Sweat Equity 2

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The work continues, in spite of the heat.

Actually we had a bit of a reprieve from the weather for a couple of days.  We even got some rain earlier this week, the first we have seen since January of 2010.  Some interesting clouds come over from the mainland and almost get past us before they dissipate.  Thank goodness for the nightly breezes here in La Paz, or we would surely perish.

I have completed my solar panel upgrade.  The two new 135-watt panels take the place of the old 85-watt panels, semi-permanently mounted near the stern of the boat.  The old 85-watt panels are now "roving" panels, able to be mounted anywhere along the side rails from about mid-ship back, with an electrical connection that can be easily disconnected, allowing the panels to be stored below deck when we are sailing; on the assumption that they will just get in the way of the lines for the head sail otherwise.


In order to test the electrical production, I had to turn off the shore-power charger to let the batteries run down for a day, so the solar charger would need to try and make it back.  At mid-day, with the boom still shadowing at least two of the dodger-mounted 55-watt panels, we observed a steady 32 amps coming from the panels.  In theory, if we were to swing the boom out to expose all of the panels, as we had to do last summer in the Sea of Cortez, we should see close to 40 amps.  This moves us from subsistence to luxury production, as long as the sun is shining.  Woo-hoo!

The next project on the list was a new rear chain locker.  This is a project that came about as a result of the work I had been doing while moving the SSB antenna tuner to inside the rear lazerette.  While groping around in there, along with various issues such as broken hose-clamps on thru-hulls, etc., I found that the hose that drains the propane locker through the stern of the boat had become dislodged - actually the "mushroom" fittings at both ends had broken off.  As a result, the hose was draining into a back locker compartment that was pretty much inaccessible.  After scooping all of the water out of this compartment (no doubt there as yet another result of our trip around Cape Mendocino in 2010), I was able to re-run the drain hose and replace the fittings in such a way as to make this compartment more usable as a rear anchor chain locker, something that I have always lusted after.


To complete this project required cutting a huge hole in the deck of the boat and installing a new "deck pipe" which we acquired on our trip to San Diego.  In spite of the shrieks from Susanne regarding my cutting of said hole, I think it came out pretty nice.  All of that 15 feet of 5/16" chain and 150 feet of 5/8" nylon rope are now stored nicely out of the way and I no longer have to trip over them in the back cabin.

The most important project, from the perspective of keeping the boat afloat in the future, was the replacement of the "bob stay".  This is a 1/2" stainless steel wire that attaches the end of the bow sprite to the bow of the boat, right at the water line.  As you can see from the pictures, it was beginning to rust pretty badly.

The problem with this replacement was that no-one here in Mexico can deal with swaging ends onto such a large diameter cable.  This item we had custom built for us in San Diego, and shipped here.  It arrived yesterday and John, the rigging dude, installed it today - it needed a little bit of adjustment on the grinder before it fit perfectly.  Finally we can breath a little easier about this very important item.  The rigging company in San Diego told us that they don't expect bob stays to last more than about 12 years, due to the fact that they are so exposed to the salt water all of the time - I'm sure this one was a lot older than that.

Old vs New

So you see, we are getting a lot done these days.  To add some incentive, we now have a deadline.  We have booked a flight to Edmonton on the 21st of July, only a little over 2 weeks from now and would like to have everything possible done before we leave.  Really, we only have two or three major jobs left now.  The new stove should arrive early next week, but that's a tale for another day.

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Sweat Equity

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

Man, is it hot!

Every day hits a high of around 40 degrees, cooling off a little around 2 AM.  Difficult to get up the energy to do anything.

In spite of the heat, the boat projects are progressing.  My expanded solar array is almost complete - just a couple of wires to run and we should have a total of close to 700 watts of power available.  Our genoa has had its UV protection re-stitched and we have added a strip of Sunbrella fabric so it will match the rest of the canvas on the boat.  No, we did not actually do this work ourselves; we found an excellent sailmaker in town who had a suitable sail loft - not cheap, but done right.  Now we have the sail back, in a sailbag, taking up room we don't have, in the galley.

After two tries, the dinghy repair dude has managed to get our dinghy floor to hold air again.  Time will tell if this will last, but we have hopes.

Everything has to come out of the locker to get access to the new tuner location.

My main project has been moving our SSB/Ham radio tuner to the back of the boat, closer to the backstay antenna and further from the radio itself.  This should improve our transmission ability.  I was fortunate that I left the coax and control cables long enough to do this when I last installed the antenna tuner.  The real challenge was in running a new length of copper grounding foil throughout the boat (a full 50-foot long run from one end of the boat to the other).  Many hours spent in hot, sweaty conditions for very little gain at times.  With any luck this will also improve our radio reception and transmission - difficult to test here in the marina where there is so much interference.

We hired a rigging specialist to go up the mast and inspect and tune the rigging, something that has not been done in many years.  While he was up there, I had him install our new LED spreader lights and new LED steaming light (we have not had a working steaming light since we left BC).  The spreader (deck) lights were relatively straight forward, only requiring some rewiring in the spreaders themselves - on one side there were three different wires spliced together to span a distance of about 3 feet, some of it just "speaker" wire - no wonder they didn't work any more.  After that, the replacement of the burnt-out steaming light looked like a simpler challenge.


Unfortunately, as boat projects have a tendency to do, this simple light-bulb replacement idea turned into a major expense in both labour and materials.  The steaming light fixture had a type of bulb not easily replace by any LED bulb currently on the market, so with this in mind, we purchased a new fixture and an appropriate LED bulb while we were in San Diego.  When John (the rigger dude) went to install it, it became apparent that there was no power at the fixture near the top of the mast.  After much trial and error we determined that the wire had been broken near the base of the mast where we could not easily get at it.



New LED spreader lights.

We drilled an "inspection" hole at the base of the mast so we could try and snag the end of the wire, but found instead an internal PVC pipe running up inside the mast, through which most of the wires were strung.  The wire we wanted had disappeared up the pipe somewhere and was not retrievable.  John was able to pull the old wire out and, using a weighted string as a plumb-bob, we threaded a new electrical cable up the mast (I actually had a roll of suitable 16-gauge wire in my supplies).  While John did the work at the top of the mast, installing the new fixture, I ran the wire into the boat to the connection box just below the mast.  When this was all working well, John fabricated a cover plate for our inspection hole.  After re-taping the wires from the deck to the base of the mast, everything looks almost as it was when we started, except that we now have some lovely, working lights again.  In theory, since our anchor, steaming and deck lights are all LEDs now, they should last as long as we have this boat.

Note that most of this work is done only in the morning hours.  By noon, the heat is so brutal, nobody wants to do anything.  One afternoon, we treated ourselves to a movie at the nearest Cinemex theatres (a half hour walk in the sun).  Having heard of their higher-end Platino theatres, we splurged for the luxury option.  The Platino theatres have their own ticket booth and concessions and only two theatres.  The theatres themselves are hard to believe.  Fully reclining armchairs with convenient tables and cub-holders, at least 5 feet between the rows, food service for anything from popcorn and soda to lasagna and alcoholic drinks, and the latest big screens and sound systems, all in air-conditioned comfort.  We were happy to pay the price just to sit in the chairs for a couple of hours - the movie was just a bonus.

The movies are current, in English with Spanish subtitles.  As we left the the theatre, they greet you with a tray of chocolates to thank you for your patronage.

What does all this cost you ask?  Well, it is about twice the cost of the regular theatres, so it worked out to 80 pesos (around $6 CDN) per person.  What can I tell you - we will definitely be back.

If you are thinking of moving to La Paz, we spotted this nice fixer-upper on the way to the theatre.  It comes complete with the TV too.

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Spent

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The big shop-a-thon spending spree is over for the moment.  We are back on board the boat.

We had a great time in San Diego.  We got pretty much everything on our shopping list, saw some parts of the town that we had missed before, and the weather was fantastic.  While the rest of the country (USA) was in the middle of a heat wave, San Diego was the coolest place in the nation.  The daytime highs were around 21 degrees and the nights around 17.  This was a welcome relief for us after the heat of La Paz over the last couple of weeks - we even used jackets in the evening.

The hotel was also great.  The rooms at the Sofia are quite small, being an older hotel, which made them only about twice the size of our usual domicile.  Air conditioning, English-language TV and a queen-sized bed - such luxury!

A lot of our time was spent going around to the marine chandlers, comparing prices and finding just the right item for each purchase.  We didn't bother getting a car - just used the public buses and trolleys - for $15 you get an unlimited 4-day pass and everything we wanted was close to a bus stop somewhere.  Admittedly it does sometimes take longer to get places but we had a whole week to work with.

Some of us have it and some of us don't

When it comes to buses, patience is everything

In our spare (non-shopping) time, we managed to explore some more of San Diego.  We spent an afternoon on Coronado island, visiting the Hotel del Coronado, most famous as the setting for the movie "Some Like It Hot".  We checked out the room rates and found that we could have stayed in a nice sea-side suite for a little over $900 per night (plus taxes, resort fees and such of course).  We opted to just look instead.  FYI, the washrooms were very nice.

We paid a visit to our old haunt at the public docks on Shelter island.  Not very busy this time of year.  Can't say the same for the other marinas though.  Note: The rates for the public docks have gone up as of February, 2012.  They now charge $1 per foot per day, with a maximum stay of 15 days in a 40 day period.  Quite a bit higher than they used to be, but still the best deal in San Diego.

No, we did not even ask what the price would be here!

Our trip back to La Paz was quite a bit easier than going the other way.  We did use Greyhound again, but now we knew the bus routes and were able to get to their San Diego station without having to carry our bags more than a few feet.  The Mexican border was much more laid-back than its US counterpart - just get off the bus, push the button to see if they need to look at your bags, then re-board and ride to the airport.  At the airport, we had to go through the same ritual again, pushing the magic button once more.  Fortunately we got the "green" light each time, as I really did not want to get into explaining all the recently acquired booty in our bags.

Speaking of booty, here is the haul.  Believe it or not, that is over $1000 of goods.  Just put the word "marine" on anything if you want to increase its value!

One big item, a new bob-stay to replace the one rusting away on the front of the boat, is being shipped down, as it was just too awkward to take with us.  Should have it in about 2 weeks.

Now all we have to do is install all this stuff.  My days will be very full for the foreseeable future.

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

The joys of travel

San Diego, California, USA

Work on the boat projects has been grinding to a halt, mostly due to the difficulties of finding parts in Mexico.  With this in mind, we decided to head to San Diego on a shopping trip.  Instead of the grueling 16-hour marathon bus ride we did last year, from Santa Rosalia to Tijuana, this time we were looking forward to a fast ride, by air from La Paz to Tijuana, followed with a quick and easy bus ride over the border and into San Diego.  We booked the same hotel we had used last year, the Sofia, partly because the greyhound station is right next door, making it super convenient..

On Friday, we buttoned up the boat and took the short taxi ride to the La Paz airport.  The departure lounge was gloriously air-conditioned and the flight left right on time, leaving at 2:30 PM.  The journey was off to a perfect start.  We were in Tijuana by about 4:20 PM.  This turned into 3:20 PM because of the one hour time zone change.

Bus station at Tijuana airport

When we arrived in Tijuana, we thought about trying a different shuttle service to San Diego.  Last year, when we used Greyhound for a similar border crossing, we were less than impressed, but the fact that they would take us right to our hotel was just too hard to pass up.  The competition would have let us off at the Santa Fe train station in San Diego, about 5 blocks from the hotel.

The greyhound bus turned out to be a mini-bus, seating about 18 people in mini-comfort.  We left the airport at 4:30 PM.  Ten minutes later we were stopped somewhere along the busy highway, where our driver grabbed all his stuff and ran across 6 lanes of traffic to a similar bus stopped on the other side, while simultaneously the other driver sprinted over to our bus, got in, and we continued on our merry way to the border.

The wait at the border was even worse than we had encountered last year, possibly because it was Friday afternoon.  It took a full 2-1/2 hours to creep along the 100 yards of the bus lane.  Two of our fellow passengers gave up after the first hour, hoping to find a better deal somewhere else I guess.  This left us with a total of 4 extra seats on the bus which, as we got close to the actual border, our industrious driver sold to some enterprising people who wanted to skip the wait in the walk-over line (there were reportedly over 1500 people in that line at the time).

True to form, once we got across the border to San Ysidro, Greyhound informed us that we now had to wait for another 1/2 hour for a different bus to take us the rest of the way into San Diego.  It was quite a shock after the heat in La Paz to find ourselves actually wanting a jacket as the sun went down.  For a few minutes, we considered just grabbing the trolley from here, which would take us about a block from our hotel, but we figured we had already paid for this shuttle so we sat and watched the trolleys come and go.

Once on the bus, a regular big Greyhound bus this time, we were quickly whisked the 10 or 15 miles to the brand new Greyhound terminal in San Diego, nowhere near our hotel.  Since we found ourselves near Petco Park (the baseball stadium) there was a nearby trolley station, where we were able to grab a trolley (the same trolley that we could have taken from the border) that had a stop a block from our hotel.  Unfortunately, the station by our hotel was under construction and we had to stay on until we got the the next one, at the Santa Fe train station, where we walked the remaining 5 blocks back to our hotel.

But there was a rainbow at the end of this storm,  The hotel was unable to supply the room we had booked on Expedia and gave us a free upgrade to a great corner room on the top floor, boasting an actual view of something other than a parking lot.  We were in our room at exactly 9 PM.  Not bad - only 4-1/2 hours to cover the 20 miles from the Tijuana airport to downtown San Diego.

You have to love international travel!

{GMST}32|43|N|117|10|W|San Diego, California|San Diego, California{GEND}

New Summer Plan

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

Yes, we are still here in La Paz!

It turns out that this is just the best place in Mexico to get things done on the boat.  There are real live marine chandlers (stores full of boat gear) and lots of businesses that cater to the boating industry.  And it is very much easier for us to get around to these businesses here than in Mazatlan, because most everything is in walking distance from our marina.  Since we don't have a car, this is a big bonus.

Although the marina seems full, we were able to persuade them to give us a slip for the summer.  It is quite a bit more expensive than it would be in Mazatlan but we feel that will be made up for by the easier access to parts and service, and the less expensive connection to San Diego via Tijuana.  We will be making use of this in the near future to try and locate some parts that are either too much hassle or too expensive to get here in Baja California Sur.

This is a view of the Canal de La Paz leading into the town.
You can clearly see the darker blue of the dredged channel
that you must follow to avoid going aground.

The weather in La Paz during the summer also promises to be better than Mazatlan.  It will probably get a little hotter here but there will be less rain and humidity.  The only real issue is with hurricanes, but both places have that risk.

The docks at Marina de La Paz appear to be very solid and well thought-out, mostly because they had to be extensively rebuilt after hurricane Marty hit La Paz on September 22, 2003 (some 82 boats were lost in that storm).  In addition, they have added some substantial breakwaters to try and lessen the storm surge and they now insist on a much higher level of preparedness from the cruisers in the marina.  This all paid off during hurricane John in 2006, when they suffered virtually no damage.  Our hope is that we just don't get any hurricanes this year.  I'm not sure if it is a good sign or a bad sign that the season started off with two hurricanes (Aletta and Bud) in mid-May, an actual record for the earliest hurricanes ever recorded in the eastern Pacific.  Fortunately these early hurricanes stay much further south and are no threat to us, and there has been absolutely no activity since.

The big bonus of staying in La Paz is that we just really like it here.  It is a very pretty town with a huge variety of stores and restaurants and such.  It is very safe to walk anywhere at any time and the people have been great.  It is easy to see why so many Americans and Canadians have made this their home.  Here are some pictures from our walks around town...

The ritual cleaning of the head sail!

Work has begun on some of our boat projects.  The self-deflating dinghy floor is at the dinghy floor repairing place.  Our head sail is at the sail loft for replacement of the UV protective strip, which has been shredded since we got into the Sea of Cortez.  Apparently the problem is that the thread that was used to sew the strip onto the sail was not UV resistant itself - a common problem for boats that come down the coast from cooler climates like California (or Canada in our case).

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}