Weather Delay

We are a bit delayed by a "Norther" coming in tomorrow.  Winds to 35kn for a couple of days.  This produces fairly nasty seas here.  5 feet at 5 seconds is no-bueno!  This is a picture of WIZ taken from in front of the marina office where we can get quite good internet.  Wiz is ready to go but since we are delayed I'm having a diesel mechanic come look at the Yanmar.  I think it needs new valve stem seals as it's burning some oil and blowing some smoke.  It runs like a top, but is overdue for some maintenance.  We hope to be able to cross the Sea of Cortez on Friday or so.  There are worse places to be stuck for weather!  Susan and I are catching up on some work stuff and Cooper has found a group of kids to play with.

Taco's and Fish.

 2/21/2015 -  Until now we have been eating out most meals.  Now that Wiz is in the water and the refrigerator and propane stove are working and we can cook.  We've had lots of tacos at our favorite taco place JJ's.  Cooper has declared that Carne-Asada tacos are his favorite food.  Pictured at the right is a "Super-Donky" like a very large burrito.  It's enough to feed all three of us.  These go for 130 pesos or about $8.  Not a bad deal.  Eating out generally runs us $15 for three people.

Above to the left is a fish Cooper caught.  He met a couple of 10yr old boys (American) that live down here and come down to the dock beside ours to fish in the evenings.  The day before they caught 2 giant fish, probably 20lbs or so.  Funny to watch them wrestle them up to the dock and debate how to kill it with their fillet knives.  This is all unsupervised.  They taught Cooper how to cast.  I was flabbergasted watching one of them instruct Cooper while simultaneously flipping his rod deftly and casting backwards over his shoulder.  The next night Cooper caught this little fish and his friends told him it was good to eat.  He talked Susan into cleaning and cooking it up.  He was so proud of himself for catching his own dinner!  

Splashing Wiz

 2/19/2015 - On Wednesday morning we launched Wiz and the water stayed on the outside and the diesel started right up!  We got in the slip and worked on getting the sails up before the afternoon winds came up.  The car on the genoa roller furling was hanging up badly on several of the joints in the foil.  I spent a couple of hours in the bosun's chair filing and polishing the joints so the car would travel smoothly.  Finally got it, and raised and furled the genoa just as the wind piped up.  All the other systems seem to be working, though we have not started the outboard.  Sold the old inflatable dingy so we may put the new one together tomorrow.  Went to Guaymas today and did some provisioning.  The exchange rate is the best we have ever seen it.  We got nearly 15 MXN per USD at the ATM.  Gas, however is still roughly twice as expensive as home, not sure why.  Check out how you buy Acetone here.  They decant it into a used water bottle and tape a skull and crossbones on it!? 

Working on the Boat

2/18/2015 - We were pleasantly surprised when we looked Wiz over.  Last year, it had been nearly 2 years on the hard and was a complete mess, I still believe there was an osprey living in the rigging.  This year after 10 months it was in really good shape.  The batteries were still at 12.4V which was encouraging.  After a bit of unpacking we went to the hotel where we would stay until Wiz was put in the water.  We spent the next 3 days working on Wiz 8-5 and then crashing in the hotel.  I tore down the folding prop, re-greased and changed the pitch up 2 degrees.  We did maintenance on the throughhulls, and I spent one full day on scaffolding buffing the topsides. 

At the right is a picture from the hotel.  Not from our room mind you, we were in the cheap section overlooking the street.  This was taken from the end of the hallway.  It overlooks Marina San Carlos and the Bahia (bay) beyond.  We hope to be anchored in the Bahia in a few days.

Back to Wiz

2/15/2015 - Starting another trip to Wiz.  Susan and Cooper started ahead of me and took three days driving to Phoenix from Polson, MT.  They detoured through the grand canyon and had a good trip.  Cooper has a Blog at WheresCoop.com.  I Left Polson Thursday the 12th and had an easy flight to Phoenix.  Susan picked me up at the airport and we spent a couple of days with Cooper's Grandma and Grandpa.  Swimming and running a few errands before we left saturday morning for Mexico.  The drive was easy and the border crossing non-eventful.  We had a car packed with a new dingy, new v-berth cushions, boat parts and a walmart run for supplies we knew to be difficult to find in Mexico.  We arrived in San Carlos around 3 in the afternoon and went out to the boatyard to check on WIZ.