to much attention today from Lisa anyways".  Raleigh hasn't fallen off the boat yet or shat or peed on any part of the boat.  This has been a good week for Raleigh.

"the flash"

As for me.  You can basically just take everything everyone has done that is mentioned above and fit me in there.  I have been like the flash this week.  In every place all the time.  It's just what I do.  What can I say I am perfect.  Enjoy the week and the pictures.

"in the shit"

Hey look, it's Glenn!

Freaking Out Man

 This post was written yesterday but was help back a day due to crew management concerns.  We apologize for the hold up but under the circumstances it was probably the best decision.

Oh what a 24 hours.  Yesterday Don and I went down to LA.  We went back to our favourite second hand sailing store and got some rope for some big lines and some dock lines , some more anchors, more rags, an important book or two and some other stuff I have foregotten.  Then it was off to an industral plastic supply company to hunt for some polycarbonate for our windows.  Found some. Done, sorted and presently being cut.  The part I missed here was the 3 hours last night Don spent creating a cad file to send to a fulla to cut the windows.  Don had a little freak out followed by another little freak out and finshed off by a medium freak out.  Evidently his widnowsXP set up on the computer is not the best of friends with the cad program making a seemily simple task into a monster.


The good freak out of the day came courtesy of Leslie and Lisa.  2462 miles away in New York Lisa and leslie are packing up and finishing off the New York Project.  Evidently this isn't going as smoothly as the girls thought it should be.  Yesterday Don and I spent a good part the afternoon/evening talking the ladies off the proverbial ledge they had established themselves on.  If at any point during this trip we had wanted to pitch our trip as a reality tv show, I have a feeling yesterday would have been the day to use.  Somehow the space available inside the vechical aquiured by the ladies did not match with the space needed for the essentails packed inside the apartment.  This combined with the last minute selling of things (which then means a lot of waiting for people who are never on time) and the general feelings about leaving New York and living on a boat for the next year finally pushed both of them over the edge. 


Now I see your what you are thinking here.  Its an easy solution.  You harden up, deal with it and move on.  If you need to get rid of Stuff, Get rid of Stuff.  If you need to ship Stuff, Ship Stuff.  Get a big burly neighbour to sit on a few things in the car to create some more space.  Just do what needs to be done.  But Here I would need to stop you and remind you that not everyone see's the world your way and you need to have a little compassion especially with poeple in the middle of a mess like this.  I would also propose that I would fly you here from anywhere in the world just to watch you try and reason with these two ladies during a full blown panic attach.  That is something I would pay good money to see.
"Don would like to include here that it is probably best if you read the last paragraph in the context of Andrew Looking in a mirror"


More to the point.  Solutions were finally found.  Tears where wiped away and two very tired and drained men went to bed(the ladies had more work to do).  Lets see what happens tomorrow

YOU SHUT UP ANDREW WEBSTER

Mr Webster has been making some suspect comments along the lines of 'The blind leading the blind'.  Response numero uno is as above.  Response Numero Dos(we have to learn Spanish sometime so mise as well start now) is "If by the blind leading the blind you mean two dedicated , knowledgeable, POLITE and supportive individuals taking turns at  navigating through a consistent flow of tricky situations and always coming to a positive and satisfying conclusion, then you are spot on Mr Webster.  Thank you for your support".

So the last few days it has felt like it is 'the blind leading the blind' around here. Don and I have been fumbling our way through cleaning/sanding/taping and painting engine parts as we slowly head towards a refurbished engine.  We replaced the middle support for the engine doors, stabilizing them (by we I mean Don. I did watch and supplied a number of supportive comments which really helps with Don's self confidence in these situations).  This was important as they are high traffic areas and are showing lots of wear.  We measured out the windows in the main salon and have decided to replace the two biggest and most venerable ones.  We also pulled out and tested the storm windows.  We were very happy with their performance.  I also bought a new Radio.  My dad and a local ham here in Santa Barbara recommended the same model radio.  So I hunted one down on eBay and sorted myself out.  Once it arrives I get to build my first little radio station so we can talk to people and maybe send some e-mails when out on the ocean.  Another tricky situation to be navigated.

That was about it for the day and our reward for a solid work week was a evening watching the Jets lose to the Steelers.  This made me very unhappy and Don very indifferent as he couldn't care less about Football(any kind of football, he doesn't discriminate)

Lets see what tommorrow brings.  Maybe some more supportive comments from certain "FRIENDS".

Take a Lap

So this morning don and I moved the boat from our slip to the boat yard so it could be hauled out for the prop to be re-pitched.  This would seem like a simple endevour but as with anything with this boat or any boat it seems it has not been.  First,  Donald (remember he is the captain so the cofidence he exude's dictates the rest of the crews feelings) has been making nervous comments about moving the boat with the two of us for the last few days.  I have heard this before so didn't really think anything of it and just put Don's nervouosness down to his questionable manhood.

So last night I went to sleep happy in my thoughts of our productive day (more on that later) and woke up around 2 in the morning needing to go pee.  After satisfying this need I got back into bed and listned as the wind outside got steadily worse.  After about 2 hours of no sleep and general restlessness I got up and removed all the things above deck that could be blown off and tied down a few things to eliminate some noise.  This semi worked and I proceeded to gain another 2 hours of kinda sleep.  Upon waking in the morning I am now groggy and a shower and stretch do nothing.  I also find out funnily enough that our fearless captain had also been up in the night and felt pretty similar to me.

Now lets put this move into perspective.  It includes us backing out of the dock. Turning the boat and driving about half a mile to the boat yard where we need to stop and tie off a 17 ton boat.  All with two poeple.  Seems pretty simple right.  Didn't sound like a big deal to me. 

So off we go.  We both take the time to unhook everything and make sure everything is out of our way and stored (this did not happen in a previous occasion).  We move the dinghie out of the way for when we come back.  We start the engine up and let her warm up.  We take a look around and get ourselves ready.  It is about now that don lets me know that when they docked last time it was him, leslie and two guys on the dock(4 people) and that this hasn't been done with just two of us yet.  He is also bitching about how the thing doesn't turn right when it is under power (he's been doing this for a week now).  Cool, everything still sounds pretty good to me.  Untie everything,  push the boat off, jump on, boat is swinging the right way, looking good, easy as bro.

Fast forward one minute and we are 3 feet away from one of the other boats and pointing the wrong way down a dead end, and Don is cursing a little.  Well we havn't hit anything yet and we havn't sunk so i am still feeling pretty good but getting a little more nervous.  The next 10 minutes went like this.  I got a big pole and prepared to push off anything and don went back and forth and few dozen times.  However we got out and I was pretty impressed with Don's effort and my everlasting optimism.

Time to cruise over to the dock at about a half a knot (its a 17 ton boat, you try and stop that thing).  We get there, turn in with ease, I jump off and tie her up and we are done.  Wait there has to be more to this.  Nope, evidently if you feel unsure about driving a boat just make sure the engine is really good and you have lots of time to go back and forth. We were even there early.

PS  yesterday was really productive and we got lots done but still have lots to do.

Roller Derbie

Today we are both feeling pretty lethargic.  Don spent most of last night throwing up due to food poisoning.  I pretty much ate the same things as him yesterday so I guess this just shows how much of a man I am and Don isn't.  Due to Don's musical number that lasted into the wee hours of last night I didn't sleep very well and now instead of one very grumpy individual and one happy individual we now have one very grumpy and one semi grumpy individual which equals two grumpy individuals.  Just goes to show how good we are at teamwork.

Yesterday sore some more cleaning work on the boat.  We are very close to having the anchor locker cleared out sorted and done.  We found we do have a drain in the locker which was doubtful for a few hours and a pleasant surprise to find.  We have devised a Way to keep the chain off the floor so the water can run to it's drain freely and so the chain and rode won't sit in lots of salt water for extended amounts of time.  We also took another trip to LA and bought two 300 feet rope rodes, some shackles, some pins, a guide book, some rags and a deck scrub.  So now all we need to finish off our anchor set up is 250 feet of chain and a new anchor.  The new anchor seems to be the problem as we can't find easy access to the ones we want but we can get cheap knock offs.  Then the question becomes will they work well enough.  We will see.  If you feel like nerding out on anchors we are trying to find an original Bruce anchor(lots of knock off versions around) or we really would like a rocna anchor(which is made in New Zealand and is the new buzz in the anchor world) but are having a hard time convincing ourselves to spend the money.

In between the boat work and the buying things I did my usual coffee finding mission.  I have been hunting down places for coffee everywhere I go these days and any trip to LA has been no different.  I have had limited success and I think I am running at a 50% success ratio.  But then this is mainly due to the existence of intelligentsia in LA who seem to have a plan for domination.  Without them I would really be struggling.  We managed to waste a good 2 hours looking for coffee and taco's(I think don feels left out with my coffee excursions so yesterday he felt the need to focus on finding a good taco We think this is what led to the food poisoning).

After our little sailing purchasing spree.  We drove over to the local Orange County roller rink to watch Lisa play her Roller Derbie.  Now to me anything that starts with Orange County feels like it should be a reality TV Show and this scene definitely agreed with that assumption.  Thankfully this group had not progressed that way and it just ended up being a small stadium filled with people shouting at ladies in funny outfits rolling around in circles smashing each other.  And I do mean smashing each other.  Just girls laying other girls out like it was nothing.  Lisa performed wonderfully and even ended up winning the game for her team (this is even better when you take into consideration that she spent more time during the game in the penalty box than out of it).  If you have never been to one of these it is worth making the effort.  After watching a whole match I concluded there was no way I would be able to participate as with my fragile body I would be taking up to much of the on site doctors time and hence not allowing any relief for the real players.  Don on the other hand thought he could take most of the girls easily and that he would have no problem making the A team.  Again putting into question his manliness (I don't care if this isn't a real word it just works OK)

Then we went home and Don started throwing up.

FAIL

So some of you may be wondering why the lack of pictures lately.  Well it is because don (yes he is little d again) left all the important batteries back in New York.  So Now we have a very expensive camera doing nothing while so many important events in this trips lifespan pass all of you by.  Now right here you should be wondering why a trip of this magnitude only has one camera involved in it.  well, it doesn't.  It is just that andrew (yes I have eliminated my capital too) put his little digital in such a safe place it took him two days to find it again.  So now we have my little camera and a new waterproof camera to bring you more pictures while our big camera has a couple of days off.  To be fair the big camera probably needs it couple of days off and it is time for the little cameras to step up anyway.

So today I have given the both of us a Fail.

Yesterday ended up being a very productive day.  We were back to being up a 7 and on the net by 7:30.  We proceeded to make our usual two trips a day to Home depot (we only do two trips because we manage to forget something the first time, every time).  Don got himself an angle grinder and had a good time cutting through our rusted anchor chain.  This footage is on the big camera but unfortunately you have to use a decent amount of imagination to really see it.  We managed to save a 100 feet of the chain.  We think this will probably be the start of our secondary anchor rode(a rode is the anchor line and is usually either all chain or a combination chain/rope).  After that we blew up the dinghy and put it''s floor in.  We have been patching this for the last two days and as of this morning it was holding it's air and looks in good shape.  The outboard is in the shop for the next week and we are hoping it come's out and work's like a new one.

After the events of the anchor chain we spent a few hours going over all the port holes and seeing what needs replacing.  Don designed some new netting fittings for the port holes which worked really well and will save us another few hundred dollars.

That's about it.  Happy Martin Luther King weekend to everyone and see you tomorrow

Oh and there has been someone severely missing from these posts, Carl. Last night we all received a text from Carl that read "I'm having a minor panic attack right now". So I (this is Don typing now) promptly called him. Now normally any conversation between Carl and I is pretty much just an exchange of insults and belittling remarks to which we both laugh and retort appropriately. It is always this way, whether we are talking about hockey or a death in the family. Always. Last night was the first time I ever consciously stopped winding Carl up. Basically he had things all set to be a reasonable move over the course of 9 or 10 days. Now, due to some out of his hands work delays, he has 2 and a half days. Yeah.....two and one half days to wrap up a life, make sure Raleigh is legal (which has required more work than any other aspect of preparation of the last two years) and drive to SoCal. Thankfully the conversation quickly returned to our norm once I told him of some moronic happening around the boat. He quickly laughed, called me an idiot, and sounded rejuvenated. All hell on the northwest front, or something like that. You can do it Carol Anne!!

Pulling Teeth

So If you hadn't realized already each title usually has a meaning behind it.  Today's title is don's interpretation of how he feels about getting me to write a blog post.  I feel this might be a little bit of an exaggeration.

After Don's insightful description of yesterdays events I would like to expand a little.

Yesterday we drove to San Diego to get don (don doesn't get a capital to start his name because of his performance today) a Hep B Shot.  Now the viability of driving 4 hours to San Diego and back just so don could save on the consultation fee was questionable.  What provoked this even more was the fact we had to deal with LA TRAFFIC all day.  On top of all that we got there and don (still doesn't deserve a capital) had got the day wrong.  Luckily the nurses in the office were lovely and after misusing a couple of very simple words and convincing don maybe these nurse's weren't really who they said they were, but they were sweethearts and got don's newly disease riddled arm out of the office in under 15 minutes.

Part two of our day had us driving in more lovely LA TRAFFIC to a second hand boat shop where we dumped 4 sails and two very old pieces of electronic equipment onto some very suspicious looking characters (one old one with a massive butt crack showing even though he was wearing suspenders).  We managed to grab a quick 1000 dollars for our haul and even though we were thoroughly ripped off it was done quickly and I was very happy with the situation.  Don (he gets his capital back here due to his performance at the second hand shop) complained for a few hours about how he could have got an extra 200 out of them but eventually settled peacefully into his performance.

Part three of the day had us going to dinner at an old friend of mine.  Lisa, Alex and Jayda (hope I spelt that right) were lovely hosts with excellent food and stellar conversation. Dinner was followed by the usual two hour late night drive home from LA.  Both times we have done this we have had at least one stop by the highway for a quick nap.  Neither of us seem to be able to stay awake for the whole trip if it is after 10pm and last night don's (lost his capital D again) "I will just have a quick nap and be ready to drive in 20 minutes" turned into a 2 and a half hour snoring fest.  Thanks don.  good team work.

Doin Work

     What a day! It feels like we actually got some things done, and for the first time we took things off our to do list. The sails we are keeping are stowed, the V birth is basically ready to be lived in, the pile of death trap life vests has been disposed of, we tested all the hatches for water tightness, and we inflated and tested the dinghy.

     Having said that, almost all the hatches need new gaskets, the dinghy has one small air leak we need to patch, and we still have 3 spinnakers to deal with. We also need to pull the dinghy's wood floor out and test it, as you may have noticed the lack of a floor in the video. We are going to replace one maybe two hatches as well,  that will be an interesting job. 

     To my great pleasure, Andy woke up this morning swearing his head off, absolutely certain he had completely ruined his tattoo. When I asked to see what he was talking about he pointed out a tiny spot where his shirt had stuck overnight, and I told him it looked fine. He then went on a rant about how he knew he would mess it up, and of course I spent the drive to the bagel shop (who has wifi, where we do these posts every morning) winding him up and doing my best to drive him crazy. When we got there and checked it against the photo from just after it was finished, we both quickly concluded that there wasn't even the slightest change. Andy think's this morning was awful and I couldn't disagree more.